Home Cats

November 14, 2010

Let's take a break from the gallery cats for a day or two and I will introduce you to my cats at the house.  I will start with my SPC (Senior Pussy Cat) - Vera.  She has been with me for about six years and is my only indoor/outdoor cat.  By that I mean she can be let outside without supervision and comes back inside before dark (or whenever she wants to come in).  Vera is very mellow, gentle, and is a big time talker.  She meows , purrs, squeals, and emits a few sounds I have never hear come out of a cat.  Later on in the blog I will get back to Vera and some of her eccentricities.  Here are a couple of mug shots of Vera.

On the right, I just told her a really funny dog joke.

My next senior kitty is Agnes.  She is the most independent of all my feline friends.  She is very athletic, very fast, very thin, and runs everywhere. She is the real boss of the house and everyone pretty much does as she asks.  If not, punishment is swift and vicious.  However, she trains very well. There is a low rock wall (about a foot high) that encloses our property and I trained Agnes not to go past the rock wall.  She knows if she does, I will take her back inside the house.  So, she can go outside under supervision.  I take her out two or three times a day (when it is warm-she does not like cold weather at all) and watch her do cat stuff.  When I call her name and use the phrase "chica chica", she comes running and waits at the door to be let in.  One other strange habit Agnes has is she will not use the bathroom while she outside.  If she has to go potty, she will go to the door and wait to be let in and then scampers to the litter box and does her business. Then she wants back outside.

Here are a couple of shots of Miss Agnes.

Big time nap attack on the right.

The Mystery of The Room Divider

In the gallery, I have a room divider Marianne made for the gallery to display her equine paintings and photos.  She spent a bunch of time designing and building this edifice and it really is gorgeous.  Made out of colored reeds and various silks from India makes it a very striking example of creativity.  Unfortunately, one of the gang took a disliking to this divider and made it one of her missions in life to pull the silk and reeds out of this divider.

I would come in mornings and there would a piece of silk laying on the floor and scattered about would be pieces of the colored reeds.  At first, I did not know which one of the usual suspects was doing the vandalism.  I got to the gallery early one morning and low and behold, Squad Car was perched atop the divider busily pulling out one of the reeds.  Roo was on the ground encouraging her and waiting for the reed to drop so she could haul it off somewhere.  Squad Car had climbed up the back of the divider (covered in a thick cloth) and was hanging precariously over the top (two feet on one side and two feet on the other side).  The divider is over seven feet tall and Squad Car had pulled herself up to the top using only her little claws and brute strength.  She had worked so hard getting to the top I almost felt bad getting her down and chastising her (of course you know how much good that did).

I had to figure a way to keep her on the ground.  Again, that heavy duty cardboard came to the rescue.  I taped two five foot by six foot pieces of cardboard to the back of the divider. Since the back of the divider faces my studio, I did not care that it looked like I was living in a cardboard box.  Squad Car of course tried climbing the cardboard but it would not support her weight and there was nothing above the cardboard she could jump to.  She circled around for two days trying to figure a new way to reach the summit.  Finally, she admitted defeat and moved on to bigger and better things. The divider was safe for the time being. 

Cat Proofing 101

October 6, 2010

Cats can get just about anywhere they want to go.  The places I wanted to keep free of kitty investigative reporting had to be cat-proofed. I put latches on all the doors at ground level so they could not be opened by head-butting them.  Squad Car learned very early the doors held shut by magnets can be opened very easily simply by head-butting them and standing back as the door opened slightly. She then inserted her tiny little paw into the opening and slipped into unexplored territory.  Of course, Roo thought she was living with a genius and followed right behind Squad Car into these new, intriguing dark spaces.  Latches soon put an end to the feline Stanley and Livingston's exploring.  They were not pleased and started looking for other ways to aggravate me. I had no doubt they would find many more ways to trouble me.

Any art materials I wanted to leave out had to be moved up near the ceiling out of jumping range.  After moving shelves, hooks, and hangers high enough to deter cat intrusion, the studio looks like a giant lives there.  Everything is a least six feet off the floor and can have no nearby "leap spots" that could serve as a launch pad for feline astronauts.  All my paper, pastels, chemicals, etc. are up in the clouds.  Even then, I still see the two explorers eyeballing these heights trying to figure out how to get up there.  After all, they have plenty of free time to scheme.

Before I forget, if any of you cat lovers have some good stories about cat-proofing or some strange place they got into, use the comments to share them.  Also, I need to get a business plug in here in case you need a website of your own.  I design websites for mostly artists, but I have done some commercial sites also.  If you want to see some cool examples of what goes into my websites, go to www.jolleysites.com and check out the various pages in the site.  Just pure fun and games.  Yes, I know "jolley" is misspelled, but the domain with the correct spelling was already taken and I think I like "jolley" better.

Enough for today.  I have to get back to painting as I have an art show coming up in Galveston, Texas on October 16 and 17.  Hope I sell lots of art.