The Fab Fur, part 1

Roll up! Roll up for the meezery* tour!

Roll up! The magical meezery tour!

There's a thin line between clever cat puns and those T-shirts with cat butts on the back (3 in a row, all with tails up), and the "meezery tour" almost crossed that line--but hey, I love this pic so much that I don't care!

It doesn't get much better than this: Friar Park! George Harrison in a hat! Ronnie Wood! (That's his wife Krissy next to him--don't you love her argyle socks and t-strap shoes?) And some friend of George next to her...can't remember his name, but I think he's connected in a hare krishna-ness way.

And...and...and...a MEEZER to George's right! I can't tell you how happy this makes me, but if I could jump into a photo and hang out within, this would be my choice.

Aside from being able to drink in the obvious magic happening in this time/location (i.e. All Things Must Pass), I'd also benefit from the relaxed attitude toward haircare. It doesn't look like there was much brushing, blow drying or application of "product" in any of their coifs. The cat's clearly very meticulous though.

P.S. This photo is from Wonderful Tonight by Pattie Boyd, George's first wife. I really liked the book!

* meezer=affectionate term for Siamese cat

i like my data furry: The Fat Cat Throwdown!

OK, everyone, please cue up (just in your head, no turntable required) the opening bars of The Final Countdown.

Chill out on the first verse but when ya get to the chorus, sing…

IT’S THE FAT CAT THROWDOWN!*

Thx. Now we’re ready to begin.

Mommy, mommy, my friends on Facebook said my cat wasn’t large! True enough, that is the impetus behind the Fat Cat Throwdown, in which I aim to prove to the world that Derrick is indeed..uh…kinda big.

Here’s how this contest would play out, pitting my own cats against each other as an example. Criteria? I tried to include measurements that wouldn’t be impacted by a cat’s weight (i.e. girth), and basically whatever parts of the body I could get my measuring tape around before Derrick ran off.

* We’re not talking poundage here, so Fat Cat Throwdown is indeed a misnomer. I can’t help it…rhyme trumps reason every time!

From base of neck to base of tail
Derrick: 17 inches
Bing: 15 inches

Distance from belly to the ground
Derrick: 9 inches
Bing: 6 inches

Tail
Derrick: 13 ¼ inches
Bing: 2 ½ inches (not a typo, just fashionably bobbed per mother nature)

Height (measured from ground up, while cat is standing, from midpoint of cat)
Derrick: 13 inches
Bing: 10 inches

And the winner? Why, everyone gets a prize in the Pune-iverse! Henceforth, Bing will reign for a year as Low Rider 2010. All hail Derrick, the ruling Whitey Mammoth. And your kitty? Submit his or her numbers in the comments box, if you dare! : )

P.S. I don’t think I’ve ever listened to Final Countdown in its entirety.

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like HISSmas!

Somewhere in my house lies an alternate take from this Christmas card photo shoot from like 10 years ago. It’s a snake nativity scene, featuring Mary and Joseph figurines I got at the 99 cents store with Butter the boa constrictor as baby Jesus.

It was way less offensive (that’s not really the word I mean tho…I want the one that’s disrespect plus entitlement plus too much knowledge…ah, irreverent!) than it sounds, if only because I didn’t intend it to be antireligious but rather pro-snake. It’d probably offend some people, and I don’t want to go trashing Jesus, for cripes’ sake. So maybe it’s just as well I couldn’t find it.

Anyway, my original point was…look at this cute snake in this here photo! One of my coworkers couldn’t look at this pic (“This just creeps me out,” she sez), so I had to say a few words in defense of these so elegantly turned-out beings:

1) Snakes, or at least boas, are so sporty! Look at the racing stripes down B’s face, and his bicycle seat-shaped head. Love it! And you can’t really see it in this photo, but the lil’ nostrils and bright eyes give him such a sweet, earnest look. No foolin’!

2) Slimy? Blimey! Snakes are this lovely combination of dry and slick, like water if it weren’t liquid. (How’s that for a mindf**k?)

3) I love their spine-liness. What a movin’, groovin’ lesson in the importance of being flexible in life! And they’re such perfect examples of economy of movement, which my awesome Pilates teacher Dallas is so hot on.

4) Still a mystery to me! I think it’s really hard for always-stuck-in-our-heads humans to tune into the reptilian mind. I bet cobra pose is the door that takes you there, but that’s one of those poses that leaves me lost at sea. I can physically do it, sure, but I know I’m missing the real meat of it. (I hate that phrase. The juice of it, then.)

P.S. I don’t currently have any snakes of my own, and don’t think I ever could. It doesn’t seem right, for me, to keep them in captivity. Note I said “FOR ME.” But what do I know? It could vary from individual to individual. A friend who can communicate telepathically with animals talked to a Gaboon viper at a zoo who knew he was gorgeous and enjoyed being looked at and taking it easy.

Pale and Precious: A Post For Puffelina

Puff….

Puffy. Puffelina. Puffalong Cassidy. The Puffinator. Puff…
One wisp of a syllable, but dang—you can build on it, it can become anything you want. The tofu of names.

I am writing this on the anniversary of the death of my cat Puff, and—no, no, this won’t be a downer, I promise!—I wanted to see if I could find words for just a sliver of her silver energy.

See, Puff was fancy. Born to a stray tabby living in a warehouse in Brooklyn, a litter of random-bred kitty royalty—lynxpoint twin girls, 1 flamepoint boy, 1 snowshoe and a tuff lil’ tabby. It kinda sounds like a Jesus story, but hey…cats can be our saviors for sure. Puff was one of the lynxpoints. I mean, they were the Cullens of kittens, lookswise. (Hmmm…cats ARE vampiric! Carnivorous and crepuscular…)

That’s it! She was so crepuscular, more so than any domestic cat I’ve known, shimmering brightest at twilight and early dawn. Her eyes in the dust/dusk of 4 a.m., cool and bright, surrounded by whispers of silver.

Maybe less is more--here, and with cats in general. They move so economically, their one outfit is perfect as is…why would they need a tome? Puff’s more of a poem than a rambling blog entry. More Christmas than 365 days-a-year. Yes, that’s it…

“The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow, Gave the lustre of midday to objects below.”

Of course I’d find her in the last place you’d expect! She was indeed much more like the moon than the sun, gray-white segueing to the suggestion of yellow-brown wolf in certain light. Sky-colored eyes holding the promise of day.

Lustre! She leaped in lustre, she bopped into the kitchen when she heard a can of tuna being opened in lustre, she Monstered* in lustre.

And yeah, if I’m the “object below,” she definitely made me shine a little lighter/brighter.

Thanks, my girl. You know I love ya.

* Monster=dance move she created. Four paws on the floor, jump straight up, make scary Thriller face.

Also Pufferesque: “Pale and Precious,” The Dukes of Stratosphear
She blows the stars out of the sky/And lights the sun with her bright eyes.