Cat\’s Eye View

I’m an indoor kitty. I only live inside, but I also like to watch the outside.

Unfortuantely, this morning when I woke up the outside was cold and yucky. It was freezing and there was ice and snow on the ground. I don’t like either  one very much.

I want the warm and I want the sunshine. When the cold comes out like it did today, it hides my birdies and my squirrels. I think they stay in their own houses whwen it gets really cold. I miss them.

Make it warm, please.

Today my Ma said a word I hate: fleas!

No, I don’t have them! How dare you ask!

The problem is that this is the time of year that they try to sneak in. Usually in the early spring and in the mid-fall, someone (usually a friend with cats and fleas) brings one of the little blood suckers into my house. It’s not like I got out and get them, ya know.

Anyway, somehow or other, they sneak into the house and Ma goes to the vet and gets my Revolution. Now, if you have not been treated with Revolution, you might now know that it stings — a lot. I’ve tried to convince Ma that fleas aren’t as irritating as that stinky medicine, but she never listens.

So I make my indignity known and run off to the basement to hide after I get hit with the Revolution. I hate it, but man does that stuff work.

When I was a baby kitty, I had earmites and worms (but no fleas) and one dose cured me. I didn’t have to get it again for 6 months. Then, I had 8 fleas. Yup, Ma counted them when the Revolution made them fall off dead. Since then, every spring and every fall I get one treatment whether I need it or not.

I heard her say today it was time for a Revolution. She did mean my flea medicine, right?

Today, I heard the man on the television talking about the bailout and the stock market and the recesssion or maybe its a derpression. And, it made me a little sad.

i don’t know what all those words mean, but Ma tells me it means that some kitties don’t have homes anymore or that their people can’t afford to feed them. Tell me this isn’t happening!

Last week, I broke my tunnel. Ma said she got it for 99 cents at Goodwill, whatever that means and they didn’t have any more. So she searched for a week and found me a replacement. It’s not my tunnel, but it’s a good solid cat hidin’ hole. Ma said it was 10 times as expensive as my tunnel, but they got it for me anyway.

I thought if the ‘conomy was bad, people couldn’t buy nothing.

Ma said that the bailout means that some people can buy some things now, but that there will be hell to pay someday. I don’t think i like that.

I’m pretty sure I could have coem up with a better way to stimulate the ‘conomy. Like give everyone a new kitty and food and toys and vet care for a year. Then, the people will love their kitties so much that they’ll work hard to keep buying them stuff.

That’s how it works, right?

No?

Oh, well, I guess i can’t fix the economy, but guess what? Neither can Washington!

I’ve heard a lot of talk recently about vaccines. In kitties, people want to skip them because there is a tiny little danger of the site of the injection developing skin cancer. In people, mothers want to skip them because they’ve heard that the preservatives in the vaccine might be loosely linked to increasing autism.

Now, don’t get me started on what’s being diagnosed these days as autism. That’s another rant all its own.

This rant is completely focused on vaccines. I just had mine last week. They suck big time. They hurt, they involve going to see Dr. Kim (which means going outside) and they make me feel crummy for a day or two. I imagine it is very similar for babies.

Unlike babies, I am not exposed to a lot fo germs. I live only in my huse. I do not play with other kitties or go outside. No other animals are allowed inside my house. In short, the probability that I will get exposed to rabies or feline leukemia are pretty tiny. But Ma gets me vaccinated anyway based on the concept of herd immunity.

The basic concept is that if 80 or 90 percent of the population is immune to something, then major outbreaks don’t happen. So, even though I am an indoor only kitty, I am even more secure against rabies when everyone gets vaccinated.

The same is true of children. When you don’t vaccinate, you create a weakness in the population. then, the virus can take hold in that portion of the population, grow stronger and possibly spread to the rest of the population. One person chosing to be stubborn for very unscientific reasons can weaken the entire population. So, I get my shots.

I hate them. I hiss. I cry and I out, but I get them.  You should too and so should your people.

Love ya,

Rainy Kitty

My Ma & Da call opening the windows and the door money-saving. They say it means that there is no need to run the air conditioning and we save money.

I say its a special vacation.

I don’t actually like to go outside. It’s a scary, scary place. But it smells wonderful. So there is nothing better than an open door on a brisk fall day.

I can smell the squirrels when they come to steal the bread that Ma & Da put out for the birds.  I can watch the birds fight with the squirrels and I can say hello to all my family members that live in the back yard.  Ahhh, the joys of fall…

Tonight it’s rainy at my house and I don’t like it, not one little bit.

It makes the lights flicker and the windows rattle. And I cannot hide in my tunnel. Last night, in the greatest of tragedies, my beloved nylon tunnel broke. the metal part at the front, that holds the tunnel open bit my Da and made him bleed. So he said it was time to throw it away. I was very sad.

He tried to buy me a new one, but its very narrow and very long. I don’t like it.

So when the cracking and booming started, I had nowhere to hide. It was horrible and makes me very sad, so sad in fact that I am sitting here with a yak on my head. Well, not a whole yak, but a yak hair bracelet…a think it was made by nuns in support of Free Tibet…and it is one of my favorite toys. Since I lost my tunnel, maybe I can hide under the yak.

Today my Ma went to a store that smells like so many different things: incense and bath oils and salts and….

Well, the whole reason for her going there is enough to make a cat see red, but i digress. I’m here to talk to you humans out there about the smells you bring home with you.

Sometimes, those smells are nice. Like cheezeburger. I like that smell. Today, not so much.

It’s not that I don’t think incense smells nice, I do. But when Ma comes home smelling like sandalwood and sage and dragon’s blood and some other stuff, my poor little nose goes crazy.

You know I have a better sense of smell that most dogs, right? Cats would be awesome trackers if we wanted to be.

Anyway, when Ma comes home smelling that way, it makes me sneeze. I don’t like to sneeze. I’m sure your cat doesn’t like to sneeze either.

So, to all you hummies out there, one smell–just one is enough for your store, house or whatever. More than one is too much and hurts my nose.

Lately,  well, it seems like forever now,  Ma & Da have been ‘scussing something ‘bout the president and who should be the next one.To quote Paris Hilton, our options are the change guy and the old dude…and well, maybe Paris. I can’t endorse Paris ‘cause, well, have you seen the way she treats her puppies?  I think the pet union has her up on charges of being too dumb to have a pet. There might be something more technical then that, but basically if you think your pet should match your outfit, you should be permanently barred from pet ownership.I don’t really know much about Obama or McCain, but I do have some pressing campaign issues that I need answered before Ma and Da can vote for either of them. 

Do you own a pet?  What kind? Who takes it for walks or changes the litter? If you don’t know, you are disqualified! 

What are you going to do about the price of tuna fish? Yeah, yeah, economy. Whatever. All I know if that last summer, my pouches of tuna were 99 cents and now they are $1.89. Don’t tell me about mortgage bailouts or the stock market. I want to know about the price of fish. 

What are you going to do about the homeless pets left behind because of Ike? Those puppies and kitties need fresh water and ‘lectricity and their people back. What are you doing about it?  

Are you in favor of national kitty care? I have some third cousins twice removed in the backyard that need rabies shots and spayed, so I don’t have any fourth cousins next spring. It wouldn’t have to be luxury kitty care, just shots and spays. 

Remember that old line about a chicken in every pot? I don’t care much for chicken, but I would like a cricket in every basement. 

I would also like to encourage both candidates to look into environmental and economic concerns more loosely. We’ve already established that Paris is an idiot, but even she could figure out that we need to drill for oil and look for alternative fuel sources both at the same time. If she can figure it out, why can’t you?

Fellow union members,

Now is the time to hit up your people and draw ‘tenshun to our brothers and sisters (and the dang doggies too) in south Texas. Very soon, a bad storm named Ike is gonna hit the south part of the state. That means puppies and kitties, especially the homeless ones, might drown.

And, even puppies and kitties with homes might be insevere danger.

So, to all my fellow union members, I urge you today to talk to your humans and get them to send help to poor kittie and doggies in Texas. Now people can be dense, so you may have to find the Red Cross website for them and put on your best “awww” face, but now is the time my brothers, rise up and save the future union members of south Texas.

Remind them too that the time is now to make an emergency plan for your house and that they need to make sure they have extra food for you and them, extra litter and a dry place for all of you to stay in case of an emergency.

Love ya,

Rainy

My people where fur that they call clothes and take them off when they want to. I can’t take off my fur and so I hate summer.

Summer means badness: fleas (how do they get in my house to get me?), the windows are shut, the sun in bright when I’m trying to sleep, and it’s hot, oh so hot. It’s cooling off now, so Da thinks I might stop shedding soon. Ma laughed at him and said I never stop shedding.

I’m am officially, says so on my rabies certificate, an American medium hair cat. I’m not sure that designation even exists. I’ve seen other stuff for American short hairs and American long hairs, but not the medium hairs. Ma says it means I’m the mutt of the cat world.

What it also means is that I am slick furred with very long fluffy fur underneath and I shed all the times. When Da sweeps, he tells me there is enough fur for a spare kitty. When Ma brushes me each morning,  we have at least one handful of fur–two on hot days or if she uses my furminator, my cool purple brush.

Regardless, I shed all the time. i shed more if I get nervous or scared. I thought about asking Bastet or whoever the goddess of kitties is to let me have removeable fur like my people, but have you ever seen a hairless kitty. Too weird.

So instead, I would like to point out that it is early fall, so I’m not growing my winter coat just yet and the last of the summer shedding might be done….but a hot spell could mean more fur all over the floor. It’s not my fault…it’s just the joy of shedding.