kitty korner

you'll clean my leavings and be happy about it.

i was going to start off this piece by saying "it's not easy being a crazy cat lady", but, in fact, it is easy being a crazy cat lady. it's really easy, especially when you discover that there are crazy cat men out there who are going to be just as protective as you are of your feline children. the most difficult thing about multiple-cat parenting you're likely to encounter is the fish-eye that you get from other primates when you tell them how many cats you have. here's a hint on how to deal with that: if they give you weird looks, they're probably assholes and your life is probably better without them in it. 

when people have concerns about the number of cats you have, the concern is generally about one thing and one thing only: the litter. [ok, they might also be concerned if you don't have your cats neutered, but unless you plan on breeding them, neutering is a no-brainer. and only people with brains should own cats.]

i'm astute enough to note the pleasant look of surprise that seems to appear on the faces of our guests when we're feeling comfortable enough with humanity to bear having people over and i know what that look means. it means that they're astonished, because they came over expecting the house to stink. congratulations, folks, you've just learned an important lesson about cat ownership: how clean the place smells has less to do with the number of cats and more to do with how the owners choose to take care of the "leavings".

DISCOVER MY SECRETS...



most guide books will tell you that you should have one litter pan per cat plus one extra. i'm not entirely sure who made that rule, but i'm willing to bet that no one checked with the cats. years of multiple cat ownership has taught me one thing in that regard: cats aren't any more eager to have their living quarters strewn with open latrines than you are. when i've offered multiple litter pans in multiple locations, the response has generally been for everyone to use a single pan in a single location. in fact, the only way i've persuaded the cats to use more than one pan is to have them side by side in the same room [the bathroom, which they, as i, prefer]. so chances are that having litter pans throughout the house is going to do nothing except encourage your cats to play in the litter and track that sandy crap all through the house, like kids returning from a day at the beach.

as for the "correct" number of litter pans, my experience has been that it has more to do with the preferences of the owners. if you use a scoopable cat litter [i swear by arm & hammer multi-cat and, in fact, arthur now rejects any other litter], you'll be able to get things out of the way as they appear, but eventually, the entire pan will need to be emptied and refilled. i personally find the emptying the whole thing part to be a pain in the arse, which is why i encourage my kids to spread the love between a couple of adjacent pans. this gives me a longer break between complete refills and lets them have fun by standing with their front paws in one pan and their back paws in the other, just to be weird. it all works out very well.

of course, there's still the question of what happens to all the clumps of concentrated evil. i used to live in an apartment building that had one of those convenient garbage chutes, which is perfect for this sort of work. [except for the time that someone dropped a bag of kitty waste down the chute as the superintendent was reaching into the bin, resulting in that person having a bag of litter explode on their head, which as far as i'm concerned, is what you deserve if you're stupid enough to lean into the bin at the bottom of a garbage chute, but my superintendents didn't see it that way.] if you're not lucky enough to live in such a building [or if the superintendents insist on blaming you for the fact that they got hit with an exploding bag of poop], that means that you have to be prepared to deal with the fact that the soiled litter might not leave your abode for a few days.

your salvation. made in china.

this, my friends, was what originally made horrified first-time suburban parents come up with the diaper genie and the good news is that they've now made one for cats. behold the litter locker ii. i trust it to deal with all of the grossness i can stuff into it. dom found this and i still marvel at the simple perfection of its design. you buy the unit and other than that, you just need to get replacement "doughnuts" of plastic sheeting that you form into bags. you drop litter in the top, open the trap door and it falls into the bottom, where you don't have to think of it again until it fills up. then you just knot the bag and throw the whole thing out on garbage day. it locks away the scent and the dirt and it doesn't require that you wreck the plumbing for the whole neighbourhood by trying to flush kitty litter down the city pipes. [if you think they're pissed from getting hit in the head with a bag of it, wait 'til you see them figure out that you've just managed to create poop-laced cement in the plumbing.]

to give you an idea of the costs involved, we go through a $10 doughnut roughly every two weeks. with five. the economics of this sell themselves as do the olfactory benefits. i recommend this to everyone i know with cats. seriously. you will not fear the litter again. unless you stick your head somewhere it's not supposed to be.

friday favourites 20.05.11

i believe it's friday, but since i actually haven't slept in anything more than a 45-minute increment since the day you call "wednesday", i'm just guessing. i'm not going to do much of an intro this week because, frankly, if i can make it through typing this without hallucinating or having a seizure, i'll consider myself lucky.

i would like to send out just a little bad karma to my upstairs neighbours, who apparently thought last night would be a great time to host an all-night "check out our new rolling chair on the hardwood floor" party in the room directly above our bedroom. may you spend some time in a particularly loud circle of hell this week.

luckily, there have been more things that have made me smile in the last seven days...

don't call it a comeback :: even before the 2008 u.s. election [a black day for political comedians in general, i think], there was evidence that the one-two punch of the daily show and the colbert report was losing its, well, punch. politicians and the journalists who follow them just weren't as entertaining as they once were. perhaps it just seemed like they'd made their points as best they could and it was time to move on.

however, despite no longer having the world's easiest target at the helm, something has happened in the comedy central sweet spot between 11 and midnight monday to thursday. the laughs are back. in fact, i'd venture to say that the writing on the shows over the last few months has been as strong as its ever been, despite the removal of bush, cheney, rumsfeld and the rest of the wild bunch. of course, the shows' other perennial easy target have been stepping up their game, offering more and more and more material that begs to be satirised as well as offering possible republican candidates from their roster of hosts and commentators [ok, one down, but you-know-who hasn't said anything yet]. or perhaps it's because, as much as we might have hoped for "change", the fact is that a lot of the same people are in charge of things and they're prone to making the same stupid mistakes.

in the end, it doesn't really interest me why things with stewart and colbert have gotten so good again, i'm just happy to once again have their a-game to look forward to four days a week.

THERE'S MORE THAT MADE ME HAPPY, PLUS THIS WEEK'S KITTY PIC AFTER THE BREAK...




a good guy :: this week was not kind to the standing of men. [it also wasn't a good week for maids, but that's another story.] arnold aside, you had the leader of the french socialist party- supposedly the home of progressiveness- arrested on sexual assault charges. in the arts, you had one of the world's most lauded [although often most controversial] directors playing footsie with the legacy of the nazi party in what looks like a pretty desperate publicity stunt [and, i might add, a recycled publicity stunt].

but there are still good guys, if you get over the idea that they're supposed to come from areas known as bastions of liberalism or free thought. take, for example, professional wrestler, lauded author and all-around good guy mick foley, who has been putting his long-battered back into raising money for the prevention of sexual assault. heck, huffington post even made him their "greatest person of the day". in all seriousness, foley should rate as one of the most fascinating characters currently living for his mix of intelligence, humanitarianism and, um, testicular fortitude and it's not terribly surprising to see that he's doing his best to see that the battered image of men doesn't fall completely beyond hope.

arm & hammer multi-cat clumping kitty litter :: given the number of cats in our household, i'm assuming that this one doesn't require a lot of explanation. as i'm fond of saying, sometimes it's the little things that make your life a whole lot easier.








the sweet sounds of... :: long-time favourite of mine galakthorroe managed to surprise me twice with their latest catalogue update.

first up, hot on the heels of their last release "you", label heads haus arafna will be releasing another full-length album called "new york rhapsody". what's remarkable about this album is that it's actually music they wrote for designer katie gallagher for her show at new york fashion week 2009. even the idea that haus arafna was featured at a show in new york fashion week seems so implausible that i have to wonder if i didn't take a blow to the head without noticing. truly amazing is that the sound samples available on the label web site make it sound like there was no compromise whatsoever in the music, despite the more mainstream venue.

second, out of the proverbial blue, amon radek [aka maska genetik], who graced galakthorroe with two tracks on their "kosmoloko" compilation and a stunning [and long sold-out] 7" before disappearing completely from sight shortly afterward, has returned with a full length album. once again, the available samples sound exceptionally promising, full of tension and restrained menace, much in keeping with his earlier material.

both releases are scheduled to be out on june 1st on both cd [unlimited version] and the customary limited edition heavyweight vinyl galathorroe does for virtually all its full-length releases. both vinyl editions are already pre-sold out at source, meaning that they've had enough commitments from distributors that there won't be a single copy available for order from the label itself. [don't worry, it's often easier to order from distributors if you're outside europe, so it doesn't mean you won't be able to get it.]

hey... i made it through. there are a lot of things i'm looking forward to in the coming week, including a play date at my local guerlain counter and a chance to review mac's new summer collection "surf baby". but i have to say that the thing i'm looking forward to most at the moment is a nice, relaxing sleep and a few swats at the voodoo doll i've made of the neighbour.

considering that simon and hecubus had their manhood trimmed today, things are a little fractious this evening. [cats do not like things that smell like hospital and cats who've returned from the hospital do not like having their tender areas investigated by their siblings.] but i know that eventually things will calm down and return to a more peaceful rhythm. here's this week's cat photo in honour of that...