herman

once, i had a lavender cat who had thumbs named herman.
he was a scaredy-cat from a shelter and my other cat terrorized him. until he wouldn't come out from under the bed. i hope he found a good home. i took him back to the shelter when i was certain there was no hope.

i find the balance between remaining positive enough to be a constructive (ish) person and the draw of acknowledging reality as i see it (grim, dim, salabim) completely exhausting.

i don't like anything too positive - it feels like someone is spitting in my face by denying reality.

but sometimes i hear myself and think, oh JUST SHUT UP! everyone knows how shitty the world is and we're all just trying to GET OUT OF BED WITHOUT THROWING UP.

i already feel a little better. it's this pretending to be thankful and happy and brave and upbeat...it is fucking depleting. i am all of those things sometimes. but certainly not always.

so anyway, now i'm going to go make muffins. these muffins. don't those look yummy? my husband loves cheese. and spicy things. and it's his birthday picnic tomorrow. i'm also making a key lime cake. not pie, cake. i think it will be good.

everything is better with cake. i hope my husband likes it and has fun. our life is challenging these days and we don't get much down time. i'm hoping he sees how much i love him in this cake.

food = love. duh.

i'm really tired. i bet tomorrow i will see rainbows where i now see drizzle. because tomorrow is another day.

a storm has its way

so as you already know, new york was hit by hurricane sandy and turned into a noreaster or something like that. i was here, in my apartment with my husband and newborn, and it was not fun. at all. but we, unlike many other NYers, fared well with no flooding and no damage to our home. so all in all, it was just a terrifying night for yours truly. i've never experienced wind like that in my life and i've been through several hurricanes, including one on cape cod.

so as new york recovers from the damage that was done by the hurricane, i continue my little life taking care of my son. because i'm a SAHM (that's stay at home mom for those of you who don't read parenting blogs and websites), my little orbit is pretty small these days. so the lack of subway doesn't really affect me. i take walks and call people and pretty much attend to the needs of my two and a half month old son. sometimes it's the best feeling in the world and sometimes i want to smash my head against the wall. often within minutes of one another.

i have been drinking lemon water. this is the kind of thing that is mildly exciting to someone who only leaves the house to push a stroller around prospect park. i feel like it's healthy and found this on pinterest and thought i'd share it. because of course, if it's on the internet, then it's true.

i'm having my one hour of freedom before i have to go to bed so i can wake up and feed my son so i'm not going to post long.

here's a little something that made me smile when reading about the hurricane aftermath. i love cats. and i love that they band together, which they totally do unlike the stereotypes about their affect. i have three of them, i should know.

it was this part, in particular, that made me grin. picture this:

"In fact, in the eye—when the eye of the storm passed over Atlantic City, apparently, according to one of the security guards at a casino, 25 cats were walking single file down the boardwalk looking just fine. And he said the cats he looks after—Pepper, Pewee—they’re all fine.”

now, how awesome is that? 

Looking into the mouth of the beast

What happens when OTR is out of meds, or has PMS, or the Holidays are upon me. Up On Me.

OR is just in a funky mood given all 3.

Today my husband and I are getting a xmas tree and wreath. And cleaning our disgusting home. And I'm going through months of paperwork. And making cat hammocks. And the list is literally 3 extra large post its on my refrigerator... I won't bore you.

I have good things to look forward to in the coming weeks. I love xmas.

I also am reminded of things I don't love to think about over xmas. It's amazing how sometimes in life you have thoughts/ideas/subjects you don't want to ponder inextricably intertwined with things you love and want to think about, even foster. Forget the novel concept of the artist being a man who is holding two opposing ideas in his head (Fitzgerald), try having those two ideas make love to one another in your head. Now, that's trippy.

(I said "make love"... eewwww.)

Sooooo... Bernie Madoff's son hanged himself yesterday (?), apparently. Props to you, Madoff, for killing one of your children while in prison for 150 years. That takes a certain je ne c'est quoi.

And on a lighter note (wait, there's a lighter note?), I have learned how to make a few things using typing icons or key strokes or however you would say if you spoke English well (I copied the first two from an app) and am now trying to come up with my version of Rodin's Thinking Man which I just saw in person in San Francisco for the first time.

(\(\
( -.-)
o_(")(")    a bunny!

( 8^_(|)  a Homer Simpson!

     ?
  ( ->
 [    \"\   Thinking Man! By Roe-dan! No?
----- /  /
       \ >

Here are some cats playing patty-cake and their thought process vocalized by two dudes.

What started this engaging thought-process this morning? I am watching a mediocre Mel "Sugar tits" Gibson movie and heard this quote while the "Sexy Beast " star (love love) has a conversation with a doctor after clearly learning that he has less time to live than expected due to some ailment:

-No, I can't sleep. I fall asleep and then I jolt myself awake. There's something about the darkness... I don't like it.
-I'm not a counselor. I know you want to banter with me, but I can't do that. I can just give you the facts.
-Well, we all know what the fact are; we live a while, and then we die sooner than we planned.
"Edge of Darkness"

Ta da! I likes it. Becauses I'm morbid and find the darkness acknowledged relieving and funny (not a popular viewpoint, I've found... but mine, nonetheless).

How to have an odor-free home with cats!

After many, MANY years of having at least one feline my husband and I (who now have three, thank you) have figured out a fabulous way to keep the litter box area clean, organized and relatively odor-free! As a plumber once said while working in our bathroom, "You have 3 cats? You'd never know it! Believe me, some of the places I've been... you KNOW it."

I am a crazy cat lady, for sure, but I like to maximize the "cat" and keep the "crazy" to a minimum, at least when it pertains to felines.

We use Arm & Hammer Odor Alert or Arm & Hammer Multiple Cats litter (I prefer Odor Alert even with 3 cats, but that's me) mixed 1/2 and 1/2 with Cedarific Natural Litter. It is a very odor-absorbent combo and the Cedarific helps cut down on the amount of dust from the A&H litter, which is still considerable. We use Arm & Hammer Litter Deodorizer for a topical solution to smell when we have guests over or it's 3am and you just want it to GO AWAY.

I also buy vanilla scented car deodorizers and hang one about every month or two in the room with the litter boxes. It helps a lot! We live in a 1200 sq. foot apartment in New York City and I prefer smelling something refreshing as I walk past the hall closet with our two large litter boxes. We use Cats Rule litter boxes because we have 3, large, male cats.

Scoop every day. There is no way around this with multiple cats unless you have a house with a basement. Make sure at last once every three months you change ALL the cat litter out so there is no urine soaked litter that will make it smell exponentially horrible each time they use it.

And make sure the boxes have plenty of room for the cats to access it. You want to make it as attractive and user-friendly for them as possible. Don't put it/them in a high-traffic area. Cats are suspicious animals and they, like us, don't like to do their business while there are a bunch of people watching or nearby. Privacy is key.

Those are my nuggets of wisdom! Enjoy your clean, fresh-smelling cat home!

Feral Cat Shelter

I am always look for ways to better shelter the feral cats in our neighborhood without it taking over the backyard. There are kittens out there now and I have a plastic storage bin with a hole poorly cut in it and old newspapers lining it. I've seen the kittens use it in a pinch, but I haven't perfected how to really keep them warm and dry. It looks like, according to this website, that straw is the way to go.

Now you will see how much of a city girl when I ask: Where does one buy straw? Never seen it! Home Depot? There's one nearby... I will check it out.

In the mean time, if you have stray or feral cats nearby, you might want to check out this organization and their advice on caring for feral cat colonies.

Alley Cat Allies - Feral Cat Shelters

Spay and Stay - Cat Shelter

Looks like along with my yet unfinished window boxes (I know, I KNOW) I have more work to do!

http://www.spayandstay.org/wintershelter.htm

Are my cats ModKats?

Well, first of all, if they want to be ModKats, they are going to all have to get jobs, because these things are expensive!

ModKat Litter Boxes!

And secondly, they are going to have to learn to get in there.

ModKat Instructional Video!

As you might know by now, I'm a crazy cat lady. We have three very large, male cats and one of them doesn't always *realize* his butt is hanging out of the litter box. So this would be a good solution to his problem... if he can fit in there.

Not bad tho!

Oh, and welcome, Summer! Great things are in store for this Summer and I'm looking forward to all of them.

Springtime for Hitler and East 7th Street!

Another Spring, another lovely awakening of nature in Brooklyn. Cool, crisp breezes, birds chirping almost manically, cats and dogs happily trotting down the street sniffing the air. It make-a me happy.

I have decided to photograph all our feral cats so you can see the cuteness that lives in back of the house where we rent our apt. I LOVE this neighborhood. Love love love love. It's absolutely perfect for me and I hope we can someday have a more permanent home here. But until then, I count myself to be one of the lucky ones who gets an awesome big, sunny two-bedroom apartment with cool landlords/neighbors and one of the best neighborhoods I've ever experienced.

So here we go! Trees are starting to blossom and birds take over the tree in front of our apartment which means lots of chirping... and lots of bird shit on our car.

And also here are some photos of my cat, Yoda, force-snuggling his brother Eskimo (both of whom were born in our backyard). Yoda just happens to be force-snuggling me right now as I try to type this around his enormous corpus.

Happy Spring everyone!

Recovering from the flu... and a little bit of Springtime

So I'm getting over a touch of the flu that I've had for the past three days or so. It was horrible the first night and has gone down remarkably quickly since then. And today I'm all sniffly and have more energy so I'm headed in the right direction. It's good timing because today is a gorgeous day filled with sunshine and cool temperatures - some of my favorite weather. I have had a peaceful day of lying around watching my latest Netflix obsession: 'The Wire in the Blood' - a British television series based on a book - and snuggling with my awesome cats. I will post a few of the 8,000 photos I took of them today.

And now I'm getting excited to see some friends. Now that I am starting to feel better I want to be social again, even though I'm not quite ready. So I decided to infuse some vodka. A friend sent me a link on it recently and it seems absurdly easy and something I can easily do at home.

I've decided to do cucumber, lavender, and tangelo infused vodka. Three ingredients I have lying around.

So now I have these three beautiful jars to stare at for the next few days or weeks until they are ready to consume. They really are gorgeous. And somehow, in those large jars, they look like Spring.