snow would be buena

okay! how about a mostly non-cat centric post? (mostly). i went to eva yerbabuena’s flamenco performance (thanks for the tix rebecca!) at the schnitz last night and remembered why i like watching dance. and, more specifically, why i need to go to spain. now. i might even settle for mexico (yes, i know it is totally different), but any place warm and sunny with delicious food sounds good to me. everyone should watch a flamenco performance sometime; it is so raw, so intense and emotional. and so incredibly human. it also reminded me of how boring my life is and why i feel the need to travel. americans (the u.s. variety, that is) have the tendency to forget about passion. regular, everyday, genuine passion. we associate it with sex or rage, and ignore its more practical applications in food, dance, death, art and whatnot. i could go on but, i don’t really need to go into a tirade about cultural lessons, because that would be boring and i already have plenty of that. the cat is too cute to be boring, but me—well, not so much.

speaking of the cat, tomorrow is her big trip--she is going to get fixed. mwahha-ha. i think she will be hillarious in a cone. she will probably be really pathetic for a while and then get really funny as she starts to feel better. i can't wait for the cone. i wish i had some extra days off work. karl is taking a long weekend, partially for the cat and partially for his b-day. i'm jealous. this is primo hibernating time and that is all that i really want to do (if you can call hibernating "doing"). i want to sleep, a lot, and then sit around in pajamas with a comforter, hot chocolate, the kitty and my computer. and then sleep some more. i want a snow day.

litter mates

last night karl walked into the bathroom, started cracking up and told me it was my turn to clean the litter box. this is what i saw:
har-har.
okay fine, it was hilarious. and gross. kind of like borat. notice that "dad's" toothbrush is entirely buried and mine, as it had been recently used, got the extra crunchy sprinkles on top.
here is the wonder-cat surveying her damage and checking in on the clean-up crew.through uncontrollable laughter and squeals of "eeeewwww, grooooosssssss" this kitteh got an unconvincingly stern talking to. i suppose it was bound to happen sooner or later. our (former) toothbrushes hung in a toothbrush/toothpaste suction cup holder thingie on the big bathroom mirror over the sink. this alone is a recipe for disaster. toothbrushes = dangley, dangley (to a cat) = fair game, suction cup = not very strong, over sink = over cat box (with sink obstacle), extra crap in litter = crap gets buried. the really funny part in all of this is not that she knocked our toothbrushes down (she has already thrown away my glasses and contacts several times since the waste basket is on the other side of the back of the toilet, which was my favorite spot for putting them. i have become accustomed to checking over our trash can in the mornings.) the part that just kills me is that she buried them. ah, so funny.
lily always tries to "make up" by acting extra cute--we weren't even mad at her about this, it was just too ridiculous. now, if i can just figure out how to keep her off of the kitchen counter and the stove, but that is another story.

oh yeah, and Happy Turkey Day!

voting demo-cat

this is a couple of weeks old now, but lily wanted to play her part in the last election:
lending a paw
studying the ballot measures (shhh...don't tell her it's upside down)
done...and moving on to the times

ninja kitten

yo, "ninjas are cool; and by cool, i mean totally sweet."

i am solidly convinced that lily is a ninja. she has all of the qualifying traits necessary to be an über kitten ninja. the ninja fact sheet has to be tweaked a tiny bit, since when she "flips out" she doesn't kill people--but she flips out ALL the time and kicks some serious ass. she plays hide and seek with us, but because of her ninja skills she is a huge cheater. she always sneaks around us and launches suprise attacks from behind. i think robert hamburger might even be impressed. and i swear, i actually heard about this ninja dude from an interview on npr....several years ago....i think. in real life he is a 30s or 40s college prof or sumthin'. if he has any appreciation for cats, he should enjoy the best ninja variety of kittens.tigerlily can leap past the light switches already. if i sneak up on her (part of the hide-and-seek game) she will also jump up and use the wall like a spring-board. she likes to act surprised, it is part of what makes the game fun, but she always knows exactly where i am. lily will puff her tail and run away for my entertainment, but it is just an act. sometimes i'm not even paying attention and she is orchestrating her next coup d'état. she can sit still and blend in with practically anything; she waits and watches and then strikes. ambush!heee-yaah!
then she gets tuckered out and melts people with the death-ray-of-cuteness. i can't win.

halloween thugz

so i know i have been slacking off with the blog a bit lately. things got, um, busy (does working 12 hours yesterday count?). well, the shows were hung, the first thursday gallery openings are over and i sold some art today. which means that i am off the hook...for the time being and i can get back to the fun stuff.

halloween was pretty uneventful for us--it involved some candy and some laundry. par-tay. but i have an appropriate "zombie lily" picture which (belatedly) corresponds with the holiday.okay, okay two photos, this one is really just for the slight puffy tail action.

karl was feeling left out, so he got a black eye. it was my understanding that hitting a soccer ball with your head was a good thing, but that doesn't apply when there is a fist between the ball and your eye. the more you know* (envision the shimmering star from the old commercials, somehow an asterisk doesn't quite do the trick). here are karl's thug life shots:

the indoor soccer games have been pretty gnarly lately and his team isn't even particularly good. oh well, he got to miss another day of work yesterday (and first thursday at his gallery, lucky duck) because he couldn't open his eye until about 4 o'clock in the afternoon. now that the sad part is over i can laugh...sucker. don't feel too sorry for him--he gets to laugh at me too. yesterday i had part of a chopstick poking out of my finger. don't ask me why i was whittling a chopstick with a razor, or why the bamboo was the dangerous part of the equation. i will just say that the art business is strange and that my reasoning at the time seemed logical.
well, i hope everyone had a good halloween. maybe somebody else did something dumb and a bit gory (if you did you should share). ah, good times.