Lost in the Supermarket

Happy Holidays

2008-12-25T11:36:00.001-08:00

we actually have a very white christmas here, although it is starting to melt. i hope everyone has a lovely holiday. peace.

slow wave

2008-12-10T22:06:00.000-08:00

karl dreamed of being on slow wave. i think he may be having a bro-mance with jesse reklaw. i can't blame him; it's pretty awesome. he also got a pretty good likeness of the special-k.

as to why karl is dreaming about finding decapitated heads in the park blocks...i'm really not sure. i'm open to hearing your theories.

break glass in case of cute emergency

2008-11-24T12:49:00.000-08:00

have you seen monifa? she is the month old baby pygmy hippo at a zoo in sydney. this whole slide show is ridiculous!!
in case you need more of monifa (trans. "lucky one" in Nigerian), here's the best ear action EVAR!

Dear Jabari

2008-11-23T22:21:00.000-08:00

this is lifted directly from the best of craigslist, and yet it seems to be written expressly for jabari. i thought it was hilarious.

Dear Cat,

I have some issues with you right now that I would like to hash out. And now is as good a time as any with you laying over my arms while I am trying to type on the computer. You don't even look comfortable and you can't breathe lying like that with your butt higher up than your head but your brain is the size of a walnut so I will forgive you.
First of all, the litterbox. Is it your goal to poop on the rim of the box? Because if it is, bravo! Mission accomplished, you can stop now. You have proved your point. It is not funny anymore, and I have run out of sticks in the yard to clean it off with. The box is big enough, and you are still small, so don't even go there.

Now... making pointless, incessant noises. If I take something away from you because I am tired of hearing it scoot across the floor for the last 2 hours, it does not mean to go find something else to mess with. I mean really where do you find this stuff? A wad of paper? A bottle cap? Is that really that fun to play with?

I put things on the coffee table because I want them there. I do not want you to knock EVERYTHING off of the coffee table in one of your mindless "tearing ass through the house for no reason" adventures every single day. Once in a while, it is amusing. Every day, it's not that funny.
Your ass stinks. I mean REALLY stinks. Like the worst poop you've ever smelled. Why do you smell soooo horrible? I thought cats were clean! I have never experienced this smelly, stinky cat phenomena with any other cat on this Earth. Why, God, did you give me the most stinky cat in this solar system? And Cat, why do you insist on showing me your ass? I know it stinks, but what am I supposed to do about it? Bathe you??? LOL! Remember the last time that happened? I still have the scars... Also, when you sit on my arm, please have the kindness to put your tail over your butthole so it doesn't come into contact with my skin. I might catch something.

Lastly, I am allergic to you. I know this isn't your fault, but knowing this, why do you insist on rubbing the whole length of your body on my face? Okay... I just pulled a CATHAIR out of my eye. No wonder my eyes are itchy if you are purposefully depositing your dander into my eyes! What are you trying to prove here? That you know I'm stuck with you? While you're busy carrying things about the house in your mouth to deposit them into some area that I haven't discovered yet- would you mind bringing me a peice of sandpaper to me so that I can alleviate the itching you've caused me? Oh- while we're on this subject, I need my hair ties back- I know you have them. Thanks.

thank you austin craigslist poster for writing to my cat. maybe it will help alleviate his recent dookie bombing spell.

say it like yoda

2008-11-22T00:58:00.001-08:00

for being soooooooo delinquent with my postings. i will be better...tomorrow.

we were up in victoria, bc over the weekend to check out the graduate programs at uvic. i liked their art department and thought the buses were funny (though the next line completes the sentence and ruins the yoda voice in my brain).

and i know--all anyone really wants to see is more photos of my kitties, so i'll try to post some of those soon too. for now you get my fav pic from the ferry ride.
cheers!

the day

2008-08-26T22:16:00.000-07:00

karl speaking, filling in for the overburdened, underpaid wedding planner that is nika.

the day is hypersonically approaching and we've got most everything under control. caterers and tailors like to not call us back, even though we are totally not bride/groomzillas, but we're coping...

though it hasn't been an easy process, we're learning. lesson one: if you need the dress by the 7th, tell the tailor you're wedding is on the 1st; lesson two: visit cat kennels before booking the reservation to house your precious pets while you're on your honeymoon; (don't ever use AirPet Hotels out by the Portland Airport...it should be renamed Gitmo for Cats)

there are probably a whole bunch of other things i'm forgetting, but that's why nika is the one who usually writes this stuff.

ciao!

happy 4th!!!

2008-07-04T22:11:00.000-07:00

ok, ok, i know it's kind of lame just making another video post, but this is too cute.

hope your 4th of july was awesome!!

sleepy sunbear

2008-05-14T00:09:00.000-07:00

last night jabari kept nodding off in my lap; his head would slowly drop onto my leg and once his face was firmly planted i don't think he could breathe very well, so his head would jerk up and then slowly nod down again. karl and i were watching him--cracking up (& trying not to move) and wishing for a video camera. this is exactly what it looked like in bear form:

our background music was the daily show instead of a lullabye.

happy easter

2008-03-25T23:57:00.000-07:00

thank you easter bunny bawk bawk

engaged

2008-01-06T15:34:00.000-08:00

this may or may not be fresh news to you (mostly depending on if i see you often)...but karl and i got engaged (ahem, *guiltily* back before the holidays)...whee. we went on a little vacation up to vancouver, bc and had a good time running around in the rain. one of karl's co-workers hooked us up with a great hotel deal (thanks rebecca!), we ate awesome food and went to some excellent northwest coastal museums. loved it!

karl was antsy about the ring, which i had picked out about 6 months earlier (i knew it would take him a while to pay it off...tee-hee...i think i deserve it) and he asked me to marry him on the first night! the whole getting married thing we talked about after my trip to peru, which was like 3 years ago, so it's probably not a huge surprise to anyone--just a matter of when.
my aunt b sent me this cute kitty clock (with a cat appropriately swinging from the window shade) as an engagement present. thank you! it even matches my christmas cactus.

here are my ring pictures:
my ring is a vintage (early 1920s) neo- egyptian (see stylized papyrus leaves on the sides) art deco piece. the center stone is a 'fancy' ooh-la-la orange diamond with two tiny white diamonds all set into platinum.
and i thought i wanted something different but simple--ha!
i knew i wanted to find a colored stone and no "diamond on a stick" rings that look just like every other ring. thank you maloy's--if you live in town you should visit their little shop downtown--exquisite estate jewelry. when i put this one on i just knew it was mine.

hope everyone had a good new year's--CHEERS!

happy holidays

2007-12-26T00:54:00.000-08:00

i know it has been quite a while, but i thought i should drop in a quick note and a few pictures.
i thought these seed pod thingies (technical, no?) looked like a snow man. we actually saw some snow on christmas morning here, which was quite an unusual treat, as was the beautiful full moon on christmas eve. karl and i spent the holiday with his parents up in the woods in washington and had a snowy drive back. it looked a bit like the old "space" screen saver with the white parting over the windshield.

tigerlily and jabari send their love, along with instructions for a proper holiday snuggle: "you put zees foot here and i put zat foot there, zen we head butts and naps for hours".

jabari wanted to do his own version of i can has cheezburger with our leftover ham.

one lovely holiday bloom...

and finally, a great lol cat cartoon from hobotopia whose wonderful drawings i just came across.

merry christmas!!!

schnaptime

2007-09-17T12:10:00.000-07:00

jabari doesn't usually sleep with his tongue schticking out so this killed me. am i easy to kill? i must admit i am a total sucker-face for cute animals. i have this photo on my desktop right now and it always makes me smile...i think that is exactly what pets are for. besides stuff like this makes up for waking me up in the middle of the night and other such mischief.

pussy galore!

2007-05-31T23:28:00.000-07:00

bond girls? really? where?
you were thinking of honor blackman in goldfinger, no?

okay, i have to admit i was just trying to grab your attention. once again i am a bad blogger and have been away from it for a (ahem...long) while. but today i have to mark an occasion in the only appropriate way for this kitty--a post for tigerlily's first birthday! today is the actual date of her birth--we didn't get to take her home until 3 months later, but i have some wonderful photos from the "lily archives".

i know it's cliché but, i can't believe she was so little.

finger lickin' good

our baby tiger
who turned into a great sultana...
with a title like that, it's only fitting to end with some classic kitty porn. which is also somewhat reminiscent of my most favoritest controversial panda.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TIGERLILY :)

alright, that was fun. i hope you enjoyed it too.
ciao!

der knutsong

2007-05-11T22:55:00.000-07:00

holy shit he's cute.

another smile

2007-02-19T02:11:00.000-08:00

here are the good cat pictures i promised. i take so many photos of these two it is ridiculous. for every hundred shots, a handful are decent and maybe one is actually good. considering that i have probably taken one to two thousand pictures of my cats now (within a time span of about 6 months) a couple of them were bound to be great, although i am not sure if that is a particularly desirable ratio. regardless, getting the "jabari smile" picture (that i have been hunting for since we got him) makes it all worth while. it is really all about getting the right angle when they make that super contented purrrrr face. enjoy!

helllloooooo

2007-02-07T02:03:00.000-08:00

alright, sorry for the long absence. i have been busy. with stuff. and things.
like watching jabari and lily playing in a bag
or lounging in the sunshine (this is very important) with the sunday paper
and nesting on laundry. i showed the two fur-bags where the quarters are and everything, yet they have still not washed a scrap of clothing for me.
for my birthday we had a fantastic dinner at andina (oh succulent little lamb choppies, how i love thee. baaaaa). delicious causa, ceviche, lamb "corderito" and three different mini crème brûlées--such a meal! i feel lucky to have a world class peruvian restaurant in portland. my post-dinner, sigh picture.
my friend jessy gave me a beautiful bouquet at work (yes i worked on my birthday and the day after).
then some other stuff happened...then it was wing bowl time.

or superbowl, whatever you want to call it. i like the wing part better than the football part. these are cilantro lime thai chicken wings. karl and i can each sock away a pound or two of wings, so i have to buy a "family pack" for the two of us. i haven't decided if that is too self-indulgent yet (borderline gross? 'though i do roast them in the oven instead of deep-frying them...and there are a lot of bones). but damn they are good.
so i think that brings us up to date. i've got a few more good cat pics from the weekend, which i should be able to post pretty soon. oh yeah, i found this too, it's not really a site yet, but the picture is hilarious.

so quiet

2007-01-18T12:02:00.000-08:00

sweet:

i really need to go buy this album and stop trolling their blog all the time. although i wouldn't have found carolina's little gem that way...

you're beautiful

2007-01-16T21:18:00.000-08:00

a beautiful surprise

close to home

palm trees in chinatown

sunshine in snow

my own private christo

it finally snowed. i don't think we have seen any on the ground for a couple of years. kids got an extra day off; i had to work anyways. i was restless and bored, but it was lovely. it will probably be gone by tomorrow.

lil' beans

2007-01-08T13:05:00.000-08:00

so, i pretty much suck at making regular blog posts (i have no idea how so many people manage to do it daily), but here is the news: tigerlily and jabari are getting along swimmingly!
there were some rough patches in the beginning, i.e. lots of growling, hissing and keeping of distances. but they moved pretty quickly onto the wrastlin' mania stage and they are now wrestling for play. there is a common fascination with water and an affinity towards all things feathery.
jabari started out as more of the aggressor/instigator, but lily has gotten more confidant and the tides have turned. jabari was initially being somewhat territorial and chasing lily out of the bedroom. he is still quite a bit bigger than lily, but she is standing her ground now and they are both sleeping on the bottom of the bed at night.
jabari is also such a boy! he plays quite differently than tigerlily and looks generally like a bit of a doofus in comparison. lily is very patient, she quietly stalks, then sneaks up on her prey and "kills" it quite thoroughly, finally carting it back to her "den" (the bathroom, i have no idea why). jabari doesn't really stalk anything--he just goes for it. sliding around on the hardwood floors, skidding into the rug (and rearranging the furniture a bit), then clamping on to the toy with his powerful jaw, ripping off a few feathers (or whatever) and then he calls it good. he walks off satisfied only to come skittering back the moment it starts to move again. he is a bull and hilarious to watch!
i have been claiming victories with jabari in small steps: first trimming a few toenails at a time (they were soooo long), then applying some "soft claws" because he thinks my couch is a giant scratching post (he refuses to scratch the post, or the new catnip scratcher we got for him--this is probably one of the reasons his previous owner decided he was destructive and couldn't handle him) and finally giving him ear drops to treat mites.
overall, he is a great cat--very sweet and funny. it is kind of fun to have a big goofball of a cat bulldozing his way around and i think lily is really enjoying having a companion. my biggest concern right now is that i seem to be much more allergic to jabari than lily (which was basically my motivation behind getting a bengal in the first place), but i think i will adjust and build up a bit of an immunity (fingers crossed). they are a lot of fun and i am enjoying their company.

meet jabari!

2007-01-02T12:29:00.000-08:00

here's the exciting news: we got our second bengal this weekend! i wasn't sure if it was going to happen until the last minute, there were a couple of other possible adoptees that didn't happen, so i didn't want to get my hopes up. but it worked this time and now i can make a post about it. the new kitty, "jabari", comes from the same breeder as tigerlily (that's how we found out that he needed a new home), but he was living up in seattle. karl and i got off of work on saturday night and drove up to his parents place near yelm to crash for the night. jabari's old daddy was on a tight schedule, so he wanted to meet us as early on sunday morning as possible. we agreed to meet at 7:30 am at the space needle. karl and i got up early and hit the road at about 5:45; we are both night people, so this was not a pretty sight. our saving grace was a nice selection of drive-thru espresso stands.
there was no traffic to speak of and we made it to the space needle by 7:15. the sky was still completely dark and i got some wonderful, if blurry (no tripod, as always), pictures of the needle lit up in the pre-dawn. we met jabari and his dad and drove back to portland. the road was quiet and jabari was quite good in the car. i got a couple of shots of mount st. helens when we stopped for gas.
we arrived home by about 10:30, which is about the time we would be getting up on a sunday morning (or later...ahem), so lily didn't get the chance to miss us too much. we set jabari up in the bedroom with a full set of kitty accouterments (hence the lovely new litter box featured in the following pictures...not my idea of a picturesque background) and lily stayed in the rest of our apartment.
jabari is gorgeous! he is a silver marble (his sides are spotty, but his back is marbled) bengal, so his pattern and color are different from tigerlily's--i think he looks like a little snow leopard:) we are not 100% sure if we are keeping his name (i'm not sure if i am spelling it right either...javari? jafari?). if he was named "snowball" or something like that we would definitely change it, but i like "jabari" pretty well. karl is not convinced (last night he tried out "manfred"--i shut that one down fast).
we let the kitties growl at each other briefly from a distance a couple of times on sunday and yesterday we left the door open most of the day. they are doing pretty well. there has been lots of growling, chasing and foxy boxing. but there has also been sniffing and playfulness between the two of them.they seem to be getting used to each other pretty quickly and the aggression is minimal. jabari is quite a bit bigger than lily and she is generally being more submissive, but whenever he turns to walk away, she runs up and swats him in the butt. it is highly entertaining. they are both trying to act tough and it is very cute.these pictures are of jabari on sunday night, he seemed tired out from the long day. he didn't want to eat and i think he missed his other people. he is very playful and has demolished one of those sparkle wand toys already (he is a really good jumper). he likes different toys than lily does, which is handy because we had quite a few things that she ignored and he loves.lily is currently stalking around behind him wherever he goes--he turns around and chases her off and when he turns away again she is swatting at his behind. quite a show. i will try to get some shots of them in action. so anyhow, there he is!

meowy christmas

2006-12-25T21:10:00.000-08:00

i hope everyone is having a wonderful christmas!
peace,
n

little miss sunshine

2006-12-13T22:21:00.000-08:00

this is going to be fast because i am sitting here falling asleep, which is very unusual for me at 10:30 at night. time really does fly and i know my blog is overdue for an update. so here are a few pictures of lily, a few days after her spay (post the sad sack stage).
paws crossed and little belly stitches

shaved spotty belly and fuzzy kitten pits

sacked out again with a bit of the "tigerlily smile" showing

snow would be buena

2006-11-30T23:47:00.000-08:00

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

2006-11-22T23:45:00.000-08:00

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

2006-11-19T15:15:00.000-08:00

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

2006-11-12T17:14:00.001-08:00

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

2006-11-03T21:57:00.000-08:00

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.

le tigre

2006-10-21T00:41:00.000-07:00

here is a quick pic for you that i was playing around with tonight. le tigre in action:
also, if anything looks messed up (i've noticed several things so far) i just changed ("upgraded" they say) to the blogger beta and stuff is a bit gnarly. i switched over to see if the grass really was greener...so far, not so much. i mostly wanted the lables to help people who are searching for specific things. i will clean up the aftermath this weekend (sun-mon, for me).
here is a little goodie for the world-weary, a wired cd (this is sweet) creative commons freebie of fake french by le tigre. (i was actually more excited about david byrne and the beastie boys, but le tigre fits mah theme here--and those guys are there too).

confessions of a catster

2006-10-16T22:05:00.000-07:00

today i officially became a crazy cat lady (just in case there was any doubt). i started a catster page for tigerlily and wrote e-vites to other cats so she can have "kitty friends". oh, and i entered a couple of pics in the world's coolest dog & cat show, where you can vote for your favorite pets (or enter them in the competition). not much more than a month ago i would have found this behavior completely absurd and humiliating. i still think it's ridiculous, but i'm doing it anyway...and it is fun. hence the crazy cat lady confession.meanwhile, tigerlily is on an all chicken diet from the vet's latest recommendation. it tastes considerably better than the actual medicine we had been giving her for a while, in fact, she loves it. so since i am cooking up boneless, skinless chicken thighs and shredding them up for her i figured i should get an extra show of cuteness for my efforts. the lily-kins did not disappoint; the standing kitten bit just kills me.

teh daily kitten

2006-10-14T01:01:00.000-07:00

did i just say "teh"? what is happening to me?
tigerlily was posted on the daily kitten today and says hello to her new friends (she's checkin' ya out above). i gotta go to work tomorrow morning, er later this morning, so this is just a quick hello and thanks to the good peoples at the daily kitten. grazie mille (say it with an italian accent and it always sounds sexy) and a million thanks to all those non-europhiles. meow!

waterlily

2006-10-13T00:35:00.000-07:00

this was tigerlily's entertainment for a while this evening. and wikipedia's listing on bengal cats had some particularly relevant information (excerpt below). the bit about vocalization is very true, as is the game-playing, although i haven't gotten her to play fetch yet (okay, i haven't even tried), but we do a good game of "chase" up and down the hallway. we take turns between chaser and chasee, then she meows at me when i decide i'm done but she isn't. we also do a bit of "hide and seek", but that mostly involves me hiding and then jumping out at her when she comes to find me. i love getting her tail all puffed up--she usually rears back on her hind legs and then jumps around in a circle to entice a chase. she's a total love, but she always wants to be the center of attention. demanding and affectionate.

"Bengal cats can take a great deal of interest in running water and often don't mind getting wet. Most Bengal owners have stories about their cat's affection for running water or even jumping in a sink or tub. Additionally, Bengal cats are very high-energy, intelligent, and curious, and so are particularly interactive with their human housemates, wanting to be in the middle of whatever the human is engaged in, and often following the human around the house as household chores are performed. Bengal cats have been known to play games with their owners, such as "fetch" and "hide-and-seek." As their activity and play requirements are high, this is not a cat best left to its own devices for long periods of time, as they can be quite mischievous and destructive when bored. If an owner is likely to spend much of the day away from the cat, having another high-energy feline companion to occupy your Bengal is an excellent idea. Bengals tend to vocalize to communicate with their humans, and are quite capable of jealousy and spitefulness if they feel that another feline is getting more attention, or if they are being ignored. The other side of this coin is that they are also very affectionate towards and playful with their humans."

filliam h. muffman

2006-10-09T13:08:00.000-07:00

for those of you who did not see the segment, this will give context to some earlier references. a splendiferous moment from the colbert show:

a lily and a dahlia

2006-10-06T23:47:00.000-07:00

my friend jessy gave me a beautiful dahlia last weekend. i wanted to get a few pictures of before it completely faded. lily liked it too (i think she enjoys being a constant distraction).

the images are either fuzzy (out of focus) or blurry (movement), but she's a cat. you get the idea. i'll pretend i like them this way. i do think the blur works pretty nicely in the last one (mostly because it is actually in focus).

weekend stalking

2006-10-03T23:23:00.000-07:00

i spent as much of the weekend (that's sunday-monday to me) as possible alternately playing with and stalking my cat (with my camera). here are some of the good ones:

another appearance of the tigerlily smile ^. i luf her. she makes me talk like an idiot.

tigerlily's sleepy dance

2006-10-02T00:33:00.000-07:00

okay, bear with me here. i know nothing about making or editing videos, but i have a "movie" setting on my digital camera. the lighting was terrible, the resolution gruesome--basically everything about the video is shitty--except for a ridiculously cute sleepy kitten. this video was shot just a few days after we got her, so it is close to a month old, but i didn't want to upload it without trying to fix it. the fixing process is a bit more complicated than i was expecting. if i wait to try to get it looking good, nobody will ever see the damn thing, which would be a shame. it makes me smile every time i watch it. who knows, i might even clean it up at some point. so here it is in all of its hideous, dark, pixilated glory.

oh yeah, and for some reason, which i have yet to understand, the audio is out of sync. i'll work on it. i swear.

put it on notice

2006-09-26T00:18:00.000-07:00

i watch stephen colbert (and jon stewart) on a fairly regular basis. if you are familiar with the show you will recognize the "on notice" board. i decided that my allergy attack yesterday should go up in those white letters, along with a few other choice items.

the sunday kitten

2006-09-24T11:55:00.000-07:00

here are some sunday morning kitten pics for ya:

a sweet/guilty little face. this one could go either direction--guilty like an orchid-eater, or sweet like "thanks mom, for getting up early to make me breakfast and play with me".

some toys i fell in love with in prague. i pretended (for a little while) that i was actually going to give them to my nieces, but they were really for me. karl still thinks i'm crazy."may i have this dance? no? okay, fine. i'll settle for trying to bite your face off."

pretty spots. me-wow. [did anyone else play animal crossing? with the kitten that said "me-wow" all the time? yes, i know it's ridiculous. i played it about (4? wow, yeah) 4 years ago in the fall. until the part with the f*ing snow-man. and i've gotten an itch to play it every fall since then. wierd. i am also ready for a new halo release, but we'd have to get a new x-box to play it. karl said he doesn't want a new x-box, which means he won't get one for a couple more months.]
i've been sitting here drinking coffee and eating hit cookies, my balanced and complete breakfast (riiight). at noon. whatever, it's sunday--enjoy!

princess and the pea

2006-09-20T23:34:00.000-07:00

cinnamon blond wildcat seeks the royal treatment
snuggles given at my discretion
my pillow must be regularly fluffed
princess? where? i don't see any princess.

how can anyone say no to that little face (and those folded paws)? it's so hard! tigerlily is getting bigger--i think she is going on four pounds now, she was about two pounds when we got her. 100% more kitty, now available 24 hours a day! (and, if you can do a margaret cho voice: pussy play ping-pong!!). wow, my rug is filthy...i think that is mostly catnip from lily's new scratching box. we vacuumed last weekend, *cough* honestly. lil' miss thang is probably gonna wake me up in about five hours. so, um, goodnight.

kitten huffing

2006-09-16T00:06:00.000-07:00

i can't help it that my cat smiles--there are never too many kitty smiles. i just thought i'd share a darling little feature of hers and the pink muzzle-puff area with tiny whisker freckles. what more could i ask for? (hm, maybe no dingle-berry on my comforter tomorrow morning).
also, i just learned there is a term for one of my favorite new passtimes, kitten huffing.

lily-kins

2006-09-14T20:54:00.000-07:00

lil' miss naughty-pants at work:
what's that?

chomp!

my work here is done.

smitten kitten

2006-09-14T00:35:00.000-07:00

according to cute overload my newfound purpose in life is to share pictures of my wonderful little kitten. considering that i had about 17,000 hits (my brain is still exploding over that one) in the last couple of days--less than 48 hours--i will keep posting photos of tigerlily. i get my best pictures of her on the weekends, after i wear her out a bit. i tried to take some tonight after work, but they were nearly all blurry fuzz-butt shots (after work the lighting options are either too dark or too flashy). the next thing i need to figure out is posting some little videos. cute overload has a tremendous readership and i hope to keep a few people interested. i am also happy to share some of what i have been learning about bengal cats and answer any questions i can. the oregon area breeder that i got tigerlily from is sno pride and came highly recommended by a friend of mine who owns a bengal. sno pride posts pictures of available kittens on their site; i would also suggest taking a look at bengal cat rescue, here is the chapter closest to me
california bengal cat rescue. there are some beautiful older kitties that really need good homes. i had some specific reasons for wanting a kitten, as well as a bengal, and the couple of months that we spent researching and deciding payed off very nicely. she is a total handful (i wish i could stay home and play with her all day)--i can't even imagine what it is like to raise a child. i am totally in love with this cat, she is, er, redonkulous.

some cute paw action from the tigerlily

shazam, part deux!!

2006-09-13T09:17:00.000-07:00

so...the explosion in hits that i was experiencing last night was actually due to CUTE OVERLOAD! i sent meg my pics over a week ago and i thought she hated me and my little kitty too. then i checked the site again last night and tigerlily made it!! yippee! i depend on cute overload for small doses of pure joy and apparently a lot of other people do too--i got about 7,000 hits in the last 24 hours. i'll keep posting pictures, i'm glad to be able to share her. thank you so much!!

Shazam!

2006-09-12T23:53:00.000-07:00

my website as a graph

Shazam!
I was excited to see I had 17 page views when I got online after work (and a lazy dinner, quick laundry run, and grocery stop). I’ve been moving up in the world. I started this blog about a month ago. First I only had a couple hits per day (um, me at home and me being clandestine at work), followed by a couple more here and there; averaging a handful of hits daily. On the 9th I joined my blog log and decided to check out a few people, join some communities etcetera. Tonight when I logged on I showed up on both the “hot communities” list and the “hot members” list and within the time between about 10:30 and 11:30 I went from 17 hits to somewhere around 400. SHAZAM! And it’s still climbing—I can’t believe it! I feel so suddenly popular. It is a strange sensation; probably short-lived also. I imagine I will be back down to a normal dozen a day tomorrow, but thanks for the attention. I’ll love it while it lasts! Merci beaucoup mes amis!

almost fa-mouse

2006-09-11T15:14:00.000-07:00

tigerlily made it onto the infinite cat project today. thanks for the suggestion lisa! also a thank you to mike who runs the whole site and posted my cutie's picture. please visit and click on the links!

makin' stuff

2006-09-10T15:56:00.000-07:00

i like making stuff (and i do mean that as generally as possible), so i made a house with google sketchup . the beta program is a free download and it is pretty easy to use. it has a few quirks, but most of them come from "user error" i.e. my fingers want the tools to work more like the tools in adobe (photoshop etc.). but i have the same type of issues between my pc at home (swapping the apple and ctrl keys) and mac at work (trying to right-click). so besides that type of thing it is easy--i've never designed anything architectural before and came out with something that i really like. now i have a reason to want a piece of property in the middle of nowhere (eastern oregon). my resident expert in architecture (karl's first year of college was spent at pratt, studying to be an architect and changing his mind) likes it too. if we ever get the chance, er...money, to buy a place of our own we are in complete agreement: city = old building, country = new eco-green house. either would be lovely. i stuck an eco-sod roof on my fantasy house here, with plenty of room for solar panels, radiant flooring and so on. of course i don't know jack about engineering so i look at things in a purely aesthetic way (why can't the loft be attached to two walls, with suspension on the third and/or fourth side? like a bridge? that would be awesome). i'm pretty sure this type of thinking would get me into some tricky situations, but why not implement some fresh ideas? now if someone can just give me a million bucks...

a bit delinquent

2006-09-06T23:06:00.000-07:00

i’ve already become a bit delinquent on my postings. oh well, c’est la vie. today at work the tip of my right index finger found itself in between a steel bar and part of a 17 foot carved cedar panel that we were hanging on the gallery wall. it is currently turning black from the inside out with a massive grey blood blister under the nail. that is just the type of day it was; a series of idiotic synapses punctuated by dull irritations. i wanted to say “WHAT!?!” when i answered the phone instead of trying to sound pleasant and gainfully employed. what it basically gets down to is that i hate first thursday openings—especially the way we do them where i work; everything done at a high intensity during the 11^th hour. my boss thinks of everything at the last minute (never before)…and then changes her mind. whatever.

oh yeah, i had a point when i started that—it was that my finger is dying (maybe it will fall off by tomorrow so i can go to the hospital instead of work…ok fine, i don’t really hate my job that much) so i’m going to post something i wrote last week about tigerlily’s first trip to the vet (it is better than it sounds, i swear) that i had intended to post.

we took her to the vet this morning for her well-kitten check up. she was very calm about everything until we got to the temperature part. She threw as much of a fit as two pounds can possibly muster, howling, scratching and generally making us sound like murderers. karl and i were holding her down for the vet tech (it really took all three of us to manage her, and not particularly well at that), but she was acting so tortured we could hardly stand it. i had tears surfacing when karl said he needed to sit down; this statement was immediately followed by him hitting the ground. i had heard about his propensity for passing out, but not having been witness to any incidents (he hasn't passed out in at least 4 1/2 years) i wasn't prepared for the turn of events. i try to be grateful for learning experiences (thank you jebus), so today i learned that fainting lilies need to stay in the lobby...and eat breakfast.

above, a large (door-sized) painting of what is basically a bleeding index finger from when i was a sophomore (and was forced into taking a beginning painting class because i was a transfer student, warm wishes to the alma matter). and, to continue the hand theme, a little crop of a charcoal life drawing (left). the photographs are a few years old and really bad, but you get the idea.

i wonder if my finger nail is going to fall off? maybe i can make karl pass out again.

a nerd is born

2006-09-03T23:41:00.000-07:00

nerd-in-training

what's up tigerlily?

2006-08-28T00:57:00.000-07:00

we got her, we named her and have fallen head-over-heels in love with tigerlily. lily, lil' bit; here she is:

salty dog and other tasty licks

2006-08-25T00:23:00.000-07:00

damn that thing is cute, i can't get over it (see the 'lil pink tongue?). we've only got one day and 400 bucks to go. i can't wait. tonight we bought some fancy-pants kitten chow and toys and a collar-- she's already spoiled.

karl said we can't name her untill we have her--we've almost made it. he didn't go for black joe as the new name for der uber kitten either. we have to pay homage to red dog in some other way, no more cat/dog name switcheroos. i am somewhat at a loss for names at the moment anyhow, but i'm sure we will come up with something good. and by good i don't mean one of those whacked-out show cat/breeder names. moonlit memories, champagne dream, silver damsel. who the hell makes up that wierd shit? oh wait, i did, but for demonstrative purposes only.

we love you red dog. hugs and misses.

media gluttony...i can't help myself

2006-08-22T23:13:00.000-07:00

Music Videos *update (9/8/06)* since that video got pulled here is a link to the same song, but the live performance at the mtv music video awards. of course they're dressed up for star wars so the nice little ink blot tie in is gone. i was starting to get tierd of it coming on every time i opened this page anyhow.

an appropriate addition to the rorschach test. i can't help myself. if i listened to the radio i'm sure i'd be sick of this song by now, but i don't and i'm not. i hadn't even seen the video before and it seemed too apropos to pass up. i was perusing wired magazine's diy section (latest issue) which happened to have goodies on how to trick out your blog, or myspace, or whatever and i've been having a bit too much fun with it. besides that, i'm starting to learn a little bit of html (notice link in text above); i still have no idea what i'm doing, but it's fun. there's gotta be something wrong with me...i must be crazy.

p.s. the music video link takes you to a site with a (small) variety of full length freebies, with code. granted, they are mostly generic pop music, but given that mtv doesn't play music videos anymore they satiate (wow, i actually spelled that right on the first try) a certain curiosity.

pacman, because i can

2006-08-22T00:32:00.000-07:00

Games Provided By FreeCodeSource.com

rorschach test with no right answers

2006-08-19T19:52:00.000-07:00

i got an interesting call at the gallery yesterday. an older guy called up looking for some work by an artist named clarence dick; this was not a prank call, though it sounds like one at the moment. we actually do have a couple of artists with the last name of dick, so it didn't seem totally off-track. i had never heard of clarence and asked my boss if he had, no. i told him about the artists that we work with who shared that last name and he asked me "so, well, how do i go about obtaining one of these...uh...i guess you would call them dick prints?". for real. and he was serious, so i was polite through the end of the conversation. in fact i pretty much ignored his phrasing, but i started snickering like a teenager when i got off the phone, which snowballed into laughter that i had to explain to my boss.

of course his perfect choice of words for "dick print" led my brain to goofy visuals. just about everything that you can make a print of has been tried already. i'm sure somebody has done it. i can completely imagine some guy standing around in his undershirt, with dropped trow and dark dress socks, wang in one hand and a speedball roller in the other. i figure his ink of choice would have to be klein blue (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yves_Klein). actually, yves klein probably did this exact thing, it would be right up his alley. i may need to look into this. my only distinct art history memories regarding mr. klein are that he pissed me off. his "anthropometry" performance art pieces seemed so chauvinistic. some are beautiful, but the ego required to drag somebody's body through paint (always a nude woman, by the way--and they were gorgeous, think twiggy with boobs) for the purpose of performance is tremendous. nevertheless, some of his end results were lovely, here is a good one http://hirshhorn.si.edu/education/modern/modern4.html. it is, like a dick print, an ink blot test with no right answers.

Roseburg and bengal kittens

2006-08-14T23:21:00.000-07:00

okay, i'm exhausted and i need to go to bed so i can be sane at work tomorrow. but i will post a few images from my weekend in roseburg and my potential kitten, with more information to follow.

a couple of the bengal girl kittens i am looking at...and my mom's adorable little airstream trailer that we camped in for the night.

Lost in the Supermarket

2006-08-11T22:08:00.000-07:00

as there are a million and three other things i should be doing at the moment, i decided to make a blog. i am giving in. but i will try to make it interesting and not lose interest/laze-out immediately. i started to make one last night, well after midnight and was quickly stymied by the naming of the blog. this evening i figured something out based on the same way i name everything else: go to the songs. if i'm making art, i'm listening to music and the lyrics always snake their way into titles; it is the same idea here. the best choices are always the story-tellers: elvis costello, nick cave, david byrne/talking heads, the clash/joe strummer, the coup, the pixies and so on. direct lifts as well as permutations: visible shivers (running down my spine), red right hand, highway of fire/sugar on my tongue, i wasn't born so much as i fell out/lost in the supermarket, bullets and love, tromp le monde. it is an exquisite corpse of the poetic variety.

and i love the clash. some years ago, while speaking of impossibilities, i told karl (boyfriend, then & now) that i would have been willing to have a love child with joe strummer. he said he would give his left nut for the pixies to get back together. we were both kidding, on the square. a little while later joe strummer passed away and the pixies got hungry. which is for the better, i'm going to have a kitten instead of a child and karl's testicles are fully intact.