Two Awesome Foster Kittens in Santa Clara...now officially adoptable ADOPTED!

EDIT: 10/16/2012 -- The kittens have found their forever home! Read the update here.

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Ella and Bruce are now nearly 16 weeks old, fully weaned, fully litterbox-trained, socialized, and are overall growing up into delightful, self-respecting young cats. As such, I'm stepping up efforts to help their foster humans (my SO's parents) find them the best possible forever home.

I am really hoping someone will be willing and able to adopt them together. I mean, just LOOK at them:

Their personalities are also really starting to emerge, and as often seems to be the case with littermates, they've got a lot of "complementary" traits. Bruce is a bit bolder about approaching humans, whereas Ella is more motivated to explore (and experiment with) her physical surroundings. Bruce likes being scooped up for cuddles pretty much whenever, while Ella is more protective of her own personal agenda; she still likes to snuggle, but only when she's done with everything else on her (extensive) activity list. And so on.

In other words, they're both shaping up to be uniquely awesome individual felines who nonetheless get along great. So if at all possible, I'd prefer them to go to the same home, but of course I wouldn't say "no" to any two households wanting to adopt them separately as long as they met other basic criteria relevant to being able to provide a good home. Really, I suspect I'll be able to tell based on a few emails whether someone sounds like a good match for either or both kittens.

Anyhow, though, I am pleased to announce that both Ella and Bruce now have their own courtesy listings with 13th Street Cats!

13th Street Cats are an awesome Bay Area no-kill cat rescue group. Upon inquiring I received a lovely and helpful email from one of their staff offering to put up the kittens' pictures and biographical information on their website in order to help get the word out. I should note that the kittens are still at Matt's parents' house (their foster home), not in a shelter, so anyone wanting to meet them will have to email me so we can arrange something. Listings are linked below:

Bruce's web page, via 13th Street Cats

Ella's web page, via 13th Street Cats

The listings have been up since Monday, September 10, 2012, and at the time of this posting, I've yet to receive any inquiries. That's a little disappointing, but I am happy that now at least they're getting some exposure beyond my obscure little blog here and my minimally-utilized Facebook page. I really went into this having no idea how to find homes for kittens, and it's definitely turning out to be far more difficult than I expected.

I am not sure what other avenues I can try but I am open to suggestions here and it would also be awesome if any readers who might know someone in California's South Bay Area (San Jose, Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, Campbell, etc.) looking to adopt a kitten or two could forward Ella's and Bruce's information to them.

I (Anne Corwin) can be reached by email regarding their adoption at sparkle_robot@yahoo.com. Please do not contact 13th Street Cats directly, as the kittens are not in their "custody" and they will just refer you back to me (such is the nature of a courtesy listing).

Potential adopters should include the following information in their inquiry:

- Name of person inquiring

(1) City of residence

(2) Number and type(s) of other companion animals already in the household

(3) Number and age(s) of human children in the household

(4) Whether you are interested in adopting both kittens, Ella only, or Bruce only

(5) Whether you have ever lived with a cat before

(6) What, other than cuteness, appeals to you about the particular kitten or kittens you're inquiring about?

...and once we've got all that squared away, we'll discuss some additional details and hopefully set up a "meet the kittens" appointment. Thanks!

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Coraline, Calendar Cat!

A while back, on a whim, I submitted the photo below (which I've posted on this blog previously, but am re-posting for easy reference) of Coraline climbing the orange tree in my yard to Alley Cat Allies in response to a call for pictures for their 2013 calendar.

I didn't expect anything to come of it, but lo and behold, I got an email last week indicating my picture had been accepted. So now, presuming the designers can fit the photo to their layout (there was a disclaimer in the note I received) Cora gets to be a calendar cat.

Of course this isn't some kind of earth-shaking event, but Alley Cat Allies is definitely doing good work (advocating for TNR and encouraging/educating people to take responsibility for the cats in their community) and I am delighted to be able to contribute something that they can use in their literature and publications. I suspect Cora would approve as well, given she herself started out as a feral kitten and if not for the material on ACA's website I might not have had the confidence to actually try my hand at Trap-Neuter-Adopt (for Cora and her brothers) or Trap-Neuter-Return (which many of their colony cousins have since benefitted from).

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In Which Cora And Shadow Join Forces

Coraline and Shadow are definitely both very high-energy cats. In Coraline's case this has been apparent since she was tiny. Shadow, however, has taken over a year to get to the point of enough confidence in his environment to really express the extent of his exuberant nature. He's still Brodie's favorite snuggle-buddy, of course, and can nap like a pro when he finally manages to wear himself out -- but that can take a while!

Accordingly (and much to my delight), he and Cora have actually become much more closely bonded over the past few months. As some may recall, Coraline and Brodie were actually adopted three weeks before Shadow simply due to the uncertainty inherent in trapping from a feral colony.

Brodie and Shadow got along famously from the moment the brothers were re-united, but Cora spent the first few weeks after her briefly-estranged sibling's arrival hissing and growling at him whenever he entered her sight. Eventually she came to accept him, but for ages she and Shadow were both closer friends with Brodie than with each other. Now, though, I'm seeing something different in shape but equal in (positive) magnitude developing between this particular sibling pair.


(Above image - Cora surveys the yard this past weekend, when I let her and Shadow out to run around a bit while I worked on my laptop on the patio.)

Brodie remains the go-to sibling for cuddles and free ear-washing (and the occasional but vigorous round of CHASEWRESTLEGRR, which even cats of the Garfield persuasion enjoy sometimes) but Cora has definitely gotten to the point where she knows that if she needs a partner in mischief or someone to tear randomly around the house with, Shadow is her guy.

It's also been neat seeing these two teach each other things. Cora has always been the most mechanically inclined and apt to experiment with objects of her own accord, while Shadow took months longer than either of his siblings to get to where he'd (for instance) bat treat-puzzle balls around just-so to dispense the crunchies within. It wasn't that he lacked the brainpower to operate the treat puzzles -- he's just always had the natural predisposition toward persuading others to do things for him (a trait he actually shares with Nikki).

Lately, though, he seems to have come around to the idea that there are some things he can better accomplish without running immediately to ask for help. E.g., he's become quite the expert at opening any door that isn't latched, and has managed to sneak into the bedroom behind me quite a few times recently!


(Above image - Shadow rests a while in the leaves after a vigorous game of Garden Tag with Cora. None of the kitties here have unrestricted outdoor access but on nice days these two really appreciate a chance to run off some of their energy in the back garden.)

Cora, in turn, seems to have experienced something of an epiphany in the opposite direction, as she seems to have become a lot more vocal all of a sudden, and has even adopted some of Shadow's "super secret weapons of human persuasion" (such as what I refer to as the "kittens of the damned stare" in addition to the "Lassie move" where the cat basically orders the human into a different part of the house and looks pointedly at the thing they're interested in, which in Cora's case is usually the back door!).

Of course both of these kitties have maintained their innate inclinations toward Explorer/Engineer (Cora) and Mr. Charisma (Shadow), but it's abundantly apparent that their growing friendship has led to a really neat expansion of both of their respective skill-sets. Which is just super cool to see.

The Mousie Howl...Caught On Film!

Firstly, yes, I am still alive! Life just got very busy for a while there (I'm back to working again, yay!) and I just fell out of the habit of making any sort of regular updates.

That said...since I've been away so long I figured my first "hey I'm back" post had to be EPIC. And...well, while the video below is by far not the most epic example of what it depicts that I've every seen, it's the first-ever footage I've ever managed to secure of Cora making the Mousie Howl.



Basically, it's this sort of...repetitive MRRWOWOWOWOW! MRRWOWOWOWOW! MRRWOWOWOWOW! thing. My friend Amanda reminded me of it when we were on Skype chat recently and we (as in, the two humans) ended up cracking ourselves up ridiculously trying to imitate the noise. Her cat does it too sometimes and I've heard of a few others that do as well so it may not be THAT weird, but it's still rare to be able to capture it. Usually when Cora sees me looking at her mid-howl she drops the toy and looks at me like, "What? Nothing to see here..."

...anyhow, though, from an evolutionary standpoint I am *fairly* certain this noise is hunting-related, though in their cattish way, cats who employ it probably add their own individualized meaning and purpose to it. To me it comes across as being something like "CHECK OUT MY AWESOMENESS FOR I HAVE PROCURED A DINNER!" I could also plausibly see it being related to something mother cats would do when nearing the nest, so their kittens would know they were coming. And in some contexts it almost comes across as a (probably mild or even mocking) *threat*, e.g., "Keep it up and you're next!"

But of course, all that is just speculation. I fully expect Cora has other reasons for doing what she does that simply don't translate to human. It's just such an interesting, specific noise, though, that I'm sure it means *something*!

EDIT: Found another cat on Youtube making a similar noise...while playing with what appears to be a REAL dead mouse! Of course she's doing this on what appears to be her human's bed, too. :P

Short video of Shadow and Cora as themselves

Here is a video that shows Shadow being very Shadowish (and Coraline being very Cora-ish partway through):



Video picture quality isn't the greatest because I didn't realize how bad the lighting was during recording. And anyone who's lived with cats should know that if they're doing something you want to film, it's almost a given that filming conditions will be sub-optimal -- and that the more time you spend trying to set everything up perfectly the more likely you are to miss whatever it is you were trying to film.

That said, I am still happy I managed to get this particular moment on camera -- it is just so, so illustrative of Shadow's personality, and Cora's, and the way they relate both to each other and to me. (Brodie and Nikki were off napping elsewhere during filming and
thus do not appear in this clip).

I also tried taking some still photos of the scene as it unfolded but only a few came out even marginally post-able (the rest were too dark or blurry to see much of anything):







And as a bonus, below is a picture drawn by 8 year old nephew Jake (he left it as a present for me and Matt at his grandparents'/Matt's parents' house). Apparently this is what happens when Auntie Anne (NOT THE PRETZEL LADY) lets the kidlets play with her ipod touch all evening:



(He's spelled NYAN wrong but this is completely made up for on account of POP TART SPRINKLES!)

(And now I must go to bed because this many parenthetical statements and this many ALL CAPS in this short of a post definitely indicate brain = in need of sleep!)

Coraline Climbing

I can't remember if I've posted this here before, but below is probably my favorite picture of Cora ever:



It's from last year and it was seriously just a "lucky" shot. As in, I pointed the camera up into the tree and pressed the button a bunch of times without having much of a sense at all of what I'd end up with. Not bad for a little Canon point-and-shoot!

But anyway. I must of course note that neither Cora nor any of the other three kitties here are presently allowed to roam willy-nilly about the garden or neighborhood. If nothing else, this helps keep my nerves intact -- the actual street my house is on is pretty quiet, but just over the back fence there's a very busy main road.

Still, Cora in particular just seems to light up with joy outdoors, so I try and at least give her a little bit of (supervised) time to romp and climb and chase bugs. One of my most fervent wishes is to someday be able to construct an outdoor play area for my cats (awesome examples of these can be found at Catio Showcase), but given the investment likely required to do it right (not to mention the "convincing partner of what a wonderful idea it is" factor) it's probably going to be a while. :P

In the meantime, the Amazing World of Outside is going to have to remain a super-special treat!

The Cat Collar Conundrum

(This post brought to you by "things that seem kind of frivolous but that I know other cat-appreciators are likely to be able to identify with, and which may with any luck generate some degree of practical discussion")

None of the four felines-in-residence here currently has unrestricted access to the outdoors. Nikki used to have daytime garden privileges, as that initially seemed like a fair arrangement given she'd been an outdoor cat at my parents' -- but I put my proverbial foot down about that after she sustained one too many injuries fighting who-knows-what last fall.

Still, they've all proven their skill at escape artistry on more than one occasion. Nikki in particular is a champion door-dasher -- often I have to exit the patio sliders walking backwards because she's so good at appearing out of nowhere and darting between my feet.

Shadow, meanwhile, let the whole crew out a few times before I finally learned how to latch the screen door properly (he knows how to paw sideways at it and push it open). And just generally I like to be prepared for the possibility that regardless of how thoroughly I fortify the house's potential exit points, someone is bound to get out every now and then.

Now, all kitties here are microchipped and registered with HomeAgain, so they've at least got that measure of identification with them at all times. But it still makes me nervous to think of them out roaming around with no visible identification. Thus, I've been trying to get everyone to wear a collar ever since the youngsters' major kitten growth spurts started tapering off.

The results of this have been...inconsistent.

Nikki has the best record so far, probably because she's so used to collar-wearing (since my parents had her wear one all the time) and because she has no interest in the vigorous wrestling matches her housemates regularly engage in.

Brodie is also pretty good about not losing his -- he's had his current one on for so long now that I can't remember the last time he slipped it.

Shadow and Cora (who seem to have morphed into tag-team mischief-makers lately), however, continue to confound all my efforts to keep them identifiable at a distance as Cats With A Home.

In Shadow's case, mostly he just loses his. It doesn't matter what type -- clasp, buckle, velcro, you name it -- give him a few days and it'll be gone, and when I find it (under the couch or behind a chair, usually) it will generally look like it's been pulled out of a war zone (because he chews on it and plays with it like a toy once it's off).

Cora also loses collars (probably for the same reasons Shadow does). I was all excited a few weeks ago as at that point she'd been doing great with a lovely elasticized orange collar -- but then I found said lovely collar buried in the litter box. Eeep. But she also has a different (and more worrisome) problem -- that is, a tendency to get collars stuck around her lower jaw. I only ever use breakaway cat collars, mind you, but I still get concerned she's going to injure herself in the process of thrashing around to free herself.

That said, right now she's wearing the neon pink number pictured below:



...and so far she has NOT gotten this one wrapped around her face. I've attached it a little more tightly than I have in the past, and now I am thinking perhaps the jaw-stuck phenomenon was due mainly to my being too tentative about tightness. As is evident in the photo above, Cora has a ridiculous amount of neck-fluff (to the point where I'm beginning to wonder if she's got a longhair gene being partially expressed, if such a thing is possible). I can still put two fingers easily between her collar and her neck the way it is now, so she's definitely not choking, but it does seem I need to put hers on somewhat tighter than, say, Brodie's or Nikki's.

But I digress. What I've been doing is putting it on her during the day (when humans are liable to be traipsing in and out of doors) but taking it off and putting it away before I go to bed at night. Kind of annoying, but definitely more cost-effective than replacing lost or litterbox-buried collars on a regular basis!

So, if anyone is inclined to discuss: does your cat (or cats) wear a collar? What type? How do you keep them wearing it? Am I overestimating the need for visual identification? Etc.?

Plumbing Issues

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(TMI warning applies to this entire post, by the way.)

The photo just below is not a picture of a cat. Rather, it is a picture of my front yard taken last Tuesday.



Normally my yard doesn't look like this. And, just in case anyone was wondering, no, it has not been invaded by giant gophers.

The large mound of dirt, the cones, and the caution tape are all there due to Major Plumbing Activity. You see, we've got this great whopping sweetgum tree in the front yard that's nearly as old as the house, which was built in 1954. The tree provides lovely shade and turns a splendid array of hues in the autumn season (yes, we do have some trees in California that actually change colours!). Its roots, however, can pose quite a bit of an issue for sewer pipes, especially old segmented clay and cast iron pipes.

Anyway, to make a long story slightly less long, recently Tree won a significant victory in the longstanding Tree Versus Pipes battle, and the result was, shall we say, unpalatable. Essentially we had raw sewage backing up into the yard whenever anything went down a drain anywhere in the house. Initially it was just a little backup, and the flowers by the porch certainly seemed happy about the extra water and fertilizer, but over the past few weeks it started getting to the point where you couldn't step out the front door without stepping in The Partially Disintegrated Toilet Paper Wad That Time Forgot.

Which, you know, I figured was setting up to be an environmental hazard in addition to being monumentally disgusting.



Needless to say, plumbers were called.

Thankfully they arrived promptly and by Thursday afternoon everything was fixed up and filled back in. The yard looks remarkably unscathed, and we aren't stepping out the front door into any unpleasant surprises anymore. I will be very happy to spend the next hundred years (or whatever the lifespan of the new plastic pipes is) NOT thinking about my sewer lines, let alone stepping in the effluvia thereof.

Which brings me back to cats. The photo below is of a cat.



Specifically, it is a photo of Coraline, taken last weekend. She was feeling okay at that point -- in fact, she'd just finished a vigorous session of "leaping after the feather toy" -- but apparently sometime between then and Tuesday evening something (not tree roots, though!) clogged up her plumbing, leaving her unable to poop effectively.

And as gross as the mere concept of poop is, it's pretty important to be able to produce it if one happens to be alive (and wishes to stay that way). Just as there can be no light without darkness, there can be no eating without pooping. (Which is one reason my little niece's simulated kitten-care video games, wherein you get to feed the cats but never deal with a litter box, baffle me endlessly. But that's another topic entirely.)

As far as how I came to realize Cora wasn't producing...well, when you live with multiple cats and scoop their litter boxes on a daily basis, you kind of end up getting to the point of recognizing everyone's, er, deposits. And Cora's have always been rather distinctive inasmuch as no matter what she eats...let's just say if there were a prize for "superior feline stool formation", under normal circumstances she would be a grand champion. Not so much last week, though, as pretty much all the recognizable solid matter I scooped had clearly (based on known dimensional attributes and scent signature parameters) emerged from Nikki or the boys.

Mind you, I don't think Cora ever got completely obstructed. I did find a few of what are colloquially referred to around here as "poopflakes" in the box, and I will let you use your imagination to figure out the etymology of that term. Moreover, she was able to keep food down despite an obviously diminished appetite, whereas total colonblockery tends to result in projectile pukesplosion shortly after meals.

Most alarming, though, (aside from the pooplack, of course) was how her whole demeanor was just off. Normally, Cora is extremely active (in the same sense that the sun is extremely hot), but on Tuesday evening all her movements seemed very slow and tentative. She also only made half-hearted attempts to jump and climb the way she usually does, and showed no interest whatsoever in her favorite toys.

So, I called the vet's office with my concerns. They agreed that something didn't sound right, so first thing Thursday morning Matt and I bundled her up in the carrier and took her off to the clinic. We ended up getting assigned to a different doctor than last time (again) due to scheduling constraints, but that turned out fine as this doctor was pretty awesome (at least as awesome as the one we'd previously seen and liked a lot).

Moving along, though, the bottom line (heh) is that Cora did indeed, per the vet's examination, have a traffic jam in her lower intestinal zone. Thankfully a single Super Colon Cleanse (read: enema) was able to dislodge the backup, and all this entailed was a mild sedative (as opposed to general anaesthesia, which would have been needed if they'd had to "go in manually") and monitoring at the clinic until around 5:30 PM.

The vet undoubtedly dealt with the most buttfountainous aftereffects of the enema, for which I am thoroughly grateful. Nevertheless, things were still fairly...messy when we initially got Cora home. The sedative had mostly worn off by around 4 PM (when the vet called me, proclaiming that my cat had "pooped beautifully") so I can completely understand why Cora was returned to us with her entire back end, tail, and legs soggy and smelly.

Trying to give a fully-conscious Coraline anything resembling an effective bath is probably marginally more difficult than trying to perform a one-handed backwards cartwheel through a swarm of bees. And I would rather deal with a bit of yuck than have my cat sedated a second time solely for cleaning purposes.

Nevertheless, I didn't want her getting infections (or tracking Ass Flavored Smoothie all over the house) so Matt and I did the best we could to soap and rinse her lower half while she proceeded to claw her way up my chest and attempt to surgically attach herself to my face.

That went about as well as you can imagine it did.

Luckily I only ended up with a few holes in my neck, and none of them bled that much.

Really, though, my primary emotion Thursday evening was one of pure relief. Poor Cora. I can't imagine how much it must have been hurting her to be that blocked up. I was so happy when she got home, and she seemed to be as well, though I had to decline her friendly tail-swipey-leg-weaving greetings at first!

That said, ye gads, I honestly hope I never have to see anything like that coming out of a cat ever again. Granted most of the scariness was due to the fact that I'd been feeding her robust doses of hairball gel and petroleum jelly for a day and a half prior to her vet trip, but it was nonetheless disconcerting to have the contents of the litter scoop jiggle like some sort of earthquake-evaluation medium.

But anyway. Three days following her ordeal, Cora appears to be none the worse for wear (and Shadow, who has a severe Vet Phobia, has ceased hissing at her hind end). I put her in "quarantine" in the spare bedroom for only one night following her Great Rectal Waterslide Adventure. She was very quiet that evening, but by mid-morning Friday I figured she was fine to rejoin the household proper, given that she was shoving her paws under the door and trying to tear off pieces of the wood by that point.

The cause of her epic pooplog backup is thus far unknown, but the current primary suspects are (a) hairball material stuck in transit, and (b) her apparently "highly efficient" colon.

In other words, apparently Cora's tendency toward poops-so-perfect-they-almost-look-fake is actually a sign that her body is really good at extracting things (including water) from whatever is passing through. This isn't a disease, mind you, just a physiological predilection of sorts.

Cats evolved to be extremely efficient in this regard and as Cora is already like a more intense version of a regular cat to begin with, I guess it's not surprising this goes all the way down to the intestinal level. But it's something that needs to be managed, as cats Cora's age (less than two years old) only rarely get this badly blocked up. I have been instructed to (a) add 1/8 tsp twice daily of polyethylene glycol (a laxative, commonly sold under the brand "Miralax") to her food, (b) stop feeding her any dry food (aside from the occasional crunchie-treat), and (c) start brushing her every day (at least while we're in the midst of Super Shedding Season).

Adding more fiber to her diet may be something to think about as well, but the vet cautioned against going overboard here given that additional "bulk" could make things worse.

So yeah. Last week was pretty epic, and not in a cool fun way. I will certainly never again take any form of waste-pipery for granted, whether said pipery be part of my household sewer line or my cat's intestines.

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Nikki and Cora Disapprove Of The Roomba, But Approve Of Chairs On Tables

Matt got me a "Pet Series" Roomba vacu-bot for my last birthday. I was mightily pleased, as it does a great job of cutting down on the inevitable cat-fuz tumbleweeds (fuzzleweeds?) that occur when you've got four mainly-indoor felines in residence.



The cats, however, while they don't take off in mortal terror upon hearing the Roomba start up, are...not exactly fond of it. Sometimes Nikki yells at me when it's on in a manner that can only be interpreted as, "TURN THAT THING OFF!" But mostly they all just avoid it. And sometimes they find very creative ways to do so.

Case in point: I often put the dining chairs up on the table in order to make it easier for the Roomba to sweep underneath said table. Last time I did this, I left the room for a moment and came back to find both girlcats had taken full advantage of the situation.

Technically, kitties are NOT allowed on the table. But as they are allowed on the chairs, I figured I couldn't in all fairness shoo them down. So I took a picture instead. :P

Approaching Cats: A Video

I want to do a series of videos showing interactions between cats and other cats, between cats and their environment, and between humans and cats. Mainly I want to highlight two things with these videos: (1) things cats do and ways they might respond and communicate that aren't commonly noticed or mentioned, and (2) how humans might, by taking feline nature and individual cat-personalities into account, interact more respectfully and on a deeper level than before with cats.

The first video of this sort is embedded below:



It's a bit "rough", especially in terms of the audio...unfortunately when I was filming the water heater in my house (which is old and nearing time for replacement) was making all these obnoxious banging noises, which the camera microphone picked up even though I was in a separate room from the heater.

I also didn't script the video due to the fact that I was not sure what the cats (Cora and Shadow in this case) were going to do, and hence my narration is not super articulate. I did attempt to add captions, though, so hopefully that compensates for some of the audio issues.

Anyway, basically in this video I am trying to convey something about approaching cats (as a human living or otherwise interacting with them). Because one thing I see a lot is humans who don't seem to consider whether or not a cat might WANT to be petted or picked up. And a lot of people don't seem to even have an idea that cats CAN communicate this kind of thing, I mean outside something really egregiously obvious like running away or squirming.

But I am quite certain there's a heck of a lot being transmitted by the cat before they get to the point of needing to do something really blatant. While of course I can't claim a direct pipeline into the feline mind, I've definitely gotten the sense over time that cats prefer a modicum of politeness on the part of their human(s) when being approached by same. And while I'm not perfect at the finer points of feline politeness myself, I certainly plan to keep trying to get better.

This particular video just sort of introduces the topic of approaching cats, without getting too deeply into explanations. Initially Cora and Shadow were sitting on the bed together, but then they engage in a few seconds of grooming leading to (unserious) face-biting followed by Cora deciding she was done napping and proceeding to amuse herself jumping about the room and climbing on things. Shadow, meanwhile, stayed on the bed for some more relaxation with me. The end of the video hence trails off a bit into a rambling description of Shadow's tendency to pick up human words...of course that's not the ONLY thing he does that's interesting or worth noting, but it's what I ended up talking about in this case.

So, like I say in the video, hopefully future chapters of this will be better planned out. But I do really like the idea of observing cats in real-time like this. The next video, which I hope to have up before this week is out, will be on the concept of inviting cats (to sit with you, to share in some activity, etc.).

Why The Fish Tank Is Taped Shut

Nigel, the resident goldfish, lives in a 30 gallon tank here in the computer room. Nigel is about five years old and close to eight inches long -- quite the formidable fish! However, he's lately required a fortification of his living quarters, as a certain little alpha cat has proven herself to be incredibly persistent in her quest to breach the aquarium's defences.

Observe the bit of Scotch tape here. This is necessary to hold the lid down, because it opens pretty easily with the merest flick of a paw. (Also, Nigel himself has been known to flip the lid up when he goes acrobatically after his food, so it's really important to make sure that can't happen!):



Observe here that the filter/pump cover is taped down at the edges. This is necessary because Cora knows how to remove said cover otherwise. The white plastic thing adjacent to the cover is an after-market add on placed there by yours truly, upon realizing that a barrier was needed to thwart the paw of kitties who seem to be laboring under the fantasy that they are, in fact, raccoons:



The following set of images shows Cora in various stages of her recent attempt to breach the aquarium's fortifications. Fortunately for Nigel (and her as well...all kidding aside, if you have an aquarium and a cat in the same house, it's VERY important for the cat's safety as well as the fish's to make the aquarium into something approximating a fortress), she was ultimately thwarted in her efforts.

But she certainly made a good show of the whole thing, and the photos below are a very good illustration of what it means for a cat to be "constantly calculating angles"!