Litter Box Queen
Jul 30, 2008 Pets & Animals
Flora, the litter queen
Our once-shelter cat, Flora, brings me so much frustration, kitteny-cuteness and laughter everyday.
Flora is not at all like Cleo, who still lives in our hearts and minds long after her heart breaking battle with CRF. Cleo was the accordion cat; pick her up, flip her to her back, squish her a bit and she’d lay there lazily with a rather let me know when you’re done, ‘kay? expression. She was the sleep-under-the-covers-knead-your-arm-pit cat. She was also fond of sticking her little cat-mouth and nose in your eye or on your forehead after spending seven hours licking it, to sleep.
Flora is not a cuddle-cat. You have to handle a few friendly bone-deep bites and artery seeking claw swipes on your way to scratching her to turn her into melty-purr kitty. Flora doesn’t like to be picked up too much either. Unless, of course, it’s to pick her up and hold her to our kitchen doors so that she can see the outside.
She’s very much atypical Siamese in some of her behavior. There are some pretty insane boughts of energy where she’ll tear through one end of the house to the other as if the devil himself were on her tail. She sproings, too. Random things that startle her—you cough, sneeze, make a noise or something moves she isn’t expecting? SPROING! Up several feet goes the kitty cat.
And play. Lawd, does she play with everything. With feet, with my hair, with toes, with the strings on my pajamas, with the fifty some odd cat toys sprinkled all over the floor, with wires, attempts to play with the bird, pouncing on Raven’s tail. It is all very little-kitteny behavior that makes me grin like an idiot and laugh.
But there’s one little thing…One heart breaking little thing she will do from time to time that just makes me almost turn into mush.
You see, when we found her at the shelter, she was in a cage like every other cat there. In these cages, there is enough room for a cat to sit up, lay down, and enough room for them to use a tiny little paper litter box with water and food bowl near a wall. That’s it.
A lot of the cats were laying in their litter boxes, old ones and little ones alike. I guess that age-old mysterious attraction. Cat + box = bed of win!
Flora was no different when I came to her cage. She was all cat-muffined in her tiny little make-shift paper litter box, giving me sleepy/pretty eyes through the bars of her cage. She was so bastet-poised beautiful when she sat up and stretched when I said hello, I fell in love with her on sight.
But you see, on occasions after I change the kitty litter I will catch her sitting in it. She’s not using the bathroom, she’s not digging about or any of that—I will come ‘round the corner and peer down to see her giving me half sleepy/pretty eyes as she is either muffin-laying on, or sitting bastet pretty on the litter. Part of my heart squeezes a little when I see it and I am taken back, instantly, to when I found her on the shelter.
My mind wonders: Does she do it because she remembers the shelter? Does she do it and think back to her tiny little cage? Does she remember the sound of other cats meowing all around her, the smell of them and the sickness? Does she sometimes hear the sound of phones ringing and hold the memory of people passing by her cage everyday?
I think about this every single time I catch her sitting in her litter box looking so very far away. I bend down and pet her and tell her what a good kitty she is, but I cannot help but feel a knot in my heart.
I keep seeing all those other cats and kittens, sitting in their litter boxes, waiting for someone like me to come along and take them home.
It’s got crab innit an’ everything!
Jul 27, 2008 Food
Meltastic crab rangoon
<– You see that? You see that delicious picture? I just took that picture with my canon. That, my friends, is home made crab rangoon. With actual crab meat in it! It’s crazy, I know. Usually, I order some crab rangoon from my favorite chinese take out, Hop Bo, and there’s lots of cream cheese in it and flecks of something that I suspect might be carrot to fool us into thinking there might be crab in it. A speck of something so miniscule it really is just fried wonton wrappers stuffed with cream cheese.
Well. Last week I stumbled upon this recipe: Blogchef.net: Crab Rangoon recipe
NO MOAR PRETEND CRAB RANGOON. As you can see above in that delectable sexy-time picture, I have made RANGOON OF POWER. With crab in it! And in case you don’t want to click the link? Here’s the recipe from the site:
- Ingredients:
- 12 ounces of cream cheese (at room temperature)
- 50 wan ton wrappers
- 1 cup imitation crab meat (or canned)
- 2 green onions (minced)
- ¼ teaspoon garlic powder
- ½ teaspoon soy sauce
- 1 egg (beaten)
- oil (for frying) I used peanut oil.
Cooking instructions:
Step 1: In a bowl cream the cream cheese, soy sauce, green onions and garlic powder. Stir in the crab meat (if using imitation crab it should be chopped into pieces).
Step 2: In a separate bowl beat 1 egg. Lay out a wanton wrapper so it forms a diamond shape and place 1 teaspoon of filling just below the center of each wrapper.
Step 3: Brush the opposite corners of the wanton wrapper with the egg mixture. Fold over the edges of the wrapper to form a triangle and seal tightly.
Step 4: Deep fry in batches at 375 degrees for 2-3 minutes or until golden brown.
Go forth, my children, and make the delicious. You will not be disapointed. There is flavor a-plenty. Now if you’ll excuse me, Ima’ NOM OUM NOM and game some more!
Tags: Food
Good night, little guy
Jul 24, 2008 Pets & Animals
Good night, Wibbles.
Shawn was handing me things to put up on the shelves that used to hold the billion hamsters we once had. We’ve moved the two cages the three little ones shared down to the huge head board we have (we have one of those ancient water bed head boards that doubles pretty much as storage/shelves.)
That’s when I noticed Wibbles laying on the bottom of the cage right near the tube to go up to the nest and wheel. I knew something was wrong right away because these little guys never lay on the bottom. They come down to run on the wheel, sleep IN the wheel, and occasionally will nap on the shelves, but NEVER directly on the bottom of the cage.
I told Shawn right away I thought something was wrong and opened the cage door. When I opened the cage door I did not get a single reaction. These guys are pretty jumpy, that’s when I told Shawn I think he might have died…I was right as I reached in and pet him and he didn’t move.
He was still warm.
I won’t go into details–it was pretty obvious what had killed him once I lifted him up and out. Or at least, it wasn’t as if he laid down and died.
We put him in a lil’ box and buried him with the alarming amount of other lil’ guys we’ve had to bury.
It’s never easy with rodents, huh?
Night night, Wibbles. You were soft, so amazingly dumb and cute. Sleep well.
You better run like hell.
Jul 20, 2008 Computers and Internet
Kenpachi gooood
Several years ago I met a woman online in passing.
I didn’t understand her very well. At that time, I was stand-offish and far more formal than what I am today. I admired the writing she did but like like brief internet encounters, we brushed, continued on with our live for several years.
Later on we met yet again through a super uber geeky passion we both share and whether it was the time that had passed or the time spent together with the same geeky passion, the two of us grew to know one another.
Just because we’d never met face to face didn’t mean I considered our friendship lesser than, or not-as-deserving as others. I treated her with the same horribly blunt, but honest, zany respect I give most people I consider close and she plodded through my randomness, strange moods, depression and self-doubt to stick with me now for–oh, what? Years?
She’s a great person. There are a handful out there that will probably disagree with me. They’ll probably tell me that I don’t know her like they do, or that I don’t understand what happened between them to change their opinion or perhaps, that I am naive and don’t know how it is. Isn’t that always the way, though? No one can be perfect for everyone. We’ve all got a few grumblers in our past.
Maybe they are right on one count: I don’t know her like they did and I don’t understand what happened then that made them think the way they do.
Luckily I am not them. I did not know her then, was not part of past then and am lucky to be a small part of her life now.
Today, she is an amazingly goofy, profound, poetic, silly, human that I am glad to have known. We have gone through our share of stupid things–my misunderstandings and hang ups, but we’ve always drifted back and never have I been able to hold a grudge. She probably would have made a great sister to strangle, scream, shout, laugh, cry and grow with too, despite the fact she likes xenomorphs.
I’m glad to have been part of her life so far and giddy to see that she’s branched out from live journal to Word Press. Say hello to L, and rulihe.com. Tell her Mel sencha.
Tags: friends blogs
I tried to sleep last night, but Orlak wasn’t havin’ none o’ that.
Jul 17, 2008 Photography & Digital Art
Orlak is the owner and bar keep of The Brazen Wench.
The Brazen Wench was an Inn and tavern I had created to do some story development and creative writing for Suliss’urn, another character of mine. The Brazen has slowly begun to grow on me, becoming clearer as time goes by.
Orlak character sketch ©M. Pence
The bar keep’s name was Orlak. He’d been behind the bar of The Brazen Wench since it opened, or so the rumors had it. A wizened, grizzled, scar laden dwarf that stood upon a rickety wooden box-contraption with wheels that carried him with a push from one end of the knife marked bar to the other.
Orlak’s dull gray eyes didn’t flicker upward from his polishing of a wooden tankard with dubiously stained cloth when figures approached his bar for drinks. Orlak had long ago given up any enthusiasm in seeing whomever showed up, several scars along his stumped hands and across his face had taught him to pretend as if faces did not exist.
Orlak the Dwarf © M. Pence, 2008
Tags: character sketch, Digital Art
