Lightbulbs and Lakes of Pee.
Apr 22, 2008 Tips, Tricks & Tutorials
Welcome to another installment of Mel’s random tips, where Mel shares her hard earned wisdom (usually from screwing up) with you, loyal readers, fans, stalkers and underwear stealers.
Tip # 1: Crystal Cat Litter.
Crystal cat litter is that oddball silica stuff found in dark places along your grocery store shelf or hidden between all the other clay stuff in your favorite pet store.
It looks kinda space agey, with it’s clear little crystal looking pellets mingled with blue–sometimes, all of them are blue–but generally the uniform look resembles…yep, you guessed it, crystals.
These bags of shimmery cat-shit collectors tout promises of being good for the environment. Why are they good for the environment? Well, they say that their little crystals soak up amazing amounts of pee! Most of them promise ONE BAG for ONE CAT for ONE MONTH! Guaranteed! By using their products you’re saving space in land-fills, saving yourself money, and that’s good mojo for the world and everything else.
Unfortunately it’s a big crock of sh*t.
I purchased a six pound bag of these crystally pee-absorbers last Wednesday for our cats. Luckily both myself and my husband were a little leery of the product and it’s almost-too-amazing long shelf-life; we bought a small bag of old-fashioned clay litter. We’re using that now.
The bag said four pounds for one cat–the bag was six pounds and we had two cats. The experiment was to see if it would do anything at all like what it said it would on the package.
It did. For the first four days.
After four days the litter box turned into this piss-colored, blue/green mess that stunk of plastic and…well…you know… cat-p*ss. (There really aren’t enough horrifying words to describe what this can smell like, mixed with plastic.) Two or three times a day, I’d remove any solids and stir the crystals up as per instructions. All that did was make me gag and retch as what I’d imaged the smell of 100 pounds of stale piss left in a plastic tub to cook in the Florida sun for a year, came wafting up my nostrils.
The bottom of the litter pan became this…bubbly lake of bright green p*ss. The silica stopped absorbing after four days.
So four days for two cats from a product that swears it’ll last 30 for a single cat. I sense LIES AND DECEIT.
Sure, I’d like to help the environment. But I’d also like to not have my cats have to sink their paws into a small lake of their own urine every time they get into the litter box.
Seriously. Stay away from crystal kitty litter. Maybe try the recycles newspaper bits–but not this shit. This sh*t was NAS-TAY.
Tip # 1: Save A LOT of money, help the environment, and not stub your toe in the dark!
Once upon a time, the Pence household used plain old fashioned normal light bulbs. 
They were silly people who were paying a lot of money for their electric bill and having to replace light bulbs every month or two. (Florida is famous for it’s power brown outs, inconsistencies, and we think whomever wired our house was a drunkard. So whenever we used normal bulbs, they’d blow out or burn out in a matter of a month or two.)
Lo’ and behold, we met these bulbs:
(Actual bulb from my desk lamp!)
There are many different shapes to these, but they’re all known as Compact fluorescent. This spiral shape is especially good for desk lights, and they last around eight times longer than a normal old-fashioned bulb.
We replaced all of our light bulbs with these last year. We’ve managed to knock our power bill down a significant chunk of moolah. And, we haven’t had to replace any of these bulbs that we’ve put in yet. They don’t get hot. I’m able to reach in and touch the bulb after it’s been on for several hours and they are really bright.
They’re not cheap, but they’re not entirely out of normal price range, either. Consider slowly replacing your old bulbs with these. You’ll use less power and save yourself some money.
If you’re interested, here’s a linked guide to other types of Compact fluorescents and other light bulbs: Lowe’s Light Bulb Buying guide.
If you have cash in your pocket to burn, do some research into LED lights, too. Brighter, clearer, much like the above bulb–they don’t burn hot and they don’t use a lot of electricity, either. Also make EXCELLENT Christmas lights and decorative lights for stringing up everywhere. They last forever, and they’re a little kinder on the juice.
So remember kids (for the tl;dr crowd): Crystal litter = lake of p*ss, LED lights or Compact fluorescent light bulbs = less power, more money in your pocket.
This has been another Random Mel Thing, brought to you by the letter WTF, and the deliciousness of a cup of genmaicha tea.
Tags: cats, life, Stuff we buy
The World Reflected
Apr 5, 2008 Personal
My garden is filled with basil once again, the cherry tomatoes are taking over one corner, the oregano has created a thick bed of itself all along it’s single row, like a guardian of dirt and everywhere there are lady bugs. I caught through our bedroom window, a bright orange butterfly flitting off to do whatever butterflies do yesterday morning.
As I watch my garden sometimes, my cat, Flora, enjoys watching the squirrels. She also enjoys watching the finches, blue jays and mourning doves landing on the bird bath and chirupping to them. I don’t think the chirrups are very convincing; none of them have tried hopping into her mouth through the window, but she’s very earnest in her attempts at hypnotizing.
I swear someday I will have a clear few snippets of video showing her churring at the birds.
Hairball and litter bit treasures.
Mar 18, 2008 Pets & Animals
I can’t tell you why I love cats more than dogs.
Dog lovers every where tend to rise up and point out how much more affectionate dogs are. How you can train them and you can’t (with ease) train a cat. How a dog might save you in a fire while your cat would probably wait until you are cooked to their liking and begin nibbling on you—if they haven’t already found some way to escape and leave you for dead.
They might also like to remind us cat lovers of how they’re never stand-offish and they’ll never treat you like a servant, but understand you are top dog and on occasion, an equal.
I don’t disagree with these points and more that dog lovers bring up.
But there’s something about a dog that I can’t connect with. To me, I can’t tell the difference between their feed me barks, their ‘I need to go pee right now,’ barks, and their ‘omg someone is coming/another dog’ barks. I can tell the difference between their ‘eat your face off,’ growls and playful growls. But for me, as much as dog lovers say that cats are a mystery—for me, dogs are the mystery.
Every so often my husband’s sister, Kim, asks me to look after her three huskies. It’s always the most confusing, nervous time of my life. I walk them every two hours because I don’t want to mistake their ‘I gotta pee,’ barks with their ‘hey I like you,’ barks. I keep a constant eye on them because one of the puppies is prone to eating everything that doesn’t move and being an idiot. Again, it all goes back to me not quite understanding them all that well.
And with cats? It’s whole different ball game. I can tell you the difference between Raven’s ‘Feed me now,’ meow, and her ‘I’d like some attention,’ as well as her, ‘back off or Imma cut you suckah,’ merowl. I can tell you by the way Raven walks or moves, how she sleeps or looks about if she’s feeling well or not. I can tell you when Flora is happy to see me in the curl and arch of her back as she rises to sit bastet-pretty for me whenever I enter a room as she’s napping.
I can tell you that outside of the touch of human comfort, there is nothing in this world like the smell of a clean, healthy cat. It’s like the dust of old, loved books mixed with the warmest left over sunshine caught in their fur from their most recent sun-nap. The feel of a contented purr that coaxes me for more affection, felt in the palm of my hands and heard in my ears like the most perfect, wondrous little natural motor. I love best of all this look-that-is-not-a-look they give me, when they are pleased to see me and squint their eyes up tight to show me they mean me no harm then they rub their little triangle heads against me to mark me as theirs for all the cat-world to smell.
There’s always little things to love that one must take in stride. With cats, it’s the surprise left in your shoes after an upset stomach, the dirty paw prints in your just scrubbed bath tub, the entire roll of shredded toilet paper all over the house as well as the daily dig for ‘treasure’ in the litter box to keep it clean.
But it’s worth it. Because there will be days when you just don’t think anyone in the world will ever get you, even your friends, your spouse, your parents or yourself—and out of the corner of your eye you’ll see two tufted ears pop up and perhaps the warm bat-bat of a paw. It isn’t long until this aloof creature that seems to think you are beneath them will curl up near you or on you and begin that beautiful tick-tick-tick-tick purr of theirs.
Everything seems just a little bit better. Everything seems just that much clearer.
Maybe I can tell you why I love cats more than dogs.
