Most of my dear readers probably know that my wonderful husband got me a new camera for Christmas. It's a beautiful Olympus F1.8, and I'm enjoying taking pictures a lot more since I've gotten it.
Obviously, one of my most frequent subjects is our adorable/crazy fur monster, Kitty Roosevelt. Caturday seemed like as good an opportunity as any to share my latest shots of our shameless beast. Enjoy!
Ever since Roosevelt has become an indoor/outdoor girl, I've been thinking about solutions to give her a little more autonomy in her comings and goings. Frankly, it's a pain to have to constantly by letting her in and out,and she's not a big fan of being out all day long. I think something like this could be a really cool solution. AND OMG IT'S THE BURROW!
It's been so wet lately! AS a former boss of mine would say, "It's good for the garden." This sort of weather always makes me lethargic, and feel the need to crack my knuckles often. I fear I'm on my way to becoming the granny who feels the weather in her joints.
Surprisingly, Roosevelt maintains her going outdoors schedule even when it's dreary. She seems only mildly fazed by getting completely soaked.
Keep in mind this was taken after I tried to dry her off!
How much I LOVE Books of Adam? It's a great, auto-biographical illustrated blog by Adame Ellis. His so-called "poor stupid cat" is the subject matter of many of my favorite posts.
This story about his pet Lola's eccentricities introduced me to his work.
"Now, I'd assume running to be a pretty self-explanatory undertaking, but apparently it's more difficult for some to master. The guy started glancing my way with increasing worry on his face. He seemed to be taking cues from me, matching his machine's settings to mine, searching my face for reassurance, as if he expected me to be his Sherpa through the trials and tribulations of gymnasia."
This is Bette Davis, a kitty from Devon England that wears her heart on her sleeve. She's currently looking for a home, which is sad. I hope somebody who wants a feline Valentine finds her soon!
On Sunday, Paul and I decided to go to the Mall, just to have an excuse to get out of the house and do something different. Usually I eschew the aggravating consumerism of the private shopping complex. But hey, we needed a new garlic press.
So, as we were making our way back to the car (AKA "escaping"), we passed by this little Asian knick knack shop that was going out of business. That's when I saw it.
A Maneki Neko, the Beckoning Cat. It won me over with its cuteness and kitsch.
These little cat statues are basically synonymous with Chinese restaurants around here. But in Japan, where these figurines originated, they can commonly be found in lottery shops, banks, pachinko parlors, and other wealth-driven businesses. That's because the Maneki Neko is a symbol of financial prosperity. A raised right paw represents the protection of wealth, while the left paw (like the one on ours) indicates the acquisition of wealth. When I purchased it, the cute old shop owner even said "It's OK you spend money on this, because you get more monies coming in soon!"
The waving paw is supposed to mimic a beckoning motion (hence the name). This is based on the myth that cats are lucky spirits that will guide you away from harm and towards good fortune. That's why when you see one of these guys in a restaurant window, you're supposed to be drawn inside, away from your potential doom!
There are a few origin legends about why these little cat statues started being made. The weirdest of which goes as follows:
"A courtesan named Usugumo, living in Yoshiwara, in eastern Tokyo, kept a cat, much beloved by her. One night, the cat began tugging at her kimono. No matter what she did, the cat persisted. The owner of the brothel saw this, and believing the cat bewitched, cut its head off. The cat's head then flew to the ceiling where it killed a snake, ready at any moment to strike. Usugumo was devastated by the death of her companion. To cheer her up, one of her customers made her a wooden likeness of her cat as a gift. This cat image then became popular as the Maneki Neko."
Ooookay....
But yeah, we'll see if this guy helps us rake in the dough. He has a special home in our newest home improvement.
Doot do do dooo! New built-in bookshelves. Paul's awesome dad made them for us and installed them last Saturday. They really improves the living room tenfold. It was a lot of fun to put out all our books to display too. Between them and the fortune cat, everything's coming up Milhouse!
This weekend I discovered a really really awesome website for knitters. One of the most annoying parts of knitting is having leftover yarn when you finish a project. If you knit long enough, your yarn stash gets inundated with these random lengths of fibrous ghosts from projects past. Think there's nothing to do with the extra? You're so stupid! There is!
I used the leftover yarn from my big foofy cowl to make this cute little stuffed whale.
As the pattern mentions, this little guy is meant to be a cat toy. I wasn't planning on letting Roosevelt play with it, but she managed to find it and rough it up all on her own. I guess it's pretty irresistible for kittehs, what with the floppy tail and being the same size of her ideal prey and all. I'll let her have it, I guess.
I remember the first time I watched this movie, I was waiting so eagerly for there to be a plot. Even at the 45 minute mark, I was assuring myself that the story would come soon, that the character introductions were almost over. Little did I know that that was the whole premise of it all.
Growing up at my house, it was practically a tradition to play this song for the family pooch around the holidays. Its a fairly certain method to make your dog go nuts. Particularly in years where we had a new puppy, playing this song was a pretty fun game. Most dogs become delightfully confused and frantic at the disembodied sound of their wassailing kin.
I guess the barking dog jingle bells isn't everybody's cup of tea though. This song (a 1950's Danish recording) was recently found to be "America's least loved Christmas Song," as it came in last place in a survey of 579 recordings. However, the focus group used to create the ranking consisted of "200 women aged 30 to 49, recruited via e-mail, who said that they either liked or loved Christmas music," and that sounds like a cat-lady hot bed to me. I think perhaps there was an anti-pooch prejudice afoot!
I bet if this was in the mix it would have been found to be THE NUMBER ONE XMAS SONG OF ALL TIME!!!
Like I said, we were flying by the seat of our pants on this vacation, trying to plan without the aid of the internet or anything. So when we found a brochure in our hotels tourism kiosk about a super room deal at the Dover Downs Hotel and Casino, we decided that Delaware would be the next stop on our tour. One of the main points of the brochure that convinced us, other than the low low prices, was that this hizzy had a pool.
It's kind of funny that we ended up going to Dover. Months ago, we were joking about taking a vacation to one of those weird state capitals that nobody ever thinks about. Dover was one of the ones we laughed about particularly mirthfully, right up there with Indianapolis and Boise. So it was kind of a surreal moment when we were like, "whoa, we're actually going to Delaware right now."
Though it was tucked in the cosmopolitan strip mall that is downtown Dover, Dover Downs was actually really really nice. It had a really clean, cheerful vibe that is conspicuously absent from the casinos that we've visited in Connecticut. We narrowed down why this place felt so much nicer as we whiled away the hours playing marco polo in the pool and soaking in the hot tub.
1. DD is a non-smoking casino. This makes everything smell and feel a lot cleaner. You don't have to worry about reeking when you leave the building at the end of the day. 2. Possibly because of this, they can afford to have lots of bright, open lighting, which makes the atmosphere a lot cheerier. 3. Instead of weird ambient mood music, this casino pumps in upbeat oldies hits 24/7. I can't remember the last time I heard "Splish Splash" playing in a public place.
(PS, not what I thought the guy who sang this song looked like at all)
4. Beyond Being just a casino, DD is also an all seasons race track. In the summer, they host NASCAR races, and in the winter, while we were there, they have live harness horse racing. Having this racetrack here gives the building a purpose, and makes it feel like more than just a slot machine warehouse.
Seeing the live horse racing was actually really cool. I've mentioned before how much I enjoyed watching the Kentucky Derby on TV as a kid. This was the first time I got to watch horses competing right in front of me, in real time. It was also fun to do a little gambling on them, but we never picked the right horse to win. Still fun!
It was the part of the vacation that (Paul and I both agreed) should have come first. Mindless gambling, eating delicious food, and lots of time relaxing in the pool. I found a new favorite slot machine too: Kitty Glitter. I mostly just like it because of the really judgmental kitty on the logo:
mrow, yes I see you there throwing away your life savings, mrow
I embedded the original video below - but I enjoy this version, courtesy of the Benny Hillifier much more! I don't like that they call the kitten stupid and retarded. >:(
