Cats
Gwendolyn: “Wow! Is this kitty wonderland really for me?”
I have been wanting to put kitty hammocks on the opposite wall from the current two kitty hammocks. However, the problem I was facing was what to put on the opposite wall for the kitties to climb to get to the hammocks. When the kittens, Glenda and Gwendolyn, figure out how to get out into the rest of the house there are going to be a lot of issues with only two hammocks.
Another problem is the kittens are always climbing the walls to get in high places. I am planning on putting shelves near the ceiling for them to play on, but I had the same problem of what to put in the room they could climb to get onto the shelves instead of climbing the walls.
While looking for ideas online, I finally decided that a kitty play structure would do the trick. We found a play structure with the best features, dimensions, and height that looked like it would do the trick and I ordered two of them: one for the big kitties in the dance room and one for the kittens in the bedroom.
The play structures were delivered Thursday, so I spend much of the day between other chores and projects putting together kitty play structures. The kittens have really taken to their play structure. Gwendolyn really loves it. The big kitties helped me put theirs together, and four of them got on it before I could move it to the corner and secure it to the floor and wall. Since then, the big kitties have been lounging on and off on the play structure. I ordered hammocks, so next week I’ll be installing new hammocks.
All the parts. Silver beating up on a toilet paper roll. That’s a story for another post.
The instructions had me assemble the cat houses first.
Sasha helping out.
Spunk checking out Sasha checking out a cat house.
Marble went straight for a higher platform and started playing with her tail on it.
Spunk
Silver & Spunk
Marble, Silver, Spunk, and Sasha
Loki
Gwendolyn
Gwendolyn
The Kittens on the structure in its place in the bedroom. It replaced my nightstand.
Gwendolyn and Glenda
The big kitties’ play structure in its corner of the dance room.
Sasha is satisfied.
Silver admiring the Organic White Sweet Spunk.
It took Spunk only about *three days to return to his “catankerous” self and his normal routine of pacing around the house at all hours and killing his tails. Although, instead of placing his tails on the counter to protective all of us, he is taking them to the couch where he is sleeping to protect himself. After his three-week ordeal in a parallel cataverse, or kitty purgatory if you like, he feels like he needs to keep all the kitty tail protection for himself.
To celebrate Spunk’s Zero to Spunk in 3D*, I’m posting a parody of Candy by Iggy Pop with Kate Pierson called Kitty.
Kitty
Teagan Riordain Geneviene of Teagan’s Books came up with the idea of making the parody of Candy. She sent me the idea for the parody with the lyrics for Kitty’s part (Kate Pierson’s part) and the duet with Iggy and Kate at the end. Teagan asked me to write lyrics for Iggy’s part in the bigging of the song. I had not heard Candy before, so I looked it up, listened to it, and wrote the intro lyrics based on Teagan’s prompts. I processed the music and then learned Iggy’s parts the best I could. It turned out to be a difficult song, but I finally got it to work. I recorded my part of the parody and sent the music file to Teagan. Teagan has a beautiful voice, however, she discovered that Kate’s part was out of her range, and with all the other stuff she had on her plate, she could not work in the time to record Kitty’s part and get it to her liking.
I understood completely. However, Teagan’s idea for the parody was brilliant, our lyrics were excellent, and I didn’t want to let a really good parody go to waste. Suzette Presti, who is a professional singer, was gracious enough to take up the challenge of singing Kitty’s part. I sent her a recording with the music and my vocals, she recorded Kitty’s parts and sent me her recording. I mixed her vocals and my vocals with the music and whallah! Like a musical Frankenstein, Teagan’s wonderful idea for a parody came to life. Enjoy!
Spunk still radiating a blue aura after slipping through a tear in the space-time continuum to get back home.
Spunk’s recollection of his disappearance is that he fell into one of the many wormholes on the property and slipped into a parallel cataverse, like so many other things that have mysteriously disappeared around here. He said he believes he was in the same location, but everything was different. A snow-covered, plowed field was where our house is now. There were other buildings by the cottonwoods, but the only structure he recognized was the “chicken shed”. He said some of the cottonwoods looked similar but smaller and there were trees he didn’t recognize. He said when he stood in the field where our house should have been, he could hear us calling him but he couldn’t find how to get back to us. The days turned into a week and then another week. He caught a few mice and stayed in the chicken shed for some protection from the cold nights. On Monday he said he heard a cacophony of voices, hundreds of voices calling his name “Come home Spunk! Come home Spunk!” He followed the voices and found a spot where he could slip through a tear in the space-time continuum and slipped out of the parallel cataverse he had been trapped in. After he stepped through the rip in space, he thought he might have come to yet a different parallel cataverse than the one he was looking for because the deck now had doors and it was wired in like the catio, keeping him from going up to the French doors on the sunroom. But then Laurie came out and collected him and he knew he had made it back to the proper cataverse.
I called to make an appointment with the vet to have Spunk checked out and they had an appointment available today. Since Spunk was sneezing and acting a little dumpy, I figured I should go ahead and take him in at the first available appointment. I drove home from work, collected Spunk, and surprisingly, he only meowed a lot on the way to the vet, instead of is usual “get me out of the crate!” maniacal behavior he goes into while driving to the vet. I dropped him off and went back to work. He got tested, examed by a young, pretty veterinarian, and he got attention from cute veterinary assistants, so on the way home he acted like his normal maniacal self in the crate meowing, clawing, and rolling around like an alligator trying to drown its prey. It was a long drive home with all the stupid drivers really annoying me given I had a wild cat trying his darndest to break out of the carrier so he could make me crash the car. We finally made it home where I had to bless him multiple times and give him a lot of extra attention for what he thought amounted to cat abuse for taking him back home after being in kitty heaven among all those beautiful women at the veterinary clinic.
All the tests came back normal. He has a slight kitty cold. The vet thinks it’s viral so we will just keep an eye on him. But he does not have a fatty liver or other maladies that can result from going weeks without food or water. The vet noted he had lost “a little weight” but was now about the weight he should be. All our fat cats noted that Spunk being a fat cat himself before he disappeared served him well during his time trapped in a parallel cataverse with little or no real food and water.
Spunk, Laurie and I thank all of you for sending out your hundreds of calls for Spunk to come home that led him to the tear in the space-time continuum that allowed him to slip back into the proper caterverse.
The way Spunk described the property while he was in the parallel caterverse. Our property circa 1958. The chicken shed, which is the only building left standing, is on the right. You might notice there are no towers on the Sandias. That’s an outhouse and goat shed on the left under Resa’s tree.
Silver making what he said is a wormhole between his paws and legs. Silver thinks Spunk is full of kitty malarky.
Spunk happy to be home snuggling on me.
Spunk heard everyone’s calls telling him to come home. He showed up at around 12:40 this afternoon after being gone for almost three weeks. Laurie texted me a photo of Spunk and called me at 12:50 with the news. All of your collective energy through prayer and positive vibes caught Spunk’s attention and helped bring him home. While he wasn’t able to hear us calling him, I didn’t think he could ignore his fans. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you to everyone for helping to bring Spunk home. Our world has started turning once again.
Spunk is thinner, but he does not seem injured or starving. So far he is eating and drinking like normal, wanting attention, and hanging around his favorite spots. I asked him where he had been and what he had been up to, but so far he’s not saying much about it. We’ll keep an eye on him and I’ll take him in for a check-up in a week or so unless something comes up that needs immediate attention. Spunk hates being put into a carrier and riding to the vet. I see no need to add to the stress with a vet visit right after he makes it back home. It was hard enough for him to come home and find the deck wired in. It’s like we had changed the locks on him.
The newly wired-in deck in panorama.
Before Spunk disappeared, we were not allowing the big cats to go out freely. Since the kittens seemed to be on the verge of figuring out the kitty door to the rest of the house, we didn’t want an open kitty door that would let them outside. I have plans to extend the catio, but since the kitties always want to be with us on the deck, I decided to wire in the deck so we can open the kitty door and they can go out and hang out on the deck, but they can’t go beyond the deck.
I added three doors where the steps to the deck are and wired in the rest of the deck. The whole time I was working on it the kitties were in the catio meowing at me to let them onto the deck and beyond. I kept telling them to hold on, I was almost done. When I finished hanging the double doors, I opened the kitty door and called at cats to come out on the deck. They came running but soon became very confused that they were wired in, separated from the great outdoors beyond the deck. They felt hoodwinked. So far Sasha is the only kitty taking advantage of access to the deck and the deck furniture. All the kitties liked lounging on the deck before it was wired in. I think Loki, Silver, and Marble are being defiant and registering the kitty complaints for being hoodwinked.
Sasha lounging on the chaise lounge.
The newly wired-in deck in super-wide-angle.
Sasha on a comfy cushion. She doesn’t feel hoodwinked. She appreciates access to the deck.
Silver: “Give me free access to the great outdoors or give me couch!”
One of the last photos of Spunk before he disappeared.
I sadly have to report that Spunk is missing. He has been gone for almost a fortnight. He had been up to his usual game of coming to the window, making Laurie interrupt her class to let him in, and then he would go through the house, back outside, walk around the house and show up at the window again. Then he didn’t show up at the window, not surprising, as he often found other things to get into. When I came home from work, he was not waiting for me as usual. He wasn’t always waiting for me, but most of the time he was there. He had disappeared for more than a day a few weeks earlier. We figured he’d found a friend at one of the neighbor’s. Spunk is a social kitty and very friendly with strangers.
The next day after he didn’t come home, I called neighbors and stopped by and asked neighbors if they had seen Spunk. None of the near neighbors remembered seeing him. I called animal control, but they had no cats recently. Since we have ended end up with cats for weeks on end that turned out to belong to neighbors several properties over we didn’t know, we are still hoping Spunk is at someone’s house and will eventually get out and come home.
You might recall the PRS (Paul Reed Smith) style guitar that I have been building for over a month? It was featured with Marble in Gata Y Blanca with a primer coat, and then again with Marble in She’s Blue with the first blue coat. Now you see the finished guitar is a Super Chief PRS. It was an experiment to see if I could get the skin of the Super Chief locomotive I used on my Train Teles, to fit on the arched and sculpted PRS style body. It worked out pretty well. The arched top really pops the Super Chief Locomotive. I used different style Zia symbols in the design and added a Zia on the headstock as well.
The music I played on it in the above video is a kind of wild but seemed fitting for as much work as the guitar was to build. It plays pretty well but is not nearly as nice as Resa’s One-Eye Guitars (The Kittens, Spunk & the Kittens Tail), Tiffany’s Tumultuous (Tumultuous Kittens), Marble’s Tele (Marble Guitar), or the Train Teles (Whats on the Tele? I have two Train Teles. One is like Marble’s Tele).
Gwendolyn
Gwendolyn & Glenda
Glenda
From Glenda & Gwendolyn
