FOOD-FIGHTS 101; ETHICS 101; CAT-FIGHT 101

Mom always calls me her brainiac, so let me take advantage of that for a moment.

We are in the middle of the fray of a furry contentious issue here in Catsterland. I don’t need to point out what it is—by now you all know.

You may not like it, but both sides have equally valid points to make.

THE GOLDEN RULE: THOU SHALT NOT BITE THE HAND THAT FEEDS YOU.
And, we will say this to all sides in this cat fight.

At one point in time and hopefully never again, the food may have been no good, and perhaps the cats producing it acted unethically or unnecessarily slowly to fix the problem … We don’t mean to imply that we would always turn the other cheek… but let’s move on ….

Let’s look at that hand that feeds us.

We all live and play in a wonderful place called Catsterland. For the most part, we really like being here, if not it wouldn’t matter to us. Why get into a cat fight when you could just stake out new turf?

This is a great place to play with each other and to support each other in times of need. It’s a place for our pawrents to make new friends as well.

But it’s so much more than that. Where else could we go to for advice on all the everyday issues that come up? We have access to news, to each other, to veterinarians and sound medical and behavioral advice. There is a treasure trove of valuable things we get here that all the money in the world can’t buy. Or certainly, there is not any one of us that could buy all of this out of our own funding if we had to do it privately. Not even the Plus accounts.

In economic terms, that’s called a positive externality. That’s the stuff we get without having to pay for it directly. It kind of works like: part of my tax money goes into buying stuff like highways or street lights, or, perhaps, a policeman’s salary. By extension, another positive externality is the internet. We have paid no one directly, but because someone did pay, we all enjoy this amazing technology. But nothing is perfect. Not even a democracy.

In return for the protection of government and the enjoyment of things like information and fine parks to play in and the like, we are asked to sign on to (obey, if you will) a certain set of rules. That’s called a social contract. It is a contract by which we implicitly agree to give up some of our cat-given ‘inalienable’ rights for the common good of effuryone.

Let’s look at democracy for a moment. You always hear someone bellyache “it’s a free country”. What does that mean? That we can say and do anything we want without regard for who it hurts? Of course not!

Let’s take a look at our First Amendment rights:

Can I state my opinion—certainly. In what way?

May I yell fire in a crowded movie theatre and cause a stampede?

May I incite a crowd to riot?

May I bad-mouth someone in giving an employer reference causing him to never be employed again? He could rightly sue me for libel and character defamation.

May I blacklist that cat? That has overtones of the McCarthy era. Do we really want to go back there?

And, moving on to the Second Amendment: Do we have the right to bear arms without license?

ON THE OTHER HAND, OH GREAT PROVIDER

You have provided for us well; but the reason we are here in such force is because you have provided. And the reasons those who feed you—and by extension, feed us—are here is because we are here.


LET US ALL, PLEASE, CUR-TAIL, HOW FAR WE WANT TO TAKE THIS.

Headbonks….

Colette

Pet Health & Safety Widget from the FDA

We don’t mean to be copycats. Nuk put up a Pet Health & Safety widget from the US Food & Drug Administration on his page earlier today. Clicking on the widget links you directly to the FDA web site and important information to keep us all well and safe.

We thought that this was so important that efurryone should have one of these widgets on their page, so we put one on my page too.

Here is the FDA address to get the code for the Widget so you can add it to your page:

http://www.fda.gov/AnimalVeterinary/ResourcesforYou /ucm192894.htm

Thank you, Nuk. This will go a long way towards keeping us all safe.


Purrs & Headbonks…

Colette

Gifts 101

In case you haven’t seen it yet. We’ve got a pretty new gift that we can give each other. It’s a heart with a kitty in it. (Who am I kidding--you haven't seen it yet! My page is covered in them!) But you might not know that it's for free just like the dogs have the big paws gifts.

A number of our friends started giving them to us so we wanted to reciprocate. For a smart lady Mom can sometimes be a real dork.

Okay. Mom’s way of gifting – the hard way. STUPID!

Click on your friend’s page and find out that they have a kazillion family members. Click back and forth to get to each member of the family and click on the gift button on each page. Click over to their doggy family member (even if you have a guest account for those of us with no dogs in the family) and find out that you can’t give either the kitty gift or the big paw ‘cause you need to have a family member on the web site. And sit there for half the afternoon making sure that each family member has our undivided attention.


COLETTE’S WAY OF GIFTING – LET THERE BE LIGHT and let you see it before the day is out.

Open two tabs in your browser.

The first tab is for your friend. The second tab is for the family page.

Open the second tab first and bring up the family page. Put your mouse cursor over the name of the first family member's name and right click the mouse button, select “Copy Shortcut”.

Click on the first browser tab. Place your mouse cursor over the address bar of your browser and right click the mouse button and select paste. Enter.

When your friend’s page comes up, click on the gift button. Select your gift as usual. Click on the Add/Edit Recipients button. Without closing the first tab, go back to the second tab and put your mouse cursor over the second family member name and right click the mouse, select “Copy Shortcut”.

Click the first tab again. In the Add/Edit box, there’s a space for you to paste the shortcut, “Add a Recipient Manually”. Place your mouse cursor over the box and right click on the mouse and select “paste”. The address of the family member will be pasted into that box. Click the Add button. You will see the picture of the newly added family member in the recipients’ box.

Keep going back and forth between tabs until you can see all of the family members you want to gift. Then click the “Continue” button and finish giving the gift the way you normally would. You can even leave a kitty gift on a doggy page that way.

Pop quiz tomorrow, Mom.

Headbonks…

New Food

It's been 3 days now that Mom started mixing Natural Balance Venison and Green Pea Formula into my wet food.

We have our paws crossed--there's some fish oil listed in the ingredients, but so far, so good. My poops started getting better before the new food and they've continued to get better.

I like the food so I'm hoping that I can keep eating it. Samsara likes it too :~{

I was a bit too slow eating tonight, but, hey. What am I going to do with her? I didn't want to bop her (and I really didn't). She kept shoving my head to the side so that I couldn't finish it by myself. My bowl got a bit too squeaky clean too quickly.

Headbonks...

She’s Such a Brat!!

I’m ‘sposed to go first for my brushies every morning! (Oh? Says who?)
She’s such a brat! Samsara knows I’m gonna jump off the toilet seat when she stands under me. And then you’ve got the nerve to brush her first!!!!
Maaa…. Do something!

Pfft…

Vampire Lady Says I'm Normal

We got a call from the Vampire Lady (vet) this afternoon.

She says my thyroid levels came in at 2.1: completely normal. Yay.

The vampire lady was amazed when Mom reminded her that this was my first follow-up evaluation after sleep-away camp. The next one happens 2 months from now.

My poops are still no good. Mom is supposed to watch them for the next 2 days and if they don't get better I'm getting another round of Metronidazole to jump-start the healing. Mom and the vampire lady also discussed moving me on to Natural Balance Venison-Green Pea Formula.

Purring for good poops. I hate medicine!

Headbonks...

Help! They've Submitted Parts of Me to Medical Science- Again. : ~ {

Mom ruined my day. As if it didn't start out bad enough.

Yeow, man. The first thing I know Marrakech crept up while our backs were turned and let out a yowl. Marrakech thinks it's funny; she does that pretty often.

Mom jumped. So did I, but all four of my paws went skidding around that slippery linoleum floor and I almost hit the ground sideways with my legs still pumping. I could hear peals of laugher still coming from the kitchen. They called me a drama queen! I don't think I'm a drama queen, sheesh!

And my poops were bad today and it's already been a month since I came back from sleep away camp. Can you believe it!!!

The next thing I know, I'm going backwards into that ###!! Sherpa bag. Well, I showed that lady doctor--almost--I hissed at her. It didn't work :~{

I swear, she's like a vampire. All she ever wants is my blood. Mom forgot to bring my poop with us--if she thinks I'm going back to make another donation...

Then I heard Mom talking to the doctor about that endocrine replacement therapy book she's been reading. Hey... that's long-term treatment. I DON'WANNA.... The doctor said she would read the book, but cautioned Mom that there's no such thing as a 'magic bullet'. Mom said we'd talk about that more after the doctor reviews it.

And then when we got home ... and then... Mom gave Marrakesh fishies and I didn't get any!!

Okay, so Samsara got her Pounce treats and I got my Turkey (yay).

I think I'm going to take an extra-long nap now. Yawn.

Headbonks...

We are the Cat. We are Effurywhere.

We girls have made sure to keep Mom busy today. No Mom, we weren’t conspiring against you. We are the cat, we are effurywhere.

If you haven’t seen it already, Marrakech started out the day really well. She had trouble breathing, so she’s gone to sleep-over camp for the night. Mom had to re-arrange her plans for today. By the way, Mom says thank you to effurryone for all the kind wishes and purresents for Marrakech. She’ll thank effurybody purrsonally later.

One of those plans was supposed to involve hauling out the vacuum monster. I wouldn’t have missed it, but she says she needed to do it. This time the mop and bucket came out too. And that vacuum monster and mop were busy for most of the afternoon.

Mom says she’s singing at a cab-a-ray tomorrow night. Whenefurr that happens she usually puts on a floor-length dress and brings out a lot of shiny things to hang on herself when she puts the dress on. I think her lavender-taupe satin dress would look rather pretty with a beige kitty fur boa at the bottom, don’t you think so? I like snakes.

Giggles. No sooner had Mom finished vacuuming and mopping the kitchen and the dining room, than I got to watch her call Samsara by every name other than her own. (All polite names, mind you.) She called her Colette, Marrakech, Misha, Samantha—then she stopped and told her that the next kitty she adopted was going to have a middle name so she could use it. Huh? The only thing Samsara did was bring some sticky kibble out to the rug to leave it there for later. She always does that, what was the big deal?

Then Mom started to wrap purresents for her coach and purrformance director. I purr without a formance director! Anyway, I love purresents, especially the bags. Mom got called away from that in the middle. I tried to help wrap but I got into a bit of a tight squeeze with that. I hope the purrformance director likes crinkly shopping bags. Samsara and I got into a tight squeeze a little later on too. Note to self: two kitties walking shoulder-to-shoulder do not fit through small spaces together. Giggles.

In fact, Samsara and I did a lot together tonight. She didn’t want to finish her supper so Mom put it away. Lucky me! Samsara helped me finish my supper tonight. Sisfurrly love: two little heads bent over the same supper dish. See Ma, my bowl is squeaky clean now.

We girls are effurywhere. The last time Mom walked into the bedroom I heard her saying something about my tumbleweed being on the floor.

And the last time I heard Mom grumble she was saying something about slopping new nail polish over her old man-ee-cure.

NO TUNA~~NO TUNA

I had blood in my plops again. Mom stopped the tuna. My poops are getting better again.

We tried. We now know that my allergy tests had a false negative when it came to fish.

On a brighter note, my new Auntie Paula took Mom to Whiskers store in Manhattan and Mom bought me some Whole Life Turkey Treats. The only thing that's in them is freeze-dried turkey meat.

Mom says I almost took her fingers off to get them. And I honored Mom by eating everything in my supper dish after I had them.

They're going to have to be an extra-special treat because she had to trade 7 green pieces of paper for one ounce of them. I'm worth it, right? Bring them on! I want, I want, I want...

Thank you, Auntie Paula.

Purrs & headbonks...

Mom's Musings

My tired secretary (Mom) took the night off, but she handed me this sheet to read to all of you. It’s called Mom’s Musings. I don’t understand half of what she’s saying, but she says you will.

Purrs & headbonks…

1. I wonder how many collective hours we have all spent on Catster. Purportedly in our pets’ interests, we show off their beauty, recount real events and discuss their issues (medical and behavioral)--all the while, of course, ignoring them. Perhaps we dump one out of our laps—our legs have become stiff from an overly long nap. Or we push their inquisitive paws away from the keyboard. Can’t you see your page up on my computer! What do you mean I’m not paying attention to you! Ironic isn’t it.

2. If cats could talk what would they really say to us? We ascribe all sorts of personalities to them depending on their natures and our perceptions of them. Our cats here on Catster—a microcosm mirroring our own society—run the gamut from wise old sage to village idiot, depending on whom we think they are, and where along the continuum we are ourselves. Ironic isn’t it.

3. On a more personal level, again the irony. When Colette’s human cousins were little, their human Mom would recount, ad nauseum, exactly what each of her proud offspring ate on any given day. Colette’s human Mom, who never had human children, never envisioned doing the same thing on a daily basis: discussing what Colette ate and every poo and pee she ever took! And, all of you, instead of rolling your eyes in amazement and disgust, rally around to cheer her on her first rope, not a plop, mind you! Thank you.

4. Where would we be without you? I wonder. Even though Colette’s health has a long way to go, she would be nowhere near where she is now without the love and caring that each of you has given us. We love our furriends on Catster!