Jake moved in with me 8/27/26

Jake moved in with me two days ago, and I have questions.

Who has had her so far?  (Sheila and Judy, that I know of.)  When was she born?  What kind of cat is she?  Why is her tail so stubby?  Does she have a chip?  (Yes.)  Who's her vet?  (I got that info from Judy.)  Sheila named her "Jake," even though she's a girl.  Judy has had Jake since Sheila died, but the office says she cannot have two pets.  Since I used to have a cat, Judy asked me if I would take Jake.  I agreed and talked to the office.  The form that I must complete has 25 sheets of paper, and the pet fee has gone up to $300.  Whew!

Now, my next question is whether Jake will want to blog on Caturdays, the way Clawdia and Kiki did.

Today is International Cat Day

Clawdia at her window, and Kiki kissing me.  They are my most recent cats, so I have photos of them online (and on the sidebar to the right).  I'm also celebrating Duchess, the gray cat I rescued from a mud puddle when she was a kitten and I was only nine years old.  And then there's Jack, the gray and white cat who lived on the mountain with us.  I don't have a photo of him to share.  Sorry.  If you have (or ever had) a cat, please share a name or something about your cat in the comments.

Mauhaus Cat Cafe

My neighbor Larry took me to Mauhaus Cat Cafe on Thursday, and this black cat seemed to be the one who was most willing to approach us to be petted.

Here's Larry taking a close-up photo of the same cat.  I simply zoomed in on any who didn't want to be close to me, but he is still using a flip phone without that feature.  This cat made a big leap onto a high walkway near the ceiling.  Do you think maybe it was showing off, hoping to go home with us?  It got our attention.

Today is National Adopt a Shelter Pet Day

Each year, National Adopt a Shelter Pet Day on April 30th raises awareness for thousands of pets that are waiting for (and needing) adoption from the shelters.

That's how I adopted Clawdia, who almost seems to be posing in this photo that I use at the top of my blog.  I like to tell people she was the purr-fect pet.  She was not the only one I got that way, but she was my most recent pet.

Word of the Day

"Purr-fect" = a play on words that combines "purr," the sound a cat makes, with "perfect."  It's a way to describe something as exceptionally good, cute, or ideal, often with a feline-related context.  The word "purr" suggests a sense of content-ment and softness, while "perfect" implies a high level of excellence. 

An Irish proverb for St. Patrick's Day

The background color is green for St. Patrick's Day,

and I loved a black cat that I named Clawdia.

So this proverb is perfect for my blog today.

I miss you, Clawdia, my little black kitty with a heart on your chest.

A quote for Caturday

"If there is one spot of sun spilling onto the floor,

a cat will find it and soak it up." — J. A. McIntosh

This is a repeat of a post from 2017, found HERE.

The Caturday quote was illustrated by my cat CLAWDIA,

who lived with me and blogged about things on CATURDAYS.

She still graces the heading above and the sidebar.

Thursday Thoughts

What happens when we die?  I ran across THIS a few days ago, and I was fascinated:  "Brain activity may prove our souls leave our bodies when we die."  Recent studies suggest that a surge of brain activity observed in clinically dead patients could potentially be interpreted as evidence of the soul leaving the body.  EEGs have detected a burst of brain activity in the brains of clinically dead patients, even after vital signs like blood pressure and heart rate have ceased.  Another way to say it is the brain's final moments of activity or the effects of the dying process itself.  Someone called it a "near-death experience."  Yeah, I know this is a speculative interpretation, but isn't it interesting?

Once again, I happened across one of my old posts with a link to WindowSwap, which linked me HERE.  Clicking from window to window all over the world is fascinating . . . and addictive.  I just kept clicking, from backyards here and there to active scenes.  I saw Cancun and Japan and different states in the USA.  I glimpsed parts of the UK and South Africa and the Punjab, India.  I saw several cats looking out windows the way Clawdia did when she lived with me (shown above), plus a few cats cleaning themselves in the window or out on the porch.

Weekly Mews for Caturday

I love this photo!  I found it HERE, and decided Caturday (the day after Friday) needs a refreshing photo of a kitty cat like this.  So this is my Caturday post with the Weekly Mews.  Hmm, do I have any catty news?  It's hard to do this without the help of either Kiki Cat or Clawdia Cat telling me what to write.  See pictures of my BFFs (Best Furry Friends) on the right sidebar.

Today's news ~ or mews ~ is that I'll talk to my friends with cats and dogs and see what's going on in their lives.  And maybe by next week I will actually have something to say from a cat's eye view of the world.  Meow for now, and . . .

Lots of advice today, plus a book on communicating

Looking through my box of greeting cards recently, I found four "advice" cards:  Advice from a Polar Bear, Advice from a Penguin, Advice from a Glacier, and Advice from a Sea Turtle.  (Hmm, the first three are rather icy, aren't they?)

Anyway, I decided to post something here about advice and decided to look for a picture online.  That's when I found "a million" things offering advice, both animate and inanimate.

My favorite was the one above from a cat.  Why?  Because it's a black cat and reminds me of Clawdia.  Oh, I just noticed my favorite word in there!  See that word "joy" near the bottom?  Cat plus joy, so naturally it must to be purr-fect advice for me.  I decided to pick some advice to share in a post.

Advice from 

I like "2B or not 2B" on this #2 pencil, so I'll start here.

• Advice from a Pencil ~ know when to draw the line
• Advice from a Bicycle ~ know when to put the brakes on.
• Advice from a Polar Bear ~ keep it cool.
• Advice from a Pumpkin ~ be well-rounded.
• Advice from a Cardinal ~ it's okay to be a little flashy.
• Advice from a Tree ~ remember your roots.

Oh, I like this tree's advice, so here's the whole picture:

The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts   by Gary Chapman, 2010, communication, 263 pages.    Marriage should be based on love, but does it seem as though you and your spouse are speaking two different languages?  Here's how to identify, understand, and speak your spouse's primary love language:  quality time, words of affirmation, gifts, acts of service, or physical touch.  Discover your unique love language and learn practical steps in truly loving each other.  Each chapter ends with specific, simple steps to express a specific language and guide your marriage in the right direction.

Deb at Readerbuzz hosts the Sunday Salon

Every act of kindness makes a difference

 

I have these words hanging on a small plaque from the box beside my door.  I have been thinking of an act of kindness that's been nudging me for days now:  Clawdia is in kidney failure and losing weight.  She is much thinner now than in the photo below, with her ribs sticking out on each side, so I indulge her when she 

asks to get out of our apartment.  One day she wanted to go for a walk in the hall, so I made four loops to the end of our hallway and back, twice adding the elevator area to our trek.  I'd made a note of how many steps I'd already taken so far that day before we went out the door.  When I checked the number of steps after our walk, I was startled to see I had taken exactly 1,000.  Exactly!  The act of kindness I'm considering?  Euthanasia.

* FYI:  Clawdia died this afternoon, shortly after 3:30 pm.

Today is National Black Cat Appreciation Day

National Black Cat Appreciation Day is August 17th.

That's today!  Clawdia, I appreciate you!

FACTS

• Black cats are about half as likely to be adopted as other cats.
• There are actually 22 cat breeds that have solid black coats.
• Clawdia is not solid black, since she has a white spot under her chin.  See it there in the top photo?

My little Clawdia is getting smaller

Clawdia asleep, the day after I learned that she is suffering from renal (kidney) failure and losing weight.  Now she needs to eat special food that costs about three times as much as the regular cat food.  This diagnosis also explains why she has become a lap cat, wanting to be petted and held:  she's feeling miserable.  She now weighs a bit less than she did when I got her, when she was very underweight and looked emaciated.

This is a sad TWOsday, since the second person in our household of TWO is not well.

Is it hot enough for you?

The Washington Post reported that scientists say we are living through earth's hottest month on record.  I read that the heat wave has put over half of U.S. population under heat alerts  The heat seems to be all that's on people's minds right now.

My friend Nancy called from Pennsylvania, and we talked for at least an hour and a half, until I had to leave to hurry to a music program I'd signed up for.  I lived with Nancy and her husband and their children for part of the time we were studying for our Master's degrees at Emory University (on the right), so our friendship goes back to the 1980s, almost four decades now.

Earlier that day, I had lunch in the Café with my friend Sue, who is also Clawdia's friend.  I shared three DASH Diet books with her.

A cat, a book, and a couple of quotes

Clawdia

Today is Clawdia's Gotcha Day, as I posted on Caturday, you know, yesterday, the day before Sunday.

Man’s Fate ~ by André Malraux, translated by Haakon M. Chevalier, 1934, fiction, 338 pages

Man's Fate (French: La Condition Humaine or The Human Condition) is a 1933 novel about the failed communist insurrection in Shanghai in 1927 and the existential quandaries facing a diverse group of people associated with the revolution."

First quote

Former news anchor Dan Harris (NPR on July 16, 2023):  "One of my favorite descriptions of Buddhism is that it's not a thing to believe in; it's a thing to do."  The headline says that he is at the center of the mindfulness movement.  Click HERE to read the whole story.

Second quote

I think that is also what Jesus intended.  He never said, "Worship me."  Rather, he told us to love one another as he loved us (actually, as he had shown love to people around him).  It's a thing to do, not a thing to believe in.  Here's the New Revised Standard Version of John 13:34, supposedly a direct quote of what people remembered that he said:

"I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.  Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another."

Deb Nance at Readerbuzz

hosts The Sunday Salon.

Clawdia's Gotcha Day

Tomorrow is Clawdia's Gotcha Day.  She came to live with me in 2015, when the vet estimated she was about six years old.  In human years, that makes her now in her 70s and fast catching up with me.  In this photo, she was a scrawny 6 pounds 1 ounce.  Even now, she weighs only about 8 pounds.  She has a vet appointment to have her teeth cleaned coming up in August, so she won't happy not getting breakfast that morning.

Another book to muse about ~ and a cat like mine

Matters of Life and Death ~ by John B. Cobb, Jr., 1991, ethics, 122 pages

Using a bioethical approach, Cobb tackles some of the most controversial issues facing society today — something other writers have often failed to do in the past.  His four major topics are animal well-being, death with dignity, the moral status of the fetus, and sexual activity outside of marriage.  As you can see on the cover, he includes chapters on the right to kill, the right to die, the right to live, and the right to love.

In Ghost in the Garden by Carol H. Behrman (1984), which I rated 10/10, I came across a passage that made me stop and think of how it describes my cat almost exactly, except for the eyes:  "The kitten was coal-black except for a snowy white patch on its chest.  It had almond-shaped, glittering blue-green eyes, and its shiny black fur was softer than silk" (p. 35).  Clawdia's eyes are definitely yellow, sometimes shading towards green.

The Thinker musing about something

Caturday

Wait, what?!?  A cat in a vending machine?

No, no, no, Clawdia does NOT approve.

Lapcat Clawdia

I now have visual proof that Clawdia has become a lapcat.  She was happily sitting in my lap with her paws on the arm of the loveseat, and I was able to reach my camera and aim it at us.  The cushion behind my shoulder is indented where she likes to sleep during the day.

Wednesday Words

Clawdia has become a lap cat!  This is the cat who has always hated to be picked up or held.  But now she will sit on the keyboard of my laptop, if necessary, just to be in my lap!  I think that means this move into a new apartment has been just as hard on her as it has been on me.  She's also elderly, you know — in cat years.

Word of the Day

lap cat = a type of cat that enjoys sitting in a person's lap and being petted.  They are often quite affectionate and enjoy spending time snuggling with their owner.  (It can also be one word = lapcat.)

By the way, although it looks a lot like her, the cat in the photo is not Clawdia, who has a white spot under her chin.

Clawdia makes this a Caturday post on Sunday

"Go exploring around your local area, and notice new things."  That's today's Action for Happiness suggestion.  Clawdia was "exploring" our neighborhood visually when I took this photo in 2020.  I hope to get out there today, but she balks when I try to put a collar and leash on her.  So an open window may have to suffice for Miss Clawdia Cat.

Four Fantastic Surprise Endings for Children 3-5 ~ by Scott Gordon, 2015, children's stories, 176 pages, 3/10

1. Little Chickadee = After months of loneliness, a little chickadee realizes that he misses someone in particular.  He writes constantly and waits for her return, but time slowly trickles by with no end in sight.  There's something he's been meaning to tell her — something very, very special.  Will he get the chance?
2. Who Wants to Be a Robot? = The off-world planet of Infinim, which promises a heavenly and eternal existence for its society of robots, is now taking applications.  Although one of its applicants is older and not quite as quick as he used to be, does he have what it takes to be accepted?  Figure out who he is before the story's end in this clever children's book.
3. Froggy Dearest = One fine day, you come across the frog of your dreams.  Soft spoken and ever courteous, you've never met a creature quite so charming.  But tread carefully, for this frog has quite a secret to share!
4. Eggtastic = Spring is just around the corner and it's time to see what the Easter Bunny is up to.  This year he's enlisted some help, and it's an odd choice at that.  What is that clever rabbit up to, and what is he really planning?  Find out in this humorous picture book.

These books are definitely NOT "for Children 3-5 years old."  Preschoolers would have no clue what you're talking about, for example, in Who Wants to Be a Robot? where the robot talks about sending mail "via intergalactic express mail which moves at the speed of light, or 299,792,458 meters per second" (p. 137).  Then the robot asks for the resulting number when "the letter's mass is converted into energy."  It seems the "applicant" (who desires to be a robot) has "recently awoken from cryogenic sleep."  The next page (p. 146) shows an old man with Einstein's face, followed by e=mc2 and a dedication of the book to Albert Einstein.  Amazon is selling this book for "Reading Age 3-5 years."  How many people have bought it thinking it's for children?  Shame, Amazon!  Look at the actual book, and ignore the stupid title!  "About the Author" (p. 148) says he's "the author of over 100 children's books."  I wonder how many are actually for children.

I do have a favorite quote from Who Wants to Be a Robot?

"...creativity and originality are our greatest assets, and humans have them in abundance" (p. 150). 

Deb Nance at Readerbuzz hosts The Sunday Salon,

and Clawdia makes this (a belated) Caturday post on Sunday.