The Chairman is most stressed out because the comment section was broken on his Waxing Poetic entry (previous entry). Purrs to those of you who emailed us directly to let us know. It helped cheer up The Chairman.
I'm going to leave a comment for him now to cheer him up.
After the previous post from the Kreatrix wherein she describes her love of cats, I said to her
"Wow, that was verbose and rather romantic".
She replied
"You mean I was waxing poetic?"
Huh?
Why would you ever want to use furniture polish on a poem?
I guess I was a little envious, so today I am going to wax a poem about my gang. Here goes:
"Oh most wonderful, adorable tufts of fur in our ears and above our eyes."
"Oh, real life cats that have a pink, shriveled dot under their tail and we have a pretty little flower under ours. BOOYAH!"
"Oh, how we DON'T shed, as evidenced by this photo I took yesterday."
By the by, the photo above caused a curious reaction from the Kreatrix. I thought she'd be impressed with the improvement in my photo skills.
Suddenly she's waxing proper things like the furniture and she's even vacuuming dirt off the walls. I sense she might be upset.
She stopped working long enough to take this waxy photo of Dude and I. She helped get us in place.
I was slow to catch on with Dude's tail. In fact, I didn't until Dude pointed out what a gifted "Tom" he was.
"Oh, Kreatrix. We doth protest your sense of humor being displayed as such. "
Clearly a redesign on our tails is in order.
Seeing as the Kreatrix' back injury has been miraculously cured, perhaps we can return TO MY CAR??? And my cool vintage iMac? Ya think??????
That is the question I am frequently asked. Why design cat fabric? Why cat dolls? Why cat cartoons? What's the deal with cats?
"Because I lie next to them and think 'Oh, you are so beautiful!'
To me, they're magical and heartbreaking and mysterious and loyal - yes loyal. They're athletic and funny and purr and cuddle. I look at them and my heart warms.
"What could I possibly do to make you better? I can't."
The quotes above could have come from me but they come from a man named Kevin Richardson, also known as The Lion Whisperer. If you love cats, you'll recognize yourself in his words.
This is my cat Rudy.
He had a rough start in life and we adopted him at 18 months of age after he was turned out of his home. He has freckles on his lips and long silky tufts of fur sprouting from between his toes.
We call him Bloomer Boy because when he darts out ahead of us in an excited, full-throttle run, he looks like he's wearing baggy bloomers. It delights me. Every. Time. When I have a moment like that, when I get out of my head and my heart smiles and I feel love for this creature, how can it be anything other than perfect and a gift?
Below is an incredible video featuring The Lion Whisperer. If you're short on time, try to watch the first 3-5 minutes. Other than a few minutes of time he spends with hyenas, the video is all about lions.
A few minutes spent warming your heart will do you good!
Richardson will admit he has been clawed and bitten often. It is the nature of lions to scratch each other and they regard Richardson no differently. He is not dissuaded by these dangers. In an interview, he mentions,
"Obviously one realizes the danger when working with animals of this caliber, I've weighed the pros and the cons, and the pros far outweigh the cons."
He warns about following in his footsteps, however. All the pictures of his adventures do not portray his years of experience and bonding.
"People like to take things out of context. They don't know the relationship I have with this lion."
As a rule, Richardson only interacts with lions he has been with since their birth. He also differentiates his work from those of zoologists interacting with completely wild animals they have not raised, or that of trainers whose animals are required to perform on stage day after day.
Richardson hopes the media attention of his movies will raise public awareness and educate them on the need to protect and conserve Africa's animals.
NOTE: Facts researched via Wikipedia.org and their excellent detail to footnotes and linking to articles!
For more information on Kevin Richardson and his cause, please visit:
WARNING: GPS REQUIRED FOR FOR THE KREATRIXKreatrix and I are going insane. She has been swallowed up by her computer. See:
She's spending massive hours on marketing courses and social networking lectures and spending NO time, zippo, nada on my minions for World Domination.
The only way I can talk to her is by calling her on the phone.
I've been planning out our upcoming posts. And now my competition, CLIENTS, are calling begging for her attention.
And then I find her reading this:
We have dual pane windows, people! What could possibly be so noisy in our world?
So then she tells me it's a metaphor for how crowded the internet is and how distracted people are nowadays.
"We've got to be able to find our tribe so that we can have fun together here at Catberry Tails."
Huh? Seriously. Huh? Talking cat dolls and Magnificats aren't a big enough draw?
"No. We've got a lot more work to do so we can build an online community."
So then she tells me she may only be able to blog twice a week for a short time. She is going on a very brave journey inside the internet to personally find our tribe and bring them back here!
My reaction?
Then she gave me an assignment.
"We need business cards and revisions to our blog. Plus we need to make a lot of dolls and learn how to do Ecards."
I'm making a large donation to the curse jar in anticipation of rough times ahead.
The pressure of her back being thrown out and carried off by the garbage truck has just been too much!
Remember meeting Opie the Magnificat the other day?
Well get a load of this:
Uh-huh. Kreatrix was sitting with a heating pad on her back and sticking pins into this cat head.
Now correct me if I'm wrong, but is that, or is it not, a WINE BOTTLE? And the little kitty's head is just jammed on it with pins sticking out. I...I...I ask you, is this right?
...oh lord, here she comes. Gotta go.
Kreatrix here. I've just read the above and am going to post it as is. I see I need to have a discussion with The Chairman and explain a bit about how I make the Magnificats. Sorry he had to see the head on the wine bottle but a wine bottle is actually good to use for two reasons:
The Chairman just hollered from the back room:
"Soft-sculptured cat doll! Soft sculptured cat doll!"
Apparently those are our intended keywords for our lovely neighbors the search engine spiderbots who will be dining upon our content after I've posted this. And if you're confused about spiderbots and what they mean to us at Catberry Tails, please go here.
Thank you for spending a few moments with us!
"Hellooooooo. Kreatrix? Are you in there?"
Ginger and I are reporting to you from the Kreatrix' giant cat bed. We're staring at her right now but her eyes are closed.
I almost don't recognize her from this angle. She's usually standing and VERY tall. She appears to be resting comfortably with some assistance from a cool little bottle next to her cat bed.
This morning she was taking down the weird tree thing you humans put in your houses this time of year and then she screams this:
"AHHHHH! OH CREATOR OF THE UNIVERSE! OH COW DUNG! OH STEAMING PILE OF HORSE POOH. OH, OH..."
I don't know the meaning of the word she said next or I would have put in a suitable family-friendly substitute for it too. Of course, I immediately thought of this:
Yup. The curse jar. But I'm assuming this would not be a good idea at this particular moment. The pain is still too fresh. All in good time.
Anywho, she grabbed her back and limped to the bedroom where she has remained.
I'm trying to understand why you humans would ever want to throw out something as useful as the human back. Is there a special bin you put it in for recycling?
Now, instead of working with her on my car or world domination or my cool vintage imac thing, I must stay here and try to figure out how to get her back out of the garbage can.
I'm gonna wake her.
"HiYA! HOW'S YOUS DOIN' THERE KIDDO?"
But soft! She stirs!!
"Come closer little Chairman. I think the medicine has kicked in.
I lean in. She whispers
"I'll share a trick with you from my home planet."
She holds my paws to her head and WE DO A FREAKING MIND MELD!
Wow!!
Is this really how I look? I asked the Prof (her male human). All he did was pick up the little bottle and shake it at me.
Humans. Now I'm off to go fish her back out of the garbage and google how to reattach it.
Again. More drama on the home front. Turns out I got some "interesting" family history. Sheesh.
Everything was all neat and tidy and humming along until I found this on the floor:
Melvin the-real-life-cat was carrying it around in his mouth. I asked the Kreatrix what it was and she got all weird.
I said to her:
"Lady, you are giving me a bad case of the howling fantods. Explain yourself!"
That's right. I used a FANCY WORD! Go look it up. Some of us are improving ourselves.
The CEO and Kreatrix got all whispery and gathered us together for an emergency meeting. She got two baskets out of the magic closet in her studio and set it on the floor.
We rummaged through it, the pieces all looking oddly familiar. Dude whispered what we were all thinking.
"They look like....body parts."
I was about to perform peristaltic pyrotechnics on the rug but the Kreatrix pulled me close and said very quickly:
"I had to practice building all of you, sort of trial and error, and what you see here were the first attempts. These even came before the CEO!"
So. The curtain is pulled back on the wizard, huh? I let out a little growl and exclaimed:
"And you just toss them to the cats like they were cheap little toys! Well... I never!"
The CEO gave me the stink eye and said to the Kreatrix.
"It's time."
The Kreatrix left the room and quietly returned with this spectacular cat thingy and set it on the floor.
Kreatrix looked sad and walked away. The CEO explained:
"When Opie, the real-life magnificat, went to live with the wise ones, the Kreatrix was so upset she closed herself away and built this homage to him."
Wally joined us for the story because he actually knew Opie the Magnificat!
"She was very determined to create something of beauty, just like she was with us. And beauty takes time. So suck it up little man and apologize to the Kreatrix."
I later learned that Melvin kept breaking into the closet and stealing the pieces. Maybe in 2014 I will learn not to jump to all the wrong freaking conclusions!
So here is Opie the Magnificat!
Ginger didn't seem to have much problem with all of this. Girls! She latched onto this prototype.
I said
"GinGin, it has NO EYES!" but she didn't care.
So sometimes skeletons in your closet turn out to be beautiful things and throwing howling fantods is a waste of really good energy.
All hail Opie the Magnificat!
And for your spiderbots looking for something to eat on this blog and barf up on Google, here ya go: Opie the Magnificat is a soft sculpture cat doll. That's right. A soft sculpture cat doll.
The Kreatrix kept singing those lyrics every time I grumbled about my car machine. You know, this one:
Apparently a human named Rolling Stone sang this song so I googled him. Lo and behold, this popped out at me:
It's got to be a sign!!!! Remember this:
Immediately I assumed Mr. Rolling Stone must be a genius so I figured I'd listen to him and try to work on my car machine. And while I was scrubbing it I found something.
AND GUESS WHAT?????? I GOT WHAT I NEEDED!!!
TA DA:
A Cup Holder! Awesomeness.
And since I was so excited about my car machine that comes with a cupholder, I let the Kreatrix put a traditional Happy New Year's costume on me.
Why, humans, why? Is this really necessary?
You all go and enjoy wearing your New Year's costume and we'll catch you back here on Friday.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!
Remember my Christmas wish list?
Remember this?
Well, thanks to Mr. Craigs List, I got this instead. I beg of you, why?
I called an emergency meeting with the World Domination Squad and the Kreatrix.
She tells me:
“Find your inner Einstein and use it. I know he’s in there somewhere.”
Oh, man. Why does everything have to have so many steps involved?
So I look up Einstein and here is what I found:
And this quote:
"His great intellectual achievements and originality have made the word "Einstein" synonymous with genius."
You humans really confuse me. Does this mean she’s a genius?
Personally, the little genius known as The Chairman has a bone to pick with Mr. Craigs List.
From all of us at Catberry Tails to all of you, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and have a beautiful day!
And may all spiderbots everywhere have the day off.
Ave Maria sung by David Archuleta. Video shot with an android cell phone and edited with the help of The Chairman. He kept hollering
"One tree down and three to go!!!"