Canadian blog awards

My blog didn’t make the second round, but Zoom has been shortlisted twice in the Best Blog Post category. She suggests her fans vote for the entry The Real Reason I Support the Crack Kit Program, to keep from splitting the vote. So go do it.

Here’s the voting site for round 2.

My cat

But as more of his personality reveals itself to me, I see that there are a few things about him that are kind of weird.

For example, he likes to go up on things. Like the fridge. I didn’t see him do it, so I don’t know if he jumped or climbed. Climbed I think.

Here’s a picture of Clint Eastwood up on the printer table. He’s looking for something else he can go up on.

He’s not trainable, although he’s smart enough to pretend that he is. Look, I bought this spray bottle for the sole purpose of spraying Clint Eastwood when he jumps up on the counter or the kitchen table.

Oh, he learned not to do it, but I know for a fact that he does it when I’m not looking. The only thing he really learned is that he doesn’t like being sprayed with water.

He tries to break into the bag of Iams and get himself some more food, even though there is always food in his dish. Exactly the same food. Here’s the broken-into bag of Iams.

Clint Eastwood shall not win this war of wills! Now I’m keeping the Iams in the cupboard. (Which he may be able to open. I’ll let you know how that works out.)

He’s bipolar. But all cats are.

The bipolar nature of cats

If they were human beings, they’d be insane.

This bipolar behaviour is most evident at night. I don’t really mind if Clint Eastwood wants to sleep on my bed, especially if he’ll mostly stay down at the bottom. And he can just quietly snuggle up if he wants to. I probably wouldn’t even wake up. But the reality of Clint Eastwood’s nighttime habits is quite different.

He amuses himself for most of the night by racing from room to room and jumping up on things, which is fine because I’m asleep anyway. But three or four times a night he decides he needs a little “affection.” Then he comes in and plants himself by my face or on my back and shouts loudly at me until I wake up and stroke him for awhile. Then he takes off again.

The first few times he did this I actually thought there was something wrong, such as his water dish being empty or little Timmy falling in the well. But there is nothing wrong except for his insane need for “affection.”

The reason I always put “affection” in quotes when I’m writing about cats is because I don’t think cats are affectionate at all. Not in the sense of actually liking us. I just think we’ve bred them to be emotionally needy and unreasonably sensual, so that they crave having our huge hands stroking their furry backs and ruzzling their knobby little ears several times a day.

I think they’re actually a little embarrassed about this situation, but there’s nothing they can do about it. That’s why they get so aloof when they’re not carrying on like a bunch of attention-seeking contact junkies.

The end

Even when I do, it’s just this chatty kind of writing that is really more like talking. This is how most people write on blogs, because most people aren’t really writers.

You have no idea how relaxing it is for me to post an entry that is just a picture. And just ONE picture! I can do that with my eyes shut. That’s what they do at photoblogs, so I guess this has become one. For now anyway.

Maybe I’ll put up a picture later on. I’ll got zillions of them. Most of them are of ice and leaves. And garbage. But I like them :)

Now go vote for zoom. She’s a writer.