Cat Exclusion Zone

This is Cleo. As you can see, Cleo is a cat. I "found" Cleo when I was looking for Cornelius, who just vanished without a trace. I put up "lost cat" signs with a picture of Cornelius all over the place. So someone calls me one night to say the cat is in their back yard, which was only a few houses over. So I go over there and it was not Cornelius, it was Cleo. Cornelius was described as "neutered male cat, about 1 year old, 10 pounds". The cat they saw was a scrawny little sickly kitten. Not male, not neutered, and nowhere near 10 pounds.

But the scrawny sickly looking little half wild kitten needed a place to hang out. And food. So I brought it in and gave it food and tamed it and took it to the vet and so on. So Cleo is still here.

And on the table. The photo is proof of that. Cleo is not supposed to get on the table. But she does not seem to care about what she is supposed to do. She just gets up there and looks at you. As if to say "yea I am on the table - got a problem with that??". She did not even move as I reached for the camera, which was right next to her.

She just wanted to share some of my food. But when she is eating I am not allowed to share any of her food. Neither are any other cats. I did not give her any of my food. It was my food. And I was hungry.

I have squirt bottles, but they are currently empty. I cleaned them out with a little bleach and forgot to refill them. I use the squirt bottles to establish a cat free zone. It works for as long as there is water in the bottles.

Now I know what you are thinking. You are saying "I would not allow my cat on the table" or "my cat never gets on the table".

Oh really? If you are thinking that, I have news for you. Your cat is smarter than you are. Look at the facts. Who is the one who works? Who is the one who buys the food? Who is the one who puts up with traffic and a boss and coworkers you may not even like? Who is the one on a handful of pills because of hypertension, high blood pressure, and who knows what else?

And who is the one that spends the day lounging around, sleeping most of the time?

Yea - I thought so.

Anyhow I have news for you. If you have a cat, and it goes in the house - it is on the table. You may not ever see the cat on the table, but when you are not looking guess what? Cat is on the table. And do not think a "scarecat" will work. I tried that. The cat quickly figured out the full color life size cardboard cutout of me was fake. It was used as a cat scratching post.

Anyhow I gave up. I lost the "stay off the table" war. The cats had a better war strategy than me. Sure I had technology on my side. I also had a pretty much unlimited war budget. I could have any weapons system I wanted. Squirt bottles hanging from the ceiling (space) if I wanted to. You name it.

But I lost.

Along For The Ride

This is going to be one of those posts. I have no idea where it is going. Seriously. I got nothing.

But I am prepared! I have another Firefox window open so I can search for stuff. This could either be good or it could suck.

But first....FRED UPDATE!

As you may remember from yesterdays post, Fred the formerly fat orange cat got an infected eyelid. Or cat pink eye. Or something. I still think that one of the MANY Skipper induced cat squabbles caused the infection. Skipper's favorite cat game is called "harass the other cats". I have to admit, it is fun to watch. But I always knew that sooner or later the game would result in a visit to the vet.

Anyhow - Fred's eye is much better now. There is this goop I have to put in his eyes three times a day. Fred does not really like this too much but that is too bad. He gets the goop three times a day. Already the goop has really helped.

But then there is the other Fred issue. He had hookworms. Worms. So this means it is likely the other cats have them too. I have no idea where the hell they came from.

So I have an interesting choice. Choice 1 is to bring the other cats to the vet, resulting in another bill.

OR I can become a cat shit collector. I have to monitor the litter box, and wait for one of the cats who is not Fred to shit. Then collect it. Then take the shit in a bag to the vet, where I can have someone look at the shit under a microscope for signs of worms.

Or come to think of it - I have a microscope! I got it decades ago. It is a decent one - not one of those toy microscopes. I got it at a used medical supply place. Gross huh - used medical supplies? Anyway it is similar to the optical microscope used in high schools and freshman biology classes. Only mine is in better shape as nobody has tried to make a pot smoking device out of it. Yet.

I suppose I can dust that relic off and use it to check the cat shit myself. But then I would need some slides and other related microscope supplies.

I used to have all that shit. I decided to liberate it from back when I was in junior and senior high. I had a whole kit. Slides, covers, all sorts of dyes, and so on. I have no idea where any of it is now.

And why would I need a microscope? This may shock many long time readers but I was a strange person. I would look at a body of water and ask myself "I wonder what kind of microscopic critters are in there". So I would take various water samples (I would sometimes carry around plastic vials) from the water, the mud, and so on. Then rush home and prepare the slides to see what is in there.

I would also take samples from my aquarium filters and look at the stuff that would end up in there. A LOT of stuff ends up in an aquarium filter. All sorts of blobs that move around. Some move fast, some move slow. Some even look like worms.

Now we are back to worms. In at least one cat. So I have to collect the shit, bag it, then haul it to the vet.

So I have this wireless web cam thing. It was on clearance from Office Depot. The original price was $300. I can see why they could not sell them all! $300 for a web cam??? Shit for that spread I can almost get a REAL video camera.

I paid a whole lot less. Clearance items rule.

The web cam is wireless. I think I mentioned this. It will connect to the wifi router thing so I can view things through the camera without any wires attached to the computer. It also has a web server somehow included, so I can put the camera on the internet if I wanted to. I can also control the zoom, pan, and tilt. Pretty cool huh?

Litter Box Cam anyone? This way you can watch the boxes with me. Fun huh? Using the technology of advanced microchips and a vast worldwide computer network to watch cats shit in a box.

Do not worry - the wireless web cam is still in the box. I am considering returning it. But most likely Ill keep it. I suppose.