Lap Cat? Nope. Except, Maybe in the Winter.....

I must admit the tiniest bit of disappointment that XingXing and FuFu are not true "lap cats". You know, the kind that mosey over to the couch and plop themselves right down on your lap and could not be happier. But I guess XingXing and FuFu are a bit too wild & independent for this kind of bonding. They will come up to you and solicit affection, but it is on their terms and almost always those terms do not include your lap. Except........ ......Winter is perhaps my second favorite season after fall. Among the many pleasures of winter (snowshoe hiking, wearing flannel shirts, JoJo's yummy stews, reading by the fire) I can include some lap time with XingXing. It takes a magic combo of a rather cool ambient temperature in the house, comfy flannel pants (from the cat's perspective), and a chilled out and tired kitty. I took these photos a couple of weeks ago during just such a session. I didn't have the "big gun" handy, and couldn't quite move with the cat on my lap, so had to make do with the iPhone, which performed admirably. Its nice to see XingXing so relaxed, as he generally is the more high strung of the two.......

Seeking Enlightenment

I will be so disappointed when they proceed with construction and fill in the space across the street - as it is now it is just such an excellent backdrop for shots like these!

Reading About Big (Endangered) Cats, With a Small (Pampered) Cat on My Lap

I figure this is the perfect photo to introduce my carefully curated cat book recommendations, which you can find just to the right of this (and all future) blog posts courtesy of a nice Amazon.com widget (mobile followers, take a look a the website on the big screen of a "real" computer every now-and-then!). I will only recommend books that 1.) Are about cats; 2.) that I have read; and 3.) that are good. The selection includes the book that I am reading here, The Tiger, A True Story of Vengeance and Survival, a truly excellent book on many levels. It is a suspenseful page-turner, a big cat conservation plea, and certainly a paean to the mystique, power & beauty of felines of all sizes. It really opened my eyes to the plight of tigers, of which there are only several hundred left in the wild. Alas, I have found a new cause. This weekend I made donations to National Geographic's Big Cat Initiative and the Wildlife Conservation Society, which are two of the many non-profit groups working to protect big cat habitats. Furthermore, I will be donating any "kickbacks" that I get from Amazon when anyone clicks through and purchases these books to similar charities (and perhaps a bit more to local cat rescue as well).

Cats in the Kitchen, Episode 1: FuFu Goes Dumpster Diving

Dumpster diving is an art that alley cats have perfected, out of necessity. After all, they gotta eat. Perhaps XingXing and FuFu remember stories of dumpster diving that their mother Penelope told them about growing up and getting by on the streets of Brooklyn. Regardless, they are quite fond of trash inspection. JoJo *swears* that they know how to open the trash bin in our kitchen by themselves. The following series was captured by JJ on her iPhone. XingXing appears quite reluctant to take a dive, but FuFu was up for the challenge.

and finally, a shot I spiffed up a bit in B&W:

One Cool Cat: Japanimation-Style XingXing

So, you take a nice photo of your kitty on the iPhone and, well, its not quite as sharp and in-focus as you would like. What to do? Process it in a way where sharpness isn't important. Luckily it is quite easy and fun to play with a photo on the iPhone via various apps to do something like this. I processed this photo during a marathon business trip yesterday that included 4 flights of each about 2 hours long. Nice break from work-related reading, newspapers, magazines, etc. I like this photo so much it is actually my new iPhone home screen. There is kind of a Mona Lisa-esque ambiguity to XingXing's expression here. Does he looks debonair, rakish, arrogant, incisive, insouciant, omniscient? Any why on earth are his ears cocked back?


here is another interpretation, pencil-sketch style: