Sunday Selfie Fails

Old SoLT has recently discovered that it is much easier to share bad selfies than good selfies, simply because she has so many more of the former than the latter. However, it's not easy to get a good bad selfie. She struggled mightily to get these attempted selfies with Real Cat Paisley:

This first one didn't work very well. It's hard to operate a cell phone camera when there is a rather solid cat between you and it:

At least they are both facing the right direction in this one:

Leave it to a cat to turn her head at the wrong moment, am I right?

We are joining the Sunday Selfies blog hop, hosted by The Cat on My Head.

Caturday Art: Night & Day

This week has been one of contrasts. Old SoLT is deeply conscious of the suffering so many people are experiencing at this time in the after-effects of natural disasters, and yet she herself has had a fabulous, non-stressful week. It made her think of night and day:

NIGHT

DAY

"Night" used the Night art effect in Lunapic, and "Day" used the Floating effect, also in Lunapic. Here is the original:

We're joining the Caturday Art blog hop, hosted by Athena.

Words with Webster: Remember, Plus Friendly Fill-Ins

We have two fun Friday features for you today. First up is Real Cat Webster, who has a memorable cat word to share. After that, it’s on to Friendly Fill-Ins!

Words with Webster

 Hi, all! It’s me, Real Cat Webster. Welcome to Words with Me. Our word this week is “remember” (something Mommy doesn’t do so good anymore). To start learning about this word, first I went to my favorite dictionary (Merriam-Webster’s), which said that to remember is “to have (a notion or idea) come into the mind again as previously perceived, known, or felt : have a renewed apprehension of : bring to mind again : think of again.”

Boy, sometimes it takes a lot of words to say what one very common word means, doesn’t it?

Next I went to the Oxford English Dictionary, where I learned that “remember” has been around in English for a long time—since at least around 1350, when it made its first known appearance in print. I also learned that “remember” has a whole bunch of different meanings that are all sort of the same but just a little bit different. I won’t tell you all of them, but the first one in the OED is “to recollect; to think about, reflect on … (a) with reflexive pronoun and ‘of’ or ‘on.’” Like this:

Remembre yow vp on the pacient Iob. (ca. 1390-1405, Chaucer, Melibeus)

I guess that means something like “Think about the patient Job” (but then, with Chaucer it’s always kind of hard to tell). Anyway, I thought we should skip a whole bunch of stuff like this and get to the meaning we all remember (that’s a joke!). Here’s an example of that, from the 15th century:

Euer I shal remembre the grace whiche thou hast done to me. (1484, William Caxton tr. The subtyl historyes and fables of Esope, of Auyan, Alfonse, and Poge, i. xviii)

Next, I went to the Online Etymology Dictionary and found out that English got “remember” from Old French (remembrer), which got it from Latin (rememorari, “recall to mind"). So I guess people have been remembering things for a really long time!


You have probably been wondering all this time why I am even doing this word, because it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with cats, right? Well, I am doing it because next Thursday is Remember Me Thursday, a special day set aside to remember the rescue pets who’ve touched your life, and all those who are still waiting for their forever homes, and most importantly, those who, sadly, never got rescued.

We are telling you all about "remember" to help you remember cats like this one,
who are in shelters and desperately want to find a forever home.
Photo by Robert Hoetink, via Adobe Stock.

I’m a rescue! My family rescued me from being sent to a shelter when their neighbors didn’t want me anymore. Can you believe someone didn’t want me? Crazy, right? Just think of all the great cats who are just as friendly and handsome and smart as I am, only they’re stuck in shelters without a special person to love them, and a lot of them will die in the shelter. It’s sad and upsetting, right? That’s why we have to do something. So we encourage everyone to get ready to use today’s word and Remember the Rescue on Thursday, September 28, 2017!

Use #RememberTheRescue and #RememberMeThursday on social media. And don’t forget to enter the photo contest. Just share a pic of your rescue pet on Twitter or Instagram with #RememberTheRescue and #RememberMeThursday, and you could win a prize package for the pet rescue of your choice.

Friendly Fill-Ins

And now it’s time for Friendly Fill-Ins, from 15andmeowing and McGuffy’s Reader. They are a fun way to learn a little bit about the authors of the blogs you read. The first two questions, answered by Old SoLT this week, are from Ellen of 15andmeowing, and the next two, answered by Real Cat Paisley, are from Annie of McGuffy’s Reader.

Old SoLT's answers:

1. I would never be friends with someone who doesn’t like animals, specifically cats. Seriously, I’ve tried being friends with people who don’t like cats, and it just doesn’t work out, because those people almost always turn out to be jerks.

2. I will never refuse to help someone when I can.

Real Cat Paisley's answers:

3. I have never been to Timbuktu, but I don’t care because I’m happy in my home. I wish I could have a catio though.

4. When it comes to dogs, I just say NO.

Book Review: The Little Red Cat Who Ran Away and Learned His ABCs

Old SoLT never thought that what she really needed in her life was an ABCs book, because you know, she’s known her ABCs for a while now. But it turns out that this picture book from Patrick McDonnell (of the Mutts comic strip) is the perfect thing to bring a smile on a rainy day. Yes, even for a grown-up (the recommended age range is 4-8 years).

This little tome is called The Little Red Cat Who Ran Away and Learned His ABCs (the Hard Way). It has no text (unless you count the 2 letters on each page—an upper and lowercase A, B, C, or whatever). That means you get to have a lot of fun making up the story.

Our story starts like this:

Once upon a time, there was a little red cat who liked to go for a run every day, as she was in training for her first half marathon. One day, she was running happily along when suddenly, there was a giant alligator in her path (A is for alligator!). The alligator chased the little red cat, causing her to run faster than ever before, shaving whole seconds off her previous best split time. The alligator chased the cat right past a tree that had an angry brown bear in it (B is for bear!). The angry bear, who really did not care for alligators because of that time one had bitten his great-aunt Maud on the nose, chased them both past a chicken coop (C is for chicken!)…

And you probably get the idea. The next pages bring a dragon, an unexpected egg (E is our favorite page), and fire (from the dragon).

Old SoLT has loved Mutts for years, so seeing more of Patrick McDonnell's work is always a treat. And of course we love that this book gives young children and their parents a chance to make up the details of the story. What fun!

Highly recommended (no matter your age)!

A note on the "Paws Up" system: Miss C gives either one or two paws up. One paw is for a good read; two paws is for a great read. She never gives three or four paws because that would require her to lie on her back...and Miss C does not do that!

The link below is an Amazon Associates link. If you purchase the book through this link, old SoLT and I could get some coin for our kibble account. Thank you!

Meow Like a Pirate!

When the Real Cats signed on for a cruise on a pirate ship with a skeleton crew, they weren't expecting the crew to be actual skeletons. Also, the skeletons weren't expecting, well, cats...

Happy Meow Like a Pirate Day!

(Skeleton pirate image via Adobe Stock.)

Cat Classics on Film: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958)

Just so you know, there are no cats in this movie, unless you count the MGM lion at the beginning. I was very disappointed, because I expected to see a film about a cat overcoming his or her problems, but this movie is really just people screaming at each other in fake southern accents. Not entertaining. Definitely not a cat movie. Oh sure, Elizabeth Taylor’s character says she feels “just like cat on a hot tin roof,” and Paul Newman calls her "Maggie the Cat," but that doesn’t make her a cat.

Anyway, lots of people like Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and consider it a classic. I did not like it at all, and even old SoLT didn’t much care for it, even with Paul Newman and Elizabeth Taylor. She said the people were annoying, and she mostly just wanted them to shut up. The end was kind of good though, and we did enjoy seeing Burl Ives, who plays Big Daddy.

If you like watching people yell at each other, then you might like this film. Just don’t expect to see any cats, because you are not going to see any.

Zero paws up.

The link below is an Amazon Associates link. If you purchase the movie through this link, old SoLT and I could get some coin for our kibble account. Thank you!

Sunday Selfie: Webster's Struggle

Real Cat Webster was very excited to do Sunday Selfies this week. He was so excited, he had some trouble holding still long enough to take the picture:

Then he held still for a second, but he was confused and sat down facing the wrong way:

Then he faced the right way and sort of almost held still, but he still moved a little, so the selfie is kind of blurry. Old SoLT tried to make it look better by doing a couple Photoshoppy things because the color came out weird too, but now it looks okay:

We're joining the Sunday Selfies blog hop, hosted by The Cat on My Head.