Category Archives: Cat

Cat

Caturday is the favorite day

Before we get into it: remember how the other day I railed against restaurants with small plates? Well today I went to brunch at Table with my friend Melissa. Here’s the thing about small plates: if you go with a friend with whom you share similar culinary tastes, it’s fine. If you’re with somebody who has dietary restrictions (vegetarian, gluten-free) or somebody who is a pickier eater…well then it’s just not good. Or if you just want your own meal.

But today’s brunch was great, because Melissa is my favorite small plates sharer. (Or at least one of, don’t anybody get offended). Of course we overordered because the server recommended 2 to 3 dishes per person, so we ordered five. I think we could have gotten by with 4, but it was all delicious.

I still maintain that restaurants need to consider going in a direction of having menus that a person can just order what they like and not have to share or come to an agreement. Sometimes I like to go out to eat with my friends who have various restrictions on their diet and this shouldn’t affect my enjoyment of the restaurant!

Okay, without further ado. CATURDAY time. I apologize for some repeat pictures.

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I interrupted her butt cleaning for this picture, I think.

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Her favorite morning hangout. The sun hits just right.

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I posted this on twitter and Jen said I looked like Voldemort because my nose disappeared.

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Another cat would make this a complete circle. The circle of cat.

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Why haven’t I learned? I can’t leave clothes out on the bed.

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At least here I have the outline of a nose. She jumped down right after this picture—you can see she was already considering it. I guess she got camera shy.

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This doesn’t look comfortable but evidently it was.

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This picture seems to defy gravity. I’m not sure how she was balanced.

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Hope you have a great Caturday!

Cat, Teaching

Hump Day

Many of my students started school this week. As a result the lessons have been less effective because the poor kids are exhausted. (My argument is always that they should drop out of school to focus on violin, but rarely do they take my advice.) One student dropped her bow no less than three times (it is important to always teach over carpet for this reason) and another kept getting lost in a passage of a piece that she had played perfectly well many times before. Another hurt his pinky finger in P.E. and claimed that was why he was unable to play his scale very well in tune.

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But I saw some of my students for the first time since the end of the school year so it is nice to get back into the swing of things with them. Ideally they wouldn’t take the entire summer off, but I can’t control these things.

Music wise it’s been a decent week. I’ve got some stuff that I’m practicing for which is good because it’s always good to have goals and to keep busy. After playing the violin for 30 years, I’m amazed how easy can be to stay in decent shape (still hard to stay in top notch shape, but decent shape just gets easier and easier.) Two days ago I pulled out some music I hadn’t played since mid-February and it felt like perhaps a week or two had passed. This is good because it means I can hopefully get the music to an even higher level than I had had it before (always the goal!) and I have time for that. (There’s an audition coming up for the extra list for the St Louis Symphony—doing well on the audition would be I might get to substitute more often than…just a bit for one month back in 2012.)

Otherwise, I’m just keeping my head down and trying to stay busy. My life has changed in ways that I’m not quite ready to announce on the blog (and for the love of all that is holy I am NOT pregnant, and the next person who asks me that AFTER LOOKING AT MY STOMACH will seriously get punched in the face, and I’m not kidding one bit) but it’s been an incredibly difficult summer…though in retrospect I suppose it’s been difficult for a longer time than I cared to admit. *shrugs*  Life goes on though, doesn’t it?

I won’t end on a serious note, because I’m not actually feeling that way right now.

Here’s a funny link that my sister Leslie sent me today about equal dining rights for cats.  It’s worth a read if you are a cat lover (and goodness, if you aren’t, why the heck are you reading my blog?)

Schaefer Demands Equal Dining Rights for Cats

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(oh, and I believe this is my first gif on my blog–hope I did that correctly.)

Cat

I tried to think of something to blog about that wasn’t just about my cat’s diet so I ranted about small plates for awhile

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A friend drew me this. I LOVE IT.

Let me take a moment to address something important about new restaurants and restaurants in general. How many of you are tired of the “small plates” concept? At first, it was fun. Now everywhere is doing it, and to me it just seems like I end up spending more money and leaving hungry. I just want to go to a restaurant and order a meal that contains a protein, vegetable, and starch that the chef has lovingly chosen to coordinate together on one plate! IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK? I just want to leave a restaurant feeling that I’ve had a delicious, balanced meal, and not stare at the menu helplessly, having no idea what the portion size of a dish might be and finally, simply order a pizza, because you figure, even if it’s left over, you know it’ll still be good the next day.

Also, I think tacos are the new small plates. Everywhere you look, there’s a new taco place popping up, serving all kinds of tacos. Don’t get me wrong. I like tacos. (I also like small plates, when they are at a restaurant where the entire idea is small plates and so you know exactly what to expect and you GO there with the idea that you will split a few with your friends, not with the idea that you will get to order a meal that you will enjoy on your own and then you get confused.) Tacos are so trendy right now though. I think it’ll pass. Like food trucks.

Other pet peeve of new restaurants: that they say, oh, do you have any questions about the menu. Now seriously. If you have too many questions, isn’t it possible that the menu is really poorly laid out or written badly? I can understand if you have a restrictive diet (which, don’t get me started on people’s overly restrictive diets)…but really. Write the menu in a way that it makes sense. We aren’t new to restaurants.

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She’s judging all of us. She would be happy to eat small or large plates of food.

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It seems she is losing more weight on her left side than her right. I hope this isn’t a huge problem.

So, tell me, what’s something that annoys you lately?

Cat, Deep Thoughts

Great Blackout of 2003

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I heard on NPR that tomorrow is the ten year anniversary of the Great Blackout! Do you remember where you were when the lights went out?

Wikipedia calls it the Northeast Blackout of 2003. It’s a pretty interesting article going into great detail on the cause and timeline. The NPR station had a teaser for a show about it and said something about it being caused by trees and sagging power lines.

(my now deceased cat Heifetz with the fatness, fall 2003)

Much like 9/11 and the Kennedy Assassination though, it’s really about where YOU were, right? The summer of 2003 was a transitional year for me.  Due to variety of reasons I was taking a year off from my full time position with the Charlotte Symphony (with no intention of returning but I wanted to keep the option open) to be a freelancer in Cleveland, where I had done my graduate work. Yes, this is the opposite of how most people do things, but I was incredibly unhappy in Charlotte, and figured I’d rather make less money but live in the same city as my then boyfriend and also figured, if I was going to be dreading work, maybe it would be better if I were dreading different work rather than the same job every day.

Then in June of 2003 (still in Charlotte) my apartment complex flooded—not my apartment as I was on the second floor, but my car. I was able to easily break my lease that I had resigned, and towards the beginning of August I moved my furniture up to Cleveland, where I would be sharing an apartment with my sister Leslie.

I was reflecting on this move today. Can you believe my friends Zach and Mary Frances CAME WITH ME? I rented a U-Haul, loaded it up with my things, and somehow convinced Zach to drive the truck to Cleveland (this is an 11 hour drive in a car). I drove my car up, my boyfriend at the time met us there, we all unloaded, and then I drove Zach, MF, and myself back to Charlotte—and then lived in their basement for two weeks. I have so many amazing friends in my life and sometimes it is hard to keep track of the wonderful and generous things they have done for me. Also, a couch with a pull out bed is an incredibly heavy and difficult piece of furniture to move. So I am told.

(Mary Frances and Zach had just gotten married on my birthday in 2003.)

The second week of basement living Leslie joined me—Zach and MF were out of town so we had our run of the place. Mainly we were just killing time before needing to get up the Ohio, relaxing, watching television shows like THE OC (which premiered approximately ten years ago) and shopping at Target a lot to buy neat stuff for our new place.

Finally it was time to go up to Ohio (again for me). We were each driving separate cars but caravaning. I had two cats in my car who were unhappy pretty much the entire day. I recall stopping at a Taco Bell for lunch with Leslie and being so relieved to have a few minutes of respite from the yelling.

(who us, we would never yell!)

We ended up getting to the Akron/Canton area during rush hour, around 4:00, and I knew that Leslie would need to follow me closely to make sure we could get to the apartment. That’s right around when the blackout hit. Traffic was bad, and I thought about stopping for gas but decided I could make it. I tried to give her a call to make sure she was okay, but the call couldn’t go through, and then they started talking about it on the radio, how there were power outages all over the east coast, starting in the Akron/Canton area.

Our original plan had been to get to the apartment, unload our cars (you don’t leave valuables in your car in the city) and then shower and enjoy a wonderful dinner at one of my favorite places to go at the time, the Winking Lizard. Well. Because of the blackout, our new plan ended up being: unload the cars. And nothing was open. Grocery stores, restaurants, gas stations…everything was closed. There was a half drunk 2 liter of Diet Coke in the fridge from my original move in two weeks earlier and we located an open box of “Honey bunches of oats” cereal. That was dinner. Luckily Leslie had a flashlight handy in her trunk…and it was HOT. We never had A/C in that apartment anyway, but we were used to having tons of fans. Nothing.

It was a pretty miserable night.

Why am I writing this? I don’t know. It just made me think about how fast times seems to fly! Was that only ten years ago? So much has happened, yet I remember it so clearly right now (though other times it seems so long ago and fuzzy…memory is an odd thing, isn’t it—for instance, I’d forgotten until just today how much Zach and MF helped me with my move…).

If I recall correctly, we did get our power back on by mid-morning the next day. In case you were worried.

That’s an even older picture of the fatness. Back then we used to call her “little kitty.” I wonder what I’m going to do if she gets thin enough on her diet to not be “the fatness” anymore???

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Operation Less Fat cat

So I think I mentioned I’ve put my cat on a diet.

Don’t get me wrong. I think she’s adorable and perfect just the way she is. But honestly, she probably could stand to lose a few pounds. So I decided to give her a set amount of food per day and then that’s it.

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For the first week she was okay. Since then she has been getting progressively sadder and more whiny about her food. Occasionally I’ve gotten concerned and given her a little bit more (I don’t want her to STARVE just lose weight.) But now she likes to try to get me up even EARLIER in the morning. Last night she barely let me sleep at all—as soon as it was light she was up and slowly moving things around on my nightstand.  (She likes to just make a little bit of noise to annoy me but not shock herself by the noise—so she’ll slide my glasses around or move the alarm clock just a little bit.)

I don’t want to shut her out of the bedroom as that will just end with her yelling through the bedroom door or perhaps running up to it and slamming up against it in the hopes of opening it. (Which occasionally works, so it’s always worth a shot.)

I hope that soon she will adjust and enjoy a new svelter figure. It’s a tough battle.

Also I’d love for her to do the same to me. Just set out my food every couple of hours and THAT’S ALL I GET.

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What do you think? Does she look slimmer yet? She feels a little bit small around the middle. Think of time she’ll save cleaning!

Cat

Birthdays

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My family has a plethora of summer birthdays. It starts with my dad’s in May, then mine in June, then my brother’s in July quickly followed by my sister Leslie’s, which was yesterday. I was absolutely going to write a blog post wishing her a happy birthday yesterday but I got caught up in other more important things. So today is a blog post wishing her a happy (belated) birthday.

Us, looking all pretty and whatnot.

Leslie recently got a new phone that had the ability to use FaceTime (video chatting over the phone). We were talking on the phone and thought, let’s try it out. This naturally led to her pointing her phone at her cats and me pointing it at mine. Anyone spying on our conversation might have thought that the cats were having a little chat. (Anyone who knows cats would have known that the cats had no idea what was going on, as usual, and were simply busy grooming themselves, and for her cats, each other.)

(You’re saying, wow, GREAT STORY HANNAH. Yes, well, that’s how I roll.)

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(One of my friends named Sarah went to New Orleans and brought this voodoo runner guy back for me. I love it!! There’s a bell on the top of his head so that everyone can hear him running.)

I could go on more about how adorable her cats are, but I suppose I MIGHT already talk about cats too much here.

Speaking of…I’ve decided to put the cat on a diet. My friend Karen’s cat successfully lost quite a lot of weight (I want to say 5 to 8 pounds but I’m just guessing) and she looks and acts really great. I figured the fatness could probably stand to lose a couple of pounds, so, like any responsible cat owner, I did some internet research on caloric needs and how many calories are in her food and that kind of thing, and came up with a plan for her feeding, that isn’t TOO much of a cutback, but just a little.  I’m hoping that she will in time lose a few pounds and have a bit svelter figure. I also don’t really want her to be THIN but simply, less overweight. Is that wrong?? I think she’d look great with just a little bit of extra tummy, but less than she has now. I guess we’ll see how it goes. So far I am standing strong and I believe that she is doing okay.

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Wouldn’t it be great if we could diet the same way? I want somebody to figure out my caloric needs and set out my food a couple times a day, and that’s it—when I’m done eating it, I’m done, and if I whine too much, just pat me on the head and under the chin a lot. Of course this is assuming that I’d be trapped in a small house with no means of escape and no ability to get any food for myself, and on occasion I would be able to eat a few delicious bugs.

I know. You’re saying, what are you even talking about Hannah? But people said, hey, just blog. It doesn’t have to be ABOUT anything, so that’s what I’m doing. I’m just writing. It’s a blog about nothing?

Have you ever put your cat on a diet? Suggestions? Moral support?

And again, happy belated birthday to Leslie!