Tag Archives: cute kittens

Roger Tells it like it Is

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Hey. I’m Roger. I’m here with my brother Arthur and my sister Scarlet, and my mom, Hester.DSCN0487

Mom says we didn’t always live in the bookstore, but I don’t remember anything else. She says she used to live in a nice house with a family, but she got pregnant and they took her to a place called a shelter, and that’s where we were born. She talks a lot about the couch and the rug and the nice lady where she used to live – except now she says maybe she wasn’t such a nice lady ’cause she didn’t get Mom fixed, and then she threw her away when she was pregnant. I think Mom’s feelings are hurt, like she’s feeling betrayed or something.

But anyway, we all live here now, and it’s fun. We have lots of food, and room to play, and a water fountain that keeps our water dish topped up and sometimes Arthur and I have water fights. Except Arthur’s kind of the DSCN0495scaredy cat of the family. He runs when feet come into our room. Which is kinda dumb, I keep telling him, because feet are attached to people, and people are the Source of All Good Things. They give body rubs and they carry cans of wet food and they have those little foil crinkle balls we all like. They’re really very nice, feet are.

Scarlet’s got this figured out. She’s what visitors call “adorable” and “plump.” I can tell you right now what her future’s gonna be: she’ll get adopted by some young girl who renames her “Tiffany” and lie down on that girl’s pink ruffled bedspread and sleep 22 hours a day, get up and rub her human when she comes home from school, deign to wear a hat for a few minutes, then eat and go back to sleep. She’ll need those other two hours for eating. Scarlet likes to eat. That’s all I’m sayin’.DSCN0465

Me, I’m the adventurous one. I like to explore the dark corners. I’ve killed like six flies and a couple of spiders since birth, and I can jump from about six feet and land on all four paws, no trouble. Kinda scares our foster mom when I do this. She says I look like a flying squirrel wearing a tuxedo. Whatever.

And I think Mom’s hoping for another shot at a loving family. She’s gonna get her tubes tied as soon as her milk dries up – yeah, me and my siblings might still be sneaking an occasional shot there. And Mom’s not even a year old yet, barely more’n a kitten herself. Makes me kinda sad when I think about it. I mean, we didn’t mean to ruin her life or nothin’ – we couldn’t help being born. But what kinda parent throws a pregnant teenage cat into a shelter instead of taking responsibility for getting the kittens a home and Mom fixed?DSCN0466

Anyway, Mom’s really pretty; she’s got this gorgeous fur that looks dark in the shade but turns to red-brown and gold mixed in the sunlight. Someone’s gonna visit the bookstore and fall in love with her again.

You can come visit us all in the bookstore. We like feet – even Arthur’s starting to come ’round on that.

Coasting on a Trend

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Everyone who’s visited our shop or read Little Bookstore knows that I crochet items to support cat rescue. During the winter when we don’t have fosters in residence, we support PAWS of SWVA by getting feral cats neutered and spayed. In the spring Jack and I open our garage and mystery room to nursing mamas and their infants, getting them adopted to loving forever homes.

DSCN0288It gets expensive, but it’s worth it looking into those little whiskered faces.

spay and neuter afghanLast fall I started making SPAY AND NEUTER afghans, based on a free pattern called Rows of Cats. “This is what you get if you don’t spay and neuter,” I declaimed via FB (and ok, it might have been slightly self-righteous, but what’s a little smugness between friends?) and sold 20 of those afghans. They were fun and quick and cheap to make because I burned through a lot of my stash, so it was easy to sell them for $67, the cost of a spay on the Margaret Mitchell van (a mobile animal clinic for low-income areas.) They’ve gone up since I depleted my stash and have to buy yarn.

jack with chickensAnd then the chickens came home to roost….

Somebody posted the Swanky Chicken Trivet by Sarah Moss, it went viral, and I bought it for $7 and sold about 96 chickens for $7.50 each, branching out into pigs and penguins somewhere along the way.

And the pigs were fun and the chickens were fun and lots of people bought them and we got lots of cats looked after and gave some money to another group, In His Hands Small Animal Rescue, because they’re trying to help get a feral cat colony down the way under control, and life was good. Except there were chickens and pigs everywhere.

chickens in chair mark with penguin chickens and pigs

One day about three weeks ago I started my 97th chicken and thought, “No.” My hands just stopped moving. There are limits. So the Great Chicken Crochet of 2014 ended with a whimper. And that was fine. Jack and I have eight fosters in the house and chickens have covered three of them, so we just needed to fundraise for five more, including three girls (which are double the cost of boys to render non-producing).

And then…..

cat butt coastersa lady out East somewhere makes cat butt coasters, and somebody posted the photo from her Etsy store, and in the past 48 hours no fewer than nine people have posted them on my timeline with a note equating to “You should make these next! People would buy them!”

And yes, they have gone viral. The lady who makes them actually tracked their popularity: http://yesthisisshana.tumblr.com/post/85912403815/why-cat-butts-are-better-than-unicorn-poop-my

But here’s the thing: I saw the coasters weeks ago when I was browsing for something to replace those *&%^$# chickens, and thought “Nobody’d buy those” and went on looking for new items with which to raise money.

I ask you, can I spot a social media trend or what? No wonder my agent and her assistant are so proud of my Twitter feed! Marketing genius, me.

So now I’m making coasters, $20 per set and yes you can specify colors, up to one month to deliver. PM me on FB with your address if you want a set.

But wouldn’t anyone like a nice dignified SPAY AND NEUTER afghan?!