Cats in the Slammer

(with all due respect to "Cops"...  eh, who am I kidding.  I'm making fun of it.)  

Bad cats, bad cats, what'cha gonna do?  What'cha gonna do when the come for you...


To be fair these are not bad cats.  They are simply feral rescues.  For years and years my parents had barn cats in the, well, barn.  But as the number of cows dwindled the number of cats grew.  So we started taking in kittens (which might account for the unusually high number of housecats our family has) and finally my mother decided that enough was enough.  She was going to livetrap all the feral cats.  


We finally live trapped the last of the feral mothers from the barn; tranquilized them, got them taken to the vet for shots and fixings; and now they are enjoying a lovely day in the sun.  We set up a place for them to live indoors, with an outdoor cage.  Now they pass thier time away as healthy, lazy cats.  This is a Saint Bernard pen that is rigged up through a basement cat door, for some fun in the sun.  Or shade as the case may be in the pictures.  I just like how Suzy (the little black cat) is looking up so woefully, as if to say 'nobody knows the trouble I've seen...'

Woe be to the chipmunk who runs through the bars.

Why I Love My Job

 

Ok, not always, but there have been some times in life that I insist that my job is better than most.

So the question remains, then, why do I love my job, and what the hell is it that I do?  Ah, dear friends, I'm one of those *theatre* people.  No, not actors.  Technicians.  I spend my days making odd things for actors to carry or use onstage (or sometimes they merely sit onstage and look nice.)



So why do I love my job today?  Well, because today my job consists of taking this pack of Club Soda, turning it into vanilla french sodas, drinking it, saving the bottles so I can fill them back up with the seltzer (because the actress will only drink a certain kind of seltzer which, in fact, 
doesn't come in little bottles which the director wants to see).  
     What other job on earth can you say you get paid for making yourself French sodas and drinking them?
     Then again once I had to work on a production of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and I got paid for chewing hundreds of pieces of gum (literally hundreds - we had an assembly line of technicians chewing) and hot gluing them to the bottom of a chair.  No, I don't have pictures for that. Be thankful.

     I do, however, have more needleworthy pictures, since this is, at heart, a knit and crochet blog.  Last year for Christmas the show was CATS.  Yup, the CATS that you're thinking of.  Well, did you know that giant singing, dancing CATS wear knit cat warmers?  Check it!





I personally got to knit one of the calico kittens because when we started we didn't have many accomplished knitters working with us.  Halfway through we had contacted the local knitting guild, and a massive cat-warmer knit along commenced.  I also knit the legs for MacCavity.  And the big shaggy cat... Old Deuteronomy?  Latchhooked.  Completely latchhooked.  Not by me, though.  They got a whole passel of volunteers to sit and latch hook a cat.  Latchhooking is really quite simple,  Alot of knitters husbands worked on it!

And for pure comedic value... did you know CATS go to the gym?




***Bonus!***

The best D**n French Soda Ever

You need:

1. 1 Bottle Vanilla Seltzer (Mine is Polar brand, sold in the Northeast US)
2. 1 Bottle of Vanilla Syrup (Da Vinci is my fav, Toriani works too)
3. 1 carton light cream.

4. A large glass, mug or plastic goblet (I have a thing with plastic footed goblets) fir anyone wanting a soda
5. A shotglass (or a person good at guestimating)

Pour a shot and 1/2 of vanilla syrup into the mug.  Cover it with vanilla seltzer until the mug is 3/4 of the way full.  Stir the syrup and seltzer together.  Add 1 shot of cream.  The cream will cause the seltzer to fizz, creating a creamy, foamy head on top of your soda.  If you filled the mug too full of seltzer it may overflow, so get ready to slurp.

Sip and enjoy!