Without further ado, I present pictures of said kitty.
Now, what I find about most cat-haters is that they think cats are stupid because they're independent, loners, lazy, wah wah wah. Whatever. So are people.
Cats have personalities, and if you're a shrewd shopper, you can find the right one.
My mom chose Purriey by kneeling in the middle of a litter of kittens, and they all ignored her but one, who hopped right onto her knee and starting mewing at her.
To find Scamp, I visited four or five local shelters every day for about a week, searching for a kitten with an interesting personality. I found Scamp in the Burbank shelter with a sign on his cage that said he'd been hit by a car and lived.
I'm inclined to believe that, because it's a neat story, but who knows what sort of tactics animal shelters will go to to tug on your heartstrings? I shit you not, the cage across from his said, "Apparently no one thinks I'm cute enough to adopt." What is this, a Sally Struthers infomercial?
Anyway, I chose him because he was purring and rubbing my arm and doing all sorts of flips and tricks in my arms, and the girl next to me really wanted him, so I knew I had to act fast.
The second we got him home, his personality showed through, and let me tell you what, this cat is ca-razy.
Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration, but let's take a look at some of his traits.
On a futon and the bed, he's king.
All night long, he declares Meow-had on every square inch of my comforter and pounces like a jackrabbit until 4 AM when I've had enough and I lock him outside the door until his lonely and repentant meowing leads me to let him back in where he softly and calmly digs his claws into my chest as he sleeps.
However, he's terrified of the floor. It's like he thinks there's two nice people slightly around his height who pet him on the futon and bed, but when he's on the floor, suddenly, he's surrounded by two giants who only want to step on him.
This is extra cute due to our hard-wood floors and the fact that whenever we come near, he jumps ten feet in the air in fright and then skids off, feet going in all directions like some drunk newborn deer in the ice capades.
What?
Also, he's a klutz. The step up to our bathrooms (toilet for bipeds, litter box to him) is about half a foot higher than the rest of our house, and he never fails to jump a quarter of a foot to clear it and trip and go so0/mersaulting into the shower door. He also has a habit of forgetting he has, you know, a mass, and will fling his entire body, claws out, onto the side of a small pillow, and crash back to the ground.
All these things are probably kitten traits, but his last quirk is that he's obsessive compulsive. He's a little Adrian Monk cat.
First, it came in handy.
When he eats from his bowl, as most cats do, while he crunches, a lot of crumbs and fragments fall onto the ground, outside the bowl.
At the end of his meal, he uses his paw and -- again, I shit you not -- scrapes the crumbs into a little pile and then eats that.
Okay, that was cute.
Then I noticed him in his litter box.
Before even going to the bathroom, he uses his paw to shape the once-flat litter into a little mountain in the middle of the box. Then, he goes to the bathroom on top. Now, I'll admit from my experience in Switzerland, it is pretty fun to go to the bathroom on the top of a mountain, but it seems to me like a lot of work to maintain.
Finally, the other day, I noticed a plastic bag covering his food bowl.
Thinking he had chased it around the room and gotten bored, I moved it out of the way of his bowl and across the room for him to pounce on again later.
When I saw it later in the same place over his bowl, I slowly moved it away and kept and eye on him.
He walked over to the bag and dragged it across the ground with his paw and put it right over his food. I thought for a long time that maybe he's a genius cat and he was telling me that he didn't like the new Iams food as much as the free Whiskas sample the kennel gave me by covering it with a bag.
Then I started to worry that he wouldn't eat at all and would waste away to nothing (only one of the horrible death scenarios I imagine him in while I'm away all day at work), but then I saw him burrowing his head under the bag to eat his food.
Now I'm really puzzled.
Is he trying to keep it fresh? Is he embarrassed to eat in public? Or is he just plum crazy?
He just jumped up into my lap as I'm typing this and decided to mistake my typing on keys as antagonism towards him and he is currently attacking my fingers.
He just discovered the desk yesterday, and commenced celebrating the occasion by -- again, not joking -- walking across my keyboard and deleting my My Documents folder.
Justin recovered it later on, but I think Scamp's planning another attack, perhaps on my Pictures of Puppies directory.
But my very favorite thing of all is that, sometimes when he's in your lap, he does a little wizard dance where he wiggles his front paws over his head like he's casting a cute spell on you.
Any cat that does a wizard dance is A-OK in my book.
It's only now that this place is starting to feel a little like home.
I was driving back from picking up a futon on a road I knew, taking a shortcut I had discovered without glancing at my mapquest notes, and things were looking familiar all around, and I couldn't wait to get home and have a nice, relaxing Saturday night.
Sure, this place has its quirks. You can't make a U-turn anywhere. The average speed of traffic on every highway ("freeway" here) is 70 and above, making lane changes in any of the five lanes a fun dance with death. We are the minority, and I find myself wishing I had taken more Spanish in high school than having Katey Edson teach me "Where is my meatball?"
We live in a guest house in Van Nuys (pronounced "van-eyes"), which is in the Valley, and if you don't know how most of LA reacts when you tell them you live in "the Valley," walk up to someone and tell them you were forced to eat a slug for breakfast. Yes, it's that delightful look of pity and disgust that make us Valley dwellers proud that we pay almost $500 less per month to live 10 more minutes away from all the rich people.
So far the only drawback I've noticed to living here, rather than 10 miles south, is that it is literally a valley, and in addition to the smog (which doesn't seem as bad as stereotypes would dictate), apparently all the spiders in southern California have skidded down into it and right into my house.
We've seen 2 black widows and about a skillion of some normal house spider, not to mention hundreds of ants marching through my house mistaking our blow-up bed for a delicious gigantic blue grain of sugar.
Speaking of -- "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids" is full of shit, and I can't remember if their asshole ant friend died in it, but I hope he did, and I hope there's a Disneyland ride about it because I'll drive right over there and kick that ant's ass.
I don't like bugs.
Other than that, this place is pretty awesome so far, and the awesomest news of all is that of the existence of my new kitten, Scamp. He has officially earned his name by hiding from me under the bathroom cabinet, under the oven, and under the refrigerator, soaking his paws in the condenser coils, then jumping on my bed and stamping wet paw prints all across it, but he warmed my heart last night by curling up under my chin and falling asleep with me, so I guess it's okay. Expect pictures as soon as I get my computer hooked up and when Scamp stops scampering up to the camera and trying to rub his cheeks on it.
Ahoy!
I've actually been here in L.A. for a few days, but there isn't a hard line running to the guest house yet, so I'm forced to sneak into my landlord's office dressed like a ninja and update.
There weren't any kiosks along the way, either, and I will have my mom issue a written apology for saying there was along with the one she owes me for accusing me of having porn show up on my grandmother's computer when she clicked on a link, when actually it was a popup left over from some time my cousin or uncle "accidentally" was "tricked" into going to some site that left porn spyware.
Well, I can't talk, because I have to eat a hot dog at Costco -- aka my new kitchen -- and then drive with Justin to Redondo Beach -- aka probably as easy to navigate to as Jupiter.
Oh, no, landlords showing up!
NINJA SMOKE SCREEN!
It's T-minus one blog until I unplug my computer and shove it into my car.
Everything was packed but our computers and my clothes when I collapsed from exhaustion last night, so let's hope the magical car-packing fairy visited us last night so we can leave right away.
My mom, the savvy, cosmopolitan world traveler that she is, has informed me that there are various internet kiosks along the way, which I'm sure I'll have no problem paying for and informing inquiring minds what state I'm currently in and what I think about it while I pay $354356 for gas.
My camera is also charged up and ready to go, so I'll be putting together a lengthy 11-state jamboree of a phlog. Yee-hah!
All righty then. Goodbye house, goodbye town.
Although I'm thrilled at the intelligent discourse of the last post, I need to talk a tiny bit about moving. Again.
I've said goodbye to my fellow comedians, my co-workers, my apartment. It's always depressing and makes me wonder why I'm doing it again if I have so many people who care about me. Then I remember they're just there for the beer/cake/building foundations (respectively) and they probably don't even know my full name.
Packing has also been weird. I said goodbye to my parents this morning who left for a vacation, and here I sit, packing the essentials that will fit in my car.
It's also weird to see the types of stuff I have chosen "if you were stranded on a desert island" style.
For instance, why did I pack my Indiana Jones trilogy but not Family Guy? Why did I choose my '30s-style detective hat but not my Darth Vader helmet? Why have I chosen a book of grammar rules over my Chuck Palahniuk collection?
Why do I have an entire trunk full of CAT-5 cables and R/F cables and power cords but only one computer, Xbox, and PS2? Will my SNES cry when I leave it behind?
Will my half-naked Anime figurines creep out my mom, and more importantly, will she throw them away instead of selling them on eBay for enough to purchase a guest house with me in LA?
Should I really be blogging when I have to pack up my entire life into an SUV?
Should I instead do neither and go get some ice cream?
I hope LA is a land of answers, my friends.
I try not to get political on here too much, because it always gets me depressed and there are always 4 or 5 violently opposing viewpoints that could oppose mine, so I am going to try to present this like my genius political science professor always presented material -- simply as a selection of facts for you to make your own opinions about and to elicit thoughtful discussion.
Figure A -- Dooce's Husband talks about the devastating aftermath of Katrina, using such points to illustrate his feelings as 1) he will donate what he can, but let's be honest, he has a family and a job and a house to take care of, 2) this country's leaders are all incompetent, and 3) the constant barrage of media coverage is sickening.
Figure B -- My friend Patrick talks in one of many livejournal updates of how it has affected he and his friends personally. He apparently was one of the earlier refugees and was able to get to relative safety leaving BEHIND his friends, job, and house, says nothing about politics save for (in another entry) how much he agrees with the mayor's decisions and viewpoints, and begs viewers to not ignore the media coverage lest we forget and stop helping.
Now, here's what we think about.
1) If we had another leader, how would this have been handled differently?
Take into consideration while thinking whether or not a slow response is due to the actions and decisions of one person.
2) Kayne West (cue the world: "Who?") says that George Bush hates black people. Who else does George Bush hate, based on the inference that George Bush hates those whom he did not specifically save?
a) Does George Bush hate the handicapped?
b) Does George Bush hate kittens?
3) During 9/11, we had an entity to blame it on. It seems, if memory serves me, that we hated them quietly and mourned the victims vocally and respectfully. In the midst of a natural disaster, we find ourselves with no one to "blame," but instead of mourning the victims, the internet at least seems to find solace in abusing the media/the government/the Man. Why is this, and what does it accomplish?
4) Imagine you are the leader. You find out that this has happened. What do you do?
a) Now imagine all the specific repercussions of that action, and imagine who would say that what you did was wrong?
b) Rethink your earlier decision to remedy those points brought up and come up with another solution.
c) Imagine who would say what you did was wrong in this instance.
d) Repeat.
Okay, so my political viewpoint may have shown through more than I intended, but it just hurts me so much that people's natural reaction to a tragedy is to find everything that went wrong in the human aspect. I hate all the hate. It stresses me out.
It's too bad that there isn't a section in the "How to Deal with Shit that Goes Down" manual that deals with hurricanes and a chapter on New Orleans and other towns in other states.
Yes, it's very trendy to hate government, welcome to the '70s.
It just sort of makes me sick that people can sit back in their comfy, dry houses and blog about how because George Senior and Barbara did the nasty 50 or so years ago, that's why Little Billy's dog Snowball wasn't saved from a flood.
People are becoming just as sleazy and heartstring-manipulating as the media they claim to hate.
I don't know what the government should have done.
I am a 25-year-old from Pittsburgh who has never been in a flood, and I majored in English.
All I know is how to care and worry about each of the different stories I research online and how to do what I can.
Please comment responsibly.