Day 30: On Writing

I love writing; writing's a bitch. The cliche about the terror/tyranny/loneliness of the blank page and all that. Thirty posts in thirty days is hard, but don't break out your tiny violins for me. I choose it. This year when deciding whether to do NaBloPoMo it all came down to this: Anything that puts me in the chair in front of the blank page is a good thing. 

My hope was to create a habit, and then in December sit down every day and write something. I've got unfinished short story manuscripts, and a book project that needs a solid reworking. And I have in the back of my head a novel brewing. But life things are still unsettled and instead of being a distraction from life, life is a distraction from writing.

Make no mistake, writing a blog is an exercise in egoism. Most of us know our readership is small. Ansel Adams used to say that he photographed to please himself and if other people liked it, that was a bonus. That's true about all of art, I suppose. All I know is if I go too long without writing something I get really antsy. I also know that when I get really involved in a project I obsess on it. 

I don't know if I'll do Blog-a-palooza next year. The first time I did NaBloPoMo was 2011 and I wrote 13 posts. I didn't try in 2012, but made 30 in 2013. Last year I didn't participate either. For some reason it felt like I did more than that but really, folks, it looks like I've only completed NaBloPoMo once before this year. 

What I don't like about it is that some days the posts are not up to my standards. Some days I just dash off something to make deadline. I don't like doing work I can't be proud of. Thank you for reading the good and the bad.

As a thank you, I leave you with the opening for my current short story. It doesn't have a title yet.

On his twenty-second birthday, Julius Worthington III boarded a bus bound for a small, northwest Pennsylvania town, where he hoped the locals had short memories for newspaper headlines. At the Erie county courthouse an indifferent judge did a double-take at the name, peered at him for a short minute, then whisked through the rest of the hearing, after which Julius returned to Philadelphia as Julius Applebite. He had already settled upon Gordon, his mother's maiden name, until he passed a series of Burma Shave signs on U.S 6 and thought Applebite just sounded better. He would tell people it was Dutch.

On the trip home, Julius studied the map of Philadelphia's outlying areas. He didn't know where he wanted to go, exactly, so he started by calculating bike-able distance. But then he figured everything was a bike-able distance if you got an early start. Lots of little nowhere towns in New Jersey, he thought. Tomorrow he would ride.

Day 4: Where I Remind You About an Often Overlooked Pop Album.

Every time I hear one of the few Journey songs that weren't sung by Steve Perry I shake my head and say aloud, "What were they thinking?" I mean, that voice! But the same doesn't apply to Hall and Oates, even though Daryl Hall had a significantly better voice. In later years Oates was pretty much relegated to backup status, but for a while he was given a lot to sing, and his voice is perfect for the blue eyed soul style of the early years. And that's one of the things that makes 'Abandoned Luncheonette' such a good album. It's truly a collaboration. And while Hall sounds great and the harmonies are beautiful, some of the real gems are with John Oates on lead. 'I'm Just a Kid" is a terrific song. But this is one you'll probably remember.

But there's solid songwriting and singing throughout the album. It's an under appreciated piece of work, I think.

You can listen to the entire album here




Or check it out on Spotify. It's a great pop album.

Hello NaBloPoMo; Curse You, NaBloPoMo!

So here we are again. November. National Blog Posting Month. Time to come up with 30 ideas and then turn each into a blog post that is entertaining or informative or both or neither. This post will be the latter.

As a refresher, November is when thousands of novelists-to-be try to crank out a book in 30 days, in an exercise called NaNoWRiMo (National Novel Writing Month). April is NaPoWriMo (poetry) and I guess the blogosphere felt left out so they made NaBloPoMo. I can't be certain why they chose the same month as NaNoWriMo but it may have been started by someone who wanted an excuse to not write a novel ("No I can't do the novel thing, dammit, I'm blogging").

Things I plan on covering this month:

• The marijuana ballot issues in Ohio
• Dogs
• How thankful I am for something or other. 

That's it so far. I haven't really thought this through. November 1st always sneaks up on me, despite it coming reliably after October 31st every year I've been alive. 

So thanks in advance for reading. Feel free to comment, especially if you want to say nice things.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

First, this post has been cooking for about a week but I have waited to go live until after NaBloPoMo. I didn't do NaBloPoMo this year because of stuff you will read about in a minute, and because I was busy re-doing the blog, but I was with the bloggers in spirit. I hope to join my brothers and sisters next year for all the blogapalooza fun.

Second, let me say Changes is for me only a medium-favorite Bowie song (though I really like the lines--And these children that you spit on / As they try to change their worlds / Are immune to you consultations / They're quite aware what they're going through), but I can't title this post Young Americans, after all. Or Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars.

It's been a period of changes for me. As many of you know I tore my quadriceps tendon back in March. I had surgery, then spent most of the summer in various casts and splints and wheelchairs and walkers. And just when I was released to go back to work, my relationship with the Aurora Kennel ended. So now I'm working on strengthening my leg and searching for a job.

So what I've done is re-brand this blog. It is now called Time and Change, which are some of the words to the Ohio State Alma Mater, Carmen, Ohio. I kept most of the posts but deleted a few, and tidied up the junk. .

In the new blog I'm going to feature my writing a little more prominently, to which end I've also freshened up my web site.

And I'm going to try to use the blog to promote my real estate business, though not in an annoying way, I promise. For those who didn't know, I've been in real estate for several years, but I've kept it on the down-low to avoid any conflicts with my other job. But now I'm pulling off the cloak of invisibility; I'm ramping up my intensity.

[Quick Annoying Promotional Segment] If you know of anyone who is thinking about buying or selling a home, or is interested in investing in real estate, or is interested in a career in real estate, leave me a note in the comments and I'll contact you.

But this isn't going to be just a real estate and writing blog. It's going to be a music blog and an arts blog and a world blog and a blog that makes silly lists and shows you the picture of the elephant with his head stuck in a peanut butter jar as long as I can relate it back to something personal. In short I'm going to post the same wide range of things I've always done, trying to entertain and maybe make you think a little. If you have forgotten what those posts were like please take a few minutes to browse the blog archives, Personal favorites include How to Play the Cymbals, The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, and Sometimes a Parade is Not Just a Parade.

And if you know of a job, let me know.


Thanks for reading---FJS

How we talk to dogs

 I don't know about you, but there are things I say to my dogs in private that I would never say in public. In public I'm all, "You're a fine specimen of a canine, Leo my good fellow," and in private it's, "Whaddagoodbubsiesdogmywiddlepuppypuppy."

In that light, enjoy!

The Story of Custard (part 1)

(Custard, the great orange kitty, left us on October 31 just short of his 19th birthday. I will post about him a few times this month.)

The Story of Custard (part1)

In 1995 a man named Joe boarded a cat with us. The cat, named Custer (like the Little Big Horn general), was a gift from his children to keep him company. But he traveled a lot and didn't really like the cat so he offered me $50 to find him a home. I got to liking him and so we took him, and the $50. We renamed him Custard.

He lived the first portion of his life upstairs, where Katie the Doberman wouldn't go. Katie wasn't a terror to all the cats, but for some reason Custard couldn't get comfortable with her. When Katie died, Custard thought his luck had changed but we got another Doberman, Kendall, who took over the role of Custard tormentor. 

Custard really wanted to come downstairs, and whenever we put the dog in her crate he would join us. When we began to crate Kendall less and less, she would sleep on the couch, and Custard would creep down the stairs, peek at Kendall on the couch, and sneak over to us, never failing to have an eye or an ear or a whisker tuned to the dog. Kendall knew the game too. Invariably she would pop open an eye, then leap off the couch just as Custard flew back up the stairs. 

Kendall lived a relatively short life and we got yet another Doberman, Titus (Ty), who didn't give off the same threatening vibe as the previous two. It didn't take Custard long to figure out that Ty was just a big loveable galoot, and Custard became a full time downstairs cat. This is when he really started to shine.

Custard loved people. He loved being held and he loved sleeping in laps. He also loved people food, often staring at us during dinner, begrudging our every bite. He was vocal, chirping whenever you entered a room, said his name, or woke him up with a pat on the head. And his purring machine started the moment you picked him up.

Titus also died young and I like to think that Custard was proud to have outlived three Dobermans. We stopped getting Dobermans, and maybe part of that was that we didn't want Custard to have to go back upstairs if it turned out to be like the first two. But even though we have two (very cat-friendly) dogs, and two other cats, this was Custard's house for a long time, and I'm glad he lived long enough to enjoy it.

 

Things I learned today from my Digg feed

When the Google Reader (GR) was discontinued earlier this year, its devoted users were left to find an alternative. While there were several news readers out there, none really did it the way GR did, and the alternatives were just not that acceptable.

Along came Digg, the news aggregating website. They heard the cries and made it their mission to replace GR with a reader that would please the hard core GR orphans. I have to say it's mainly as good as GR (Old Reader is actually the most GR-like of them all but I couldn't get it to work on my iPhone). I find the iPhone version of GR to have a couple of annoying deficiencies but overall it works.

As such I ended up with the Digg feed in my reader. Which is fine. I find at least one article a day there that makes me glad I have the feed. Here are some things I learned today:

Science discovered a new ligament in the knee: this is a bit disconcerting. I mean they've been studying the body for how long now? And they missed something?

1.3 million people in Norway watched knitting on TV:  It's on something called SlowTV, and they plan on airing a Day in the Life of a Snail. I'm not making this up.

Corgis are becoming extinct: Better not tell that to Aurora's new mayor.

America has more prisoners than teachers:  This is misleading (as is the wont of so many internet headlines). There are more prisoners than high school teachers. They don't list all teachers. I wish they would just give us all the info instead of the info that supports their narrative.

Who knows what I'll learn tomorrow. 

And, hey! There was at least one pet related item.

Dreaming

I don't remember my dreams very often but last night I had one of those dreams that starts and then you wake up and try to go back to sleep and it continues, like it's been recorded on a DVR and you can't shut it off, and you doze off and wake up a couple of more times and it still keeps playing.

It started with me in Solon, at a house with someone I don't really know. We were on the deck when a bank of gray clouds rolled in and the wind whipped up, and among the clouds were these little patches of clouds that darted around really fast. Then everything sort of exploded in a giant wind storm and we dove for cover, and when it was over there were eight of us in a barren landscape as far as we could see.

In that way that dreams work, it was clear to us that an alien culture had destroyed modern life on Earth in order for us to return to our roots and start over. But then the logistics started to get in the way. How were we supposed to repopulate the Earth with only eight people? I couldn't remember the math but I thought you needed more to make it viable. Also how were we supposed to go from cozy homes and a Wal Mart on every block to absolutely nothing? No fire, no tools, no materials? How do we even make clothes? And water. Early man started with fresh water; he could drink from any water source, anywhere. Never mind the bacteria, which we could adjust to after a period of uncomfortable bowel issues, but the pollution would make it seriously unpotable.

Then we decided that the aliens would know better than to leave the fate of the Earth in the hands of eight people and that if we started walking we would find another group, and then maybe another. That's when I woke up. But I've been thinking about it all day. I'd like to think we could figure out a way to survive in that scenario, but there would have to be certain minimums. We would need good water.

So if any of the aliens are reading this:

Dear aliens who are coming to save the Earth at the expense of most Earthlings,

Please leave us water, some basic tools, and many, many seeds. And comfortable shoes. I need comfortable shoes.

Thank you.

Kind of a weird post, I know. Sorry. There is no lesson, really. Dream interpreters could tell me what it all means but I'll just chalk it up to imagination.

Eenie, meenie, miney, mo

Tomorrow we vote for a mayor here in Aurora. There are six candidates, which seems like the most I can remember. The past few elections have seen Mayor Lynn McGill pretty much steamroll the competition, but since he stepped down a few months ago, the field is wide open. Everyone, it seems, wants to be mayor of Aurora.

I have been asked by more than one candidate, (but not, oddly, (or maybe fittingly), the person I intend to vote for), to put a sign in my yard. My answer, as it has been for the past 20 years, is no. We do not allow political signs, for people, for issues, for anything. We would probably not allow a sign that said, "Don't text and drive," not because we are worried that one of our clients is a huge fan of causing accidents, but simply because it eliminates having to draw a line somewhere above zero. Not that I don't like a good debate, but it's easier to not bruise feelings when the policy is unbending.

I do allow signs for contractors who have just finished a job, like Vitale Asphalt, or Auburn Fence, or our handyman, John Jarmusik, if he had them. That's just good business. (Note to self: what if I sent home yard signs with people that said, "I just boarded my dog at the Aurora Kennel?")

So anyway, there are six candidates and I know three of them. One was on a committee with me (and taught government to my kids), one coached my daughter in softball or soccer when she was younger, and one brings their pets here. The other three seem like decent folks with good ideas and it's hard to know which fiscally responsible, community responsive, 'I love Aurora,' candidate to choose. Well, except for me. I've already decided.

But I'm not telling.

Another post that makes us wonder why more dogs don't revolt against the whole 'man's best friend' thing.

Since I've had exactly 4.7 minutes today to compose a blog post, I'm going to take a shortcut. I really prefer writing my own material when possible, but today I'm pulling something silly from the internet.

Without further ado, 34 Dogs That Hate Halloween

Blog-a-Palooza is off and running

A couple of years ago someone had the bright idea to make November National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo), in the fashion of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), except for people who don't intend to write just one giant story. The plan is a post a day for the whole month. I did it two years ago but skipped last year. The writing muscles are twitching for action but the brain is screaming, "I don't have any ideas." The brain tends to use all caps and excessive exclamation points, as in, "I DON'T HAVE ANY IDEAS!!!" My brain has never taken 'Strunk and White 'or the rules of shouting on the internet seriously.

So, this is post number one, on day number one. Consider yourselves warned.

But, we begin Blog-a-Palooza 2013 with a note of sadness. Yesterday we lost one of our furry friends. Custard, the grand orange kitty, came a few weeks short of turning nineteen. He'd taken a turn during the past few days and last evening we helped him along.

I'll tell Custard stories this month, but not tonight.

The Blogapalooza Report Card

As much as I had wanted to finish Blogapalooza with a flourish on the final day, it just didn't work out. What happened is I sort of put it off to the end, and then I sort of fell asleep. So let's give ourselves marks for the month.

Intentions: A+ (always the best of intentions)
Sticktuitivness: B-
Educational value: D
Entertainment value: A++ (I'm easily entertained)
Social value: D-
Value as a percentage of the GNP: .00000000000000000000000001
Political acuity: not observed
Carbon footprint: C (I could have turned off my computer between postings)
Spelling: A
Typos: B+
Grammar: A- (I'm sure there are things Mrs. Kirby, my 7th grade English teacher, would have corrected)
Punctuation: B (Downgrading for my inexplicable fondness for nested (like this) parentheses))
Design: C (Hey, it's a template!)
Voice: B (It sounds a lot like me (wait, maybe that's a bad thing))
Use of hyperlinks: C-
Avoidance of cliches: A- (without re-reading I bet one slipped through)
Incorporation of references to animal and/or the Aurora Kennel: B+
Incorporation of important cultural icons: D+ (I did mention National Vicheyssoise Day after all)
Meeting the requirement for embedding at least one video: A
Meeting the requirement for mentioning recently passed boxing legends: A
Meeting the requirement for mentioning the Kardashians: F
Never missing more than two days: F
Never missing more than 6 days: A
Reading other people's blogs: C
Commenting on other people's blogs: D
Liking other peoples' blogs even though I didn't read them as much as I'd hoped: A
Minimizing embarrassing posts about my family: A

Final Grade: (using the dart board protocol) B+

Thanks for reading. We promise to post more.

So you think you're already tired of Christmas music?

This is the time of year when people look forward to holiday concerts. At venues all over the area, local musical groups put on free and not so free performances of all your holiday favorites. You can hear concert bands at nursing homes, bell choirs in the gazebo on the town square, choruses in the mall, and small combos in whatever cafe nooks they can find. There is nothing like live music, which sets the tone for the season, and creates the backdrop for the memories we carry with us always.

But as you're just now starting to find your way to the live musical performances, we musicians have been rehearsing for weeks. One of the groups I play in began the holiday repertoire in early October, so we could be ready by this week, when we play the first of five concerts. Another of the groups I'm in (neither group is blog friendly, in that they do not have a web presence I can link to) started in late October. My friend's bell choir started weeks ago.

I've rehearsed Frosty the Snowman 6 times so far, The Christmas Song 5 times, Festive Sounds of Hanukkah (my personal favorite to play) 7 times and the Nightmare Before Christmas about 15 (it was new and we really needed the work on it). There was also a piece called the Eighth Candle (or something like that), with a tricky 5/8 time that we never polished up enough to present in public. Maybe next year.

You would think we're sick of it, but I can tell you we are not. I guess I cannot speak for all my band mates, but I've been playing Christmas and Hanukka music for almost 20 years now and I'm never tired of it. But I can say I don't listen to much of it on the radio until the last few days before Christmas. And since I rarely shop, I'm not subjected to the overhead music inspiring me to buy, buy, buy.

Here's what you can do to help your local musicians, Show up. Listen, Applaud. That's all we ask. It makes weeks of rehearsal completely worth it.

When Black Friday Comes I'm Going to Stake My Claim

Black Friday starts at midnight and this song won't get out of my head. All you shoppers who are heading out for the deal of the century, enjoy one of my favorite bands

My Cat is Trying to Kill Me

I have sleep apnea, and I use one of those CPAP machines at night. For those who do not know, the CPAP forces pressurized air into my nose via a mask I wear that makes me look like I have a monkey on my face (I stole that analogy--thanks LIE).

I have woken up with my machine turned off and I recently discovered why. My cat sits on it and pushes the off button. I think it's on purpose. He doesn't understand that the mask is designed to let me breath when the machine goes off, or else there'd be a rash of suffocation deaths every time someone crashed into a power pole. Every time he turns it off I eventually wake up and turn it back on, saying, 'Nice try, Custard.' He's undeterred. He must really have it out for me. And I'm not even the one who gives him sub Q fluids every other night.

The Great Bridge Repair of 2011

On September 19, they closed a bridge a mile west of our place. Totally closed it, complete with a 5 mile detour. Kind of a pain, if our destination was points west, such as Twinsburg, Hudson, Akron, Macedonia or Missouri. In fact driving to Missouri was sufficiently more difficult that we avoided it altogether.

The bridge crews were kind enough to put large detour signs up for the motorists, to keep them from making wasted trips all the way to the bridge, which was a solid mile and a half from the nearest alternate route. Yet, people ignored those signs in droves. We had a game where we sat at the end of our driveway and watched the cars head west, brake, turn around, and come back. In any given five minute period three or four cars would do this. One of us even got out of her car and waved at them as they doubled back. And once, while I was getting the mail, I shouted at a passing car with an open window, 'IT'S REALLY CLOSED.' It didn't help,

The inconvenience of the detour was lessened a tiny bit by the fact that our road was so quiet.  It's a state route, with a 50 MPH speed limit. There is always traffic. But with the bridge out, you could literally stand in the middle of the road for minutes until someone who believes detour signs aren't for them drove by. I really liked it. But only until I had to drive the 2 miles to Twinsburg and leave 10 minutes earlier.

So today I drove down to the bridge to see how it was going, and there were guys painting stripes. I asked when it would be open and he said, "In about 20 minutes, as soon as the paint dries." Sweet!

So now the traffic has picked up and our pastime of making fun of people who were texting instead of watching detour signs is over. Just in time for Thanksgiving. We have a lot of people bringing a lot of dogs and this will make it easier.

And it will mean that 2 college kids will get home ten minutes earlier for Thanksgiving break. Good news all around.

Tomorrow is National Vicheyssoise Day

Today my wife tells me of a Facebook post by our nephew who is in college. He noted that today is Homemade Bread Day. Actually this is what he said: "Today is National Homemade Bread Day.....too bad I'm hungry now and can't wait 3 hours for a sandwich."

Pretty funny.

Then I wondered when was the last time he's ever made bread? My guess it's never, which means it would be a lot more than 3 hours before he had anything to spread his peanut butter on, especially considering that where he lives (his grandmother's house) has none of the following: bread flour, yeast, loaf pan, a suitable place to knead.

Coincidentally, four hours before I even knew it was Homemade Bread Day, I tossed some flour, yeast, eggs, butter, and water into the stand mixer and started a batch of challah. I've been on a challah kick lately, trying to find a good recipe. So right about the time I was being told about Homemade Bread Day, we were cracking open a beautiful yellow loaf, crusty on the outside and soft on the inside.

So, back to the title. Tomorrow really is National Vicheyssoise Day. (which I'll be skipping). And yesterday was National Baklava Day (sorry I missed that). And the day after tomorrow is Carbonated Beverage with Caffeine Day. I swear. Look it up. It turns out every day of the year has a food dedicated to it. Some have a week or a whole month. But who decided papaya gets a whole month (September) while chocolate milk shakes get only a day (September 12)? Oh, the healthy foods get preference you say? How about Brownies at Brunch getting a month (August) while zucchini gets August 8? How many days a week do people even eat brunch?

And what were people thinking who designated Aug 3 as Grab Some Nuts Day?

There are literally 200 good jokes waiting to happen on that list of national food days. And I will be waiting, typing fingers poised,  for National Roast Suckling Pig Day (Dec.18) if only for the awesome blog entry it may yield.  

My Public Service Good Deed for the Day

Because of my published writing, this blog, and my website, plus the kennel website and the various other ways I've weaseled myself into the internet, I signed up for a service called Google Alerts, which scours the internet for search terms I have provided and emails me with the results. For example, I have it set up to keep an eye open for any time 'John Sharp' comes up. So on a given morning I will have an email listing the happenings of all the John Sharps important enough to make the web.

There are three John Sharps that I hear about the most: former State of Texas comptroller and current Texas A&M University Chancellor, John Sharp; Kansas City Councilman John Sharp; and Peoria journalist John Sharp. After that, most of the John Sharps are obituaries, like John D. Sharp from Los Angeles, which always make me a little sad.

It will also return hits where 'John' and 'Sharp' and in the same paragraph. It's just Google being thorough, I guess. 

But sometimes it shows me me, like when I am published someplace. The best part is that one of the times I didn't even know I was published and I had to have words with the publisher. It's bad form to publish without notification.

And a couple of times it found where I was mentioned in a blog.

I know it's not perfect, though. Sometimes after I am published I wait and wait for my Google alert and it never comes. It makes me feel like the internet has forgotten about me. But I also know that all the John Sharps in the world who have set up their own Google Alerts will be flashed a notice when one day my obit wends it way across the interwebs. I hope it makes them feel a little bit sad.

So now that I've written John Sharp enough times to spark a dozen Google Alerts, I'll leave you to set up your own Google Alerts so you can keep track of yourself. So long as your name isn't Barack Smith or David Obama, you won't get too many hits.

Toy of the Day

Did you ever want a dog toy that talked to your dog, so you didn't have to?  Babble Ball comes with pre-programmed phrases and wisecracks and when your dog goes near it, it turns itself on and talks to him. It's activated by vibration or even the dog breathing on it. They have different sizes, and some for cats, ferrets and birds.

Here's a video of a dog being "entertained' by one that makes bird sounds. .



I have to wonder if by the time the people get home, will this dog be a complete basket case? Maybe there are some dogs that shouldn't have one.

An Interview with Victor

 Victor, is a 9 year old shepherd-retriever mix, currently staying at the Humane Society of Greater Akron, waiting for a new home.  November is Adopt a Senior Pet Month, and Victor hopes someone out there is looking for a dog just like him. I spent a few minutes with Victor this week.


Aurora Boardealis:  Let me first say how great you look for being nine. What's your secret?

Victor: I go easy on the vices, ya know? I don't smoke, and I only drink out of the toilet on weekends. I gotta stay on top of my game for the ladies.

AB: You're still chasing the ladies?

V: Are you kidding? Look around. There's some real knockouts here, let me tell you. See that collie over there? She checks me out every time I go for my walks.

AB She is kind of pretty.

V: Back off, pal. I saw her first.

AB: No problem. Let me ask you, how did you get the name, Victor?

V: My first home, they was Michigan fans, and they named me after their stupid fight song, 'Hail to the Victors.'

AB: Oh man, that's terrible.

V: Tell me about it. One time they was watching the game and when the band started playing I went over and peed on the TV.

AB: You're my new favorite dog.

V: Did I mention I like cats?

AB: No, but the people at the Humane Society did. Why is that?

V: I don't know, they're just so soft and cuddly. Plus, the chicks really dig a guy who likes cats.

AB: Listen, it's been good meeting you. I hope you find a forever home soon.

V: Thanks for coming by. Say, can you sneak me over with that collie?

AB: I don't think so.

V: Come on man, just this once.

AB: All right, I'm going to leave now.



Victor is available for interviews at the Humane Society of Greater Akron. Please go check out him, and all the other wonderful older dogs and cats who are looking for a home just like yours.