Ode to my cat.

.... It was brought to my attention, thanks to a thread on Writer's blog, that I seem to rarely mention my cat here. Don't expect that to change. I love her and all, but, as Writer so aptly put it, I don't dote on her. So, here's my cat post:

.... My cat's name is Gata, which is spanish for female cat. A wise person once said "why name something that doesn't come when you call its name?" At one time I had a Russian Blue that I named Koshka, which is Russian for cat. Anyway, Gata is about 13 years old, yet so small that everyone mistakes her for a kitten. I got her because I prefer a cat in the house to mice in the house, and when my previous cat decided she preferred the field I used to live next to more than me and ran away, I developed a bad case of mouses in the houses. My roommate at the time was dating a woman whose parents lived on a farm in Fairview, Utah, and allowed their cats to roam, and breed, indiscriminately. They also lived right on Highway 31, so it was not uncommon for a cat to just stop showing up at home. So, my roommate just grabbed one of their kittens at random when he was up there and brought her here. I, of course, got her fixed so that I wouldn't have indiscriminant kittens roaming around. The rest is history. 

.... And here's the requisite pictures:

Gata, relaxing on my clothes

Gata, relaxing on a chair

She has this habit of tucking her head under her when she sleeps

and she loves to bring me little presents

this is one of the few pictures where she has a collar on.  it lasted about 2 months before she figured how to get it off and lost

she really likes sleeping on my clothes

this was before I remodeled the bathroom, I'd broken the top to the toilet and she thought it was her watering hole

she really, really likes sleeping on my clothes

awww, how cute.

Ok, there we go, my cat post. 

Gata shares dinner with me....

It's 4:00, I have to head out to school and what does my cat bring to me as a present. A live bird. Now, this happened once before and nearly wrecked my home. That time the bird flew up onto the curtain rod on the front windows, and the cat proceeded to leap onto the curtains to get to the bird. The bird then flew across the living room over to the other side of the dining room and up on top of the hutch. The cat ran across the coffee table, up onto the dining room table and leaped at the bird, who flew across to the curtains again. This went on for 20 minutes as the stuff on my tables went flying everywhere and the curtains got shredded. Finally, the bird noticed the open door and flew out.

This time it was a little different, because the curtains were open and the bird tried to fly out the window. SPLAT! It's amazing how resilient these little birds are, hit the window full force and, although a little stunned, it survived. I picked it up in a towel, took it outside and when I let it go it flew off like nothing was wrong. Now, it probably had a bad concussion, maybe even internal bleeding, but I'm just going to believe that it survived.

November 26, 1939

From "The Salt Lake Tribune", November of 1939. One of my roommates was unpacking some stuff that had been packed with a bunch of Tribunes from this era, and he gave them to me. I've been reading through them, finding a lot of interesting and amusing stuff, that you will probably end up seeing here on these pages. Like, how much do you think a "new" 3 bedroom home would go for? With a 2 car garage, young fruit trees on 2/3 of an acre close to 39th So. on 20th East? Or how much was Grand Central charging for a lb of Top Sirloin? Package of Kellogg's Shredded Wheat? And how about a fully equipped brand new Pontiac Special "6" Torpedo? Just some of the fun, and totally useless, information I'll be bringing you in the future.