How to get an Affectionate Kitty

This is for all you people asking.

Haha just kidding, no one's been asking. But I do have a super-affectionate kitty, and I know people whose cats aren't so affectionate. I've always wondered why this is, so I got to thinking about it, and now I've made a set of super easy-to-follow instructions on how to get a kitty just as affectionate as mine!

Things you'll need:

• A kitty (male or female)
• Cat food and a place for the cat to do their business
• An animal shelter or friends willing to take on unwanted kittens
• Older siblings (3+, 4 recommended, males also recommended)
• 10+ years

Adventures in Cat-Training

We recently bought my cat a scratching post. She's been getting older, and goes outside less often, so she had taken to scratching at our furniture. Our old couch was fraying at all the corners where she'd attack it, so when we got this new one a few months back, we used a special kind of double-sided tape to keep her away; the fabric on my piano bench was also coming apart, though now it's been reupholstered.

I've also noticed my cat's claws getting caught in things. Cats, unlike dogs, can retract their claws (well, except for cheetahs), but when my cat stretches out in front of the doormat, she flexes her claws into the fabric to hold herself steady, and finds herself pulling the carpet up with her as she tries to move. Something had to be done.

Wisdom Teeth Extraction

I got my wisdom teeth removed today. They're gone. I'm not 100% sure what they were doing there in the first place, since it seems like everyone just wants to get them out eventually. I'm sure a five minute Google search would lend me an answer, but I find I don't actually care enough to go look it up. Ah, 21st century.

I got to the dental surgery place a bit early, after driving myself and my dad there in his truck - which is a stick-shift, by the way. Remember how I said I never wanted to have to drive manual transmissions? It's because I hate them, and I think I'm going to either die or kill someone else when I'm in them. A few minutes ago, I looked up "pros and cons of learning to drive stick-shift," and you want to know what the best 'pro' reason was? "A lot more fun to drive."

It's totally not.

Vacation Time: Results Show

Monday, August the first, my parents and I set out for our official summer-vacation-get-away thing. The goal, I believe, was to visit my brother in Utah, see a few people in Idaho, and get to know said-brother's future in-laws in Oregon while we scouted out places to eat in Portland for the upcoming wedding. My own personal goals, meanwhile, were to work through some of my 'to-read' backlog, figure out our new car radio, and drive at least one leg of the trip without mom yelling at me (she's a very nervous passenger).

The drive to Utah took about ten hours, and I drove the first three. The road goes straight through the Mojave Desert, which is relatively pleasant to look at but pretty boring to drive through. Add that to the fact that I didn't know where I was going, and I was kinda stressed (I'm not used to using the overdrive button, so there were a few people riding my tail, and mom was finicky throughout), and by the end of my shift my back was sore and I was ready to stop.

Like this, but with no clouds. Ever.

Apologies

For anyone looking forward to my blog, this week has probably felt a bit like a cop out. On Monday, I just posted a list of facts which you may or may not have been interested in. Wednesday there was no post at all. I can console myself with the fact that I don't really have a huge readership yet.

As some of you may know, I'm taking two summer courses at the local community college, one of which just ended this week (I think). For my final, I had to give a ten-minute presentation, which I'll use as my excuse as to why my blog posts have been infrequent as of late. There was also an exam in my Psychology class as well, so I had to balance studying and preparing for my presentation at the same time; oddly enough, I ended up doing really well on my Psych test, only missing three question after barely studying, while previous tests with more dedicated studying had gotten lower scores. Hmm....

My presentation was on Internet Subcultures, and how they're forming the 'Modern Myth' (it was a Myth and Legend English course). It was an interesting presentation to prepare, and apparently everyone really liked it, even though I felt like subject was too broad, and I definitely had a different point of view than what people were expecting.

For today, however, there's really no excuse as to why there's no post. I spent the morning alternating between working on a puzzle with my mom (which you will definitely hear more about in upcoming blogs) and watching Netflix. Around noon or so, Mom and I decided to head outside and do some shopping, because, in all honesty, both of us needed to get outside a bit. I got some Animal Crackers from Target, which was exciting because I haven't had those in a long time.

Then we got back at 4:30 and I realized that I hadn't written a blog yet today. Instead of working on something substantial and posting it late tonight, I decided to give you, dear readers, this cheesy apology post and a promise to write something interesting next week.

Looking at my Blog Idea Book, however, I noticed that I'm running out of interesting ideas. I have a bunch of old ideas that don't seem nearly as interesting anymore, and a few reviews I need to write as soon as I finish what I'm planning on reviewing, but other than that, there are just a few mildly interesting 'Personal Opinion' pieces. If anyone has something they want me to talk about, please leave a comment below. If there's anything you'd like to hear my opinion about, any books or movies you want me to review, or anything else, I'll be glad to take any suggestions into serious consideration. Thanks in advance!

Five Interesting Facts

Several months ago, I attended a "You're growing up! Welcome to the older-kids class!" party-type thing at the house of one of my church leaders, with a few other girls my age. It was intended to encourage us to leave the teenage Sunday School classes and join the adult Sunday School lessons, though I admit that we haven't exactly done so since then. At the beginning of the lunch, we were each given a bag of M&Ms that we were told not to eat, and each M&M color was assigned a random category (red was hobbies, blue was college plans, etc.). For every M&M of each particular color we had, we had to share that many facts about ourselves within that category (for example, I had two reds, so I had to share two of my hobbies).

One girl had two yellows, and she was asked to share "Two random facts." The idea was to share two random facts about herself, but she ended up saying some random world facts (I forget what they were), and we all laughed at her wit. We ended before I got to yellow, and since I had five yellow M&Ms,  it would have taken me a while to think of five interesting facts anyways. I decided to save those five facts for an interesting blog post (much like my previous, and hopefully reoccurring, "What's Up With...?"s).

This weekend, I had lunch with my brother for his birthday. While touring his new apartment, he asked if I wanted to borrow the Goldeneye Wii game that I had gotten him for Christmas. Part of his reasoning was to "distract" me, because I was writing blogs so quickly. So I decided to fit my "Five Interesting Facts" blog in now, since it should be a quick read, and I can go back to playing Goldeneye when I'm done.

Monday the Fourth

I don't have a main topic for today's blog, so even though there are several things I'm going to go over, it'll be relatively quick.

About a week ago, I preformed a system restore on my dad's old laptop (which I've informally adopted) to clean it of any malware. For some reason, after the software reset, the 'Control' key fell off of the keyboard (In case there are any computer illiterates following along: there's no reason that something in the software would effect the keyboard hardware). I was unable to click it back into place, so instead of wasting the opportunity, I decided to sew the 'ctrl' key onto a bracelet that I could wear around, because the symbolism was too good to pass up. I don't know if I'll ever actually wear it, but it's pretty cool looking.

In other news, this past week has been pretty interesting. I managed to make all three of my blog appointments last week, so I'm really not doing too bad, but last Monday was a pretty late update (surprisingly, according to my stats, my post on the 27th got an unexpected amount of hits. Who knew people were so interested in hats?) I blame Monday's tardiness on my mom's compulsive desire to catch up to me on Psych.

Fluently Improper

(This post'll be short, as I'm having a Firefly marathon with a friend today and don't have much time to write.)

Like most people who speak more than one language, I sometimes tend to slip between the two. There's a lot of Spanish spoken in the desert where I live, and some people may start a conversation in English and end it in their home tongue. I don't know Spanish, and while I've been taking French long enough to break into it when writing notes to myself, the language I find myself slipping into in common writing and speaking is a fairly new one: Lolspeak.

 

The Most Powerful Cat-God Maru

The internet is well known for taking ordinary animals and making them into celebrities. Almost everyone's seen the Sneezing Baby Panda or the Otters Holding Hands, and the earlier LOLCats are easily recognized on every major site. There are hundreds of YouTube spinoffs featuring Keyboard Cat and Dramatic Chipmunk (Who is, in fact, a prairie dog).

One of the more popular YouTube celebrites is Maru, a male Scottish Fold cat living in Japan. There's nothing extraordinary about Maru - he doesn't ride a skateboard or surf or play the piano. His owner tapes him simply being a cat, playing with cat toys and climbing on furniture and jumping into boxes (his signature move). His adorable-ness overpowers viewers however, and captures the hearts of every cat owner who ever had a cat (much like Simon's Cat).

I'd heard about Maru years ago, but didn't actually subscribe to his YouTube page until last summer. I'm sure not everyone will understand why Maru is so fun to watch but he is. Maru the Cat is adorable, and he acts like any other adorable, friendly cat you know. His owner never shows herself on camera, or even talks (I believe we see her hand occasionally), so the videos really focus on Maru and his normal, day-to-day life.

Maru's YouTube channel has over 109k subscribers, and is the 9th most subscribed-to channel in Japan. There's generally three updates a month, with more on his personal blog (which is mostly in Japanese - all the video descriptions and titles are in Japanese as well, with simple English added for international viewers). After the Japan Earthquakes, Maru's owner received thousands of messages and emails, asking to make sure she and Maru were safe. He's been talked about in famous newspapers around the globe, and Rather Good Stuff referred to Maru as the most powerful Cat-god in their highly scientific, informative video, 'The Internet is Made of Cats'.

Maru's adorable-ness can only be threatened by Nora, the piano-playing cat. Why cats are becoming so prominent on the internet baffles me. I'm a cat person, I own a cat, and I've always owned cats and imagine I always will, but I figured most people were dog people who weren't particularly fond of cats. What would inspire these people, who I imagine make up the majority of internet users, subscribe to cat videos and sent them around to their friends? Am I wrong, and cat people really are the 'silent majority'?

Either way, I hope Maru's owner continues to upload these videos for a long time. A little bit of happiness where everyone can see it goes a long way to making the world a better place.