Cat Antics

Would you look at this? [First few paragraphs are all cat-related. Feel free to skip ahead.]

I thought I'd broken Pokey of the habit of drinking water out of glasses, but she started again recently. She and Habibi are the worst offenders. He laps at it when a glass is full and very rarely I have caught him dunking a paw in (eeeu, why does my water taste like kitty litter? And yes, I know what kitty litter tastes like - it's impossible to keep the dust out of my mouth/nose when I'm pouring the fresh stuff into the litter box). I've never seen Pokey's little head this far down in the glass before.

Uh oh, here comes Lily to investigate. As you can see, this is all taking place on the computer desk. Better get that glass of water before it gets knocked over.

I managed to avert the flood.

My friend Susie has a cat named Sparky, who loves her dearly and vice-versa. He loves to be cradled in her arms and is incredibly sweet. To Susie. As he gets older he's getting more territorial and aggressive to non-family (and even to them when a stranger is in the house). I just figured it was people who don't know how to deal with cats b/c Sparky has always been sweet to me.

Yesterday I was petting him and he was very friendly. Then Susie went into another room and Sparky flipped out when I tried to walk into the kitchen. Ran at me, grabbed my leg with his front paws and laid his teeth on me (not a bite, but I knew his teeth were there). And then he did it again. Doesn't seem like playing and his tail was doing the whippy thing.

Any cat psychologists out there? Susie's been trying to find info but has gotten the sage advice to consult an expert. We're in Egypt, there's no such thing here. He's a sweet cat, but someone is going to get hurt if she can't figure out how to turn him around.

Off the cat topic, it hit me yesterday that we are packing out in two weeks and flying out in a month. Aaaaghhh. It always seems like I have more time than I actually do. I've been puttering around doing fun things I want to do and ignoring the have-tos like insurance inventory.

One thing on my checklist is getting backings sewn up for two charity quilts I'm mailing off to Bonnie, plus I'd love to get a backing pieced for my wordy queen-sized bed quilt top that she's going to do fabulous longarm machine quilting on. I'm using the batiks I don't care for as much for the backing on the latter.

I was telling Cher that I'm challenged by cutting straight lines. I really am. Trying to get these large pieces of fabric sewn together for backings is just nightmarish. That's why I've gone the wonky path. So while some of you are feeling challenged loosening up your style, I'm nearly in tears trying to be precise. Oh, the irony.

Yesterday was the first meeting of the Quilters in DeNile after our summer break. Not everyone is back in town yet, but it was good to catch up with each other and share new books. Everyone seems to be tempting me with Halloween fabric. First Finn with the witches and skulls and then someone at quilting had discovered some great vultures on purple. I'm trying to hold off until I'm actually back in the states.

Some fun links for ya'all: Pat Sloan has an interesting series of posts in her blog about putting words on quilts and how to choose them. (Well, and how to applique them - but ya'all don't need that part, right?) Check out the gallery of quilts with words. I see Brigitte's work in there. She's a German quilter who has worked with the freepieced letters. I've been trying to convince her to start a blog. Brigitte's a bit nervous about her English, but I told her that she speaks quilts, and that's all that's necessary.

Cat lover Nancy made a great quilt with a bright cat fabric and one word ala the penguin quilt I made the other day. Mismatched Katie has done some wonderful Xs and Os. The Os are rounder than mine and wonkier and truly fabulous.