Luna

Weekend Cat Blogging #125: The Halloween Edition

Luna and I welcome everyone to Weekend Cat Blogging, Halloween Edition. We are happy to be hosting this event.

This is difficult time for cats, especially black cats. In North America (U.S. and Canada), some continue to view cats as “bad luck”, such as in this article, which fuels neglect and sometimes abuse which can spike around Halloween.

Many shelters continue to suspend adoptions of black cats around Halloween (sometimes for all of October). And while this is to protect them, it is unfortunate because black cats already have a harder time getting adopted.

So we at CatSynth want to celebrate black cats this weekend. Black is beautiful!

We invite all our feline friends to participate, but we want to especially welcome black cats. Households with multiple cats are encouraged to let their black siblings enjoy the spotlight this weekend.

To participate, regardless of fur color, please leave us a comment, or contact us. We will be posting the big round-up later this weekend.

And don't forget the other Weekend Cat Events ™. Friday Ark #162 is at the modulator. The Bad Kitty Cats Festival of Chaos is at Live from a Cat's Perspective with Samantha and Tigger. And Carnival of the Cats is going to Missy Blue Eyes' and KC's on Sunday.

Seabright cats, a warm day, and remembering those in harms way

This was an amazingly warm and clear day here on the California coast.

The early part of the day was in the Seabright neighborhood of Santa Cruz, mostly reading and working, but also enjoying wandering the streets and the area by the beach. I got a glimpse of this cat in one of the apartment complexes near the beach.

This photo is actually from a previous encounter with the “Seabright Kitty”, he/she wasn't in the mood to be photographed today…

Someone else, on the other hand, was quite photogenic:

This is Bella, who resides with my friend and colleague Synthia Payne, whom readers may remember from the UCSC DANM exhibition and Ninjam performances.

Luna of course continues to enjoy her favorite indoor activites:

I actually did take Luna outside briefly yesterday on her harness, and all she wanted to do was head back to the door and go inside. I'm not going to argue.

Like I said, it was exceptionally warm today:

Great for us here in Santa Cruz, but it part of the same warm, dry weather in which the fires in Southern California continue to burn out of control. This years fires in San Diego and the areas in and around Los Angeles might be even worse than the devastiing fires in 2003, with so many people and animals evacuating (over half a million so far) and so many more in harms way.

We at CatSynth want to take a few minutes on this Tuesday to send out thoughts to all the humans, cats, and other animals threatened by this disaster, and hope they make it through safely.

Weekend Cat Blogging #124 and more: Away

Luna is looking out her favorite window…and waiting for someone to return from tour…

Weekend Cat Blogging #124 is at the *New* Tuxedo Gang Hideout.

The Bad Kitty Cats Festival of Chaos will be held at Pet's Garden Blog, while the Carnival of the Cats will be at our friends The Bad Kitty Cats – we hope things are going a bit better for them now. And of course the Friday Ark is at the modulator.

Weekend Cat Blogging #123 and more: An Old New Favorite Spot

After a major clean-up in the studio, the bean bag chair reemerged from hiding. And Luna immediately reclaimed it as one of her favorite spots:

In addition the great black-on-black styling, it's a comfy place to “nest”, whether just relaxing and watching me work, or taking a nap:

Indeed, Luna spent quite a bit of time on the beanbag yesterday, even well into the evening (while I was working on the headphone festival performance):

Cats can remind a lot about simple joys, like a comfy spot to nest.

Weekend Cat Bloggin #123 is being held by Upsie and Sher at What Did You Eat. Upsie is learning about the US healthcare system, and also featuring the “sight formerly known as ScamperDude” at their new home at CASPCA (Charlottesville, VA ASPCA).

The hardworking “cat boys” Kashim and Othello are hosting this weekend's Kad Kitty Cats Festival of Chaos (it's already edition #14, tempus fugit). The Carnival of the Cats will be happening this Sunday, hosted by Grace and the Kittens. And of course the Friday Ark #160 is at the Modulator.

Weekend Cat Blogging and more: Happy Tail

This weekend's theme for the Bad Kitty Cat Festival of Chaos is “tails and toes”. And we know that Luna has quite a talent for posing her tail:

…even while simply resting:

The “crook in her tail” is actually pointing out towards the camera.

Watch this video (originally posted at Luna's Catster page) as Luna swings her tail:

Weekend Cat Blogging #122 is being hosted by Astrid and the “cat boys” Kashim and Othello. That “nip beer” concept sounds pretty good to me.

The Bad Kitty Cat Festival of Chaos is being held at This, That and The Other Thing, where we expect to see other “happy tails.” UPDATE: the round-up is posted, and features a slide-show video with background music – I believe the technical term is “finger snapping.” Check it out.

Carnival of the Cats will be hosted this Sunday by StrangeRanger. And of course Friday Ark #159 is at the modulator.

Autumn sun, Midnight Monday, and Site Improvements

Well, I am back home at CatSynth HQ in California. That means back home with Luna, of course:

Although she is calm and poised in this photo, it's been all purrs and cuddling today, even while I try to work. Not that anyone is complaining.

Today we enjoyed what I traditionally called the “August sun”, that really deep yellow sunlight that gives everything, but especially green leaves, a rich yellow coloring, that feels warm even as the air cools down. It is difficult to capture in a digital photo, but here is one attempt:

I think I should change “August sun” to “Autumn sun”, since the phenomenon extends well into September and even October. And not only here on the west coast. New York was exceptionally warm and getting plenty of “Autumn/August” sun this past week.

I have been working on several improvements for this site, including upgrading our software. As usual, a few things break in the process (e.g., comment displays were a little off, the “tag search” featured on the highways page and elsewhere was completely broken, our “cats synthesizers music art opinion” slogan was missing, etc.). Those are mostly fixed, and now we can proceed to making actual improvments.

Actually, the main change we need to make is in our hosting service. The good folks at A Plus net (the same people who messed up our domain name and left us stranded in the CatSynth FEMA trailer for a week) let us know that we have exceeded our CPU usage limits (not storage or bandwidth) and will need to switch to a more expensive hosting plan – all in a message from the friendly-sounding “abuse at aplus dot net.” So we could simply upgrade our plan, but since our lease is up on October 7 anyway, it might be a good time to shop around for an alternative. We welcome suggestions from our readers on good and bad experiences with hosts – please leave a comment or contact us. Of course, we have to act quickly on this matter…

Weekend Cat Blogging and more: It's all about Luna!

Well, I am still in New York this weekend, and meanwhile Luna is home at CatSynth HQ in California. I thought it would be appropriate to share some photos taken during some previous trips by our pet sitter Ronni West:

It's great getting to see these photos from Ronni, knowing that Luna is happy and being herself. Here we see her kneading some laundry left on the bed, which remains one of her guilty pleasures:

I make sure to leave some laundry out when I go away, I think it gives her a sense of familiarity and comfort.

Even though I do enjoy travelling, it's always great to come home and be reunited.

Weekend Cat Blogging #121 is being hosted this weekend at masak-masak.

The Bad Kitty Cat Festival of Chaos is going on the Mind of Mog. The theme this week is catnip, and while I know Luna is getting to enjoy fresh catnip during my absense, I don't have the photographic evidence on hand (yet).

The Carnival of the Cats will be hosted this week at Life from a Cat's perspective. And of course the Friday Ark #158 is at the modulator.

Finally, thank you to everyone who sent their kind thoughts this week, through comments here at CatSynth as well as via email or other media. I will try my best to answer individually as well, but wanted to say something here for everyone.