patio

Weekend Cat Blogging with Big Merp: On the Patio

We have been having some amazing weather in San Francisco over the past week. Warm, hot even, not too windy. Perfect for spending some time out on the patio. And as I enjoy a glass of wine and some snacks, taking in the sounds and textures of urban summer, Big Merp has discovered that he, too, enjoys some outdoor time.

In true cat-like fashion, he wanders the perimeter, and when things seem “secure”, he just relaxes nearby.

Seeing him wander the patio with his tail up reminded me of Luna, who also enjoyed her time out here. I think she would be proud (Sam Sam is more of an indoor-only cat and has rarely ventured outside, but she enjoys looking out windows).

The first pairing features a dark zinfandel (Amador County) with dry Spanish chorizo; the second is a chardonnay with Port Salut cheese and a spicy calabrese salami. Indeed, it was the latter that inspired me to re-release the “commercial” as a standalone video.

Big Merp came over to sit underneath, probably in the hope that something would fall off the table.

I like the way the combination of Merp’s fur, the afternoon light, and the colors of the slate contrast with the bright blue of the table.

We hope you are enjoying your weekend. For us, it’s back to the studio to work on our next video…

Weekend Cat Blogging: The Return of the Fog

After a week or extraordinarily blue skies and warm days and nights in San Francisco, our regular scheduled fog has returned this morning, bathing everything in bright grey-white glow:

Luna is enjoying looking out the window onto the patio, contemplating something.

We actually quite like the fog here, as long as it doesn’t get to cold. But this morning does have a melancholy quality to it is well. Like the fog, it might dissipate during the day, or it might not.

Weekend Cat Blogging #384 is hosted by Jules at Judi’s Mind Over Matter.

The Carnival of the Cats will be up this Sunday at Meowsings of an Opinionated Pussycat from their new home in Texas.

And the Friday Ark is at the modulator.

Weekend Cat Blogging: Back on the Patio

As summer weather comes to San Francisco, we at CatSynth venture out onto our patio.

The patio took quite a pounding this past season. During one particularly bad storm with high winds and heavy rain, that plant on the left side of the photo came crashing down from the sky, destroying a screen and one of those nice modernist black benches :(. Fortunately, everything can be cleaned up or replaced. And the sculptures were not damaged.

Luna ventures out onto the patio:

Of course, she goes right for the grass in that pot that fell fromt the sky.

I’m pretty sure it’s supposed to be brown, as many decorative grasses are. But I don’t know that it’s safe for cats, so I tried to discourage Luna from chewing on this. It’s not easy, as she particularly loves found grass.

Weekend Cat Blogging, Mothers’ Day Edition, is at Mind of Mog.

The Carnival of the Cats will be hosted this Sunday by Kashim, Othello and Salome.

And the Friday Ark is at the modulator.

Weekend Cat Blogging and Photo Hunt: Square…and Rememberance

This weekend, we have another combined Weekend Cat Blogging and Photo Hunt. The theme this week is square. Geometric shapes, including squares, abound at CatSynth HQ. But with the exceptionally gorgeous weather, we turn our attention once again to the patio:

The patio is covered in square slate tiles on which Luna enjoys rolling around. We are still doing some work to fix things up for spring now the construction is in the past. New design ideas to emphasize the industrial and geometric aesthetic.

This weekend we are also joining our friends the Three Tabby Cats in Vienna ~ Kashim, Othello and Salome ~ in a Weekend of Remembrance. We participated when they hosted a similar weekend back in 2007, lighting a candle like this one.

As we have made more friends online, so we have also lost many friends. We said goodbye to Mickey only a few weeks ago. Last year, we lost DJ Kikovas, the feline companion of our friend and fellow electronic musician Vivi Pedraglio. We also said goodbye to Tali and Sniffie. It is interesting to look back and see the diverse collection of people, mixture of musicians, engineers and cat lovers, who cross paths in these stories. We have also lost many heroes in music, art and mathematics in this same period of time; and some personal friends. We remember them as well.

Our thoughts for all our friends who lost love ones (human and non-human) over the past year, and for those who are struggling in the current storms in southeastern U.S., recovering from the disaster in Japan, and living through the seemingly greater number conflicts around the world.

Weekend Cat Blogging #308 is hosted by Samantha and Clementine at Life From a Cat’s Perspective. They are dedicating their post in remembrance of Praline.

Photo Hunt #263 is hosted by tnchick. This week’s theme is SQUARE.

The Carnival of the Cats will be up tomorrow at Meowsings of an Opinionated Pussycat.

And the Friday Ark is at the modulator.