Fatty's Story, New Shoes, and Prom Season

I keep a pot of catnip on the back stairs for my cats and it's a magnet for every feline in the neighborhood. It's like my house is a crack house for cats some days. My own cats enjoy the catnip, but Fatty enjoys it more than everyone else. She gets in and rolls around. She is, as one friend of mine notes, a "cat of size," but the poor plant still survives somehow, maybe the fact that it shares the pot with a carnation plant offers some projection.

When I moved into this house 8 years ago Fatty lived next door with a college girl whose father had bought the property as an investment his daughter could live in while she went to school. When the girl graduated, she rented the place out and left poor Fatty behind in the care of a string of renters who didn't take very good care of her. The poor cat is very people-oriented, and she was desolate, living in the street taking handouts from the neighbors. She had been adopted from a shelter in the first place, so being homeless must've brought up that old insecurity and fear. I first started feeding her, and then, in the winter, she started sleeping in my garage. Fatty and I built up a rapport, in spite of the fact that my then-husband didn't like cats and objected to the idea of a second cat when he wasn't that crazy about the one we already had. When we split up, Fatty moved in and became part of the family. Poor girl has heaved many sighs of relief ever since. She's got beds and chairs to sleep on, plenty of food, and now a third cat to compete with for control over the house. What more could a cat ask for?

Fatty is the smartest cat I've ever had. She's dog-like in that she's very attuned to people and their actions. She's got me trained to let her lick my cereal bowl after I'm finished eating breakfast. I never remember, but once she sees me with the bowl, she meows to remind me, and waits patiently until I finish and then put down the bowl. [Note: then the bowl is thoroughly sterilized in the dishwasher.] My son eats cereal too, but she doesn't want his bowl--either that, or he's not as trainable as I am. She also won't lick the bowl if the cereal has been mixed with soy milk instead of cow's milk, so she's very particular. Other than the cereal bowl trick, Fatty is very polite and doesn't beg at the table.

My theory is that she was a person in her previous life and that she did something bad, so she's back as a cat to re-work her way up the chain. Whatever it was she did, I think she's made up for it during her bouts of homelessness.

And look at my new shoes. Of course they were on end-of-the-season clearance, but since it's winter here practically all year, I'll get a lot of use out of them. They are very comfortable and warm. The knitting magazine in the background has the sweater pattern I'm finishing up. To me knitting WIPs are less photogenic than quilting ones, so I'll post when it's absolutely done.

This week's sewing time will be dedicated to my annual Make a Prom Dress at the Last Minute challenge. Allie bought a great little black dress for 6 bucks at Ross, but I guess it was too good to be true because when she washed it because she got white deoderant marks on it, it shrunk, even though it said it was washable. So now we're in the race to finish a prom dress by Saturday and I have a really bad cold and I'm also grading finals. We do live dangerously around here.