The most famous cat on the block

I opened the door this afternoon to find a box I my doorstep from Simon & Schuster distribution. What could it be? Then I remembered that Chicken Soup for the Soul had told me to expect copies of its newest anthology, My Very Good Very Bad Cat, around this time. I contributed an essay about Lilo’s fabric-eating habit to the book. Read more …

Cats and houseplants

lilo the cat eating houseplants

Spider plants, tremble in fear. The highlight of Lilo’s week, other than escaping out the back door and hiding under the deck a few times, was the other night when we had our first frost. I brought in several my houseplants from outside to keep them from getting frost-killed and stuck as many as I could in the kitchen sink to … Read more

Growing wheat grass for your cat: an illustrated tutorial

My cat Lilo has a bad habit of eating fabric. One of the things I’ve done to help dissuade her from this habit – besides making sure that every bit of fabric not upholstered to something or currently being worn by a human is out of her reach – is to grow wheat grass for her. She enjoys eating it … Read more

Cat behavior: Keeping cats off the counters (and making an almost-free cat perch—with bonus sweet potatoes)

Remember the adorable kitty who usually sits patiently on her perch when it’s dinnertime? While I was away for Christmas, Lilo decided that was silly. The first night I was back, she jumped onto the counter as soon as I started to put her dinner together, nudging my hand and trying to stick her face in the can. Well, that’s … Read more

Consider this our audition for My Cat From Hell

This is Lilo. I found her in the parking lot when she was a scrawny kitten of about three months old. She was darting back and forth under the cars, chasing a ground squirrel. The annual leases in the neighboring apartment complex had just let up, so my best guess was that someone dumped her when they moved. I put up signs … Read more