Meet Flat Kitty

Meet Flat Kitty, Muzzy's new and best inanimate friend. FK is the creation of Erica (Joey and Coco). She concocted FK from an old sweater sleeve, a tennis ball, and some thread. I love FK's quirky leetle moustachio and his pink bump of a nose. (I wanted to keep FK for myself, but Erica insisted that I share. Darn.)

As you can see, Muzzy bonded immediately with the Flat Kitty.

"Mmm. Kitty, let me bite on you!" The first thing to go, of course, were the whiskers. Ouch!

Flat Kitty reminded Muzzy and me of her first childhood toy, Mister Poos. Mister Poos was a fuzzy, purple, four-legged octopus (a quatropus?) purchased at a local pet shop. Mr. Poos was excellent for indoor playing. He would soar down the hallway and bounce awkwardly, and an equally awkward Muzzy puppy would fetch him and shake him until her brains rattled in her head. See? Cute, no?

Eventually, Muzzy's puppy teeth were replaced with grown-up chompers, and Mr. Poos (and his successor) quickly lost his legs and his tennis ball head. Flash forward to Flat Kitty:

Mmmmmmm. Munch, munch, munch. Chew, chew, chew. Muzzy is in zombie mode: "Brains. I want Flat Kitty's brains!" You all can guess what happened next. You may want to avert your eyes from the following image. 

Aaaaaaah! Muzzy ate FK's face off entirely and ran off with her tennis ball brain (a brain bigger than Muzzy's by the way, but what good did it do poor Flat Kitty?).

Thank you, Erica, for giving us a few moments of enjoyment. FK was a brilliant, yet short lived creation. We await FK 3.0. Preferably one made from steel mesh. 

-z

On the Dean's List

Hi, all. I got a couple of the details wrong in an earlier post about Dean's band's gigs. First of all, Dean plays every Tuesday night at Ramsey Park, not at the school on Ramsey. Also, Ramsey Park is in Rosedale, not Allandale, if you please. Finally, Bindi wants to know what was I thinking posting a picture of Muzzy on her daddy's gig list. Apologies all around. 

Here are the gigs still upcoming:

Friday, Sept 18 at Artz Rib House (7:30-9:30 pm)

Saturday, Sept 19 at Green Mesquite (7-10pm)

Saturday, Sept 26 at Botticelli's (8-10pm)

See you at one of them, I'm sure. 

-z

Having the Dogs for Dinner

It's Tuesday, and that means it's time to peruse the Science section of the New York Times for interesting articles about dogs. Check out this article by Nicholas Wade about where, when, and why dogs were first domesticated. The where (far East China and possibly northern Africa) and the when (a really long time ago--between 11,000 and 14,000 years back) are of less interest to me and my fellow Dog Parkers, I think, than the why.

Why did we originally domesticate dogs (or wolves, to be precise; they didn't become dogs until after the domestication process, kind of like some husbands I used to be married to)? To help us hunt? To snuggle with? To chase away dinosaurs? Actually, no. We domesticated them as a regular source of protein. Before beef and pork, there was dog. Apparently, "dog food" had a wholly different meaning during prehistoric times.

Some researchers don't even give us humans credit for the domestication process. They say that wolves domesticated themselves, by hanging around our garbage sites and growing fat and less wary of humanoid activity. We can only take credit for putting them on leashes and then figuring out what to do with them. Eventually we decided they could help put food on the table in ways other than composing the main course.

With this thought in mind, I look at my two pooches. Muzzy's too skinny to eat despite the poundage of food she consumes each day, and old Roma would be a bit stringy and tough. I doubt any of the marinades touted on Create channel's cooking shows could turn either one into a tasty bit of filet mignon. Though if you ask, they both will roll their eyes and tell you that I constantly pinch their soft, tender ears and pronounce them "chomp-alicous."

-z