And now for something completely different…

A cat playing a theremin.

(Video below the fold, since putting it above the fold mucks up my archives.)

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And now, a cute picture of our cat.

Catfish often likes to keep me company while I write, as has been documented before. But here, she seems to determined, not just to keep me company, but to get in on the action herself. (Or maybe she’s just determined to get in my way, so I pay attention to her instead of that ridiculous piece of plastic I’m so fixated on.)

So I thought I’d let her take a guest spot this week. Here’s a few thoughts Catfish has come up with while walking across my keyboard:

lp;p

,u888888888888y6777777777777777

nmmmm

loooooooooooooooooookiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiikkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk

She’s new to this blogging business, so while I encourage lively debate as always, I’m going to ask commenters to be gentle. And no, I don’t agree with her about the nmmmm issue; but she does make some interesting points that I think are worth considering.

And now, three cute picture of our cat.

Last week, we had a photo of Lydia looking uncharacteristically noble and dignified. So this week, in the interest of full disclosure, I thought we should have some much more typical views of Lydia.

Lydia is an unbelievably sweet cat: a little dim, but affectionate, good-natured, unlikely to start fights with the other cats… and completely shameless in her bid to get scritching and belly-rubs. In many ways, she’s more dog-like than cat-like: she doesn’t have the aloof, stand-offish thing at all, and she sees no point in playing hard to get. And as a result, she probably gets more attention than both of the other cats combined. I feel that I have a lot to learn from her.

The top picture is of Lydia getting a belly-rub from our friend Tim (of Christmas Rhapsody fame). The second is of Lydia getting a belly-rub from Ingrid. And the third is of Lydia getting a belly-rub from me. The girl likes her belly-rubs.

And now, here’s a cute picture of our cat.

In most of our pictures of Lydia, she looks somewhat undignified: she tends to sprawl about in a rather abject, “please rub my belly now” manner. But in this picture, I think she looks very dignified, and beautiful in a very classic way.

And now, two unbelievably cute pictures of our cat.

At last, at long last, we have photos of Violet that do her justice. Violet, as you can see, is a strikingly beautiful cat; but she’s very hard for us to photograph. Our apartment doesn’t get much natural light, and when we use the flash, (a) it makes her just look like a big black lump, and (b) she closes her eyes against the flash, thus obscuring her most distinctive feature — the heterochromia (different-colored eyes).

But Ingrid found her sitting in the back windows, and got these two stunning pictures of her. I asks ya. Is that a beautiful cat, or what? The second one with the heterochromia is obviously spectacular; but I actually like the profile a little better. It makes her look so noble.

And once again, I need to share with you our Violet’s Blue Eye song:

Why don’t you scritch me like you used to do?
Why do you treat me like a worn-out shoe?
My fur is still furry and my eye is still blue
So why don’t you scritch me like you used to do?

That is all. Thank you for your patience.

And now, three cute pictures of our cats.

Lydia and Violet don’t snuggle very often. (In fact, lately Violet has been hissing at her sister a lot, and taking swipes at her, and generally being a bitch.) So when I caught them snuggling on the sofa the other day, I had to take about a million pictures. These are the three best ones.

And now, a cute picture of our cat.

This one requires a little explanation.

Catfish’s favorite thing in the world is to sit on our heater. When it’s off, the pilot light is still on, so the top of it is a little bit warm all the time. We put a placemat on it so she can sleep on it, and she pretty much never wants to do anything else. She treats the heater like it’s Shangri-La.

But when the heater’s on, of course, it’s much too hot for her to sit on. And when it’s been turned off, it still retains a fair amount of heat, and it’d be dangerous to put the mat on it right away. So when we turn the heater off, we have to wait for several minutes for it to cool down before we can put the mat back on.

This is Catfish sitting next to the heater, impatiently waiting for us to put her mat on it.

Really. When the heater’s been turned off, she sits on that little bookshelf next to it, and glares at us until we put the mat on. The moment we do, she’s on it like a shot.

And now, a cute picture of our cat.

You know how if there’s a thing, the cat has to sit on it? If there’s a magazine on the sofa or a file folder on the bed, that’s where the cat will sit?

This picture illustrates that principle two-fold. The giant cardboard box in the living room is our new coffee table before it was assembled. Here is Violet, sitting not just on the giant box, but on my laptop case on the giant box.

BTW, I’ve read that the “if there’s a thing, the cat has to sit on it” principle has to do with cats’ territorial instincts. Any zoologists out there know if that’s true?