Adopt a Buttercup

28Nov11

First off, this is not my image. I did my best but couldn’t track it down to the original. I guess that’s kind of how memes go. I saw this image again the other day for the dozenth time and thought to myself, “Well, that’s Buttercup if I’ve ever seen one.” Buttercup, for the uninitiated, is the much-maligned tomcat in The Hunger Games trilogy.

I picked up the first book, The Hunger Games when it came out. It was good timing. I was doing a survey of contemporary dystopian fiction aimed at teens. I liked the first book in the same way you like a good action/adventure flick, and put it down without having to read the rest of the series. But one of my friends at work insisted that it got better and I had to give the second and third books a shot. And I did. And it’s a completely different trilogy looking back from the end of book three. If the first book is an action/adventure movie, the second and third books are very solidly in drama. I still find myself occasionally pondering some of the moral questions opened up in the final chapters. There aren’t any easy answers, and that makes the series worthwhile to me for adults as well as kids. If you haven’t read it yet and you think you might like it, the first two chapters of the first book are up on Scribd.

Now that we all know what I’m ranting about, Buttercup. Katniss tries to drown him when Prim brings him home because it’s one more mouth to feed. When she doesn’t succeed, they end up having a sort of respect for each other’s strengths. And, as I’m looking at swimming meme cat, I thought to myself, “You know. I bet the intersection of the Venn diagram of families with little girls who love The Hunger Games and families who have been thinking about adding a cat to their household is not null. In fact, I bet it’s pretty significant. And if we could get just one of these cats a forever home, that’d be worth me creating this.

So I set out to find me some adoptable Buttercups. The basic qualifications I used:
1) Gotta be a male. We know that much about Buttercup for sure.
2) Can’t be a kitten. Buttercup’s experienced the world. He survived on his own in The Seam, where he could have easily ended up in Greasy Sae’s stew.
3) Has to be buff. Well, buff or orange. We don’t know a lot from Katniss’s biased descriptions of him, but we do know he was distinctly NOT the yellow of a buttercup.
4) Ears must be unique. Some of the cats listed here have been eartipped (which generally means they were at one time part of a feral colony). Some of them have fought frostbite and won. Or maybe other cats. We’ll never know for most of them, the same way we don’t know how Buttercup lost half an ear. All we know is now they want to have em scritched by a loving owner. So let’s get to it.

Oh, and these guys are all District 12 and north and east of the Capitol. Don’t know how that happened. I searched the entire country. Came back with these guys.

A Baker’s Dozen of Adoptable Buttercups

View Larger Map

My personal superlatives:
Best Eyes the Color of Rotting Squash: Ricki from Springfield, VA
Best Poofy-Cheeked Tom: Sylvester from Harrisburg, NC
Most Likely to Go Quietly In the Bag: Farley from Savoy, IL (look at that cowboy hat!)

Do you know of another perfect Buttercup candidate who’s waiting for a forever home? Nominate him! I’d love to have 13 cats featured at all times as long as… well, folks other than just me are visiting this page. So please post your own Buttercup nominees in the comments, and I’ll add them to the map as these get adopted. Or maybe I’ll just add them anyhow. You can never have too many Buttercups, right?

Oh, and may the odds be ever in your favor.

Filed under: Play   |  1 Comment
Tags: cats, ferals

October Is Crazy

25Oct11

The pic is Dis on my lap after I got home from San Francisco. And it’s also what I feel like right now. October is probably my favorite month of the year. It’s chock full of awesome. There’s the Renaissance festival and Halloween and the leaves turning. But it is also too damn busy. And working in retail isn’t helping.

Started this month off going to (best friend Holly’s brother) Matt’s wedding in San Francisco. That included getting to visit DNA Lounge (bonus! not having to worry about whether or not I was hip enough to enter said lounge because now it has a pizza joint attached), hitting a really fun thrift shop (the pink, vinyl drag queen boots in the window drew us in), shopping at some gorgeous art and fabric supply stores Holly had picked out, and really good food including some well-timed post-public-transport-fiasco hot wings. I’d never been to one before, but weddings at wineries are the win. Between the Blue Angels practicing overhead and seeing a bunch of people I’ve only really seen together within one context, I felt like I was somewhere between 5 and 15 again. Which is probably good on occasion.

At the moment my apartment looks more like an episode of Hoarders than a bachelor(ette) pad. But there’s a light at the end of the tunnel of misplaced crap. But not yet. Now I’m off to finish some birthday presents and start on the Halloween costume.

Filed under: Play   |  3 Comments
Tags: crafts, Disney, Holly, Maryland Renaissance Festival, vacation

Observations

23Sep11

I get to watch my first Fringe when it airs tonight. Yes, I’m easily excited. Made Timmy, ThinkGeek’s mascot, an Observer costume for the season premiere. Nobody noticed. I mean, my coworkers did. But there was no general hue and cry from the masses. I even had his name worked out, in case somebody asked: OcTimber. I’d been planning him for months, but I didn’t get down to finishing him until 11 this morning. The sewing machine and I had a fight, so a lot of him is quickly hand tacked. He’s a little ghetto, but that’s okay because our web cam at the office is also a little ghetto. I had originally planned to make the entire outfit changeable so it could go on Timmy Prime, whom Carrie has given a wire armature. Ah, but it was so much easier to sew him into it. Now I know what Project Runway contestants feel like when Tim Gunn says, “We’re GOING to the runway now. Chop chop.”

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Tags: crafts, ThinkGeek

Huzzah and Whatnot

05Sep11

Maryland Renaissance Festival. Wait wait wait. MARYLAND RENAISSANCE FESTIVAL!!!! That’s better. Missed the first weekend on account of the hurricane, but still managed to make the first pubsing. Whoever came up with the idea of the single song (“Leave Her, Johnny”) that was the summary of the previous week’s rained-out pubsings, kudos.

Did my first Frankenpolish this weekend. Have been jonesing for a replacement for OPI’s Ecuadorable Coral, but I didn’t want to spend $28 to get a bottle of 9-year-old polish. I’ve been trying to order a substitute for it unsuccessfully for years now. Took one of the closer approximations and made it into Ecuadorable Fauxral: 7 parts China Glaze Aztec Orange + 4 parts OPI Chocolate Shakespeare. OPI Gift of Gold to taste. You’ll have to trust me that it’s really close. The cat says it’s time for pettins, not time for pictures of the fingers.

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Tags: Maryland Renaissance Festival, nails

Fancy Pants

14May11

On Holly’s last visit she took a pair of my jeans back to Austria with her. And I got them back this week, all embroiderified (which was even better because I’d forgotten about them). They’re awesome. There’s more on them, but I’m not putting a picture of my butt on here.

In other news, Disney has totally taken to a bag from my college days that got unearthed during Mom’s emergency room visit. It must smell like Tennessee barbecue. When I look over, she’s burrowed down in it. And she won’t touch the narwhal I bought her. Cats.

Filed under: Play   |  4 Comments
Tags: crafts, Disney, Holly

Synetic’s Lear

02May11

So I had my doubts about how successfully the complex plot of King Lear could be achieved without words. Macbeth, sure. It’s short. Everything’s all out there. The most quoted bits probably aren’t Shakespeare anyhow. But Lear? Lear is rough when you have the words. I tried to read it when I was 15, and my brain just couldn’t absorb it. I tried again at 17, and that time it stuck. Lear has the parallel plots. One of the main characters disappears halfway through. And I heard this company was going to make it even harder on themselves by making Cordelia male.

I really shouldn’t be surprised by Synetic any longer. Heck, they won 4 Helen Hayes Awards last week. They clearly know what they’re doing, but they’re great at the trivial things, as well. Check this out. They greeted me by name when I came back after dashing off before the show to grab caffeine. (Yeah, well, it helps that the name’s in the show, but I was still impressed.)

So the show. It was freaking amazing. The Regan / Goneril danceoff was perfect at pointing out how ridiculous that entire scene is. The Fool was remarkably effective without words. Watching a silent version made me realize that my favorite bits of text in Lear aren’t actually in the main plot – they’re all in the Gloucester plot. I missed Edmund’s soliloquies. There was very little reason to like him without the words, and I think the viewer’s struggle at morally wanting Edgar to win but kind of wanting Edmund to win, just a little bit, is an important part of the experience. But above all, I missed the scene with Gloucester and Edgar on the cliff. The actor playing Gloucester came out to cast himself off the second story of the set, but Edgar convinced him not to jump. I think Shakespeare writing a scene where he manages to convince an audience (which is looking merely at a stage and not a cliff) that Gloucester is on a cliff and has not actually thrown himself off it but Edgar has convinced him that he has is a marvelous textual feat, and I don’t know that it could be done without words. The physicality of the show was amazing. I’m glad they did it without an intermission, but I don’t know how they did it. And the balloons were really an amazing touch. I’m not going to say anything more about that in case anybody reading this goes to see it before it closes.

Synetic Theater is the perfect storm of my passions. Shakespeare meets the Russian and European clowning tradition. I’m so grateful they extended the run so I could see it. If you want to see it, it’s showing in Crystal City (right off the Metro station) until May 8th. Click on the photo above for more details.

Photo: Irina Tsikurishvili as Regan, Irakli Kavsadze as King Lear, Ira Koval as Goneril, and Dallas Tolentino as Servant. Photo by Graeme B. Shaw. Also, if you click through, check out the magnificently-executed facekick Edgar gives Edmund in the trailer. Synetic’s stage combat is always a treat.

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Tags: shakespeare, synetic

Giving in to eReading

30Mar11

I’ve hit a strange place. I was avoiding buying an eReader because I love the visceral properties of books. The particular feel of a book can remind me of previous one I loved. I was weirded out when the third trade paperback in Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies series was just sliiiightly smaller than the others of its family. But I absolutely loved the feel of the cover and the paper in those. (Also, check out the awesome Etsy book art in the pic.)

One of the qualities I looked for in a purse was the ability to stash a trade paperback for solo dining out, which accounts for probably 80% of my restaurant intake. For those of you who don’t know, I read slowly. It can take quite a while for me to get through a book. So by the time I got to the end of Tails of Wonder and Imagination, it was all munged up, which made me want to cry. The corners were dog-eared. The top was splotched pink by some errant ink or nail polish gone astray in my purse. It made me sad. So now I’m purchasing an eReader to carry along with me explicitly so I have something to read but am not beating up a book. I could get a book cover, but part of the experience of reading that I enjoy is the feel of the book itself. Which, yes, I understand I will lose when I go to the eReader. But I think I’ll continue to get the stuff I love in a bound version. The eReader can be for authors I’m trying out or magazines or stuff that hasn’t made it to the publisher yet. For everything else, there’s paper.

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Ack!

02Mar11

Long time, no update, eh? The photo with this post is of the cupcakes made for me for my birthday by my awesome roommate at work. We’re both obsessed with Toddlers & Tiaras, and you can see the molding chocolate decorations include sashes and tiaras and, yes, that’s right, flippers. Squee! Teeth on my cupcakes.

In other news, work took us on a cruise to Cozumel for our holiday party. I didn’t actually manage to see Mexico, but the rest of it was pretty awesome. Nobody ever looks at you weird when you get multiple desserts at a buffet, and that’s how it should be.

Rowling’s doing pretty good, but she’s still not at a point where anybody would want to adopt her. I’m thinking I might put together a page of all the various therapies we’ve tried on her to solicit feedback. She bonded with Mom while I was off cruising, so I have hope for her socialization skills. Disney still hates her with the passion of 1000 feral cats. No great surprise there. Her favorite new thing is her Undercover Mouse, which she takes apart when she’s done playing with it so none of the other random cats wandering through the living room can play with it. You never know.

Filed under: Play, Work   |  1 Comment
Tags: cakes, cats, Disney, ferals, ThinkGeek

How I Spent My Summer Vacation^H^H^H Bonus

03Sep10

Yay for new outfits. I’m a fan of Smarmy Clothes, but I haven’t ever found anything I liked in my measurements. So when she put this dress up with tiny robots over it and I’d juuust gotten my bonus check, I had to pick it up. Plus, my first over-the-knee socks from Sock Dreams and a pair of red patent heels I’ve had forever. And a red patent belt from Kohls to give me a waist. And a grey sweater for work to make it look a bit more professional and less like a professional.

And there was experimental chocolate making last evening: srirachacolate. Tangy with a little burning in the aftertaste. Not something I’d probably try again.

Also, bonus Disney. She’s currently serenading me with the “leave” concerto, which sounds something like, “Mow. Moow. Mow. Mooow. Mow.” as she tries to get me to go to work so she can have her going-away treats.

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Cat Sanctuaries

09Aug10

Spent two hours washing dishes Saturday at Rikki’s Refuge. It’s an animal sanctuary down in Rapidan, Virginia, west of Fredericksburg. Was greeted by a little neurological kitty who was lounging in the middle of the road which, according to the sign, I was supposed to take for parking. Cats. They never read. The sanctuary is home to 650 cats and 40 or so dogs, plus goats, chickens, ducks, rabbits, guinea pigs, actual pigs, a cow, an emu, a llama, and a pheasant. And there’s the distinct potential I might have missed a species there. A few cat characters supervised my duties in the kitchen, which is attached to the “hospital, isolation, and psych ward” as the volunteer coordinator referred to it. They’re doing a really great job, especially at giving ferals, FIV-positive, and FeLuk kitties a place to live. I hadn’t thought about it, but I guess those three Fs are the hardest cats to find homes for, after the incontinent and neurological, all of which I am sure they have lots of in stock if anyone needs one for back to school.

It’s a massive undertaking, running one of these places. I was walking around, naturally comparing it to Best Friends, which isn’t really fair. They’ve only been around half as long as Best Friends, but after I started thinking I realized that wasn’t what made the two institutions different. The big difference is that Best Friends was founded by a group really passionate about animals, all with very different skill sets. They had the Battistas sitting at tables doing PR in Los Angeles, Faith Maloney running the animal logistics, the Mejias to create the visitor program, Michael Mountain to get the good news to the masses, and over a dozen other people, all of whom were passionate and good at what they did. Having that broad a base really helps identify best practices quickly. And while Rikki’s has 330 acres, Best Friends now has 3300, plus another 30000 they lease. Rikki’s takes in from places as far away as Georgia (the state). Best Friends takes in from Georgia (the country). It’s a degree of scale. Rikki’s will never be Best Friends. And that’s okay. We need them to be Rikki’s. And I’ll continue to spend a few hours there each month until there are no more homeless pets.

P.S. For fans of Dogtown, Best Friends has put out a web episode that gives updates on some of the dogs and answers visitor questions. It’s over an hour long. Be sure to stay for the end for the baby bunnehs and to see big ol’ Warrior at Vinnie’s.

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Tags: Best Friends, cats, ferals, volunteering