In one of my favorite Christmas movies, Bing Crosby advises Rosemary Clooney in song: "If you're worried and you can't sleep, just count your blessings instead of sheep and you'll fall asleep counting your blessings." Like many song lyrics, it sounds a little less redundant and nonsensical in song. But I like the sentiment. It's not only appropriate just for when you're worried, but for just about any other time, including year end reviews, bad moods, stuck in traffic and tightrope walking while juggling flaming torches (though you may need the advanced class to do that last part).
Things I'm thankful for:
- My health: Probably the easiest to take for granted until it all goes wrong. All it takes is a split second accident or having genetics fail you. My grandmother on my dad's side of the family is still going strong at 95. On the other hand, I have no idea what sort of health issues are on my mother's side of the family - it could be the health roulette for all I know.
- My loved ones, friends and family: It's the gift of their presence in my life that keeps life rich and rewarding. Whether I've known them since I first took breath or only developed a friendship in the last year, it's those relationships I cherish. I don't make friends easily, being the shy type. And no matter what they tell you in the fairy tales and sitcoms, relationships take work to maintain. It could be as simple as keeping in touch or as difficult as going to therapy to work out stuck points in communication, but it's all effort. And the reward is the connection and closeness that makes a world of difference.
- This year I stayed employed: Given the world economy meltdown, this one is worth celebrating.
- We bought a new house: It's bigger than the previous house. We can have family and friends come over to visit. So far we can afford it.
- We have Ka and Zaia: I've already written a few times about this. But having them as part of the family and household has brought chaos and comedy, responsibility and a whole new set of things to pay attention to like which breakable objects in the house could be seen as potential cat toys.
- We traveled to Bali: It was a wonderful trip (which I promise to write about in more depth next year). It took a long time to get there and really felt like we got a glimpse of a different world. At the same time, it reminded me of growing up in the Philippines.
Things I'm proud of:
- I wrote another book: Again, it's only a first draft of a novel, but it's a complete story and may turn into something worth sending around at some point. I'm glad to have some potential projects to work on in the future. For now, I think I'll go back to my first novel from last year and see if I can make something of it.
- I progressed to purple belt in karate: The belt progression from here goes purple, brown, then black. It gets harder from here with a higher chance of my breaking something, I'm sure.
- Winning first prize at DNA Lounge's Halloween costume contest: See my previous post on this.
- Paying attention to and participating (somewhat) to the 2008 presidential election: Never done that before. I learned lots about how our government works (or doesn't).
There are many more things I'm thankful for and probably a shorter list of things I'm proud of, but for the sake of actually submitting this post before the end of the year, I'll decline from enumerating them further. I'm very happy for the blessings I have.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
2008 Year in Review
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Cirque of Ka and Zaia
We haven't gotten very far with new tricks. Ka and Zaia get so enthusiastic about receiving the treats that my fingers bear battle scars. So I guess we need to work on some kitty zen with them - that clawing and biting don't get them the treats any sooner. The trouble with learning that rule is that it involves more battle scars before they get it. I have to space it out and let my fingers heal in between lessons.
But they do have the following trick down pat:
Ka is a much more linear and impatient student than Zaia. Once he figures out what will get him the treats, he'll repeat it over and over and over and over. He does experiment now and then but gets frustrated easily. Zaia loves the treats too, but perhaps not with the passion of burning suns that Ka has. So she tends to be much more random. I think she picks up tricks by watching Ka do something and then she follows. However she is more willing to do random things to try and figure out what I'm trying to get them to do. Except that without Ka's powers of retention, it remains somewhat random until Ka learns it and repeats it (over and over and over).
We're working on getting Ka to High-Five sans claws. Right now, I put a hand up, he puts a paw out with claws to bring it closer and see if there's a treat in it. But when we leave the house, he has taken to sitting on his cat tree next to the window and putting a paw up to wave goodbye against our hand on the other side of the window.
Then there's Fetch. I've seen them both pick up things and carry them around so we just need to get them to bring those things to us. Right now, they tend to carry it off to their favorite spot (i.e. under the Christmas tree) to play with it there. It's a hit or miss endeavor.
As for the Litter Robot, it's like it's always been their litterbox. (And there was much rejoicing in the household.) They still go to the bathroom together. And they both find they have to go right when we're adding new litter to it or otherwise tending to it. There's no longer any flinching and looking nervously towards the upstairs bathroom when it starts cycling. So we'll call this a win-win.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Christmas Card Writing
Tonight, I put some Christmas music on (Harry Connick Jr., Charlie Brown Christmas, The Carpenters and Diana Krall on iTunes party shuffle), printed out our Christmas card address list, gathered this year's card selection, address labels and stamps and sat at the coffee table near the Christmas tree to start our annual ritual. I didn't always enjoy this process. When we first started this tradition, it had the scent of obligation. We would receive warm holiday wishes in the form of cards from the mailbox. It was such a nice feeling to actually receive mail that didn't suggest or demand an extraction of money from us, that we figured it would be nice if we provided a source of that feeling to our friends and family too. Prior to that year, I had written plenty of Christmas cards, but it was generally delivered to my family on Christmas Day in person. This ritual, this tradition was different. Family was now in different corners of the country and we wouldn't always see each and every one of them over the holidays. I poured the foundation on the ritual when I opened up Microsoft Word and generated the matrix of names and addresses (in alphabetic order of course).
Our Christmas card list includes both family and friends. Some friends we have come to treat as family. Other friends have drifted away such that the Christmas correspondence has become our sole communication. I have argued with myself that maybe those folks should be dropped off the list. But every year that I have received cards from them, I enjoyed hearing from them. Whether it's their holiday newsletter, telling us what their family has been up to in the past year, or a simple signature on the inside of the card. It has me thinking about them, the times we'd shared in the past, the gratitude that we were on their Christmas card list. The same thing happens when I pick up my Pilot G-2 fine point gel pen to write out their card. Whether it's fond memories of the last barbecue we had with them or wondering what they're up to now, we're sending our best wishes out to them at this time of year.
It's a process that goes well with Christmas lights and Vince Guaraldi Trio's jazzy O Tannenbaum. I guess it's just another way to count the blessings we have in friendship and kinship.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Electric Mayhem Movie-watching
It's that time of year again. Time for the Christmas specials, that is. More specifically, time for the Muppet Christmas Carol. Ali found that it was playing at the El Campanil Theatre in Antioch. She called to let the owner, Rick, know that the Mayhem wanted to show up for the movie. While it is customary to show up in costume in San Francisco on the opening night of highly anticipated movies, it's probably less prevalent with even time-honored classics like the Muppet Christmas Carol. Thankfully, Rick didn't think us too crazy and allowed us out in public at his theatre. Where children would be! And with free tickets! 
There was even press about the event ahead of time. 
The movie started at 2pm, but Rick asked us to show up at 1pm to greet our fellow movie-goers and get pictures taken, if anyone were so inclined. It was a little quiet early on, but we did get our first posed picture with a little girl. Her brother declined the photo-op. We waved at a few cars that slowed down as they passed by. Then we went inside the lobby to greet the guests there, after we took a brief tour of the beautifully renovated, eighty-year old theatre. After becoming incorporated as a non-profit organization, it went through a face-lift to reopen in 2004. In the lobby, we stood next to the Christmas tree and a mechanized Santa and Mrs. Claus making out their list. I noticed that Animal was distinctly not on that list. It must have been the 'Naughty' list.
We had a few brave children that came forward to shake hands and introduce themselves at their parents' encouragement. Animal's head got petted several times and some even posed for pictures holding onto Animal's chain. Most were shy though, intimidated by 7-foot tall Muppets. It was fun and fascinating to wonder what the little ones thought of large, stuffed-animal looking creatures. On the one hand, we looked like cuddly Muppets. On the other hand, we were two, three, maybe four times their size. I guess it's akin to the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man in the first Ghostbusters movie without the whole world destroying rampage. One little girl didn't make it into the lobby. She took one look at us through the glass, screamed, and took off running down the street. We thought that was a good time to retire from greeting duty and wave to the people in the theatre.
The movie, for those unfamiliar, was Dickens' Scrooge tale with Michael Caine playing Ebenezer Scrooge. Kermit was Bob Cratchit and Gonzo narrated as Charles Dickens himself. But the most important part of the movie came during the ghost of Christmas past's lesson where the Electric Mayhem, clad in Victorian garb, rocked out Mr. Fozziwig's Christmas party. Highlight of the movie, I tell you.
Afterwards, some of the previously shy kids shed their reluctance to come say hi. Or maybe we looked smaller sitting down. At any rate, we got hugs and escorts and high fives as we all filed back out of the theatre. Having kids standing that closely to us was a bit of a hazard as none of us had visibility directly downwards (blocked by our huge jaws). As a result, I had to make sure to tilt my head down as much as I could before taking a step. Outside, we posed for more pictures and waited until the younger kids were gone before decapitating ourselves and revealing our true identities. Rick invited us back sans costumes for a future show and judging from the line-up coming up, I know we're sure to have a good time then too.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
High Tech Gadgetry, Zaia-Ka Style
In my youth, one of my chores inspired my lyric misunderstanding of the song "Rock the Casbah" by The Clash. I heard, "Cherie don't like it. Not the catbox, not the catbox" and thought they wrote it just for me. I hadn't lived with cats since I lived at home before college, but I knew I would live with them again. And now, I have Ka and Zaia.
But let me back up a little and get to the point. Two years ago, when I was daydreaming about having cats again, I remembered my "Not the Catbox" song and researched possible ways that the 21st century might have been brought to the litterbox. That was when I discovered the Litter-Robot being raved over at the Automatic Litterbox Forum (if you don't think there's a forum for just about any topic, rest assured, there is one). Intrigued, I headed over to the company website to see how it worked, and why I should believe it would be reliable. The product itself is essentially a barrel on its side atop a waste bin. The barrel holding the litter, upon detecting cat usage, would roll, sift out the good litter, and continue rolling until the clumped litter could be dumped out into the waste bin underneath it. Then it would roll back, putting the unused litter back in place and ready for the next visit. Thus, scooping would be done automatically, requiring only that the waste bin be dumped out every few days or so. The smell, hopefully, would be confined to the waste bin only. Cats, being cats, could still find ways to foil this ingenious system, not the least of which would be refusing to use it. This was by far the biggest obstacle according to the litterbox forum. But I was intrigued (and not a little jealous that I hadn't thought of the idea myself). But I didn't have cats then.
Now I do.
Since Ka and Zaia are still kittens, I figured it would be easier to get them acclimated to a fancy new litterbox than if they were older. So it was a red letter day when I pushed the order button. And with much anticipation, I saw that it would be delivered on the Friday before Thankgiving.
We predicted that Ka, as our resident adventurer, would be first to check it out, use it, and thenceforth try to figure out how it worked. Zaia would be a little slower to take to it, but once Ka experienced it and didn't yowl in displeasure, she would be fine with it.
And so it arrived:
The box was huge. Ka was with me when I opened it and put it on the floor to have a look. It was still huge. He didn't seem too perturbed about it. He sniffed all the parts. It wasn't until I carried it up the stairs to their bathroom that it began to dawn on him that he ought to pay more attention to it. Zaia was with us by then and she sat farther off to watch the goings on. I moved their current litterbox to the side and set up the Litter-Robot in its place. It took both Lee and I to read through the instructions and put litter in it. Once it was ready to go, we unplugged it so as to not freak the cats out too much. According to the company's suggestion, we left the current litterbox in place, but didn't bother cleaning it. We put a clump of the old litter into the new litterbox to give them the right smell of an idea.
Both had a habit of having to use the litterbox the second we dug around the litter to clean it out. So we scooped around in the new litterbox to get their attention. To our surprise, it was Zaia that led the way. She poked her head into the old litterbox, sniffed disdainfully and stepped up into the new one and used it. Ka was not one to be left out and crawled in after her, relishing in the depth of the new litterbox with apparent glee. Said glee was evident in the rain of litter making it out of the box as Ka flung it about, rearranged the clean litter, dug to the bottom to find out what it was made of. All seemed to be going well so far. That is, until we cycled it sometime later in their presence for the first time. Ka fluffed himself up and backed up. Zaia ran to their bed and hung out there for a few moments. She hopped down and made it halfway back to the litterbox by the time the cycle ended. A soothing pet for Ka soon after the litterbox cycle sent him all-paws into the air. No, that didn't go well at all.
The next time Ka went to the litterbox, he went into his old box, out of it, sniffed at the Litter-Robot's step, then ultimately went in his old box. Sigh. But it was only day 2. We had 58 days left in the company's money back trial period. We left the old box in place over the next couple of days and only cycled it while the cats were distracted with their feather toy so they could get used to the motor sound of the litterbox cycling (which sounded eerily like their nemesis, the Roomba). During the week, we soon graduated to cycling the Litter-Robot while they played within sight of it. They would perk up and show interest in the box, but played on. By Tuesday night, when we were gathering up the trash for trash day, we decided to keep the Litter-Robot on supervised cycling only and remove the old litterbox. At the start of Thanksgiving weekend, we left the new litterbox on automatic mode during the day and turned it off at night. By Friday, we were leaving the box on 24 hours a day.
But now, on Sunday, we have a new challenge. Ka has gotten over his initial wariness and is in full investigation mode. As soon as he hears the motor going, he trots upstairs to watch it. He has since discovered that stepping on its entrance step will stop the cycling momentarily, a handy safety feature. It also allows him to go inside and see what's different if the barrel is upside down (there's no litter and there's some sort of grate to stand on). Unfortunately, it also starts moving again 15 seconds after he stops it mid-cycle unless he triggers the sensor again. We have not yet come home to a thoroughly confused robot, but I foresee that event in the near future. Hopefully it won't be long after that until the Litter-Robot finally becomes their regular old, boring litterbox.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
NaNoWriMo 2008
I'm a winner, I'm a winner, I'm a winner *dancedancedance*! It says so on this nifty certificate right here, all printed out and ready to hang on something prominent. As you can see, the certificate is even on a first name basis with me. We are new good friends and we just met!
With five days left in November, I'm declaring this novel writing month complete (except for the requisite celebrations) for me. I ended up with 51,585 words, written in approximately 60 hours this month. (That's it? 60 hours? It felt like at least 60 gazillion). I also have a complete story in those 51K words which is even better.
This year, I decided to write a mystery. In my youth, there were two sections of the library that I think I managed to read all the books in: the fantasy/sci-fi section and the mystery section. Since I wrote fantasy for NaNoWriMo last time, I thought I'd try my hand at mystery. My co-workers gave me the idea of setting the murder in the corporate world and the idea of a Dilbert-ized murder mystery intrigued me. I don't think I achieved quite the funny Scott Adams does regularly for Dilbert, but at least it was the inspiration. For my detective, I picked a happily married female to defy the loner, unhappily married or single stereotype I'd already encountered several times before. As a matter of fact, some of the easiest scenes for me to write was going home with her and just being part of their oh-so-normal familial routine, complete with cats Ka and Zaia. Ah, how life imitates art. It probably makes for utterly undramatic reading, but it did make the words go by faster.
And they didn't go by very quickly for me this year. In stark contrast to last year, I had no plot outline. I was busy just before November kicked off for some reason that had something to do with Muppets and didn't get to do more than brainstorm elements of the story and about the detective. I didn't even use all of the elements I jotted down and my detective sure didn't end up acting like I had originally intended. I did reinforce my learning from last year that goal-setting is key for me. I set my daily word count goal to the same goal as last year: 2000. And even though I would often sit down at the keyboard with no idea what was happening next, somehow by the time I went to bed sometimes quite late, I'd have those 2000 words. Once again, I lost track of my characters' names and it seemed like I went through a lot of incidental characters this year (red herring potential). I tried to make myself an index to reference, but apparently the characters were coming too fast and furious to keep up (or I got lazy). It will be very interesting to figure out later that I had actually meant Sophie to be the same person as Sarah and the person I called Jonas was initially Jacob. Ah well.
Surprisingly, I also spent less time delving into the community which was so exciting for me to participate in last year. The people are still way cool, of course, but I found myself just typing to the entertainment of my cats and some iTunes music. I 'sponsored' a couple of local write-ins once a week which served to prove to me how much faster I can get through words without the distraction of home stuff. And the commiserating at the write-ins let me know I hadn't completely lost my mind, which was comforting. I completely kicked my word warring habit from last year (*Word War: a friendly competition among NaNoWriMoers in which the person who writes the most words in an agreed upon time frame gets bragging rights). And apparently, I gained the annoying habit of using many parentheses.
And of course, there was the mid-month Write-a-Thon. Thanks to the generosity of family, friends and even some strangers, I got to partake in a thrilling night of writing! It was set in the SoMa Arts Center in San Francisco with a Noir theme. How apropos was that? There were many fedoras and evening gowns to be seen around laptops. We had a tasty pasta dinner and many sweets and caffeine and even alcohol to keep us going. Chris Baty, NaNoWriMo's founder, gave us a humorous overview of the last 10 years of NaNoWriMo and I got to sit next to the attendant who had traveled the farthest to be there that night, Adrian from Sydney, Australia, who incidentally was also writing a mystery.
I understand that common wisdom of NaNoWriMo is that the sophomore year is tough, dragging people down in the depths of despair. I'm glad that I've survived intact, early, albeit less interested in this past story than the previous year's. And now on to gratitude and turkey!
Friday, November 21, 2008
Cat Clicker Training or What My Kittens Will Do For Treats
I'm not sure how I got the idea of clicker training cats in my head. Or even training cats to begin with. So I'll start this story with my Google search for 'clicker training'. Of course I immediately found Karen Pryor's website for clicker training dogs, cats, horses, whatever animal you want to train. But more importantly, she had clicker training gear. I ordered the beginner cat training set that comes with an instruction book and a clicker. I went and picked out some suitable treats (small bits so they don't get full too quickly and different from their regular cat food so it seems more like a treat) from the pet store. I ended up with Wellness brand jerky treats that fit the bill. And judging from Ka and Zaia's motivation, they really fit the bill.
As soon as the instruction book arrived, I devoured the beginning pages. It did start off with the benefits of clicker training (like closer connection to your cats, another way of communication and mental stimulation for both owners and cats) but I skimmed through that and headed straight for how to get started. The first step was to have them associate the click sound with something good happening, i.e. treats. That may have taken 0.5 seconds but I wasn't timing. Next, we tried target training. I held out a chopstick and click/treated them when they touched it. It was maybe a minute later that they were following me and chasing the stick around so that they could touch it and get a treat. Apparently I made a bit of a mistake here in that I rewarded any sort of contact with the target when I should have just rewarded nose touching. We're retraining this now. Zaia gets it better than Ka. He'll still raise his paw to grab the target and bring it closer faster.
I noticed a few things during this process. The first is that they both learn amazingly quickly. Ka is more persistent in learning. I call him our Puzzler and can almost see his little brain pondering new things to try. He's figured out that doing something to knobs, whether they're doors or cabinet pulls, makes them open. He hasn't quite figured out what he needs to do to actually get them to open, but we'll find him trying every now and then.
The second thing is that I look forward to our training sessions in the evenings and I'll catch myself dreaming up new things to try the next time we train. I try to make sure we keep our sessions short to leave them wanting for more so that they don't decide it's boring for the next time. But if it isn't going well, I have to talk myself out of keeping on trying until we get it. I'm a big fan of learning anyway, and during training, I'm learning how to best communicate what I want them to do so that they get it and get treats. I find it even more engaging than flipping the fishing pole with feather around for them to play with. We still do that of course, because it's good to just play sometimes too.
Things Ka and Zaia know:
-Touch nose to target (Zaia knows this better than Ka. He likes to swat at the chopstick instead)
-Come when called. Currently, we call them with 2 knocks on the floor. I think we need to move this to something better suited to outside (whistle?) eventually.
-Sit (Ka knows this better than Zaia. Actually, I'm not sure she knows this yet)