The Four Pound Terror (Part 5)

The Four Pound Terror (Part 4)

The Four Pound Terror (Part 3)

The Four Pound Terror (Part 2)

The Four Pound Terror (Part 1)

I've been doing this as a series on facebook, I suppose it's time they found their way to the blog!  I will post them one by one so each gets its own post.

Assistants on break

Ode to the cats

This little kitten has been with us for almost a week now.  She is crazy.  Also, she is driving Lilly crazy.  But also, she is very cute.

She is obsessed with food, she follows me around the house (often under my feet), she gets into everything, and she chews on things.  Did we take home a puppy by accident?

They said she was 3 months old when we got her, but she is only 2lb - or she was last week.  I believe she's gained weight since then.  Last week when she was lying down you could see her ribs through her skin on the part of her belly that was shaved for her spay.  This week you can't see the ribs.

It's really hard to take pictures of her.  She is a gray tabby with tuxedo markings.  And she has a bright pink nose.  And a HUGE head.  Which I guess makes up for Lilly's tiny head.

For comparison's sake, look at how perfect Lilly is at modeling.  She is amazing.  She should be on America's Next Top Cat Model.  If Tyra saw her, she'd say that Lilly really understands how to use subtle changes in her pose to accentuate different parts of her face and convey different moods through the photograph.

Two assistants?  We'll see if Lucy is as good at the job as Lilly, or if she is more of a Professor Chaos type.

I got a fancy phone

I got a fancy phone with a fancy camera so now I can take fake low-res pictures. :)

Lilly in "Sleep Mode"

Lilly went into "sleep mode" (as my supervisor calls it, when the cat tucks her feet in and sits with her eyes closed), so I took some pictures.

Lilly has been begging for some extra attention the last couple of days, which is great, except for when that begging involves sitting directly in front of the computer screen in such a way that I really can't see anything at all.  She has a blanket on the windowsill but she never sits on it because it's too cold over there.  So I moved the blanket to the desk and she immediately went over and went into sleep mode.

The good thing about this for me is that now she is in prime position for me to annoy her all evening!

I'm turning into a cat

There was one day a couple of weeks ago where Lilly and I napped on the couch almost all day while watching weird shows on the History Channel about aliens aka "ANCIENT ASTRONAUTS."

Monster Corner

This part of the apartment is called "Monster Corner." Here we have Mr. Jefferson (far left) who is a sore loser at board games, underneath him are our stacking robots, our monster towel from Target, Lilly the art room assistant, Doug (red monster) who is a Canadian Zamboni driver, and Julie who has a false eye to deter predators from eating her head.

This is where most of the monsters in the apartment live, but not all...

You don't train cats...

..they train you.

Lilly, our cat (otherwise known as the art room assistant) is a cutie-face but she can't help being a cat. A dog, you can train them not to dig through the trash, or chew on your stuff, or pee on the rug. Dogs want to listen to what you tell them to do because they want to make you happy (usually). This is not the same for cats. This same cat doesn't give a care in the world about my houseplants until she is mad at me, and then she will wait until I'm in the room, stare at me, and then chew on my plants. Just because she's mad.

We have had to learn to outsmart / predict her moves. It requires a lot of patience, creativity, strategy, and psychological analysis.

Example 1:

Lilly is not de-clawed so she does what cats do, which is enjoy a good scratch now and then. These delightful exercises for her meant pretty severe damage to our old couches.




We got rid of the couches when we moved, so we bought a new one when we got to New York. We are desperately trying to keep her from destroying this one. We have tried spraying and making loud noises, etc, but when it comes down to it, you just can't train a cat. She's going to do what she wants when we're not around, so all we can hope for is to try to sabotage or redirect her habits and instincts.

In the past, we tried techniques that would hopefully make her avoid scratching the couch. We tried double-sided tape because we thought if it was sticky where she wanted to scratch, she wouldn't do it. Well, she's too smart, and would just find another spot on the couch. Plus, the tape left a disgusting residue that was impossible to get out of the couch after we took it off.

This time, we bought two narrow scratch boxes and put them in her favorite places to scratch on the couch as a way of following her lead. It's like how if a cat poos in a certain spot that isn't where the litter box is, you can try moving the litter box to that spot. This is a very person(animal)-centered approach (haha).



As you can see, she got the gist of it quickly... with the help of a little catnip spray (it wears off in about a minute but it gets her attention long enough to try out this weird new thing that she's not sure of). Will this replace the couch for her scratching post? Only time will tell.


Example 2:

Another bad habit/instinct is her desire to terrorize the guinea pig, Fiona. I have no doubt that she would not hurt the pig as I've seen them interact many times over the last five years, but she finds her to be utterly fascinating. One time I came home and found her sitting in the cage on top of the guinea pig's house. Fiona had moved her food bowl under the house so that she could spend her whole day in there, scared of this ridiculous animal that keeps invading her space. At least I know I've earned some respect from the kitty because when I shouted "Lilly! Get out of there!" she immediately leaped out of the cage and sat on the floor, blinking and looking quite ashamed.

In the past, I would use more of the wire grids that I use to build the cage and kind of create a very tall wall that is impossible for the kitty to scale. Unfortunately, due to space constraints, a tall wall would also make it impossible for me to access the cage for feeding and cleaning.

This is where an analysis of Lilly's personality comes into play. She is not a risk-taking type of cat; she will not jump somewhere unless she knows 100% that it is steady. She generally just doesn't jump. To get into the cage she would put her front paws onto the cage and then kind of leap-frog herself in there. My object, then, was to prevent her from putting her front paws on the cage, thus sabotaging her efforts.



I tied lots of plastic zip-ties to the edge to make a kind of barbed wire fence, then added a cut-up grass mat to increase the unpleasantness of putting her feet on the edge of the cage. We joke that it looks like Fiona is in a bunker in Vietnam.

After I did it, I sat and watched. She came over and surveyed it, tried putting her paws on it, found it unpleasant and backed away. She walked back and forth looking for a weak spot but eventually gave up.

How do I know it's working? I saw Fiona lounging in a nest of hay outside of her box this afternoon. She feels safe enough from the kitty not to hide all day.



It's perhaps to early to say this, and maybe I will jinx it, but...

Me: 2
Kitty: 0

The Art Room

I wrote about how moving makes you take inventory and how I am sad over the loss of our books, among other things (though it's an important purge). Recently, we also gave away our couches and coffee table, as well as JewishGuy's office furniture. We're giving JewishGuy's sister our dining room furniture to hold on to for an indefinite amount of time. We will arrive in New York with... what?

Having my own art room has provided me with the space to collect a large number of art supplies, especially over the course of the last two years. I've always had this cart:

(This picture is from 2005, when Lilly was a baby, but already a budding assistant)

This cart contained basically all of my art supplies until grad school, when my art room became a new frontier for all kinds of media I hadn't much explored before: screenprinting, fabric dying, small found-objects sculptures, fiber art (crochet, embroidery, felt sculptures, etc). I began making stationary and small books last summer, and had a whole shelf dedicated to that inventory, plus what I collected from others. Before this art room, my art cart mostly had supplies for linoleum cut relief printing, collaging, and painting (acrylic). These supplies, too, exploded - even before the new art room - as I bought more magazines than I could handle, bought new linoleum blocks, and collected a massive amount of acrylic paint for the mural project that inspired this blog.

When we moved to Chicago I had the art cart, a folder of paper and prints, and maybe a box of miscellaneous supplies. Packing up the art room now took at least 8 boxes, some of them very large.

Our apartment in New York isn't very large. It could sort of be considered as being a two bedroom, but one of those bedrooms is very narrow and long, which makes it practically impossible to use as a bedroom. The last time we had a two bedroom apartment (in Houston), the spare room became JewishGuy's office, where I kept my art supplies and a small table to sometimes make art on. Now the second room is going to be my art room, with a small table for JewishGuy to put his laptop on when he's at home.

I'm going to buy a new, fold-up drafting table. I've already imagined how I can set up the space for optimal use of the drafting table while still having a place for my computer - I have a desktop now (old school!) so it actually needs a permanent place to sit. I imagined where the plants would go and where I would keep my art supplies so they are within easy reach of my seat.

I'm so excited!



(This month's theme is "saved.")

Curious Assistant

I love how she looks straight into the camera.

And then something interesting was happening to the side -


And she just quietly posed while I took the picture. She's such a model assistant.

(This is the art/guest room, currently full of Passover stuff that needs to go away in storage before my parents come in town for graduation and try to sleep in this room)

Job Search - BUMMER

Let this picture of this beautiful kitty posing for the camera soften the blow of this giant job search bummer...


She's so gorgeous and she knows it.

Monday night as a way to avoid working on my thesis I applied for jobs. This is the best way for me to avoid working on my thesis because I feel like I can still label it as being "productive," because, hey, I need a job next year. I'm only applying to what I call "Tier 1" jobs - jobs that are looking for art therapists, master's degree required, and for people who are eligible for temporary license (which I am while I work towards my full license). These job descriptions exactly fit, in a general sort of way, who I am and what I'm looking for, not including the site and population.

One of the two jobs I applied to that night was this one:

Creative Art Therapist
Intermediate Child / Adolescent Unit

• Full-time
• 40
• Day shift
• Certification Required
• Licensure Required
• 1-2 years experience is required
• Customer service skills are required

Plans and conducts creative arts occupation and/or recreational activities as part of the treatment program. Provides individual, group, and family therapy in accordance with professional standards and requirements/accrediting bodies. Documents all direct care interventions and outcomes in a clear and timely manner in accordance with regulations and policies.

I said to myself, that sounds nice, I love working with adolescents and I have some experience working in a hospital. I sent them my resume by email because their online system wasn't working (turns out it was my browser... people. please stop designing things for IE!)

The next morning they called me. They said, we want to get your application through because we want you for an interview. We played phone tag a few times, it was exciting, they really want me! They said they were really excited when they got my resume and please can I come in for an interview.

While we were playing phone tag I happened to look up exactly where this place was. I know, I should have done that to begin with. But it was so exciting and none of my other job applications had elicited a response so I was just throwing things out there. It turns out it's REALLY far from NYC, where I'll be next year.

Finally we got in touch with each other. They said are you in the area? Can you come in? I said, unfortunately, I'm not in the area now and when I move I still won't be in the area... They said, we're sorry to hear that but we'll keep your resume in case you change your mind.

How not in the area? 3 hours away each way by car, not including traffic.

Sigh.

I'd better start looking more closely at location before I apply, even if I think there's no chance they'll call me. NY and NJ are pretty big places.

Lazy days...

I can't help it... when I am home doing nothing and I get to see Lilly during her sleepy time of the day, I have to take lots of extreme close-ups.

Cat + Camera + Done with classes =

Cat & Candles

Lilly the art room assistant is also an observant Jew. She enjoys the flames of the hanukkiah but does not read by their light.

(hehehe)

My Assistant (Part 2)

I mean... this is just the weirdest pose.


With her little feet dangling off the side of tub where she sits while I work. She looks pretty comfortable.



And from this vantage point she can see inside the drawers of the bin next to her. Look at her spreading her toes!


JewishGuy had to test to see how comfortable she REALLY is. Well, this isn't the happiest face, so I don't know. She couldn't quite understand why we were giggling so much.

My Assistant

Every successful artist needs an assistant, I think.


Here we can see Lilly overseeing the drying process on my new screens. Sometimes she can be found on my art table or at her special post on top of two plastic tubs next to my art table (this is where she sits when I do something with chemicals her paws should not be in, like paint).

Any illusions of a neat art room are now dashed, I guess, as you realize I am working in the guest room that also has the kitty litter.

Also, this scoop-coater that I bought leaks, as evidenced by all the stupid brown dots all over the newsprint paper. LEAKS! It is brand new and it wasn't cheap and it leaks. I only hope that the screen filler which is now drying in the cracks that I couldn't reach is now going to keep it leak proof in the future.

I hope to be dyeing some fabric by this afternoon... I am so nervous to do it, like my first time printing from a screen. I think I waited three weeks in my screen printing class before I actually printed from the screen, saying I was "prepping" my sketches and ideas or something. Well, here I am "prepping" my fabric and my screens. I realized that since I have to pay for laundry I have to wash things in bulk so when I print I have to print a LOT and also I have to do it in the basement. So I am hoping to do it this afternoon. Ugh, the basement is so scary.