Monsieur Green Paw

"When my cats aren't happy, I'm not happy. Not because I care about their mood but because I know they're just sitting there thinking up ways to get even." Percy Bysshe Shelley

When we moved into this house almost three years ago, we bought new furniture for the living room and dining room. Since then, Gomez has done his best to destroy all of our lovely new furniture. In particular, the sofa and side chairs in the living room. I have often thought of declawing, but I just can't bring myself to do that to an animal. No matter how bad he is, and he is VERY bad.

However, we found a more humane way to prevent his scratching, too late for the sofa unfortunately, but maybe for the other furniture and us. They're called Soft Claws. Basically they're little plastic caps which are too dull to do any damage that you glue on over their claws. Sort of like Lee Press-On Nails for kitties. Plus they're in fun colors! We got purple, go Ravens. He was very calm while we put them on. Its been a month and so far we've only had to replace one. They're supposed to last a couple of months. I highly recommend them to all cat owners who have trouble with scratching, which is sort of like saying all cat owners who have a problem with them breathing all over the place. Cats scratch, period.

I guess I should explain the picture, though. I made a big mistake this morning. Really, I can only blame myself. I know that Gomez loves candles. Or more accurately, he loves turning over burning candles. We have red stains on our off-white dining chairs to remind us of this. Anyways, I was tidying up the living room and doing some dusting. Of course I had the sing-a-long CD on. I play it so often now that Sophie is probably like, "geesh, mum, can we listen to something else, already?" (I'm hoping she'll have a British accent, hence the use of "mum", I try to watch lots of BBC to encourage this.) So, while I was cleaning, I lit a candle. It was just a little thing in a metal tin sitting on the coffee table in the living room. I think it smelled like jasmine. Well, I wandered off into the other room during the "If you're happy and you know it" song and completely forgot about it. In my defense, when you get to the part where you have to do all four things: clap, stomp, snap AND shout hooray, it can be pretty distracting.

Well, a half hour later, Neil walks in carrying Gomez and says that he has something all over him. It felt kind of waxy (duh) and smelled good. We wandered around the house for a few minutes before I caught sight of the overturned candle and realized what I had done. Luckily the wax mess didn't leave any permanent damage to the coffee table or surrounding furniture, carpet or floor. However, Gomez got a green paw for his efforts. Now he is Monsieur Green Paw avec les Purple Claws. It clashes terribly with his orange fur, but I don't think he cares about that.

I'm hoping he learned a lesson, but somehow I doubt it.

On a side note, I've been listening to the Once soundtrack on Rhapsody and I am absolutely in love with it. I have listened to it a half a dozen times and each time I like it a little more. Disclaimer, if you don't like folksy alternative music, you probably won't like it, however, if you like Damien Rice, Ryan Adams, Wilco, KT Tunstall, Cat Power and the like, then give it a listen. I haven't seen the movie yet, but it's in my Netflix queue. I am optimistic that it will be as good as the music.