Changing Names

http://justanotherdayoutwest.com/changing-names/

Cue the “Newhart” theme………. now.

Kittens, update.

Obviously from the post title, an update on the kittens.

 

Weddings and kittens and cow-ponies, oh my.

I’m sure you all were missing me something terrible… here’s the rundown on what I’ve been up to.

http://justanotherdayoutwest.com/weddings-and-kittens-and-cow-ponies-oh-my/

Sneak-peak-picture-teaser, follow the link to see the rest…

Crazy Theory

So, the side conversation that got started the other day by my threat to possibly join crazy cat lady-dom got me to thinking about the cause of crazy cat lady syndrome.

Before I go into the cause and my theory about crazy cat lady syndrome, I thought it best to get a working definition on the disorder.  So, here’s what I have come up with… crazy cat lady = a female (of any age, although typically in the latter years of her life) who keeps more cats than is considered normal and dotes upon them with lavish attention, food, toys and accommodations.

One point to clarify is what number is considered more than normal.  For a cat adverse person, one cat would be more than normal.  In a small apartment or home more than three may seem excessive.  I think to keep this from having too broad of an impact we will define the number considered normal as less than five.  Hopefully this doesn’t seem to any a completely arbitrary number.  I can certainly see arguments for having three cats in a house, to serve as rodent control.  According to the 2007 US Pet Ownership & Demographics Sourcebook the average number of cats for a cat owning household is 2.2.  Because any portion of cat over two would need to be rounded up to three of course.  Trying to give some latitude between the average and where a crazy label is applied I arrived at five as being the number of cats where crazy cat lady begins.

On to my theory of why crazy cat ladies happen.  I’ll just lay it out.  It is my insight that they are the women who would be horse crazy if circumstances in their life allowed them to own horses.  It is a widely known fact that all horse people are crazy.  So imagine if that tendency was never allowed to express itself fully through horse ownership and instead was subverted to another species.

The data on the AVMA website from the 2007 US Pet Ownership & Demographic Sourcebook supports this theory.  Notice that although the number of households owning cats, birds or horses are fewer respectively than those households with dogs, the average number owned increases.  With the largest average number being horses at an average of 3.5 per horse owning household.

Please also note that the average number of birds owned per bird owning household is 2.5.  Again since one in real life can not have 0.5 of a bird, that would bring that number to three.  (It is however possible to have 0.5 of a bee.)  I am just sure Chickens are included in this average of birds.

The average cat weighs about 10 pounds.  The average horse weighs in at 1000 pounds.  Per weight it takes a lot of cats to make up for just one horse.  Chickens on average weigh less than cats, requiring even more chickens to equal one horse.

In the interest of doing real actual authentic and meaningful Science^TM it will be important to collect and collate information, representative samples and other data.  Please help me in this research.  If you have supportive information please share it in the comment section.  If your information is likely to skew my data, kindly keep it to yourself.  This is for Science^TM after all.

Although this is at this point only a theory, please if you know someone inclined to be horse crazy, that is unable to experience horse ownership, help them realize their crazy dream.  Otherwise, they are likely to end up as the crazy cat lady.

Please note that a large part of the inspiration for this theory comes from my own tendencies.  While I only have two cats at the moment there are 15 horses and nearly 30 chickens that I care for on this place.  Imagine how many cats I would have if it weren’t for the horses and chickens!

Grass and pot. I don’t see them as interchangeable words.

Let me start by saying that someone had a bad day today.  Not me, the guy who’s house I live at.  He needed to change out a fuel filter on his truck.  It’s a fancy truck that tells you when it wants it’s diapers changed, or something.  Big baby.

I had left in the morning to go do body work (on peoples).  When I got back I noticed the truck was gone.  I figured he had got the new filter on and taken it for a test run to be sure it was working right.  If that isn’t a normal thing to do after replacing a filter, don’t yell at me.  I am not mechanically inclined.  I’m really proud of myself when I figure out where to check the oil in any vehicle.

So as I’m getting out of the car to go inside I’m hearing an alarm go off.  It’s really quiet out here.  Quiet enough you can here the flapping of wings long before the bird flies overhead.  At first I think an alarm is going off somewhere away from here and the sound just is carrying.  Then I start walking to the house and notice it gets louder, as I walk around to the back door it fades a bit, then gets really loud as I go to open the door.

Meanwhile as I’m walking to the back of the house, I can smell smoke.  Yes smoke.  Yesterday there was some trash burned in the burn barrel, I’m hoping I’m just catching lingering smells of that.  No such luck.  As I open the back door smoke is coming out of the house.

Let me back up and tell you that a few steps before I opened the door I decided I’m pretty sure the smoke alarm is going off.  I racked my brains to figure out what could be causing said smoke.  There is not normally anything that should be causing this.

Now, I realize that opening the door when the indications of a fire were pretty high was more than a bit stupid of me.  I was checking around for obvious signs of a blaze.  I didn’t see any flames licking up from the roof.  No heat was coming at me from behind the door.

So I open it and go in.  Smoke and all.  As I am looking around I see my good pot on the stove with the flame (gas stove) under it, apparently on high.  Smoke is billowing out from under the lid.  Apparently he had started to reheat some leftover ham and beans, but got distracted.  He had called a friend to help with the filter change and gone over to his place.  Something about wrenches not being the right size to deal with the filter.  (I learned that piece a little later on.)

Meanwhile, I’m going through the house opening all the windows and leaving the doors wide open.  There are two cats that hang out here (there is a third, but he’s shy).  They are not indoor cats though.  These are barn cats.  Except one is convinced she needs to be a house cat.  Please, thank you, why don’t you have a litter box in here?  She was very happy to get to wander through the house without getting tossed out on her kiester.

The smoke alarm continued to go off and I had to step outside after opening each window because the smoke is so thick.  Once the house is all opened up with a few fans going I just hang outside with the cats and my dog.  Luckily, it’s a nice day.  Sunny, mid-40s, no wind.  After a while I go back in and get the pot off the stove.  Once outside I took the lid off.  Charred almost beyond recognition is the ham.  The beans are still pretty clearly bean shaped.  It really looks like charcoal though.  Used bean charcoal.

I decided to give him a call.  “Where’re ya, whatcha doin’?”  He replied that he was at a friends working on the truck.  (This is when I learned of the wrenches not being the right size or whatever.)  They got the filter changed but now were having a problem with the truck not starting.  Truthfully, I can’t remember what I said next.  I’d like to remember that it was “So, were you trying to burn the house down?”  or  “If you hate me that much just tell me to leave.”  or  “Have you lost your freaking mind!!!!”  Instead I think I just calmly informed him that he forgot to turn the stove off and now the house was airing out and it was going to stink for a while.  And I need to get a new pot for making soups and stews.

Which brings me to the (for me) funniest part of my day.  Mostly because I hadn’t ever though about the name of where I live in this way.  I live in a community called Grass Valley.  I volunteered to build a web site to help with answering questions for new members of the community as well as help keep all of us informed of what’s happening.  In starting my research today, I ran a quick domain name search for grassvalley.  It turns out the domain I think would work is available as are a few suitable alternatives.  Then I scrolled down and saw some Premium Domains available, they included medical-marijuana.org.  What?  Huh?  What has that got to do wit… oohhhhhhhh.  I had forgotten the grass/pot/marijuana connection.  Even though I used to be married to a pot head, it was never my thing.  I (obviously) didn’t adopt the culture associated with grass/pot/marijuana.  That and I can still be a tad naive.  Wonder what I’ll get if I google “new pot”?

Anyone else have an eventful day?  Or just another day out west?

Update:  Here’s a picture of what’s not for dinner…