And here is the recipe for kitty litter cake ...

Here are some more cat pictures:

    At right is Penelope, also known as Penster, or sometimes just Pen. She lives in the household of a friend of mine who travels a lot; I take care of her then. (The neighbors all know me as Mister Feed-the-Cats.) 

    Penelopuss has the most incredible blue eyes. She is full-grown but small. Most of her is white. She is a semi-longhair, mostly white.  She has lots of Siamese in her ancestry: That makes her smart and vocal. She is very friendly, but determined to get her own way in all things. She will complain loudly if matters are not going according to plan -- that’s her plan, of course.

    Penelope particularly likes to be scratched under the chin.

    At left is Jack, also known as Jack-a-Boo. He lives in the same household as Penelope. He is a slate-gray shorthair with white feet, with more white on his chest, belly, throat, and face. He is a real rascal -- a true rickster of a cat -- and cannot be deterred from being overwhelmingly affectionate at all possible times.

    Poor Jack: He wants so much to be friends with Penelope, but he insists on being more social than she wants, so she chases him off. He is a real gentleman about being rejected, and defers to her wishes, but he is full of incurable boundless optimism, so he always tries again -- too soon, and with too much enthusiasm.

    Jack particularly likes to play with anything that even thinks about moving.

    At right is Blackie Diamond, or Blackie for short. She lives with another friend of mine. She is a tiny coal-black shorthair who is very shy: It took an amazing amount of effort to coax her sufficiently into view to take this picture.

    Blackie Diamond and Marble (below) were living wild in a vacant lot and parking lot when my friend took them in. They are too different in ages to be litter mates, and Blackie Diamond was not grown up enough to be Marble’s mate. Notwithstanding, they were hanging out together, and appeared inseparable.

   At left is Marble, who lives in the same household as Blackie Diamond. He is a semilonghair, with a wonderful mottled gray-black coat pattern, and is very friendly, and looks a little startled in this image because of the bright light of the flash.

    Marble and Blackie Diamond continue to be best pals as they live happily indoors at my friend’s apartment.

    At left is Priscilla. She is a dark calico, named because she is prissy -- she’s a babe and she knows it. She is very jealous of my guitar, and has learned to wrap her tail around the guitar neck to mute the strings. But she is a sweety pie, so that’s okay.

    Both cats look flustered here. The images were taken with my new Macintosh’s webcam. The cats were not sure what it was: They believe that anything that takes up time that could be spent petting cats is obviously evil. Besides, the Mac flashes the screen bright white when you take a webcam image, and that’s scary.

    At right is Willoughby, Priscilla’s kitten, named after a Jane Austen character. He is fey. Even full grown, he could do a standing high-jump from the floor and get a paw to my eyebrows -- 150 centimeters up. He is also jealous of my guitar, and bumps my elbow when I play it. But he’s cute, so that’s okay.

    I found Pris and Will near a road in a local state park late at night. Someone had abandoned them in coyote country. So I took them home. I doubt they would have lasted till morning. Willoughby couldn’t have been more than a month or two old.

    At left is Elvis, now deceased. I acquired him pre-named, when I already had Priscilla, so for a while I had “Elvis and Priscilla”, though Priscilla was not “that” Priscilla.

    He was the first cat to get comfortable with me playing guitar. He would curl up by my thigh, purring, as I practiced. I used to say he was channeling, though those who think the real Elvis isn’t dead yet might disagree.

    The day Elvis died, I picked up my guitar, and for the first time ever, successfully played the toughest piece I have ever attempted -- one I had been practicing for over two years. So maybe he was channeling after all, and maybe he still is.

    (The piece was Jorma Kaukonen’s “Embryonic Journey” -- with tablature from the Jefferson Airplane album, “Surrealistic Pillow”.)