Sleeping On the Job

So here’s the thing. I realize in advance that I’m going to come off as a crazy cat lady here. I’ll admit I’ve always been a little nervous about the crazy-cat-lady thing. People tell me that three cats is enough to make you a CCL, and given my pen­chant for losing my beloved famil­iars, I’ve always man­aged to stay far away from that line.

Of course, I forgot to spay my kitten, and she hit puberty one day when I wasn’t home. Sud­denly she was weighing about ninety pounds and her belly was the size of a foot­ball. Bob Barker would have my head.

So Kal­liope is a young, unwed mother. She gave birth to three kit­tens on September 28^th. She was con­sid­erate enough to choose my bed as her birthing room, so I came home to find three tiny closed-eyed little rodenty creatures in a pile on my duvet, a bloody mess on my pillow, and a still­born under my sheet. I did a lot of laundry.

I’ve always been infatu­ated with cre­ation. Given the option, I’d almost always rather create than con­sume, which is why I tend to grav­itate towards writing, drawing, painting, Lego sets, etc. Watching another life be cre­ated, though? That puts everything else to shame. I sup­pose this is the sort of thing people usu­ally realize when they have chil­dren, but, well, I’m too much of a child myself to ever go that route.

While I’ve been feeling unpro­ductive because most of my pro­jects are stalled in some mid­phase, or they’re behind-the-scenes sorts of pieces that I can’t really add to my port­folio, Kallie’s been raising three beau­tiful, healthy, and only mar­gin­ally psychotic tiger-striped felines.

And I’m trying hard not to get attached, but I’ve watched them quad­ruple in size. I was there when their eyes started to open, I knew them when their ears were closed flat, and I taught them to eat solid food. Two weeks ago, they all had earned names.

This is Coper­nicus at about three weeks old:

Sabine, today, posing with her favourite plaything (after her Mum’s tail):

And Mat­ilda boning up on her typography:

More crazy-cat-lady photos can be found on my flickr page, if you’re really so inclined.

Oh, and in actual news, I’ve added two new pro­jects—digitaledge.ca and a logo for Com­fort & Joy (web­site in pro­duc­tion!). But, really, neither of those attack my shoes when I walk into the room, so they really just seem less thrilling, somehow.

Tags: design, felines, life, misc, projects, typography, websites