Catnip Crafts

As you may have guessed, I'm borderline obsessed with my two cats, Chandler and Whitey Ford. They're such an active part of our little family! I send their "grandmaggie" (my mom) pictures of them every day, doing things that I'm sure signal their obvious genius, but to others probably just look like cats being cats. I think they're brilliant (it's true, they are.).

Anywho, when they were babies, Miles and I bought them little catnip toys shaped like fruit. Whitey adopted the bananas and Chandler, the strawberry. There's also a cherry-at-large, which gets passed around. They can entertain themselves for HOURS with this fruit. It's adorable. Unfortunately, one day tragedy struck.

I sucked up the strawberry in the vacuum cleaner.

I spent a half an hour rooting through the very full bag looking for Chandler's baby with him by my side. Short of dumping the dirt out in the kitchen, I realized I would not find the toy, and even if I did, it would be so dusty that it would probably choke him. I felt like my mom must have felt when she left my sister's blanket, Fuzzy B, at McDonald's and it got thrown away. I searched high and low across three states for replacement catnip strawberries, but they had been discontinued (damn you, Petco!). Chandler adopted the cherries, but you could tell he just didn't feel the same about them. Then, to top it all off, when we moved the cats across the country two weeks ago, I LEFT THE STUPID CHERRIES IN CALIFORNIA. Poor Chan just can't catch a break! So, to make up for my shortcomings, I decided to make him his very own strawberry. Plus, this one would be made in South Carolina, not China, so I wouldn't have to worry that it was dipped in formaldehyde, which isn't so good for cats. Or people.

Whitey was pretty jealous of the strawberry, so I made him a jalapeno.

Chan playing with the jalapeno...

Whitey, molesting the strawberry (Whitey has a tongue to match 70 grit sandpaper, so the strawberry is in rough shape right now. I'm investigating ways to make it sturdier, because at this rate, the strawberry will be demolished in about 18 hours...)

Not bad, right?? Maybe I could have a cat toy side business. I'd call it "Fuzzy Drumsticks and the Chan Chan Man"! (that's also the name of the children's book I'm planning on writing, but that's another post).