Butterfly Cat Toy

Over the years, I’ve brought plenty of toys home for my cats. Some were played with, others entertained them for a while, while others still were ignored or even frightened them.

The butterfly cat toy is a hit though. If you want a closer look, the toy can find it on Amazon.

When the toy arrived, my cats’ reaction varied. From the moment I switched the butterfly cat toy on, Charlotte was all over it, circling the toy and grabbing for the butterfly. 

Mickey and Holly initially kept their distance, but when they saw how much fun Charlotte was having, they too gave it a go. Now the three of them were chasing the butterfly, occasionally getting hold of it with their paws or mouth.

Gabriel was actually frightened of it and ran away whenever the butterfly cat toy was switched on. He wanted nothing to do with it. But in due time, this too changed. I’m not sure if his curiosity got the better of him, or if Mickey, Charlotte, and Holly had a word with him, but one day he too started chasing the butterfly.

While the toy was entertainment for the cats, it was exercise for me. Because of the small size of the toy, the cats easily tipped it over. In that case, I had to get up to put the toy back on its base. Doing this once or twice was okay, but when you have to do this seven or eight times in the course of fifteen minutes, it does get a bit tiring.

This was easily fixed though, the butterfly cat toy was glued to heavy duty cardboard and voila, now the cats can’t tip it over anymore.

If I had known that my lot would like this toy so much, I would have gone for a more sturdier model such as the pet zone fly spinner. As you can see, the toy is bigger and the base is broader.

As I mentioned earlier though, with my cats it’s a crapshoot. Some toys they like, some toys they ignore. There’s only sure thing, and I’m sure many cat owners will agree … if the toy comes in a reasonable size box, THAT gets their attention.

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How to effectively get rid of weeds

Summer has arrived in Toronto. Finally. There is some confusion about the temperatures though. While the weather channel on TV predicts 34 degrees C (93.2 degrees F), according to my phone, the maximum temperature for today will be 30 degrees. Either way, it’s hot.

The 2016/2017 winter wasn’t a bad one. It was cold, but the temperature rarely dipped below -15 degrees C, (5 degrees F), and we only had a couple of inches of snow. All in all, a nice, mild winter.

Nevertheless, Torontonians were happy when spring arrived, looking forward to green grass, leafy trees, and colorful flowers.

It was a cool spring though. While other years we moan and groan about the heat by the third week of May, and can’t wait for the air-conditioning to be switched on in our condo building, this year we needed heating rather than cooling.

If you think I’m kidding … I’m not. Last week it was 9 degrees C, (48.2 degrees F). Does that seem like spring to you?

From what I heard Calgary had 30 degrees C, (86 degrees F), so did New York and Chicago. A friend in Chicago was actually complaining about the heat. I wasn’t sure if I should pity or envy her.

To make matters worse, it was overcast in Toronto and raining. Not buckets of water, but a steady drizzle. Combine the cold with the wet and you get miserable days.

While I like dark, rainy days, I wasn’t in my element last week. My hands were cold, my nose and ears were cold, I was wearing a woolen jacket, and my legs and feet were covered with a blanket. If anyone had seen me, they would have thought it was February instead of June.

The flowers on my balcony looked equally miserable, but now, after just one weekend of sunshine and a bit of heat, they seem happier.

The petunias especially seem to thrive. In previous years, I had them up on the ledge, where they got full sun, but they didn’t seem to like that. Now that they are on the floor, where they get no sun at all they seem to do better.

In addition to flowers, I also bought a basil plant. I love basil, but the local supermarket constantly is sold out of this herb. So I got my own. Now when I make a salad I can just step outside, snip some leaves off the plant and I’m all set.

(Basil plant in background)

I was just thinking yesterday how wonderful it would be if I could grow other things like potatoes, carrots, bell peppers, strawberries, etc. Unfortunately, living in a condo with just a balcony, that’s not possible.

Many years ago, we moved into a house with a rather large garden. The garden was overrun with weeds though. My dad told me there were two ways to effectively get rid of weeds … plant potatoes or plant green string beans. We opted for string beans.

Before long it was time to harvest. I filled a few buckets with beans, blanched them and put them in the freezer. After 50 packets I was done, but my string beans were not, they kept on producing and producing. After harvesting some more I gave string beans to my family, friends, and neighbors.

When they too let me know that they had enough string beans in their freezer I put the veggies out in buckets on the street with a sign “FREE – PLEASE TAKE”.

I can’t remember just how many families I fed that year but eventually, the string beans stopped producing and when the plants were removed there’s wasn’t a weed in sight.

So if your garden is plagued with weeds, plants some potatoes or string beans. After the final harvest not only will your garden be weed-free, you’ll have food in your freezer (and in that of your family, friends, neighbors and who knows who else) in the process.

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Into the Water – Paula Hawkins promotes pet cruelty

Just about every pet lover has heard of the spay/neuter program to control the pet population. Not Paula Hawkins though, she thinks it better to kill the poor animal.

In her latest book ‘Into the Water’, Paula Hawkins mentions a pregnant tabby cat. A man who sees the cat thinks (and I quote Paula Hawkins) … ‘I’ll have to do something about that’.

He doesn’t wait for the cat to give birth and then take her to the vet to be spayed though, no he kills her. For cat lovers everywhere I’ll spare you the details.

This is very upsetting. Whether you have a cat, a dog, a bunny or another animal, killing an animal because of a pregnancy can never be justified. Every country has veterinarians and several governments sponsor the spay/neuter program.

Paula Hawkins is no doubt an educated woman, who has enjoyed success with her published books, but apparently, she has not heard of the spay/neuter program. In 'Into the Water' she has a cat killed in a barbaric way?

Why bring a cat into the story in the first place? It has nothing to do with it.

The New York Times gives this book a good review, but read the reviews of readers and the picture changes.

21% of readers on Amazon give ‘Into the Water’ a 1-star review. This is what readers have to say.

This book defies all the intuitiveness of a good mystery. The characters and timelines are so confusing that any mounting suspense from a clearer, more linear narrative is lost. I had to constantly re-think who was who and when was when. I am not sure that the lack of clarity was not an attempt to try to make the storyline more interesting. At any rate, I rarely feel moved to write a review but this book was a waste of time and money. I started skimming as best I could in hopes that it would improve but it never got better.

I had really high hopes for this book since I've been seeing it raved about all over the internet lately. I did like Girl on the Train, so I decided to give this a try. I'm not sure if my expectations were too high, but I did NOT like this book. I've read a lot of books that are narrated by alternating characters, but this was ridiculous. At least 10 different characters back and forth back and forth, hard to keep up with. The entire book was just all over the place. The big "twist' of the book wasn't very shocking. Just overall disappointing.

Unfortunately this book had me rolling my eyes, cringing and laughing out loud in places. I'm surprised it made it to print in this state. Told from ten perspectives, all two dimensional, unlikeable and identical (except for the odd bit of swearing from a couple of characters), countless pages which should have been cut and clunky narrative devices. A huge disappointment.

Where is the real Paula Hawkins. this is a lot of gibberish. confusing characters and totally plodding.

Sorry, looked forward to this, but quit halfway due to too many characters, no guide to who they are or who they're talking about (coz they're not engaged in any actions), it's a struggle to follow which timeframe each chapter is in.

As for me, I’ll never read another book by Paula Hawkins again. Any author who promotes pet cruelty doesn’t deserve to be selling books.

If the rich were forced to share, how many would benefit?

As a rule, I avoid social media like Facebook, Twitter, and others for the simple reason that some of those posts annoy me. But every now and then I still get confronted with articles or news headlines and they do more than annoy me, they make me bloody angry.

First, there was the news that America’s First Lady bought a $51,000 jacket. In my opinion, it’s the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen and they Dolce & Gabbana would have to pay me $51,000 to wear it, but that’s beside the point. The point it, how can anyone spend that kind of money on a jacket they will wear only once?

If it was up to me, I would enforce a rule that if people spent that kind of money on frivolities, they should be forced to donate an equal amount of money to a worthy cause. For a lot of people, $51,000 is equal to five years or more of rent. So why not give five hard-working families $10,000 each? Or ten families $5,000. Not folks who receive welfare, but people with jobs who genuinely do their best but still find it hard to make ends meet.

A few days later another outrages purchase caused me more aggravation. This time it was David Beckham who bought his wife a $379,261 purse.

Now wouldn’t it have been nice if Beckham would have been forced to donate an equal amount of money to the victims and families of the recent London terror attacks? That would have been money well spent.

Another worthy cause would have been to donate $379,261 to various animal shelters to supply food and medical services (such as spaying and neutering) to cats, dogs, etc.?

Or his money could have helped quite a few people who needed help with their mortgage. Or a particular city could have used the funds to subsidize public transportation.

And this is just the beginning. Middle Eastern sheiks buy diamond encrusted cars and paintings for hundreds of millions of dollars. They should be forced to help others with an equal amount. Not only would this help out deserving families, but they might think twice before flaunting their wealth.

If the rich were forced to share, just how many would benefit?

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