This is my first (and only) youtube video.
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I've found if you're making a complicated recipe it helps a lot to identify which steps can be done ahead of time so here are some tips I use
pre-cut any vegetables: get your vegetables together and do any chopping or mincing that needs to be done
place the cutting board with your vegetables in the unplugged countertop toaster oven. vital step to minimize the number of cat paws that get in your vegetables. do not skip this step.
pre-mix sauces: identify any sauces that can be made ahead of time and mix those ingredients
put the sauce bowl in the microwave for safe keeping. we're not heating it. it just lives there. this is very important to minimize amount of cat paw in sauce. do not skip this step.
assemble any dry mixes you might need
place the dry mix in the not-turned-on oven. this helps protect the flavor by minimizing the chance of the dry mix finding new life as crime-scene toebean footprints walking away from the kitchen. do not skip this step.
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look guys I'm gonna be honest--i love dogs but the tactile experience of petting a cat is better 99% of the time. Cat fur is so much softer and less greasy and just generally better than most dog fur. IDK if there's some ideal chinchilla dog out there that I have yet to lay hands on but man, dog fur textures are whack. Cats, at least when they're healthy, are so reliably smooth and silky.
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Meow with the custom fabric transplants
I've been so excited to share Meow's story with you all! I mean, he's a partial recover, and you've seen those before, but in this case, I used multiple fabrics to replicate his striped original fabric and I was really happy with how he came out... and so was his family. So, without further ado, may I present Meow!
Meow is a very small cat, maybe 7" long? Less if he's sitting. But he had been very well loved in his short life. His person's uncle wrote to me, asking if I could help. Here is the diagnosis photo he sent:
Just fyi, his balding was also pretty serious on his back.
There were a few options for care, but treating his balding was definitely the most serious concern. In the end, his family opted for new eye, bald spot treatment with transplants but not a full recover, and a gentle spa, as well as wound repair.
So he flew to the hospital from Washington state, not too long a flight, and started his treatment with a spa:
Next, he got new eyes. His eyes were originally green -- the cataracts were so bad, I couldn't really tell the original color till I took out his eyes and looked on the backside of them. Here he is with vision restored to 20/20:
Next were transplants.... Perfect matches for striped fur are impossible without a donor (and sometimes even donors aren't perfect). I've done transplants where we use the background fur color, and add black stripes for tigers (you've seen some of those here) but Meow's stripes weren't black. Sometimes we just use a solid close to one of the stripe colors in that case, and that was an option... and actually the plan for Meow. But then I had two fabrics which matched his two stripe colors really closely:
I talked with his family about it, and we agreed to mix the colors in the transplants... a little of one, a little of the other. But keep in mind, stripes on animals aren't exact lines, so this wasn't a case of making a fabric by sewing strips on a machine, and then using the new fabric. Each piece was chose, and shaped for the area where the bald spot was, and sewn in separately. It was more complicated than this surgery usually is, but also kind of meditative. :-)
So... here is Meow all better! (He did get a heart btw, I just didn't photo it)
His family was thrilled too. "He looks great!" they wrote. And Meow flew north and home.
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Waaay back in 2nd grade my teacher had us write a book called "My Pet Dinosaur", describing what we would do if we could have any dinosaur as a pet. This being the early 90s and having freshly watched Jurassic Park, I decided to skip the T rexes and sauropods, wanting something that would fit in my house and wouldn't eat me. So, I got out my trusty 1987 "Dinosaurs!" Childcraft Annual to pick something more practical, and decided on Psittacosaurus.
^ the illustration in the 1987 book, versus this recent, much more accurate depiction by Bob Nicholls.
So, three decades later, I found the ever-talented @bookrat and their incredible paleo taxidermy art blog. I knew I wanted to commission them, so I decided to fulfill a childhood dream at the same time! I chose a model of a psittacosaurus hatchling because the 14 inch hatchling would take up far less space than a 4 foot long adult, and actually be in my budget. I asked for a green color because of the 1987 illustration above, but more accurate and less mock turtle, lol.
it came out gorgeous! I have my new "pet" here posing adorably with two of my actual-factual pets. Thank you again @bookrat for your beautiful work! I'll have to get a collar soon to take more pics :)
EDIT: This is blowing up, so make you're liking and reblogging @bookrat 's post too, and check out all their other art and dino models!
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