Animal Antics

My parents went on a little vacation and I was in-charge of looking after the house. However, I was not alone, I had the quirky pets with me--mainly Annie the boulder of a cat(Kiwi too, but he's pretty much my shadow.) Here are some silly drawings to sum up what it's like to be the only living thing Annie has contact with:

Annie is still on her 6a.m. feeding schedule, however, unless something is seriously wrong with me...I'm never up at this hour, so she had to endure the traumatic experience of waiting for an additional two hours before her belly could be satisfied(I also never heard her 6 a.m. cries, but the second my alarm went off, she was at my door.). Drawing number 3 represents what greeted me when I opened my door every morning---a bawling baby. Drawing 2 is her expecting her food as it's about to be lowered to an adequate feasting level. Drawing 1 is what she does when my Mom is usually around. Starting at about 3 in the afternoon, Annie plants her butt right in-front of the door leading to the garage and stares intently at the bottom of the door, anticipating that glorious moment when my Mom walks in and feeds her. Even though I'm walking around in the same area, Annie does not care--I'm clearly not a reliable source of crunchies. The last drawing on the page, is just a silly example of the kinds of judgmental looks Annie likes to give me.

In between her feedings, Annie occupies herself with two things---hanging out in my room and throwing me dirty looks--My desk faces away from my bed. Annie likes to make a "nest" in the sheets of my bed and whenever I turn around, I get this look. The drawing on the left also illustrates her "I hate your taste in music" glare. Activity number two is play-time: She loves to roughhouse and if you pin her on the ground she goes nuts. She'll flip over and do this type of pose---eyes completely the size of saucers, arms spread far out, and her tail is flying.


The night before my parents came back Annie was chilling on my bed. I had my headphones on and drawing. Suddenly I see a grey blur out of the corner of my eye and Annie has frozen in place at my door. I had the door open a crack so she could come and go as she pleased. She was standing inches from the crack looking like the world was ending just outside. I hate it when she does this because then I think there's a stranger in the house or something(it's like 11 at night, with no one else at home). Obviously, I took my headphones off, no commotion,..just silence, but that didn't help my nerves--in the end, it was just another "Spook attack" where Annie reacts to literally nothing. She also does intense staring contests with empty carpets and blank spaces on walls--when I usually sneak up behind her and poke her, sending her straight up in the air and upon her landing, her tail is 100% poof. So I guess this is her payback?

Yesterday I got wind that the yearly Rooster Crowing contest was taking place and of course I had to attend. Unfortunately, the sketching was terrible--both conditions(cramped spaces between lots of sweaty people, a couple of whom didn't know about the invention of deodorant.) and just my own drawing-mojo. So I didn't stay very long.


Not only were roosters encouraged to crow, but there was a human rooster crowing contest. Whoever sounded closest to a rooster, won. Kids and adults alike participated. And not just uttering, "Cock-a-doodle-doo" people were going all out.

My drawings....like I said, cramped drawing position+95 degree heat+bad drawing day in general='s a poor representation of what took place yesterday. Definitely didn't do them justice. Oh well...

The obligatory rooster photo. This one was called, "Lil Guy" and he was lil. Not taller than the distance between your elbow and wrist. His whole body went into his squeaky crow. Kind of adorable.