Botched IPO Does Not Affect Cute Animal Pictures

Facebook has been in the news for its botched IPO rollout. It seems potential investors and advertisers have a few reservations about the popular social networking tool.

I'm not an investor in Facebook but I am a user. And I think Facebook is a good way to keep in touch. I'm get daily news from friends, family, classmates, and colleagues, and some people who I'm not sure I ever had any connection with.

Facebook is also a great place to see cute animal pictures. Many cute animal pictures. A constant stream of kittens, puppies, giraffes, rabbits, and turtles. I take some responsibility for this. I, myself, have posted pictures of my cats, but they are exceptionally cute.

Of course, Facebook also serves as a dumping ground for political views. It's as if people believe that when they post this stuff, readers will instantly change their minds.

I wonder if anyone's mind has been changed by seeing an unflattering picture of a politician with a caption describing his or her extreme views about a controversial issue. While my mind has not been changed by reading something on Facebook, I have unfriended a few people who post nothing but regurgitated political rhetoric. One person's constant anger was so toxic that I felt the heat from over a thousand miles away. While I agreed with her views, I couldn't stand to face her wrath in the daily postings.

I'm more interested in the joy of a friend who unexpectedly became a grandmother. I like seeing the progress on the pond another friend is building in his back yard.

Though it may be trivial, I like knowing what Peggy the dog is up to. Peggy does, indeed, take the cute animal thing a step further by having her own Facebook account.

I hope people will keep posting news of themselves or I'll have nothing to read about but the outrageous shennanigans of the "republican'ts" and the socialist leanings of "Obamacare."

Fortunately, today there's a picture of a baby rabbit sleeping on top of a dog's head with the caption, "You've got a FRIEND!" Very cute!

TV Families Not Representative

I admit it. I watch a lot of TV. And I have to say, most of the families on the tube don't look like mine. An entire population is severely underrepresented, rendering some of the best shows difficult for me to relate to.

Unlike at my house where they pretty much rule, cats are notoriously absent from TV shows. For that matter, so are dogs. I'm not talking about those old Disney movies where the animal wins the national ribbon or dies at the end (I'm still upset about Old Yeller, 40 years later). I mean animals that are just regular members of the family, like those dogs and cats (and in a couple of cases, birds) who live with me and my friends.

According to the Humane Society of the United States, dogs live in 39 percent of all U.S. households. Cats live in 33 percent. Doesn’t that equal 72 percent? I was never good at math. But at least some number of families on TV should have at least either a dog or a cat.

Take that family on ABC's The Middle. A dog would add a lot of color to that chaotic household. Of course, the mom, played by Patricia Heaton, would be the only one who remembers to feed the dog, let him or her out, and so on.

I recently watched all five seasons of Brothers and Sisters - one extended family made up of five individual households. A number of times, I thought, “This is just like my family,” except there was not a bit of animal fur among them.

Currently on Netflix, I'm watching Kyle XY, a sci-fi drama that explores the meaning of family and belonging. It's a great show - sweet and touching as well as suspenseful, but it lacks any sort of animal presence. I often think the agonized protagonist and his angst-ridden teenaged siblings would benefit from the calming influence of a cat, but there isn't one.

I suppose cats are hard to train and, well, control on the set. Dogs are a little more trainable, and thus, visible.

The sitcom Whitney recently featured a dog adopted from a shelter. The poor fellow died in less than one episode.

One of the families on Modern Family has a cute little mutt. Gruff old grandpa/stepdad Jay, played by Ed O'Neil, takes an abandoned pooch to the shelter in one episode but can't go through with it. The dog has become a regular cast member.

There used to be more animals on TV but they were pretty unrealistic. Lassie was always getting Timmy out of some trouble or other by barking and barking until the humans finally understood. In reality, any dog that barked like that would be banished to the back yard or at least given the doggie version of Prozac.

Flipper, the dolphin, always knew everything in spite of being limited to the water. I don't know any dolphins personally, but I was always surprised that Flipper didn’t just get in the truck and drive.

At this point, I feel like I should comment on Tiger, the shaggy dog who lived with the Brady Bunch. But I really don’t have anything to say about him.

Animal companions are a little better represented in cartoons. The Simpsons have Santa's Little Helper and Snowball, a skinny dog and mangy black cat respectively. In spite of the animated nature of the show, this is the one that best represents pets as a regular, integrated presence in the family.

Ok, now that you know how much TV I watch, I'll bet you aren't surprised to learn that my own cats, Lily and Charles, usually watch with me. You’d never see it on television, but I'm often sprawled horizontally on the sofa, the two of them curled up on top of or beside me. That's what my family looks like.

Facebook Comment Stirs Controversy

I've written about politics, breast cancer, interpersonal conflict, obnoxious loudmouth media personalities, death, the relative merits of different regions of the country ... but nothing is as controversial as a statement I made on Facebook last week: that my Charles is the cutest kitty ever.

Turns out, lots of other people think their cat is the cutest ever. I was even chastised for not considering my other cats, present and past, in the comparison.

Ok, first of all, cut me some slack for hyperbole. There was never really a contest on which cat was the cutest. I’m not surprised that everyone thinks even their own butt-ugly cats are cute.

But when Charles jumped up on our visitor’s suitcase like he owned it, I knew, at that moment, that he was the cutest.

Charles is my performer. Of all the cats for which I've been guardian, Charles is the one that everyone sees. All the others fly into the closet or dive under the bed when a visitor arrives. Charles is the only one, who upon hearing a knock, runs toward the door instead of away. He gleefully accompanies guests into the bathroom and will often climb onto the shoulders of any human who happens to be sitting down in there.

Charles also chases the vacuum. I have to be careful about professional cleaners and repair people in my condo because he'll get right in their faces – and their tools. For example, Charles thoroughly enjoyed playing with the wires and equipment the cable guy brought with him when installing my new DVR.

Don't get me wrong - I love all my kitties. They all have moments where I swear each is the cutest ever.

Lily, my other current feline companion, is a lover. She sleeps with me, watches TV with me, and basically demands that I sit down and pet her when I'm not doing something more important. And there's never anything more important.

Lily actually sits on my wrists when I type on the computer. I’d be irritated, but when she does it, I swear she is the cutest cat in the whole world. So I have learned to work my fingers without moving my arms, thus accomplishing the computer task and also acknowledging Lily as the center of attention, a.k.a., the world.

Only a couple of humans know how sweet Lily is, however. She doesn't like to pose for pictures, and certainly doesn't come out for company. She is a more private persona where Charles is "out there," WAY out.

That's why you see his picture so much more than Lily's on Facebook. If she'd pose, she'd get her picture taken too. She just doesn't care.

I think people go way overboard about their pets. Does a dog really need a sweater in the fall? Would Facebook or YouTube even exist if it weren't for animals?

I'll patiently look at the pictures of my FB friends’ average dogs and cats (sometimes, I’ll even look at pictures of human children, but I only have so much time). To you, I'm sure, your kid or critter seems totally cute.

I'm just stating a fact when I say that Charles really is.

I Do Not Clean Alone

I don’t believe in ghosts in the usual sense, but I do believe that I am haunted by my mother every time I clean the house.

I hate cleaning more than anything. I’d almost rather go to the dentist. I really hate it. But is it worse than living in a dirty home?

I like to play a little game called, “How many inches of dust can you stand?” It’s even more challenging when I don’t feel well, like this week when I missed two days of work.

I won’t bore you with the details of my illness, but I will say that I knew I was feeling better when that little dust ball near the TV (the screen of which itself was covered in a layer that dulled the color of every broadcast) – that little dust ball I’d been staring at for 48 hours finally got to me. Like Lazarus, I rose from the sofa, summoned the Windex and went at it.

This is where my mother comes in. She wouldn’t tolerate, for one minute, a dust ball near the TV. Dust simply wasn’t allowed in her home. Her standards were extremely high. When I came to visit from graduate school one time, I tried to help her clean, and she yelled at me for vacuuming the stairs wrong. How many ways can there be to vacuum stairs? I stopped offering.

Mom was notoriously hard on professional house cleaners. Even near the end of her life when she could barely walk or talk, she’d leave sticky notes around the house reminding the cleaning woman to “dust the banister” or whatever was “forgotten” last time.

That’s why she haunts me now.

It’s all I can do to dust the surface of things. But her voice is in my head reminding me to get under the knick knacks, not just over the surface. She still tells me to get the floor’s edges, vacuum under the chairs, and dust WITH the wood’s grain instead of against it.

I don’t think she liked cleaning any more than I do. She was just tougher. Her sheer grit overcame any inclination to be lazy.

For several years, I hired a service to clean for me. I had to stop that when Charles, my 18 month old (kitten) came to live with me. Unlike every other cat in the world that I know of, he doesn’t hide when the vacuum is going. He chases it. In fact, he loves to help clean. Chasing the dust rag is great sport, and attacking the sheets as I throw them over the bed is tremendous fun (see photo). Making the bed always ends with a kitty sized lump in the middle. This makes hospital corners, which my Mom bent over backwards to teach me, very difficult. And it makes me unable to subject the cleaning service to his attentions. I would have to pay more for them to put up with him, or they’d accidentally let him out because he runs to the door whenever someone comes over.

It was only recently that I could overcome my mother’s voice as I cleaned the house. It occurred to me that I don’t have to feel guilty for not edging the carpet or washing the kitty nose prints off the windows every time. Or ever. Oh I still hear the voice – I just realize now that I don’t have to let it control me.

I live alone (well, with Charles and Lily). I clean for myself. If it’s good enough for me, it’s good enough.

My neighbor loves to clean. She vacuums every day. In spite of her cats and dog, the place is always spotless. I wish I loved to clean like that. But it will never happen. I’ll have to settle for not feeling guilty when I finally do run the dust rag over the tops of things and vacuum around the chair, and I’ll do the windows some other time. Maybe.