"Waste not? Want less" (A guest post by Franc)

"Look! I can recycle, and I don't even have hands. "

Today while my mom was jamming in the bucket shower (she says you can't help but jam in a bucket shower), I decided to sneak onto her computer to see what she has been telling y'all about me. Of course, I was shocked to see that she has not even mentioned me for almost a week! And lately even her pictures have not been of me. OR FOOD. So I'm staging an intervention, because I know you've been lonely for me. This is my big chance to show you how clever I am, so I'll be sure to talk about things that are important and deep.

I've been thinking about my life so far which is almost one year long! If you'd like to send a birthday gift, I'll give you a hint: I like food. I guess Mom got me thinking this morning by making a big deal about Kina and I graduating to adult cat food. Of course Mom is ridiculous, because I would eat anything, and I tried to tell her by eating all of Dad's rubber ear plugs, but she still insists on buying purrina. ...What was I saying? A bug went by and boy, was that distracting. Oh. I was remembering all the things that I've knocked over, eaten, and learned since my family adopted me from the Humane Society, where I was so cute I seduced the whole place, and they called me "Roly," although it is not too humane to make fun of a kitten with a little baby fat if you ask me.

But People do lots of things that are crazy to me. (Eating salad? What is that about? Where's the tuna? Mm, it's in tuna salad! That's a salad I could talk to.) "Waste not, want not" is one of those things People say that I don't exactly "understand," so I just try to look adorable to distract them from their nonsense. Anyway, I decided just now what to write, because I saw that Karissa wanted to know about recycling and garbage, and I happen to be an expert at minimizing waste: just eat it!. Also, as you can see from the photo, my Mom and Dad taught me about recycling when I was just a tiny kit. Here are things that they do about garbage and not making so much of it:

• Use empty wine bottles to store water in the fridge; I think it makes them look like drunks, but Mom thinks it's cool. (Ha!)
• Shop at thrift stores. Mom and Dad are obsessed with leaving Kina and I by ourselves so that they can go to "Goodwill." I call it "Goodriddance," because I don't need them, anyway! I'm grown now. Just please leave out the food and send someone to clean the litter box, would you please?
  
• Buy or pick up from the Curb secondhand furniture. This is one of my favorites, because it means we don't get yelled at for scratching the furniture like we do at Gram and Gramps' house. I would like to see the Curb someday, but Mom is scared because she sees cats get run over on Park Road. Maybe when I'm braver, I'll sneak out with Kina sometime so I can see for myself.
  
• Reuse containers. Mom still feeds us out of a plastic container that she got when we were tiny kittens. She's not fooling me. I know we were downgraded from expensive vet food to the "nurturing formula" months ago. So I'm a big fan of that container, because it helps my lunch crunch! (do you like that? I thought of it myself. Crunch, lunch! Beats soggy old food from the bag every time.) My mom saves all kinds of jars that food comes in and even washes out plastic bags, which are fun to play with but only if you don't get caught, and Dad planted all those baby plants I knocked over in containers that would have gone in the garbage (like old soda cups, plastic bottles he cut the tops off of, and tin cans).
• This reminds me, what time is lunch?
• Get mad and talk about why Trader Joe's -- that's the place that makes ginger cookies shaped like me! which I hope isn't giving people the idea that I am also edible -- sells everything in non-recyclable plastic containers
• Recycle what they can, although my mom suspects that secretly our apartment complex trashes everything, even the stuff People put in the recycle bins.
• Be creative! My crazy mom pretends her skirts are dresses and wears them around her armpits, cuts up old clothes to make new clothes, and made Mother's Day gifts from old artichoke jars and sheets from Goodwill. (I guess no one told her that the best gifts are edible.)
• Try to get by with less.
• Take their own bags to the grocery, and reuse the plastic/paper ones. They use the plastic ones for trash bags in the bathroom, and Mom turns the paper ones inside out and wraps presents with them, if Kina and I don't tear them to shreds first. See? Recycling is fun!
• I read in one of Dad's gardening books about composting, and I don't know why they don't do that, because it seems like it would be fun to have all those worms to play with. I think that maybe they are just too lazy.

I hear Mom getting out of the shower, so I need to go meow and act cuddly so that she'll spend time with me before she leaves for work. (Don't tell her I said she's ridiculous.) (And I was serious about those food presents. Mail to: Franc the Cat Kovach in Charlotte, NC. My mom had to register me with the county, so they'll know how to find me.) (I promise to recycle the packaging.)