One of the ways in which I’ve adapted is that I no longer leave my toilet paper on its holder. Now, it goes under the sink. As do my paper towels. Because should I leave any sort of paper on a roll accessible, I come home to this:

OH HAI!

Note the culprit. Any time she sees paper on a roll, she grabs it, runs around the apartment like a wild thing, and then proceeds to tear chunks out of it before unrolling as much of it as possible before I catch her.

Then she runs away. If I don’t see this happen, she’s nowhere near the scene of the crime by the time I find it.

Guess who does hang around…

Pardon me. I'm decorating.

She likes storing piles of toys (she’s a hoarder, remember) in the nests of toilet paper created by Molly.

So, the cat who’s actually engaged in misbehavior ensures she’s nowhere near the evidence. I can’t yell at her because you’re not supposed to yell at animals after the fact — only if you catch them red…pawed.  The cat who I do find reaping the benefits of the crime didn’t commit it, so I can’t yell at her either.

I’m not sure why I even bother trying to discipline them.

WHERE IS SHE?

And If I Die Before I Wake…

…I pray the Lord my toys to break

So none of the other kitties can have them.

Amen.

I first suspected that Lucy might have some…issues shortly after I brought her home. She was sitting on my lap and I was ambling around the internet, and I thought maybe some mother cat sounds would soothe her and help her settle in. So I brought up a YouTube video of a mother cat with her kittens and turned up the sound.

MINE.

Lucy sat up and looked around sharply, then jumped off my lap. She returned mere seconds later, dropping one of her toys in my lap. Oh, I thought, she wants to play! I picked up the toy to throw it for her, but she put a paw on my hand and pushed it back into my lap. Confused, I let the toy stay. She jumped down again and returned with another toy, which she dropped in my lap. She repeated this until all of her toys were safely ensconced, then jumped down and began roaming the apartment, looking under things, sniffing under them, and so on.

And that was when it dawned on me. Lucy hadn’t brought me her toys because she wanted to play; she heard another cat in the area and brought them to me for safekeeping. While she hunted down the other cat. And killed it, I gather. She wanted to make sure that the intruder wouldn’t get its dirty paws on her toys.

Don’t Worry: I’ll Take Care of the Family

Cats are creatures of routine. When things are out of the ordinary, they get concerned.

Excuse us, but what on earth is wrong with you?

So it’s not all that surprising that – after I’d established a breakfast time of 9:00 for the kitties and a 9:00 rising time for myself — they were somewhat concerned when, during a bout of illness, I got up to feed them at the normal time, but then went back to bed.  They followed me and sat on either side of me as I settled back under the covers, staring.

After staring failed to produce a return to the normal routine, they reluctantly settled in on either side of me for a morning nap.

I was awakened a few hours later with Lucy watching me intently from her perch on my chest, upon which she had laid a Triscuit. A slightly soggy, slightly chewed, but largely intact Triscuit.

My thought process went something like this:

1) Aww, that’s so sweet! She’s realized I can’t hunt for myself and is bringing me food!

2) Ew, it’s all wet and gross. I hope she won’t be hurt if I don’t eat it in front of her.

3) Where…did she…get the Triscuit?

A Side Note About My Family

I come from a family that can be a bit obsessed about cleanliness. The exemplar of this obsession is my Great Aunt Irene. She has special powers.

You or I can walk into a room, and we know — in a theoretical sense — that there are germs there. Irene can see them. She knows how to find them.

And make them scream.

You could eat off her basement floor. You could do surgery on her kitchen floor. She keeps her clothes draped in plastic and has liners between each layer of clothing in her drawers.

She started teaching me to clean when I was in kindergarten.

So, while I like to think I have a healthier attitude toward how much cleanliness is healthy than most of my family, I occasionally have moments of terror that somewhere, in some dark recess of my apartment, moldering food is lurking. I move my furniture to vacuum under it each week, but the irrational fear remains.

Back to Lucy

Aren't you going to eat it?

So anyway, there on my chest sat my sweet, loving kitten, angelic pride shining from every whisker. This was a sacrifice for her. She’s food-obsessed like no cat I’ve ever had, but she had spared this Triscuit for me.

And all I could think of was, OMG WHERE DID SHE GET THE TRISCUIT? THERE IS MOLDERING FOOD SOMEWHERE IN MY APARTMENT NONONONONONO…!

I staggered out of bed holding my Triscuit and began a (literally) feverish search of my apartment. Finally, having established that there was no moldering food anywhere, I went back to bed. Lucy, still so proud of herself she was almost quivering, joined me and purred so loud I was worried the bed would vibrate itself apart.

You really don't need to see what's in here, do you? No, no you don't.

The next evening, I was sitting on the couch and my gaze fell upon the one place in the apartment I hadn’t searched: the kitty condo.

I got down on my knees and peered inside, while Lucy paced nervously behind me, chattering defensively.

Inside was a pile of triscuits. And a pile of popcorn kernels. And a pile of granola bar pieces. And a pile of cat treats. And a pile of cat toys. And an orange.

Lucy protested shrilly as I cleaned it out. But what are we going to do when the famine comes? I am trying to TAKE CARE OF THIS FAMILY!

I attempted to explain to her that if a famine or zombie apocalypse or whatever happened, we had canned food. Lots and lots of canned food. I had this under control.

Lucy was not convinced.

The following evening I went to a friends’ house to feed their cats while they were out of town. When I came home, I discovered that Lucy had chewed through the rubber band holding the food cabinet shut, gotten into my almond cookies, gorged herself, and restocked her condo.

At this point, I became slightly concerned.

But, tonight she convinced me of her generosity.

The Strawberry

I went to the store and came home with strawberries and chocolate dip, which I intended to take over to Jav’s for chocolate-covered strawberries and TV-watching. But while I was changing clothes, Lucy presented me with a strawberry. First she deposited it at my feet while I was in my bedroom, and when I didn’t eat it, she tried again on the kitchen counter.

"Here you go! It's a present!"

"Why aren't you eating it?"

"Why isn't she eating it?"

"Is there something wrong with it?"

"Huh, tastes all right to me."

"What is WRONG with you?"

She has spent the rest of the evening flouncing around with an air of mystified hurt.

She has not yet hit upon the idea of stashing it in her condo for later, thank goodness. I’m waiting until she’s distracted to throw it away.

OBEY.

My girls live with me in a reasonably-sized one-bedroom apartment. The living-room has floor-to-ceiling sliding doors which would lead onto a balcony if I had one, but instead are screened and overlook the courtyard. Other than my boyfriend, we don’t get a lot of visitors.

All of which is to say that they live in a very quiet, very safe-feeling space, with one obedient human, and few strangers ever set foot in their demesne.

I worry about this sometimes. If they ever somehow got out of the apartment complex (unlikely, of course — since they’d have to find their way to the elevator and take it to the ground floor — but possible), they’d be confronted with the fact that the world outside their safe little haven is bright, and loud, and full of large moving things and strange people. I worry that they would be panicked and overwhelmed and might rush into the street out of sheer sensory overload.

So I take them, individually, to the pet store with me, where they can encounter other people and dogs and strange noises and smells, and now that it’s warm out, I’ve begun taking them for walks in our apartment compound.

Jealousy

Pictured: Love.

Before I get to that, however, I’d like to make a few notes about their relationship.  Molly and Lucy are the most affectionate pair of non-related cats I’ve ever lived with. Most of the cats I’ve known have tolerated their cohabitants, but largely ignored each other. Often, there has been simmering hostility under the tolerance.

Molly and Lucy love each other. They are never fair apart, they bathe each other and cuddle, play together, and work as a team to navigate the challenges of getting to food I don’t want them to have, rescuing toys that get shoved under furniture and so on.

However, like any siblings, they have their moments of jealousy. If I hold Molly too long, Lucy will attempt to climb into my arms, using her claws. If I hold Lucy too long, Molly will squat as if she’s about to pee on the carpet. (Put her down…or the rug gets it.)

When I’ve taken Molly to the vet, Lucy has seemed fine with being alone. When I’ve taken Lucy places, she’s seemed to enjoy having time with just the two of us.

I figured that, like any siblings, they generally loved each other but, as the bouts of jealousy demonstrated, also wanted time to be the sole subject of my attention.

The Trip Outside

Maybe if I hold very still, I'll blend in...

Yesterday was a beautiful day, so I decided to take them out to the courtyard. I have taken them out together, but they preferred to huddle in the carrier together rather than exploring the world and chasing bugs as is their birthright. So yesterday I decided to take them out one at a time.

I took Lucy first. She’s still not quite sure what to make of her leash, but once I got her outside, she forgot about it entirely in favor of being utterly terrified. She huddled in the carrier, shrinking back every time a car passed the complex or a plane flew overhead.

I waited patiently for her to come out, and she waited impatiently for me to take her back inside, and finally I pulled her out of the carrier. She made a beeline for the door at the far end of the courtyard.

Until this time, Molly (who was sitting in the open window) hadn’t said anything. But as I soothed Lucy, she must have heard my voice and started meowing inquisitively. It was quiet — little chirps and her distinctive creaky noises.

But then Lucy’s headlong flight to a door that led nowhere near our apartment took us past the window.

I looked up and saw this:

BEHOLD!

Okay, that didn’t work out quite like I’d hoped. COMPUTER: ENHANCE!

Hmm.

Okay, actually that’s still not what I saw.  What I saw was a giant open cat mouth, emitting a deep, throat-shredding howl. Molly had seen that Lucy and I were somewhere she couldn’t get to, and assumed that we had abandoned her, apparently.

The howl reverberated throughout the courtyard, bouncing off the walls until the echoes combined into a throbbing chorus of the damned.¹

The children in the pool stopped splashing and laughing and stared. The sunbathing adults looked up and stared. The property manager and the couple to whom she was giving a tour stopped and stared. The people in the apartment below my window opened their sliding doors, came out onto the patio and stared.

One of the children began shrieking in counterpoint.

Lucy forgot that she was terrified and stared up at her sister in astonishment.

Mortified, I frantically tried to shush her, but the tormented wailing continued.

YOU HAVE LEFT ME ALOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONE!!!!!

I bundled Lucy into her carrier and raced back up to my apartment² , where Molly greeted us with frantic relief. I explained that it was her turn now, and that I had never intended to abandon her, and did she understand the concept of turns?

Unlike Lucy, Molly actually enjoys going places, and has basically leash-trained herself.  She’ll trot along next to me, stopping occasionally to sniff something and then looking up at me to comment on it. When I take her to the pet store, people are always amazed to see a leash-trained cat and comment on how doglike she is, how she is constantly watching me and talking to me, and so on.

So, Molly was having a grand old time. And then we walked past my window, where Lucy (who’s just as happy to stay inside and watch, thankyouverymuch) saw her and gave a happy chirp of recognition. Molly looked up and saw that Lucy was back there, in the apartment. Alone. Not with us.

And — I swear, this whole thing took place in slow motion as I realized what was about to happen, dreaded it, and realized I had no way to stop it — she opened her mouth and began to howl again.

We’ve abandoned LUUUUUUOOOOOOOOOOOOOOCY!!!

I took her back inside, where she frantically reunited with Lucy (who was all, “Er, pardon me, but what on EARTH is the matter with you?”), and then the two of them flopped onto the couch, exhausted. Molly stayed awake nervously until I joined them on the couch. Then, satisfied that the family was all together, she went to sleep purring.

Pictured: Exhaustion.

There is a moral to this story, and it is this: I am not allowed to take them outdoors separately.

1. No animal should that small should be able to make a noise that loud. Just sayin’.
2. Okay, I did snap a picture first. I can’t help it. I am of the Internet Generation.

Sunday, they gave me some raw patties made of pork and venison (IIRC).  Tonight, I came home and figured I’d have the girls try them.  I put them in their kitty bowls and stood back to watch.

Molly is not pleased by how I feed her.

Molly sniffed hers, then looked at me in confusion.  Lucy attempted to bury hers, then sat down in front of me and inquired as to what was for dinner.  I directed their attention back to their bowls.  Lucy politely sniffed hers, then went back toward the food cabinet and chirped encouragingly at me.  We repeated this for a while, and then I told them I needed to go to Walgreens and they should enjoy their dinner.

They both recognize, at this point, what my putting on my shoes and grabbing my purse means: I’m leaving.

Molly looked at her bowl and then began to howl: the hollow, full-throated cry of a soul in torment.  I stared at her in astonishment, and 15 seconds or so later, the unrelenting howling broke Lucy.  She stalked over to Molly and began repeatedly hitting her in the face. It went something like this:

MOLLY: AAAOOOOOOWWWWWWWWAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOOWWWWWWW–

LUCY: <runs over> OMG WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?  STOP IT!

MOLLY: –AAAOOOOWWWWWWWWAAAAAOOOOOOOOWWWWWWAAAOOO–

LUCY: Make it STOP! <smack> Make it STOP! <smack> MAKE IT STOP! <smacksmacksmacksmack>

MOLLY:  –WWWWAAAAAAOOOOOOWWWWWWOOOOOAAAAAOOOOOWW–

LUCY: <looking at me> Why don’t you make her STOP? <smacksmacksmacksmacksmack>

MOLLY: –AAAOOOOOWWWWWOOOOAAAAOOOOOWWWWWAAAAAOOO—

Faced with the prospect of two cats having psychotic breaks — one at the idea of having a dinner she didn’t like; the other in a sort of autistic freak-out at unpleasant noise — I decided that the best thing to do was to go to Walgreens immediately. After all, these are creatures with brains the size of walnuts, right?  By the time I got back they’d have forgotten whatever they were thinking about when I left, right?

I headed for the door.

As I opened it, something hit my back. Claws dug into my skin.

Lucy plots methods of bending me to her will.

Lucy had decided that I. Would. Not. Be. Allowed. To. Leave. Her. In. This. Situation.

If I were going to dislodge her, she was going to take a large amount of skin with her. I staggered around clumsily, trying to grab her, begging her to pull her claws out of my shoulderblades, and meanwhile:

AAAAAOOOOOOWWWWWWAAAAAOOOOOOWWWWW–

Finally, exhausted, I sat down on the floor.  Lucy alighted from my back, ran over to her dish, grabbed a patty, and dropped it at my feet.  She then proceeded, with great theatricality, to pretend to bury it, just in case I hadn’t gotten the hint the first time.

Molly continued to provide the evening’s soundtrack, until I grabbed her roughly, producing something that sounded something like:

AAAAAAOOOOOWWWWWAAAAEEEEEEK!<choke>

She then stared at me in silent reproach.

Lucy took the silence as a sign to deliver a few more swats to make sure Mollly had learned her lesson.

I shoved my two little drama queens in the bathroom, cleaned up Lucy’s patty, and then prepared the girls’ second dinner attempt of the night: raw goatsmilk, sweetened with honey and a bit of cinnamon, chicken in crab consomme, a crumbled duck & goose raw patty, and a bit of pureed pumpkin.

They ate with an air of aggrieved vindication.

I love sleep so much. It is my holy grail.

When I feel myself waking up in the morning, I fight it, like someone in a lifejacket trying to stay underwater.

It seems like I must know how to fall asleep. I have done it before. Everyone else does it. It can’t be that hard to figure out how.

My cats do it effortlessly. Multiple times in a row. I wake them up, out of jealous spite, and they just fall RIGHT BACK ASLEEP AGAIN. On top of me.

There must be a trick to it that I don’t know. (Yes, I know about various relaxation techniques. Yes, I have made an appointment with a sleep clinic.)

There are so many things that are supposed to be hard that are not hard at all for me, and yet this thing — this thing that my cats, with their walnut-sized brains, are MASTERS at — at this thing, I fail so hard it is literally (and yes, I know the meaning of the word literally and I absolutely mean it here) painful for me.

URGH. Okay, I am going to go get back in bed and try again now.

Did you know not only do you have a sun sign, but it’s in a house? That complicates things considerably.²

Anyway, considering the massive preponderance of Scorpios in my life, I decided to look for where I’m in Scorpio, because I would have figured that I had absolutely nothing there, which would perhaps explain why life has decided to supply me with so many of them. (Significant Other, for example, is a double Scorpio.)

Dark powers! Of darkness and...butterflies!

I actually do have them in a couple places, along with other things suggesting I should have Dark Powers! Of Seduction! And Magnetism! and a fascination with the conflation of sex and death and so on.

Fr’example, listen to this (about having Lilith in Scorpio³ ):

Nobody can understand these people when they say that love is not love if it does not hurt, if there is no jealousy, pain, abandonment and comeback. If there is not even hatred and the darkness of frenzied passions and unsustainable desires, or that violent need for attention, looks, giving and owning. The eroticism of these people is morbid, for only in the face of rejection and the end that wounds the pride is their bitterness created and their hatred, love and passion awakened!

Like, yikes.

I am going to come out right here and say that if you think love isn’t love if it doesn’t hurt, clearly you haven’t suffered enough in your life to get the f*ck over yourself.

Wait, it gets worse!

Although men will experience her as a fatal seductress…

FATAL SEDUCTRESSNESS! IT IS MINE!

I have FATAL SEDUCTRESS totally tattooed on my forehead, no?

Lilith here gets her maybe most sinister shape so it is extremely hard for her to approach anything with a pure heart, with trust and openness…A malicious use of sexual energy, whimsical sex and manipulation of their partner through erotic dominance can be frequent here! …[T]he energies it possesses are not of this world and their power is incomprehensible!

Okay, I can put up with all the dark gothy SO SERIOUS stuff if I get Incomprehensible Otherworldly Powers.

The site goes on to suggest I should have gone into a field letting me work with sociopaths (i.e. people who are as pathological as I am), although:

LI in Sc gives also exceptional analysts, psychiatrists, surgeons…

Good to know I am allowed to help people too, even though I’m supposed to hang out with the sociopaths.

Oh, and:

It is also interesting that through dreams or some other strange ways the dead frequently communicate to them. They are inclined (especially in their youth) to spiritualistic seanses, they are interested in the occult, astrology, hypnosis, magical rites, mundane life is made up of these little ritual actions, they appear mysterious to others, they avoid talking about themselves, but if Lilith is badly aspected, all of that directly leads them to madness.

Well, other than my dead cat who used to hop up on my bed and wake me up sometimes in the middle of the night, the dead have never shown all that much interest in me.

From a different webpage, there was this:

There is this hypnotic brightening of themselves that is the giveaway of one with Lilith in Scorpio…Power of one kind or another is the signature of one with Lilith in Scorpio.

Looks just like me, doesn't it?

YES, POWER.

When placed here, she is powerfully sexual, hypnotic, seductive and wise. When under a negative influence, she can become bitter, vengeful or obsessed.

DARK POWER! The stars have promised it to me. I'm totally dying my hair black and getting tattoos.

I am hypnotic, oh yes.  I am so going to start a cult next time I bother getting out of my pajamas.

Oh, but there is more.  I have Pluto in the First House:

Pluto, as the planet of regeneration and transformation, located in the first house gives you a strong personality with extreme character traits. The native is regarded as a potential revolutionary whether he is actively engaged in bomb throwing or not. Others respond to him on the surface as a reactionary malcontent, and he is forced to be on guard to protect himself. Probably such person will have an aura of dark power that does not go unnoticed.

YES, MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA, BOW BEFORE MY NOTICEABLE AURA OF DARK POWER.

I am sure, if you know me in real life, you TOTALLY shake in your shoes every time you run into me because of my Unmistakable Aura Of Dark Power.

(That was sarcasm.)

So I want to know, WHERE IS MY DARK POWER, DAMMIT?  I have been promised it by the stars, and clearly, I have been cheated.⁴

1. I am unhealthily extroverted, yes.
2. And, one imagines, allows astrologers to hedge their bets considerably.
3. Which rules Lilith anyway, ’cause I have tons of things that are in the places they’re already ruling, and can only conclude that the heavens were hella lazy and redundant when I was born.
4. I assume, by the fact that everything else is in the Fifth House, the house of the sun and Leo, and my sun is conjuncted or trined with pretty much everything, and basically it’s sun, sun, sun everywhere. Or it’s Leo, which is ruled by the SUNNNNNN!!!

   WTF. I wither in direct sunlight.  If astrology actually worked, with all this sunshine in my celestial pedigree, I’d TAN, DAMMIT.

Ph34r the teamwork!!11!

Pictured: Not Teamwork

Well, that was fun.

Lucy and Molly, working as a team, managed to get into the cabinet where their treats are kept. Having accomplished her goal with the help of her sister, Lucy abandoned their partnership, grabbed a package of freeze-dried duck hearts, and made off with them.

At this point, the growling and snarling alerted me to trouble, and I came in to the kitchen to find a snarling, nearly mindless wild creature holding a package nearly as large as she is.  She darted into my bedroom, but I chased her back out and shut the door.

I proceeded to chase her around the apartment for about ten minutes.  I’d catch her and pick her up.  She’d writhe and attempt to reach my hands with her back claws.  She couldn’t bite me without dropping the package, but any attempt to pull it away from her was met with a claw attack on my hands.

But at least she obtained the noms.

Finally, knowing I couldn’t leave her to it, or she’d eat herself sick, and unable to get her to release it, I hauled her into the bathroom, turned on the bath faucet, and stuck her under the water.

This did not, as I hoped, shock her into dropping the package. At this point, she’d chewed a whole in the package, and began shaking her head wildly as I tried to pull it away.

Result: duck hearts flung all over the bathroom while we continued to fight over the now-empty package.  She eventually realized it was empty, dropped it, and lunged for a duck heart.  (In the midst of all of this, a gray paw slipped under the door and palmed a heart, then vanished. Molly usually stays calm and cool while Lucy goes nuts over food, and wins out.)

I grabbed my soaking wet, still-snarling kitty and tossed her out of the bathroom so that I could clean up my bathroom, which looked like a scene from a horror movie.

She’s now sitting on my knee, returned to normal, trying to dry off and feeling very sorry for herself.

HMPH.

My holidays just got happier, since this was free.

ZiwiPeak is made in New Zealand, “prepared with care beneath the Bay of Plenty’s celebrated peak, Mount Maunganui.”

The food is “air-dried,” which means it’s one of those hybrid raw-but-not-raw foods, like freeze-dried “raw” cuisine.  I’m not convinced that these foods actually qualify as “raw,” since by definition something freeze-dried or made into jerky isn’t raw meat, but since I’m not trying to feed a pure raw diet to my girls, it’s largely a semantic argument for me. ZiwiPeak doesn’t claim that the food is raw — rather, they call it the equivalent of a raw diet, explaining that “[t]he ZiwiPeak range is formulated on the same balance of meat ingredients - meat, heart, liver, kidney, cold washed green tripe and bone, plus natural vitamins and minerals, that cats and dogs would find by hunting in the wilderness.”  However, I see it discussed on a lot of raw food forums.

Yum.

Jerky is what ZiwiPeak most resembles.  It’s in small squares, and smells more than I’d expect, but compared to actual raw food, it’s a breeze to handle and serve.  I put about a quarter-ounce in each of two bowls and released the beasts.

ZiwiPeak’s website boasts of the inclusion of New Zealand Green-Lipped Mussel, although it doesn’t really explain why this is such a big deal, other than that it’s a good source of Omega 3 Fatty Acids, Glucosamine and Chondroitin (which, incidentally, they spell incorrectly — this is why we have editors, kids).  Most of their page on Green-Lipped Mussels deals with their green harvesting techniques.  However, the rest of the internet touts it as an arthritis and inflammation treatment.  It will hopefully be many years before my cats have to worry about arthritis, but it certainly can’t hurt to feed them things that are good for their joints even now, considering they both have a penchant for jumping down from the top of the entertainment center.

Here’s the nutritional breakdown of 14 ounces of ZiwiPeak:

INGREDIENTS: Venison – Meat (min. 57.7%), Hoki Fish (min. 12%), Venison – Liver (min. 9%), Tripe, Heart and Kidney (min. 7%), Chicory Inulin, Green-lipped Mussel (min. 4%), Fish Oil, Lecithin, Kelp, Vitamins and Minerals. Naturally preserved with mixed tocopherols. Additives: Vit. D3, Vit. E, Copper. Calories 1778 KJ/100g.

GUARANTEED ANALYSIS:

An unusually mild-mannered Lucy eats her ZiwiPeak.

It seems like a good mix of real meat and organs, green tripe is supposed to be excellent for cats, and I like that they use fish oil rather than flaxseed oil, which is a potential allergen for some cats.  Chicory is supposed to be a prebiotic that improves nutrient absorption, so it’s probably a good thing to have in there.

All in all, it looks pretty good nutritionally.  So how did it fare with the kitties?

Surprisingly, Lucy — generally transformed into a growling, greedy beast by the opportunity to consume anything that might possibly be edible — seemed almost indifferent to the food.  She ate it, of course, because she’ll eat anything, but as I put the other goodies away, she kept jumping up onto the counter to investigate them while there was still food left in her dish, a true first for her.

Molly, on the other hand — who is generally content to let Lucy at the food first and take what she can get — gobbled up all of it, and then came to me and politely but insistently requested more.  Earlier this week, she declined a second helping of raw food, so this might be a good compromise for her: it contains most of the nutrients of raw food, but is in a form that’s clearly more palatable to her.

Molly searches for any remaining scrap that might be clinging to the spoon.

Bottom line:  a convenient alternative to raw.  Pricey, but nutritious and easy to handle.

Lucy: One paw up.

Molly: Two paws up, along with some whisker-licking.

Jessica: Two thumbs up.

Yum. By which I mean: TRIPE! EW! THE THINGS I DO FOR MY CATS!

So, I stopped at All The Best Pet Care to pick up my first real package (read: not a sample) of raw food.  I chose Natural Pet Pantry‘s Beef & Tripe recipe, took it home, thawed it out, locked the beasties in the bathroom so they couldn’t harass me while I prepared it, and made up a couple of plates of it.

It didn’t smell as bad as I expected it to.  The consistency was fairly firm, so I broke it up into chunks and took it in to my girls.  I figured I’d feed them in the bathroom because it has a tile floor, so I could clean up after them.

They knew I was carrying something different from their usual food, and went even more nuts than usual.  I put one plate in the corner, and one in the bathtub, hoping the messier of the two (probably Lucy) would eat the food in the tub.

Unfortunately, before I could close the door, Lucy had grabbed a large hunk of bleeding meat and raced, snarling, from the bathroom.  She got into the bedroom, giving me nightmares of unintentional voodoo done by virtue of cow blood spilled under my bed, but came back into the kitchen without setting it down. I dragged my growling, snarling fluffball into the bathroom to finish her meal, and checked on Molly, who was eating a lot more demurely — but no less enthusiastically — in the tub.

My sweet, fluffy little snarling carnivore.

After they finished up, both cats came out into the kitchen.  They perched on the dishwasher and howled for more food.  I looked at the package and realized that I’d fed them slightly less than the half a can of food they usually get per meal.

I’m already a bit concerned that I’m not feeding them enough, since they are always ravenous and I tend to be awakened in the middle of the night by two furry beings doing their best impressions of hollow-eyed Dickensian waifs, at which point I am like, “I LOVE YOU SO MUCH EVEN THOUGH YOU JUST WOKE ME UP AND I AM AN INSOMNIAC AND FALLING ASLEEP IS LIKE FINDING THE HOLY GRAIL FOR ME AND I WOULD DO ANYTHING FOR YOU AT THIS MOMENT THAT DOES NOT INVOLVE ME GETTING OUT OF BED OR OTHERWISE STAYING AWAKE.”  But as I struggle back into sleep I do tend to worry that maybe I am starving them.  The vet says they’re happy and healthy, but I still feel guilty.

And those were the faces they gave me while they sat there on my dishwasher. *gulp*

See? Right out of Oliver Twist! Look at those sad, starving faces, those hollow flanks...do you think cats intentionally suck in their stomachs when they're trying to look like they need more food?

So I gave them Course #2, which was actually just more of the same.  Lucy snarled some more and pounced on hers and made sure it was thoroughly dead.  Molly jumped in the tub, sniffed hers, then went back to the door and asked to be let out.  Before I could get it away, Lucy devoured Molly’s portion as well.

I went to the sink and began cleaning up, and Lucy came out of the bathroom and started eating a pile of raw food near the door…WAIT.  That’s barf.  Apparently Molly has a sensitive tummy.  I dragged Lucy away and cleaned it up as well.

Molly seems more than fine, now — in fact, she’s more energetic and playful than I’ve ever seen her.  Lucy is swanning around striking noble poses, but is back to her sweet and cuddly self.

All in all, I’d rate it as a success for Lucy.  I purchased some Bison as well, and I’ll try it again with Molly tomorrow night.  If she throws up again, I guess I’ll have to throw it out.

However, even if Molly doesn’t throw it up again, I don’t think I’ll purchase any more.  It was fairly affordable, but the package doesn’t list the ingredients or the nutrional analysis.  I trust All The Best Pet Care not to carry anything crappy, and I like supporting small companies, but to me that’s unforgivable since their website also doesn’t give any sort of breakdown of what’s in the package.

Bottom line: fresh-smelling, clearly attractive to the cats, but lack of nutritional information means it won’t be a repeat purchase.

I am left with some lingering questions about raw feeding that dont’ seem to be answered anywhere on the otherwise very-helpful web, such as:

RAWR! I AM A LION!

• How long does it take whatever bacteria are on raw meat to die in the cat’s mouth?  I’m a little leery of letting the girls lick me since they’ve just eaten raw meat…how long should I worry about keeping their tongues away from my skin?
• Is there anything you can do to safely speed up the thawing process?  (E.g. putting the package in slightly warm water?)
• I get that raw food probably activates more predator instincts than canned, but how do I get my already food-aggressive kitten to calm down enough not to shred my hands while I’m giving her her food?

This is a positive development for the vast majority of people who use Facebook for the main reason people got on it in the first place, which is to keep up with the lives of their family and friends, not to see that channel turned into a spamfest.  Facebook appears to have listened to their users and done what is in their best interests, for once.

But oh, OH! the weeping and the wailing and the gnashing of teeth and the rending of garments and the piling of ashes atop heads among the developer blogs. Let me provide you with a couple samples:

Here are some notes on how this will impact my games. As soon as these changes will go live, our new mini-game, AquaDreams, won’t be able to show how cool it is by allowing new users to experience the game in news feed before they install it. Yes, AquaDreams is playable in news feed without installing an app. We’ve spent over a month designing news feed experience for new players to make sure they’ll love to play in news feed, will install the app after “trial in news feed” and will share the mini-game so other players could play in news feed too. Cause it’s cool. But now, as only existing players of the game will be able to see mini-game in news feed, so it doesn’t make sense to develop this feature… Also, until Facebook will actually roll out all the changes, we are freezing development of our second news feed mini-game called “Gem Temple” and will relocate developers to other projects. THANK YOU, FACEBOOK. –Anatoly Ropotov at Dip Inside

Cry me a river.  If your game actually were cool…but I’ll get to that in a minute.  It’s also worth noting that Ropotov brings this up in the context of discussing whether “virality is dead” on Facebook.

In the comments, a guy says:

Virality on facebook is dead – period…

If you don;t play games on facebook, you have no way of discovering them anymore via any channel (except the ridiculous one liner installs notifications that will drive 0 installs)

Inside Facebook provides a fairly objective discussion of the changes and how they’ll impact users and developers. 

In the first comment, a guy named Rick gripes:

This kills game developers on FB.

Virality on FB exists no more – the only way to grow your game is through ads. Congrats FB for killing your most succesful app market.

There are similar comments from other developers.

GAMEPOCALYPSE 2010

So, has there actually been a measurable impact on Facebook “games”?

• Inside Social Games provides a chart of the top 25 Facebook games in June.  All of them have lost losers since the past month.  Zynga still dominates the top 10, but their net losses for most of their games are in the millions. The games with the smallest losses include Zynga’s Texas Hold’em Poker, and Popcap’s Bejeweled Blitz, to which I’ll come back later.
• Digital Chocolate CEO Trip Hawkins observes in Gamasutra that this will raise the bar to entry significantly, potentially locking out small companies without venture funding.
• Joel Brodie on Gamezebo focuses mainly on the positives for developers — the improvements Facebook has made to its APIs and its plans to grow its internal game teams. But he also reiterates the same complaint that the changes are going to force developers “back to the drawing board” for virality.
• Gamepro‘s Dave Rudden provides a handy graph showing Zynga’s losses over the past few months, and discusses rumors that Zynga may launch their own gaming platform.

So, to summarize, the gist is: OMG EVERYONE PANIC IT IS THE END OF GAMING!!!1!!! on Facebook.

What is Viral Marketing?

Despite only becoming a buzzword in the past decade, and despite experts acting as if it was invented with the internet, viral marketing has been around for a long time.  We used to call it “word-of-mouth advertising.”  It’s “viral” in the sense that it spreads from the source (the marketer) to the first viewer to the people to whom the first viewer talks about it, to the people to whom they talk about it, and so on, much in the same way a virus spreads.

Modern-day “viral marketing” is a focused attempt to get this to happen, generally by providing a piece of content that is startling, funny or mysterious and can easily be passed from person to person, via email or other forms of online communication.

In this sense, it’s different from simple word-of-mouth marketing because instead of people merely passing on the story of the product you must use or the thing you must see, it allows them to actually pass the discussion-worthy content itself around.

Dual Quality Bars

Old-fashioned word of mouth advertising was basically a bonus for having a great product.  (That’s not to say that the “shock value” word of mouth advertising is an invention of the internet — it’s been around at least since P.T. Barnum.)

Viral marketing is actually harder to succeed at, because there are two quality bars that must be met — the viral content itself must meet a high quality bar (or at least a high cleverness/shock value bar) if people are going to be compelled to pass it around.

Having high-quality viral content and a low-quality product will get you the “viral” half, but not the “marketing” half. The eternal question about viral marketing is whether it actually works as marketing: does it actually get people to buy the product, or does it merely increase brand recognition and buzz?  It’s hard to get reliable data, but I suspect (and know from the few cases in which I have access to numbers) that viral marketing can cause a significant jump in sales when the marketing is clever and the product is good, and is marketed to the right audience.  If the product is crap, it may get a small bump, but not a large or lasting one.

So:

Quality product = (word-of-mouth) marketing success

Quality viral content = viral success

Quality viral content + quality product = viral marketing success

But as you can see, the distinction between “viral marketing” and “word-of-mouth” marketing is a slim one. Basically, if you have a high-quality product that people can get a hold of in the first place, you’ll get “viral” marketing in the sense of word of mouth.  I have yet to see an ad for Wellness cat food, for example, but when I got my kitten I knew to buy it because numerous cat-owning friends swore by it, and numerous cat-owner blogs endorsed it.  On the other hand, while I think Burger King’s “Subservient Chicken” campaign was extremely clever, no amount of cleverness will make me eat that sh*t.  That’s probably a bad example of viral marketing failure because most Americans don’t feel the way I feel about fast food, but tellingly, while I know I’ve seen unsuccessful campaigns where the campaign itself wasn’t bad, the product was, none of them have stuck in my mind.

Most Facebook Games Aren’t Viruses, They’re Drugs

When’s the last time someone came to you in person, or via email, and said, “OMG, Farmville is so much fun, you MUST PLAY IT!”

I believe it may have happened to some people, and I believe it’s likely to have happened when their friends had just started playing a Zynga game, but I hang around and correspond with game people, both casual gamers and core gamers, and I have never had any of them recommend Farmville to me.

Lots of them play Zynga games.

None of them have ever expressed any desire for me to do so.

I spend my work days amid a swirl of “Have you gotten Fallout: New Vegas yet?” and “How long until Bioshock: Ultimate?” and “Why haven’t we done a Mystery Case Files-style game for the Xbox?” and “Have you gotten to the roof level in Plants vs. Zombies?”

Excitement, anticipation, appreciation, humor, joy. The desire to share something that has made you happy with others. These are the things that drive the word-of-mouth marketing I experience every day with my peers.

I’ve asked people at work and with whom I socialize whether they play or have played Farmville.  The answer is yes, more often than not.

Dismissive shrugs, embarrassed glances at the floor, or most often, apathy.  “Yeah, I tried it.  I was addicted for a little bit.  But I got bored.”

I tried Petville.  It was kind of fun at the beginning — designing my pet, seeing the animations.  And by “the beginning,” I mean the first 5 minutes.  After that, it was a chore: something I felt I had to do, something I kept doing in hope that eventually something cool would happen.  It never did.  After a while, I realized that I was deriving less enjoyment from Petville than I get from cleaning my apartment.  When I clean my apartment, I at least get satisfaction out of it. I have a clean apartment.  My life is better.

Petville was the same mundane chores, without any meaningful reward.

Most Facebook games aren’t viral.  They’re drugs.  They’re the meth of the game world.  You have fun at the beginning, but quickly you’re addicted.  You need a fix, but you’re not really having fun.  The game spam drives your friends away (or at least makes them hide your posts — I’ve defriended people who game-spam without posting good content).  Your wall gets meth-face.  (And you hit up your friends, via invites and gift requests, for help.  And in your desperation, you may fall prey to unscrupulous schemes.  Here‘s a good summary of why Zynga games suck, and may not even qualify as games.

It’s telling that among the Facebook games in the chart linked above that lost the least users, two of them (poker and Bejeweled) were simply Facebook adaptations of pre-existing, popular games.  The only Facebook game I’ve ever had recommended to me is Facebook Scrabble.

Facebook is an interesting new game platform, but unfortunately, the first games to succeed financially in a big way were Zynga-style games that aren’t interested in fun or good game design, merely in ways to use the basics of behavioral psychology to addict users and get money out of them. They’re not using the medium to its best potential.

But just because something succeeds, it doesn’t mean it did its thing in the best possible way.  Hopefully, Facebook’s restrictions will raise the bar to entry — in quality.

Automatic Wall Posts Aren’t Viral Marketing, They’re Spam

We’re all familiar with spam bots, and infected “zombie” computers, right?  With what happens when your email account gets hacked by spammers?

How are the automatic wall posts you have to continually opt out of with games like Petville any different, other than the slim distinction that you can opt out?  When I see the auto-posts that my friends have started playing Treasure Isle, it’s not because they are playing the game and think it’s amazing and want to tell me about it.

It’s because the game did it automatically.

If they think the game is amazing and want to share, they’ll do so.  Via email, in conversation, or with an actual, voluntarily written Facebook post. If your game is worth playing, I’ll hear about it from other people who are playing it.  I’ll read glowing reviews.  People will eagerly anticipate what its creators will do next.

So speaking as someone who has done viral marketing — actual viral marketing — my response to Facebook game devs whining about how not being able to force their users — a la infected “zombie” computers sending out spam — to spam their friends about their game, is

Shut the f*ck up.

If Facebook’s restrictions on how egregiously you can spam people who haven’t even opted in to playing your game are going to make it impossible for it to succeed, it deserves to fail.

Make a great game that works smoothly and is fun.  Interact directly with your users and respond actively to their concerns and issues.  Use traditional marketing channels wisely.  Come up with creative marketing ideas and content that you, as a user, not a dev, would happily share with your friends and family. 

If you do all that, and no one plays your game, I’ll have sympathy for you.  Until then, I don’t want to hear it.