Welcome back to Victoire’s gentleman’s corner, wherein your humble servant brings you exciting news and opinions on fashion and life. I maintain my own little blog at jeremylatta.wordpress.com, so if you like this you might consider going there and poking around. Let’s get to it!
Girls like cats. A LOT. It’s a universal truth, with almost no exceptions. Single men: get a kitten and sit back as the babes roll in. So if girls like cats, how much will girls like lots of cats, all in one place? Let’s find out. A demented, dilapidated mansion with a shut-in and her 500 furry friends? No! A cat show! In our very own town. A friend of mine gave me a hot tip that there was a cat show this past weekend, and I knew I had to go. I also knew that the gals of Victoire would not want to miss it. Emily couldn’t make it, so Regine and I set out early Sunday morning to the wilds of Nepean to see what it was all about.
We dodged some figure skaters practicing in the hallway (tutus and socks, nice look) and arrived. Cat mania. The show was in a large hall, and consisted of: vendors all around the exterior selling cat toys, duct cleaning, more cat toys, pictures with cats (really, there was a photo tent were you could get your cat’s portrait taken; we saw a girl seriously pondering a sheet of glamour kitty proofs, trying to decided which one to turn into christmas cards or whatever), cat food, cat litter, and other cat stuff. At each end of the hall there are judging rings, which consist of cages with numbers on them, and a centre table with a big scratching post. It looks like this:
The cats of various categories are brought out of their cages, placed on the little white pedestal, and assessed by the judges. They grab their heads, and suss out their bone structure. They hold them up and stretch them out, like furry little tubes. They wave a cat toy at them and see how frisky they are. It is impossible to know what they're looking for, or whether the cats are doing well or not, but oh it's exciting. Strangely as the winners in each category are announced the owners don't react at all. Nothing. In fact, you can't even tell who among the spectators are owners or not. They all just sit there stoically, and I get the impression that any display of emotion is deeply frowned upon by the Cat People. Regine correctly observes that this is appropriately catlike.
The middle of the room features four rows of tables stacked with cats. Each owner has a little cat setup featuring their entry. Some of them are cages, and some of them are elaborate cat hotels, with little screened in compartments for the kitties to chill out in (with food, and water, and litter, and other weird accessories). And chill they do! It's remarkable how relaxed these dudes are! They just lay around, or peer out from time to time, and generally don't give a damn about anything. I was expecting neurotic, terrified animals, desperately trying to escape, and periodically succeeding. Instead we witnessed docile little furballs nuzzling their owners and lazing around like blobs, having a grand ole time.
The owners obviously take some care in decorating their cats' little show houses. Here's a British Shorthair, hanging out in his cupcake themed party zone.
And here's a freaky little cat in her rock and roll lair. It's hard to tell, but the cat has a crystal collar.
These two Persians had a little Chinese lamp in their crib. Huh?
As we roamed around we noticed the proliferation of ribbons on pretty much every cat cage. They all had at least eight ribbons, and I asked a few owners what the deal was. I learned that there are four different judges, and about six different categories, and that all the judges review all the cats in all the categories. There are semi-finals, and finals, and breed showdowns, and best overalls, and best in colour, and a million other ways to get yourself a ribbon. Our quick calculations revealed that they would give away approximately 8,000 ribbons over the course of the weekend. This rampant ribbon inflation meant that the owners didn't seem terribly proud of their ribbons, and in fact their motivation for even being there in the first place was hard to decipher. I congratulated one owner whose tortoiseshell Persian had won one of the best kitten awards. She breezed by me and didn't so much as acknowledge my praise. I guess success can go to your head. Regine fell in love with a little Siberian kitten named Odin. He was pretty ridiculously cute. See?
I asked his owner why she got into Siberians - actually I asked all the owners what they loved about their chosen breed, and they all refused to give even a semi-meaningful answer, save one - and she said: "I wanted a cat I could cuddle, and a cat that looked like a cat."
Ah! I responded, not one of those creepy, skinny little hairless freaks, right?. She demurred politely, but I'd hit the nail on the head. Really. What is with those things? Look, they're scary!
When this one was being reviewed the judge noted with satisfaction that it was completely hairless. Ewwww. (note to reader: insert innuendo laden joke here, if you must)
We prowled the aisles and saw all kinds of really cool, super cute cats. It was cat heaven. I was looking for a Scottish Fold cat (like Maru - if you don't know who that is, google him), but no luck. However, I did discover the American Shorthair, silver tabby variety. Holy hell!
Look at this little guy! I don't know how I'm going to resist getting one. I really don't.
Hunger eventually got the better of us and we left reluctantly. As we rode the bus we both got occasional whiffs of cat litter, and frantically smelled each other, offering semi-convincing reassurance. No, no, no, you don't smell like litter. You're fine. Maybe. And that was our trip to the cat show! It was awesome. You should definitely go to the next one. Surely worth seven bucks.
Rustik, Clock Pillow - $40
Rustik, Clock Pillow - $40
Rustik, Pocket Watch-$40
Snuggle Buddy? Russian (man) Doll - $50
