Shopping Tips and Guidance by Mandy Claire

Beta has malignant cancer. We caught it before it hit her lymph nodes, but it's only a matter of time before the tumors return. Lady readers, please get your preventative appointments! Unlike Beta Cat, you would understand when the doctor came forward with your lab results. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

EXHIBIT A: GET YOUR YEARLY EXAM

But don't fret, readers (all three of you)! Beta's had a lovely life, with a few tough runs at the beginning, and occasional beat-ups by Alpha. There will be no more surgery for her. She'll live out her days in my little back yard, micing and moling and baby-bunnying. And sleeping all curled up with Spare.

Next week there will be a whole new and very difficult challenge for "The Gods Are Bored," and I hope you'll help me with it. I don't know what pantheon I get this from, but I feel deeply that the gods do not help us. We have to help ourselves. We have to sink or swim on our own, no matter how bad it gets. But this new challenge isn't something dangerous or desperate ... it's fun, fun, fun! So be prepared ... we are about to prove the power of a blog in a whole new arena. Who's with me?

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" A sad note tonight: My cat Beta has breast cancer.

Around Christmas time, maybe a little bit earlier, Spare noticed that Beta had some lumps under her right limb. They've gotten bigger and badder since, and Beta is starting to slow down a little. So I took her to the vet, and he wants to operate.

I'm a farm girl at heart. I'm not one of these people who wails, "Oh, Doctor, keep my kitty alive at all costs!" I don't disrespect people who feel that way. I'm just not one of them. To me, being an animal is all about quality of life. If you're content and pain-free, if you can come and go at whim, and if you can keep your chin up around the other kitty cats, then okay. You're good to go. When you start feeling bad, then you're going to go to the Summerlands, quickly and painlessly.

Except in the case of Beta, the doctor says that with surgery she'll live to her normal life expectancy with no major further problems. The cancer might return, but it won't be so aggressive that I will have wasted my money.

Knowing how attached the Spare is to this kitty, I'll make the sacrifices to get the operation. Spare tamed Beta in the first place. (Beta was a feral teenage mom, living behind our garage.)

I'm sitting here wondering how I'm going to get Clavimox pills into Beta, and how she will recuperate from such major surgery. But I'm going to do it. As much for the Spare as for Beta. But I don't want to watch Beta waste away in less than a year (doctor's prognosis w/out the surgery).

The buzzards will have to wait for Beta. Off we go to a lighter note.

Beta is my second cat. The first and older one is Alpha. When we adopted Alpha, we had to promise that we would never get another cat, because Alpha doesn't play well with others. But Spare tamed Beta, and Beta was so plain I thought she'd never get adopted, so we kept her.

Alpha and Beta have never gotten along. "Barely tolerate" is the extent of it.

Sometime this winter, the glass panes broke in one of our basement windows. I've been waiting to get some money together (?!!?) to get the window fixed. Turns out this has to be a high priority.

Today the neighboring cat, lovingly known in this household as Mestopheles (a daily outside nemesis), decided to pay an indoor visit by way of the broken window. Mr. J. came in for a cup of coffee and found a three-cat ruckus in progress. You would think that Alpha and Beta would team up to repel the invader, but Mr. J. says it was more of a tag-team affair, with each cat for herself and all teeing off on one another. Decibel the Parrot, who served as referee, gave the match to Mestopheles. Nobody in my house gets along.

This sermon is basically about two things. First, take care of your health. If I had ignored Beta's lumps (given that she's only barely lost a fraction of her energy), she'd have been a goner. Now, her chances are good ... and I may even think of a creative fundraiser to finance her care. Second, look after those pesky home repairs. Or else.

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" In this post, we're determined to entertain the bored gods -- and you!

We all know the difference between dogs and cats. Dogs are slaves. Cats have slaves. And you're the slave! Aren't you sick of it? Want to turn the tables?

I, Anne Johnson, can give you a tip that will make your cats sit up and beg. They'll follow you around loyally. Heck, if you use it right, they'll fetch your newspaper and slippers. What I am about to reveal is a food item that turns ordinary house cats into groveling wretches. If you've lived with cats as long as I have, you're really ready to see them humbled.

This is Ninben brand Dried Shaved Bonito. I purchase mine at the convenient Korean grocery store in Cherry Hill, New Jersey.

Dried shaved bonito could better be described as fish flakes. Stinky fish flakes. Korean cooks use them as soup stock, and I can imagine that combined with water and vegetables, dried shaved bonito becomes somewhat more palatable. In the form you see here, however, the stuff smells like a pack of kippers left out too long on a sunny day.

Never mind what Ninben Dried Shaved Bonito smells like. You want your cats to make asses of themselves, don't you? Okay then. Go to the Asian grocery store, purchase a big bag of fish flakes, bring it home, hold your nose, and call Fluffy. She will swoon. Then she'll be your bitch for life. Wherever you take the stinky fish flakes, she will call home.

In this way, my daughter The Spare convinced our cat, Alpha, to be a nightly bed companion. Spare doesn't even need to put out a bowl of fish flakes anymore. Alpha just sits there every night, hoping Spare will deliver.

Don't be fooled by those expensive cans of "Kitty Caviar." You know what that is? Dried bonito flakes! Cheap as all that in any Asian grocery!

Yes, you can make your cat do stupid pet tricks if you offer bonito flakes as a reward. Nothing is too stupid if it leads to fish flakes. Trust me, this treat goes where catnip never can. It turns the proudest animal on the planet into a drooling, fawning toady. And since people don't suck up to us, our cats should. Shouldn't they?

As usual here at "The Gods Are Bored," this handy advice is offered completely free of charge. Are you loving us yet?

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," where today the tables turned on us!

Not literally. I'm not lying under 75 pounds of varnished walnut.

What happened was this: Spare and I took a friend to the pet shelter where we volunteer. The friend wants to adopt a dog. A small, older dog who will enjoy city life and the company of two cats.

My daughters and I have fostered more than 60 kittens for this shelter. Usually when we enter the door, we're either picking up tiny waifs for a temporary stay at our home, or dropping off slightly larger, well-fed and healthy waifs for someone else to adopt.

As far as the pet shelter adoption process goes, I was totally in the dark, until today. My pets are all serendipitous acquisitions (except for Decibel the parrot -- my biggest mistake thus far in a long life). It was a whole new experience, walking into the familiar shelter in search of an animal to take home for good. And the shelter had a nice group of little dogs from which to choose. My friend liked two of them. I liked them both too. It's nice to know I'll get to see whichever one she winds up with.

As we played with the little dogs and sized them up, something occurred to me. Cats and dogs live with us for years, sometimes for a decade and a half. But when it comes to choosing them, we do so quickly. "I'll take that one, thanks. He's adorable!"

Funny part is, the ending is almost always happy. You walk into a pet shelter on any given day with your pet carrier, point to a kitty, bring it home, and for the next 14 years it sleeps peacefully at your feet every night and rubs your leg when you come home from work. It works just as well with a dog, if you know what size and mix you want. The first pooch you point to will adore you after the first bowl of Alpo.

Can you imagine it working this way with people?

Just imagine. You go to the people shelter, looking for a companion. The attendant brings out a man (or woman) meeting your age and size preferences. A quick perusal, an application fee, and out you walk with your new person!

Well, that's ridiculous, of course. We're the thinking species. We search and search for the perfect human companion. Some of us never find that person. Some of us go through a dozen rotten relationships before finding a decent partner.

To me this proves one thing beyond all doubt. Cats and dogs are superior to humans. On any given day, you can walk into any given pet shelter and cart home a fine companion who will bring you bounteous joy. Try doing that with Homo sapiens. Go ahead. I dare ya.

Love at first sight only works with shelter pets. Remember where you heard this, because some day I'm going to start charging a fee for such sound advice.

Image: Casey Jones, one of my favorite fosters.