My plan to 'recession proof' my food

Dear George,
Since the theme of the day is “recession and economic turmoil”, I think I came up with a pretty good plan to secure my food deposit and inspire other cats (since the future depends on us). I’m going to sell bananas – see picture attached!
Our humans are vegetarians, so we have plenty of fruits & veggies in the house. They won’t mind me taking a banana now and then. Plus…it’s much safer than selling mice!
I mean…what Mog will “mug me” for a banana? Or…what human will resist buying one from me? Comm’on…how many times in a “human life” can one buy bananas from a cat? I can sell for a higher price since my products are “fair trade” or “locally grown”.
With the profit I can open a corner store! At night I can leave few bread crumbs here and few bits of cheese there….and (did you get the picture?) MICE will come in!
I can hunt all night with my sister and we can freeze quite a large “food deposit”.
Our humans will get a good night rest (no wake up at 4 am), plus our female human won’t be horrified by the sight of “our freezer” since she has no business to be in the store. I know I’ll be too tired next day to sell, but I’m going to hire a kitty (a kid looking for its first job, you know) to work few hours per day for me while I’m sleeping.
So, what do you think George? I mean…with my plan… I’m sure I’m helping global economy, increase my humans’ household income and help them to get a good night sleep, I’m creating new jobs, secure my future food, plus having fun with my sister.
I really think President Obama not only should he get a cat (and not a dog), but he should hire cats for all top governmental jobs.
Dogs are only “yes-sayers”; WE CATS are creative and come up with real solutions!
Hugs,
Cayenne

Dear Cayenne,
At first I was not sure I liked the idea of "work". Play, yes. Eat, yes. Mooch around doing nothing in particular, yes. Sleep yes, yes, yes. And hunting.....purrrrrrrr . But work? Work for your humans? Shouldn't they be working flat out for you?
However the idea of combining a fruit stall for humans with mice for you made me think twice about this. I mean, the general rule must be that we cats come first in the household, and humans should be at our beck and call. But clearly this ridiculous fur-less species has got itself into a hole (alas, not a mouse hole) and perhaps the superior species. Felis silvestris catus, has got to break the habit of a lifetime and do something altruistic. I really admire you for thinking outside the litter box.
Couldn't agree more about Obama. The problem with the banking system fat cats was that they were not cats. They were humans. Time for a new species label of Homo non-sapiens, perhaps. If cats ruled the world, things would be very different.
Indeed there's an old Chinese folk tale that cats did once rule the world. After several thousand years of trying to cope with plagues, volcanic eruptions, floods, war, folly and greed, they called a conference of all the wisest cats - a sort of C-20 conference. After serious and long deliberation, they agreed that these problems were insoluble and it was a waste of time trying to do anything about them.
So they handed over ruling the world to men, who were stupid enough to think that they could do something about them.
Hugs and rubs,
George Online Cat
PS. A reminder - send me your posts and photos via www.celiahaddon.com

Let's start at the beginning? What is a Human?

In my new role as pet behaviour counsellor, more accurately human behaviour counsellor, I feel I must start at the beginning. I invite your comments and questions, as ever. I will attempt to answer at least one question a week, interpretting human behaviour in a way which may be helpful to us cats.
This is a female of the species with her young one, a junior male. I chose a female, because probably most of us cats choose to live with the females. Males are more likely to be roaming round outside the house. Females spend more time indoor especially when they have a litter of children. While there are wonderful exceptions - males who are house husbands or just properly devoted to cats - females probably make the best choice for the cat starting out with a pet. Females are more submissive in nature, though surprisingly stubborn at times. The cat that is experienced in training and caring for humans, may well want to choose a male. Males are bigger, more challenging, yet surprisingly easy to train once feline superiority is properly established.
If we are to understand human behaviour, we need to look at the species. Like us they are warm blooded mammals. They belong to the ape family. Unlike their fellow apes, they do not have fur. On the basis of this, it has been argued that Homo sapiens is a neotonised ape, ie an ape that has stayed immature. (if apes were insects, the human would be in the larval stage, so to speak.) This relative immaturity will be obvious when we look more closely at human behaviour.
Why are humans given the taxonomic name of Homo sapiens? Why indeed? It is clear to any right thinking cat, that this is indeed a misnomer of the first order. But the reason for it is obvious. Human beings named themselves so. It is as if we cats sat down and decided we would be Felis sapiens. Obviously the second half of the species name would be more applicable to us than them. But, as I have said, humans named themselves. And the choice of name is one which underlines not just their innate immaturity but their innate arrogance.
It's worth pointing out that not only is the human adult in many ways immature, but this immaturity starts very young indeed. Any kitten, however bad its start in life, is startlingly mature compared with human infants. Kittens mature somewhere about 8 weeks, while humans take about 8 years to get to somewhere near the same stage. We will look more closely at this in later posts, because this too is relevant to our experiences with human behaviour.