Real Animals, Inanimate Animals

I know everyone thinks they have the best looking cat, but seriously, Mue Mue missed his calling as a super model kitty. He is quite photogenic. Although his feisty, disobedient personality and tendency to bite when feeling cranky might not work so well in a photo shoot environment. In these pictures he was enjoying a sunbeam that was pouring though the open window. The pictures were from earlier this spring, so sunny days were not yet a common occurrence.

These cute, spiky animals were decorating a liquor store in Mount Lake Terrace (a town right outside Seattle.) It is a funny thing to find in a liquor store because of the juxtaposition between the cute, D.I.Y. animal figurines and the hard liquor, sitting in sturdy glass bottles and waiting to intoxicate it's buyer. I think one of the employees makes the animals in her spare time. She probably picked up the craft in the seventies- these animals look like the sort of thing that would be popular in the 1970's. I can just imagine one of these animals perched next to a pet rock on a shelf somewhere back in '76. Maybe she even sold her animals to kitsch enthusiasts wanting some pazazz for their home. But as the seventies turned into the eighties, and rustic cute was abandoned for neon colors, her animals fell out of favor. She could no longer support herself on profits of her animals. Instead she had to get a job at the liquor store. Now every year, all of her coworkers and all her coworkers extended family can expect a spiky animal for a birthday present.