Another routine trip to Seattle

November 18, 2021, 10:20 PM by Parkzer • Cats, Travel

With so many of our new employees being in the Seattle Metropolitan Area, I’ve added a week-long visit to Seattle as part of my routine trips, in addition to the already-existing Southern California trips. This past week, I went to visit some co-workers and friends to get some work done and do some more exploring.

The day after arriving, my plan was to stay around the Seattle area and visit one of my co-workers. The night of landing in Seattle, I stayed in a hotel overlooking Puget Sound; it had a nice view the following morning after the sun came up.

Right before checking out, a friendly seagull came to visit me right in front of my window. At first I was concerned it would fly away, so I started taking photos from far away just so I could make sure I had a picture of it, but as I got closer, it stood its ground; eventually, I was able to get right up to it and get some close-ups. That particular area right next to the window is slightly covered by the ledge above, so I’m guessing it was happily sitting there for some shelter from the rain.

Over the weekend, I visited Doug Wreden, mostly just to spend time together and play video games. On Saturday, I joined him as a guest on his Twitch live stream where we played Tetris 99, TypeRacer, and Mario Party with his viewers. Content from this stream has been added to the “Collaborations” section of my YouTube channel.

After squeezing in a few more work days early on in the week, I spent the final day before departure with Allie, who you may remember as the owner of the cats Simon and Henry.

She has apparently walked past the Starbucks Reserve Roastery in downtown Seattle a handful of times but never actually went in, so we took my trip here as an opportunity to check it out. It’s basically like three very large Starbucks stores put together, with some special menu items and even a section for alcohol. There was also a section where you could see a lot of the coffee-making machinery, as well as a coffee library in the corner that was a lot quieter than the main area.

After coffee, we visited the NEKO Cat Café, considering both of us are cat enthusiasts. You may remember that, the last time I was here, we went to Meowtropolitan; this time, we decided to try out a different cat café that was in walking distance of the Roastery that we were already at.

NEKO was quite a pleasant surprise, because apparently, they had moved all the adult cats to a different location, and the only cats available in the Seattle location were kittens. If you’re familiar with cats, you know that some of them take some time to familiarize with you, so they may be shy at first; these kittens weren’t like that at all, and they were all eager to snuggle and get picked up.

After almost an hour in kitten heaven, we got some dinner at Kizuki Ramen.

We ate at their Capitol Hill location, which made me slightly concerned due to potential political riots after Kyle Rittenhouse inevitably gets found innocent in his ongoing murder trial, but the jury was still deliberating by the end of the day and didn’t come to a verdict, so we were able to enjoy a peaceful dinner.

Afterwards, we drove around a bit in Seattle to do some sightseeing, then I dropped Allie off so she could go home for the night.

After my flight today, I’m back in Texas—I flew back into Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, then drove out to Decatur to spend a night here a bit closer to my next destination so I could break up the monotony of the drive tomorrow by a little bit.

I still have a few photos to share of my time in Dallas, but not quite enough for it to warrant its own entire blog post, so I’m most likely going to do a Texas round-up after I wrap up my stay in Amarillo and make it to Albuquerque.

Meet Bullet, Kaya, and Drake

September 14, 2021, 11:32 PM by Parkzer • Cats, Dogs, Travel

After spending the first half of my Seattle trip as somewhat of a personal vacation with friends, I spent the second half visiting Erin, one of my new co-workers, and getting some work done in-person with her. I stayed at her house in the Seattle suburbs, and that meant I got to meet her three pets.

First up is Bullet, an Alaskan Klee Kai. He was the most energetic, and also the most photogenic—he had glowing white hair, and he seemed to enjoy the attention of me warping my body in strange positions to put myself in weird angles to get the perfect picture of him.

If you look in the background of that last photo, you’ll see another dog in the background—that’s Kaya, also an Alaskan Klee Kai. She was much more shy than Bullet, so I don’t have as many good photos of her. I could tell that she also wanted to play and be pet like Bullet, but she was also much more reserved and cautious.

It didn’t seem like she was the biggest fan of posing, so the only two shots I have of her are candid ones where she was distracted and I managed to snap a picture before she noticed.

And of course, my favorite was Drake the domestic longhair. My first impression of Drake was that he was particularly elegant and graceful with his movement, and he gave off an aura of wisdom and knowledge, if that’s even possible for a cat to do. I later found out that he is 18 years old, so I’m guessing he possessed these traits due to his old age and life experience.

Drake was just like a lot of the other well-socialized cats I’ve met—he was very affectionate and liked rubbing his face on my hands. When I would be sitting on a couch somewhere getting some work done on my laptop, Drake would eventually wander his way to me and sit down next to me to take a nap.

I managed to do something with Drake that I’ve never been able to do with any other cat, which may be surprising considering how much time I’ve spent around cats photographing them—I’ve never caught a picture of a cat yawning before. That changed with Drake, so here is a picture of the inside of his mouth (and of his teeth, which are pretty clean considering his old age):

If you’re not familiar with cats, you may be surprised to notice the little white spikes in Drake’s tongue. Those are called papillae, and are made out of keratin, a fibrous protein best known for forming human hair and nails. Those little spines are responsible for keeping the cat extra clean when it grooms itself—the way they all point in a single direction makes it very easy for the cat to remove unwanted substances from its hair, untangle knots, and eject collected hair from its mouth.

I obviously don’t have spiny papillae like cats do… but I have a close alternative. I usually use an electric razor to shave my facial hair every morning, but sometimes, when I don’t shave, I have enough stubble to make my chin feel like a cat’s tongue. When I rub my unshaven chin on a cat, they seem to always be very pleased because they think I’m licking and grooming them.

I used to do this all the time with my old roommate’s cats, and I often get satisfied purs from every cat I do this to, Drake included.

So yes, this does mean that, if I ever meet your cat(s) and I happen to have not shaved yet that day, I will probably “groom” them with my chin to make them happy.

Meet Henry and Simon

September 12, 2021, 10:50 PM by Parkzer • Cats

One of the things I was particularly looking forward to during my trip to the Seattle Metropolitan Area was meeting my friend Allie’s cats, Henry the domestic shorthair and Simon the orange tabby.

Henry was extremely difficult to photograph because of how deeply black his hair is. A majority of my photos of him ended up showing him as a dark blob while the rest of his surroundings appeared normal. My camera also had trouble auto-focusing in on him, and would often focus on the background because it wouldn’t realize he was actually the subject I was trying to capture.

I experimented a lot with various different lighting situations with him, and after some tactical editing, I managed to get a handful of photos where he looks like an actual cat and not just a shadow.

Simon, on the other hand, was much easier to photograph. I got some normal shots, as well as a few of him playing with a toy and dozing off in the sun.

Hello, Seattle Meowtropolitan

September 10, 2021, 11:05 PM by Parkzer • Cats, Travel

I was a dog person growing up, but after meeting a lot of amazing cats, and then living with my most recent roommate Winnie (and her three cats) for nearly a year, I realized that my personality style is much more compatible with cats than with dogs.

My friend Allie, one of the people I’m visiting while in the Seattle Metropolitan Area, is also a big fan of cats, so she, Doug, and I went to a cat café. The one we selected was the Seattle Meowtropolitan, which is in the Wallingford neighborhood near the Woodland Park Zoo.

I’ve generally been told that cat cafés are a hit-or-miss depending on the demeanor of the cats. Often, people go to cat cafés and come back to me letting me know that it was less of a cat café and more of a regular café where you sit and drink coffee and there just happens to be sleeping cats around you.

I think I either just got lucky with Meowtropolitan, or they are a good cat café that creates a great environment for their cats so they’re more comfortable being active, but I had an amazing time.

The unfortunate part was that, due to the pandemic, appointments were required and they were limited to 30-minute time slots that begin at the top of each hour, so we weren’t able to stay for a satisfying amount of time. By the time I went around meeting all the cats, gave each one some pets, and started taking photos, there were just a few minutes left, which I used to video call one of my friends who loves cats, then we had to leave.

Allie also enjoyed the cat café, and said she missed the cats a few minutes after we left, so I think we’ll definitely be going back the next time I’m in town. Hopefully by that point, we’ll be able to stay for longer than half an hour, and I won’t forget my regular camera so I can do a miniature photo shoot with as many cats as I have time for.

Reunited

August 12, 2021, 4:01 PM by Parkzer • Cats

Yes, I am still alive. If you’re one of the few people who have actually been deeply invested in my nomadic travels so far, I understand that it can be a bit jarring to see a new blog post once every few days, then suddenly see nothing for a month… but the simple answer for that is because I’ve just had nothing interesting to blog about.

On July 12, I arrived in the Chicagoland suburbs at my parents’ house where I grew up. They live in a very small village where there isn’t really much to do nearby, and I’ve mostly just been working, playing games, and helping my parents catch up on errands and appointments that they never got around to doing on their own.

Two days ago was just shy of the two month and two week mark of transferring my portion of my condo lease to someone else and voluntarily becoming homeless to travel the country. Seeing as I still consider Las Vegas my home (and it is still officially my home in the eyes of the government), I parked my truck at a nearby airport and made an air trip back to Las Vegas take care of some errands that were piling up while I was gone—getting a haircut, going to the chiropractor, picking up my vehicle registration renewal sticker, picking up insurance renewal documents and cards, picking up new membership cards, and other various similar tasks.

But, the most important task of all… was visiting and being reunited with my former roommate Winnie’s cats.

My parents have a Yorkshire Terrier that is a typical overenthusiastic dog with way too much energy, but also isn’t very well trained. She’s the type of dog that barks at seemingly nothing, and then proceeds to bark at herself barking because she’s confused why she’s barking. She also has some of the worst separation anxiety I have ever seen in an animal.

After having lived with Winnie and her cats for over half a year, untrained and unsocialized dogs (like my parents’) became a bit overwhelming for me. The difference was made even more dramatic after staying with my parents for a month, then coming back to visit the cats again. Winnie’s cats are actually very well-trained, and I’m sure that has a lot to do with it, but cats are undeniably more angelic and loving (at least in my eyes).

I also got to see Tyson again, Mochi and Pumpkin’s son. I didn’t get to spend much time with Tyson prior to going off on my adventure, so he’s still fairly shy around me, but he still let me give him some head and back scratches.

And finally, for the first time, I got to meet Melon, Mochi and Pudding’s son.

At first, Melon was extremely shy, but after I crouched down onto the floor, blinked slowly, let him boop my knuckles, and scratched his chin and the base of his ears a bit when he approached, he got instantly attached. He started headbutting and rubbing himself up against my legs and arms, which is a Pudding trait. When I pet him, he would push his head harder into my hand, which is a Mochi trait. When I would pause petting him, he would go hunting for my hand and force his head under my palm, presumably under the philosophy that, if I don’t pet him, then he will pet himself using my hand.

This literally meant that I couldn’t actually get a good picture of him, because every time I would try and snap a photo, he would move and try to pet himself with my hand. The best I could do was to take a shot with one hand while my other was giving him ear scratches.

Melon also has some of the softest hair I’ve ever felt. His coat reminded me of some of those synthetic furs that are scientifically designed to be extremely soft to the touch… except Melon’s is actually real hair.

Visiting the cats was more or less the only particularly interesting and eventful thing I’ve done in Las Vegas, with the rest of my time here mostly just being productive. Tomorrow, I head out to California to visit Tempo’s team house and meet some of our new employees; more blog posts of that in the coming week.

The final batch of cat photos (for now)

June 1, 2021, 11:53 PM by Parkzer • Cats

Last week, I wrote a blog post about how I plan on becoming a nomad for half a year to travel the country. This does indeed mean that my roommate and I will be splitting (i.e., she, and the cats, will not be coming along with me for my journey).

I generally keep my private life fiercely private, so I never actually mentioned who my roommate was in any of my blog posts. Even in scenarios where I do reveal snippets of my private life, it is usually only after the fact becomes no longer relevant, or if it becomes public knowledge at no fault of my own. My roommate situation for the past half year now qualifies under both those scenarios—I’m moving out, and my roommate has publicly “leaked” our roommateship herself on a handful of occasions (which I didn’t really mind).

My roommate for the past half year is a friend of mine named Winnie. Social media links can change, so I can’t guarantee that these will still be accurate if you’re reading this blog post years from now, but she’s @SmexyRosies on Instagram and @SmexyRosies on Twitter. She also set up Instagram accounts for the cats, @Mochi.and.Pudding and @Pumpkin_owo_.

She’s a freelance social media influencer and content creator currently exploring and working on a handful of her own personal creative projects. She’s the favorite roommate I’ve ever had so far, and still remains one of my favorite people in general.

After my nomadic journey concludes, I will likely be a designated catsitter for Pudding, Mochi, and Pumpkin, but until then, this is the final batch of cat photos that I took from my final month being their adoptive cat dad.

The cats spend a lot of time together, but rarely are they this photogenic and all facing the same direction.

While preparing for my move-out, I cleared out a lot of stuff from my side desk and bookshelf and put them into storage containers. Mochi appreciated that there was now an empty spot on top of my bookshelf and promptly climbed up to observe me working.

When I wake up in the morning, I head out to the living room to check on the cats. When Mochi and Pudding see me, they promptly walk towards me—they both like getting pets, and Pudding likes to headbutt my leg. Pumpkin, though… he clearly has his priorities straight. Instead of coming to me for affection, he goes straight for the smallest box in the household so he can squish himself inside and go to sleep.

I recently went to a chiropractor and he told me I need to stretch out my hip flexors so they loosen up and stop crushing my lower back. It looks like Mochi wanted to join in on the stretches.

I usually don’t have high-quality photos of the cats because, whenever they’re doing something photo-worthy, I don’t have my camera with me and I end up just snapping a picture with my phone. For this instance, though, Pumpkin held his pose long enough for me to go grab my camera. Here he is laying inside a little cloth cubby box in my roommate’s closet.

Pumpkin likes climbing into things in general. Here he is knocking over my roommate’s laundry hamper so he can lay inside (and Mochi looking at me, seemingly upset at missing out on the glory of being inside a laundry hamper).

And for the final photo, I leave you with something special. Meet Tyson, Mochi and Pumpkin’s son.