Star Rating for Your Cat

What star rating would you give your cat?

This is the age of ratings. Since we rate books, movies, restaurants, hotels, and so on and forth, why not rate our cats as well? (Of course, we have to be prepared to have our cats rate us as their owners – or guardians, for those of you who live in Boulder, Colorado.)

Actually, I got the idea when I came across the writing of William Burroughs, who apparently was a cat lover. This is what he had to say about his cat:

“I award Fletch a four-star cuteness rating. Like most qualities, cuteness is delineated by what it isn’t. Most people aren’t cute at all, or if so they quickly outgrow their cuteness…”

Now, to help you rate your cat, I’ve listed a few of the attributes you might consider. These are just suggestions. You can add to this list or make up an entirely new one.

Cuteness
Good looks
Intelligence
Sociability
Good manners
Sense of Humor
Energy level
Literacy

The lowest rating is 1 star; the highest is 5 stars. You can rate your cat on each of the above qualities, or you can come up with an overall rating—or you can do both!


Here’s how I rated Mittens, a half-Siamese cat with an intriguing midline on her face that I’ve been taking care of:

Cuteness 5 stars
No comments necessary!

Good looks 4 ½ stars
I’d say 5, but I don’t want her to get too stuck up

Intelligence 4 stars
She can open doors and she’s got me trained to feed her on command when she vibrates her tail. So I’d give her 5 stars except that she couldn’t help me fix the audio on my Skype.

Sociability 1 star
She’s getting better though she’s still rather skittish. She’s sort of okay when the neighbors knock on my door but when Pixie – that’s her real owner – comes over, she runs and dives under my bed.

Good manners 1 star
She really needs to devote a few afternoons to reading Miss Manners. It looks horrible when she – ahem, presents herself to be butt-whacked. Let’s just say that the view never improves. Not only that, she seems to prefer orienting her rear end towards me instead of her face. Never known a cat to do this.

Sense of Humor 5 stars
See above.

Energy level ½ star
She ran around pell-mell the other day—I’m sure it’s only because that was one of the few times that I had to do some catch-up sleep during the day. Otherwise, she has the energy of a slug on a winter day. It’s hard to interest her in any cat toys. Well, she is a somewhat older cat. At least she patrols the back patio on a daily basis.

Literacy 5 stars
I know that she surreptitiously reads all my books. (Shhh, don’t tell her that her secret is out.) Every time I mention books to my friends, she butts in with commentaries. It’s uncanny how she knows what I’m talking about.

I hereby give Mittens an overall rating of 5 stars! I know that doesn’t compute, but I’m never been good at math.

So, what star rating did you give your cat? I hope you gave 5 stars at least!

Shop and Help Cats

So you love cats and you love to shop? Did you know that there’s a way where you can shop AND help cats?

You can do that through a program called escrip. The program streamlines fund raising – and donations – contributing a percentage of the purchases you make using your grocery loyalty cards, credit, debit and ATM cards to the group or organization of your choice.

You could, for instance, make donations to groups that promote cat welfare.

If you’d like to help humans rather than cats or other animals (my goodness!), you can do that too.

All you have to do is find what groups or organizations you want to help support are included in this program. And see which merchants participate in the program. There are about a 100 of them, including Safeway (in Northern California only), Office Max, Eddie Bauer, and Macy’s.

Then you can register yourself online. The participating businesses will contribute a percentage (may vary between 1 to 5% or more) of your purchases to the groups or organizations of your choice.

Your purchases are tracked and available for viewing online.

I registered myself in the few minutes I had while waiting for a friend. It was really simple. (If anything’s the least bit complicated, I tend not to do it.)


You can sign up for up to 3 causes. For now, I’ve registered:

Feral Cat Foundation

Massachusetts Animal Rights Coalition

Project Hunger Inc.

I can shop and help cats!


If you want to know more about escrip, click below:

http://www.escrip.com/program/about.jsp

And here's a list of participating merchants:

http://www.escrip.com/merchants/new/index.jsp

I think this is a great idea! It doesn't cost you a penny extra and you get to make at least a small contribution to the welfare of cats -- and maybe even some humans -- by shopping.

I can't think of anything better than to shop and to help cats. A great boon for a shopaholic like me.

Oh, in case you'd like to know about the groups that I picked, here are the links:

Feral Cat Foundation is a non-profit that helps feral cats in the Alameda and Contra Costa counties of northern California.

http://www.feralcatfoundation.org/index.asp

Massachusetts Animal Rights Coalition is a volunteer group that helps educate people and gives voice to all suffering animals including unwanted pets and wild animals killed or abused.

http://www.massanimalrights.org/

Project Hunger Inc. is a non-profit in Grand Island, NE whose goal is to address the reality of world hunger and help local communities through education and action. (Yes, this group is for humans, not cats!)

http://www.projecthunger.org/mission.html