A Belated Pussy Account.

I promised an update on the Westchester Cat Show last week, but I postponed it in the hopes that Devra would miraculously make her first appearance on the blog and upload some of the pictures, which I feel are necessary to capture the pure amazingness of what went down last weekend. Unfortunately, Devra is a horrid waste, and you will have to make do with what I give you. One day, when I have a FAMOUS blog with paid ads and stuff like that, people will probably SEND me pictures, so I won't have to depend on Philadelphia uselessness.
I digress.
So several weeks ago when I was at work, Abbi (a recently-departed co-worker who will forever remain in our hearts et cetera) came across a weird story about a dog being given a funeral eulogy at a cat show. It made no sense. This might not be the actual article that Abbi found, but it captures the gist of the story.

A schnauzer-Siberian husky mix named Ginny will be eulogized Nov. 19 at the Westchester Cat Show, where she was named Cat of the Year in 1998 for her uncanny skill and bravery in finding and rescuing endangered tabbies.

This is Ginny - with a cat, no less.:


Ginny is admittedly pretty badass.

Among the best-known rescues is the time Ginny threw herself against a vertical pipe at a construction site to topple it and reveal the kittens trapped inside. She once ignored the cuts on her paws as she dug through a box full of broken glass to find an injured cat inside.

As soon as Abbi read this article, I knew I had to attend. Not only would there be this dog eulogy, there would be hundreds of cats - some of them doing cat agility training. Heavenly. Several of my co-workers expressed moderate excitement in the excursion, but only Devra actually thought it was worth doing. We commend her on her sense of loyalty and adventure, even if those attributes did not result in pictures being put up on the blog. Frown.

The cat show was being held at the Westchester County Center in White Plains, which is a 45-minute train ride from Grand Central.

When we got off the train, it was insanely easy to find this place. We walked across a bridge overpass thing and turned right and this monstrosity was staring at us from about 5000 yards away. It looks like the illegitimate child of Monticello and a mosque.

So we go in and Devra remembered to print out the coupons that got us a dollar off our tickets. So she DOES remember some things.

We walk into this foyer and are BOMBARDED by these card tables full of free shit and raffles and just general cat weirdness. I want it stated for the record - I am a big cat fan, but this shit was sick. The first table I see has this enormous Bengal cat lying on it, intentionally not looking at anyone. It was snobby as sin. This woman was charging a dollar for a picture of the cat, the money then being donated to a charity, probably the Get My Spoiled Bengal A Jeweled Food Dish Foundation. I paid the money; I have no excuses. Then I reach my hand over to pet it, and it SNUBBED me.
It looked like this:

Picture it ignoring you.

So we continue walking around the tables, and we find the Ginny table, which is LOADED with free Ginny shizzle: pens, stickers, magnets, et cetera. We took as much as we could without looking obscene.
Oh, this is the official Ginny site.
They have a store where you can buy videos and shirts.
The weird thing about the Ginny remembrance was that whenever you saw a poster or anything acknowledging her, it didn't just say Ginny. It ALWAYS said Ginny, the Dog who Rescued Cats. Maybe it's just weird to me, but if Arnold or Jerry was immortalized at a cat or dog show, and I was bombarded by weird taglines like "Arnold, the Noble Beast Who Used to Follow Emma Out to her Treehouse and Wrap His Body Around Her Head So She Wouldn't Get Cold," or "Jerry, the Cat Who Purrs At Skunks Because He Doesn't Know How to Differentiate Species," I would be creeped out. I wonder if Ginny's owner was creeped out. Since he's getting mad publicity and book offers, I'm inclined to doubt it.
So eventually, we manage to bypass the tables and get out to the showroom. It was madness. As soon as we walk in, we hear meows and smell...I almost said pussy but thought better of it. But there was a definite odor in the air.
This is a picture from the 2004 show, but believe me - you can't tell the difference.


It was madness. I was forced to accept the fact that these cats were wearing things that cost more than my whole outfit. The holding containers were decorated as much as is humanly possible. One cat was lounging on a mini-leopard armoire, and some of these pens had bunk beds and weird unrecognizable furniture.
Many of them were being whored. I don't mean that there were lines of tom cats waiting outside cages with $20 bills, but they had big signs on their cages advertising their progeny, most of whom cost upwards of $600 or $700.

Now, I had one cat-related goal: I wanted to fondle one of the earless cats. We looked everywhere. No earless cats.

What a downer. However, we did see a few MAMMOTH Maine Coon cats, who were frighteningly big. They didn't even look like cats.

It doesn't look that big, but when you put it next to one of those ratty Sphinx cats...it's something to behold.

I was really looking forward to the cat agility tests, simply because I didn't have the slightest idea what it entailed. If you've ever seen dog agility tests at a dog show before, it's the same concept, except that cats are more pampered and need more guidance. We watched a few owners shell out $10 to have their cats timed in the course. Why? No fucking clue. The winner got a box of Meow Mix or something. Most of the cats were pretty wretched. Inevitably, they would get distracted and just wander off and their owners would follow them with string, wailing mournfully.

The woman that was in charge of the cat agility testing must have been directly imported from the set of Drop Dead Gorgeous, because I have NEVER heard such a potent Minnesota accent this side of Kirstie Alley. If Nicole Sullivan had been one of the judges at the Howard Johnson's in that movie, this was her twin. She scared me, and she had an infautation with - of course. The fucking Bengal cats. One of the Bengal cats, Zoom, is the fastest cat agility contender in the world. I thought that was pretty impressive when I first heard it, but now that a week has gone by, it feels like being in the presence of the world's fastest Minesweeper player. Which would be cool, but not THAT cool. Zoom was pretty badass though, he did the course in seven seconds and put all those pussy cats (redundant?) in their place.

We ended up seeing the Meowcity dancers, who were a group of middle school-age girls with pubescent bumps on their chests. I felt for them. A/B cup represent. But the sympathy was limited, because they abused the art of lipsyncing worse than Ashlee could have done with a bottle of Vaseline and a karaoke machine. It was just wrong. Picture the Broadway show Cats. Now picture worse costumes and worse songs. I think they did a weird pelvic gyration dance to "I Like to Move It, Move It." Shudder. I think they saw us wincing.

The eulogy. Devra moped a little when she realized there wasn't going to be a video tribute. I was also admittedly bummed. I was hoping there was footage of her rescuing cats out of a burning building or something. Instead, we heard weirdo speakers talking about how they met Ginny and they were spiritually changed. As these people were going on and on about Ginny, I kept looking over at the 2005 Cat of the Year Zoe, who was patiently waiting in her cage for her own award. Such dignity. During the moment of silence, if Devra and I had looked each other...something very bad would have happened. I suspect if I laughed at a people funeral, I would get my ass kicked. I don't even want to think about what happens if you do it at a dog funeral in front of crazed PETA people. They might kill.

So after the Ginny Foundation got a shitload of dog food, Zoe got her turn. She smelled carbon monoxide and alerted her owner. I don't know about you, but I've read about these cat carbon monoxide stories a billion times. I have no doubt that Zoe rocks and her owners are very fortunate to have her, but Zoe smelled something nasty and got upset. Like any cat would do. I'm probably being too callous, since I really liked Zoe and told her congratulations and she nuzzled my hand. She was the only cat in the entire arena to acknowledge me. Heart.

Before I forget, the people at this thing were batshit crazy. Seriously. Everyone was over 400 pounds, which didn't make a lot of sense to me. If you're spending thousands of dollars on your cat, how do you have money for your own food? Shrug. All the guys looked like sexual predators, and I recognized half of them from Maury. Should you go to the 2006 show? Totally. There's a Friendly's on Central Avenue.