Breaking Cat News by Georgia Dunn for July 26, 2020

There are so many truths here…!!!

UNHAND ME, MADAM!

Second hand is just one step closer to becoming an antique! Antiques have a reputation of being delicate, but most of them are sturdy survivors of generations of pets and children.

My mom has her grandmother’s Singer. I remember playing with the foot peddle when I was a kid.

If Lupin touches that spinning wheel spindle, will he fall asleep so the Woman can finally have plants? I’m told spindle curses usually involve lots of plants.

“Antiques” are very expensive, “used” is not.

I have pieces of furniture my parents bought when they were married.

The dining table my grandparents got when THEY got married.

My great-aunt’s dresser.

Bookcases from each grandparents’ house.

These pieces will outlast me, I’m sure.

Aww, Goldie’s been sucked in! And Elvis has been dragged in!

This brings back the smell of antique wood in the many old New England houses turned into museums that had recreated colonial rooms, usually with a rope tied across the doorway so you could just lean in to peek around.

My cats enjoy their regular shipments of box – they generously allow me to first remove the books that seem to always come with them, presumably as ballast.

We inherited plenty of antique furniture with the farmhouse project. I have raised the question as to why there were 7 bedroom sets in a 3 bedroom house. I asked the other half if his grandparents were going to furnish a bed and breakfast. She was using 2 dressers as sideboards, a chest of drawers in the hall for various linens, and the other pieces are either in bedrooms or the attic. The huge chiffrobe at the top of the attic stairs convinces me they put some of the furniture in the attic, BEFORE they put the roof on. It may stay there while it gets renovated too.

This is true, in the process of cleaning houses of relatives over the years, my mom has acquired a few sewing machines.(She is 88). She cleaned them up very nicely and has 3 at her house. One is a New Home with all of the attachments. She gave us a Singer we have in Carmela’s work from home office that is now a cat bed, and yes it works, tredle and all. They made them to look like nice pieces of furniture when when they are closed. Burts’ crawl made me laugh out loud!

Meatloaf Puck dozing on the new table.

Cats, toddlers, same thing, need I say it again? Heehee.

SUNDAY FUNDAY TIME

Is Elvis speaking sharply to his “Little Girl”?

I have very little interest in antiques. As far as I m concerned, junk doesn’t stop being junk just because it gets old and tatty.

Jerome K. Jerome discusses antiques here. (p.44.) https://manybooks.net/book/124687/read#epubcfi(/6/4[html2]!/4/934/1:490)

Excerpt:“The “sampler” that the eldest daughter did at school will be spoken of as “tapestry of the Victorian era,” and be almost priceless. The blue-and- white mugs of the present-day roadside inn will be hunted up, all cracked and chipped, and sold for their weight in gold, and rich people will use them for claret cups; and travellers from Japan will buy up all the “Presents from Ramsgate,” and “Souvenirs of Margate,” that may have escaped destruction, and take them back to Jedo as ancient English curios.”

He was right, of course.

SLuping beauty…

Another Sunday ——Funday cartoon that makes me ROFL! I especially love Elvis in the washtub that is a thousand years old! Now, that’s a real antique!

I note a pair of hands grabbing Lupin before he touches the spindle, and Puck has worked out what to do with an old table.

Washtubs can be fun—an old galvanized one served as my first wading pool! Its usual duty was as the rinse tub for mom’s old Maytag wringer washer, which she preferred to the modern 1950s washer. Continued to use the Maytag until the late 60s and a new Kenmore laundry pair (in oh-so-chic “coppertone”).

At the Riordan mansion in Flagstaff, the docents point out a device in the display of the pioneer kitchen and ask if people on the tour know what it is. Sometimes they answer correctly that it’s a toaster.

I think I messed up the average, though, by pointing out that in the same kitchen are four other toasters, each of an utterly different design.

Cats ARE the nice things I have.♥

Lupin hind toe beans!

I see Elvis is an expert on antique washtubs.

Pucky got up for a little reporting time but now it’s back to sleep.

I’m glad to see Goldie right in the middle of things.

Domestic cats, on average, require eight weeks to fully antique new upholstered furniture.

Keep the boxes. My conure loves cat toys.

OMC! Just yesterday I commented “Rare rear foot in your face toe beans,” which led @Zoomer&Yeti to create the very clever acronym “S R F I Y F T B” [single rear foot …], and now apropos of nothing here they are again today in the strip! It must be a gift from Cat! (Or Georgia Dunn loves her fans).

I’m laughing at panel 3 – Lupin would be the one to try and reenact “Sleeping Beauty” … but after yesterday, shouldn’t that be Puck?

El Biff!!! Are you turning on your girl?? Unhand me, Madam, indeed! You need to watch your manners, old boy.

The Woman is right! I’ve gotten plenty of great secondhand furniture for $17. To say nothing of Curbside Free Zone (otherwise known as “good trash”).

Oh, no, no, no, Elvis, that washtub can’t possible be a thousand years old.

It’s at least only a hundred.

I recently acquired a Singer sewing table, which, yup, the previous owner had been using as a hall table. I was thrilled to put my 1958 Singer Slant-O-Matic 403 special (my mother’s) back in a table! And there was an old 404 in rough shape already in the table — i don’t think the previous owner even knew it was there. If I can ever get it to a repair shop and see if it’s worth fixing, I may have a back up straight-stitch machine

I inherited mom and dads furniture. Solid pecan.

You kept old furniture for several reasons, one of which was the old adage, “Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.” We have an old dresser that we use as a buffet.

…“spinning wheel, sewing machine” and Boston Rocker

As an Air Force brat, we moved every two years. Among my mother’s useless “treasures” was a ceramic butter churn. She NEVER once made butter, and in fact embraced the 1970’s junk science that made us “healthy” users of margarine. Will “polite” women of the future decorate/clutter their homes with VHS recorders?

Neither of my female cats likes to be picked up and held so I’m sure when I’ve done it anyway, they’ve muttered what Elvis is saying.

“What goes up must come down.”

“Spinning wheel gotta go around.”

My mother had a handcranked meat grinder. Never used it for that but it was ideal for making cranberry sauce ground up with oranges! I’ll admit, I’ve always found it impossible to visualize feeding in meat and having it come out as hamburger. As far as I’m concerned, hamburger comes in packages (or from a fast food drive thru).

I had to laugh at Lupin, because this used to be one of my standard lines – that you could forget about keeping things clean if your house had kids, cats or smokers.

That’s right, Puck. Why spend time doing that arty distressing to new furniture. Buy old stuff and it’s already done!

Since Lupin already sleeps sixteen hours a day, does it matter if he pricks his toe on that spindle?

Georgia, now people will be overrunning us, trying to get their hands on our “end tables”!

In CA it’s formica topped mid-century modern.

Today is All or Nothing Day, when you are supposed to stop putting off something you’ve always wanted to do, and do it with all your might …

Today is … World Tofu Day … … Don’t overwhelm us with your enthusiasm. I hope someday Georgia will give us the cats’ take on tofu.

And Today is Aunt and Uncles Day. Sometimes, it’s your parents’ siblings who save your childhood—and I’m not talking about “spoiling you rotten.”

It is also Parent’s Day. See comment immediately above. If you have a good relationship with your parents, consider yourself blessed beyond measure.

National Bagelfest Day is Today. No one is sure whether they originated in Poland or Austria, but they are definitely Slavic in origin. One account has them as part of a celebration of Polish King Jan II Sobieski’s victory over the Turks in 1683. What it does not say is that Sobieski’s bagels were stale, and used to bombard the Turks into retreat. I can attest to the fact that stale bagels make good ammunition. I once threw a stale bagel at a brick wall. The brick chipped, the bagel was unscathed. Admittedly, good bagels never go stale—they are eaten.

Finally, it’s National Coffee Milkshake Day. That’s something I’ve never tried, so today may be the day—All or Nothing. Make sure Lupin’s is decaf!

Who needs toys when you have boxes?

Your New England news feed is spot-on! So glad “the cats” shared their New England roots/knowledge with the rest of the world!

As a native New Englander and a cat servant, I can find nothing to dispute in today’s strip.

I laughed out loud at Bert’s chyron. Georgia manages tongue-in-cheek humor better in print than most comedians do in speach!

I always wanted one of those old Singers. They’re way more fun to sew on than new ones.

So much wisdom.

Every home in New England, huh? What a load. I’m in New England and I can say with certainty there is no spinning wheel and 1870s sewing machine here. And I’ve been in quite a few other homes in New England where those things aren’t present. But I do agree about new furniture being mostly particle board, and I blame certain overpriced junk furniture companies for that.

OMC. Elbiff is so cute in the last panel.

My house is not in New England, but I have three spinning wheels (and they get used as well).

Check today’s BCN Facebook or Instagram post, where Georgia says that this very table appeared in her “Timehop” because they bought it five years ago to the day!

I have my mother’s old Singer in a fancy wooden cabinet. It is most likely one of the very first electric models, but it doesn’t back stitch. I don’t sew, but the cabinet made a wonderful parrot cage stand for decades! (Parrots live a long time) I suppose if I get the cabinet refinished, and the sewing machine oiled and checked out, it may be worth something!

My New Hampshire house actually does have a spinning wheel—my sister was interested in wool for a while. The sewing machine is modern, though =P

In the last panel, Puck is thinking “This cat bed is awesome.”