A cat around town

Back in college, my friends bought a puppet from a dollar store in Conway, Arkansas. This tiger, who we named K-Tiger as related to a dorm feud (the story behind which is a bit too long to go into here), subsequently appeared at most of our parties sophomore year. We dressed her up in construction paper t-shirts with uniquely anatomical designs on them and posed her in the usual array of college party pics. This may sound slightly strange, but it is really just the natural result of liberal arts students living in small town Arkansas (in a dry county, no less!).

After college, K-Tiger moved with one of my friends to Oklahoma where she (both tiger and friend) have been residing for the last few years. I'd all but forgotten the puppet (who is famous enough to have gotten her own facebook profile with close to 30 friends), until my friend started posting pictures of her seeing the sites of Tulsa. As all my friends from college are now living in far-flung places and don't get to see each other as often as we'd like, she suggested we mail K-Tiger around to visit new cities (and perhaps even foreign shores). A sort of Sisterhood for the Traveling Dollar Store Tiger Puppet, if you will.

I was the first to receive K-Tiger in the mail a month or so ago and was happy to see her again. She seemed to have aged since last I saw her. There is a touch of dirt under her chin; her fur has lost some of its luster, and she has a slight tear behind one paw. The hard-living seems to have gotten to her since her wild, college partying days. She seems to show all the wear and tear, while I, Dorian Gray like, maintain the youthful glow that still gets me carded at the wine shop on my block.

Since I devoted some time to this project, I thought I would share with my blog readers some of K-Tiger's adventures in the Big Apple.


K-Tiger and I enjoyed a nice visit to the Met (actually, we just popped into the Met gift shop and then popped out to take this picture, but who's counting?). I would have gotten a better picture that didn't feature that random guy so prominently, but I was getting slightly wary of the strange looks I was getting from tourists.


This was supposed to be a shot of K-Tiger climbing the Empire State Building a la King Kong, but due to some miscommunication with my photographer, the waning daylight, and the fact that I did my p90x arms and shoulders workout that morning and couldn't stretch my arm high enough--this is the best I could do.


K-Tiger chilling at the Plaza. We tried to go to nearby Central Park but she found it a sad excuse for experiencing actual nature.


Just a couple of cats, out on the town. Er, well, in my living room. Naturally, these two got along famously.

That about wraps up K-Tiger's big city adventures. I was actually quite thankful to have her warming my hand, as it's been pretty cold here these last couple of weeks. Sadly, K-Tiger will soon be leaving me to go to her next destination: Sheffield, England. I will be personally escorting her in a few weeks, not because I don't trust Fed-Ex, but because I deserve the vacation and I want to visit my friend. I hope none of you will think the less of me for spending my week cavorting with a puppet.