CATlick Techie: Licorice the Cat

I've been a little busy this past month getting ready for the beginning of our homeschooling year. It's my first year with both of my girls in high school, and the planning for them, as well as the classes I'm teaching at the homeschool co-op, has been hectic and slightly stressful. In lieu of featuring an app this month, I've interviewed Licorice the Cat, who is our pet cat and who tweets on a semi-regular basis as @LicoricetheCat. Enjoy!

Tell us about yourself in five words or less.

Boss of all the humans.

Of your pursuits, what’s your favorite?

Mice! They're delightfully tender and juicy for their size, and relatively easy to catch. Chipmunks are a close second for their ease of capture, but for a real challenge in the late Spring, I love pursuing baby bunnies. I have to be in the mood for the chase, though, since they're hard to catch up to when they get to a certain age. Really, the life of a mighty panther…

Wait. Why are you looking at me like that?

When you think of the New Evangelization from your approach as a “CATlick Techie,” what excites you? What makes you want to continue?

I actually don't tweet often enough about my CATlick faith. I do live in a devout Catholic home, and my humans even brought me to the parish to have the priest spray me with a water cannon once. (I'm not a fan of Saint Francis on account of that incident, you know.) I enjoy all the feast days, and I will tweet about how I get special treats because of Christmas or St. Dominic's Day.

I really love to tweet about my life, even if the Catholic aspects are less obvious to the casual observer. I like sneaking in references to Catholicism between my tweets about my humans and their awful new puppy, Mr. Frodo Waggins. (Is there a patron saint for getting rid of unwanted dogs?)

I guess what makes me want to continue is the idea that I can help other cats deal with their humans and dogs with a life of CATlick faith and prayer.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of your work?

I really enjoy it when my humans remember their training and have fresh food and water down for me. I tell you what, I pray all the time to St. Zita that they will remember how to be gracious hosts to me. I mean, it's my house, but I want my wait staff to remember all my preferences.

It's a great day when your humans are fully trained to all meet all of your needs.

Also, I am trying to convert Mr. Frodo. Maybe if he gets sprayed by the priest on Saint Francis Day, he'll be nicer to me and leave me alone. If I manage to help convert him to a better Christian life, that will be a great day, indeed!

I do have one problem, though. I still haven't figured out a way to keep my humans from running away for a week at a time. I tweet out help messages, asking if anyone has seen them, but no one brings them back to me. If I could figure out how to keep the humans from doing that and leaving me in the hands of that lady and her tiny human (who come to leave food out for me), I'd be one happy cat! In the meantime, I will just have to put up with their wandering ways and hope they don't get permanently lost one of these days.

In your spare time, what are we likely to find you doing? Do you have a gadget in hand or do you go native and screenless?

I'm often forced to go screenless when my humans don't share their tech with me. That's not too bad, though. I don't like playing games on the screens because when you catch a bird on there, you can't have it for lunch. (What is the point of that, I ask!) But when I'm not online, I like to nap on my little humans' beds. They have these lovely, soft blankets that are heavenly!

I also really love being out in nature and seeing the wonders of God all around me. I spend a lot of time admiring the beautiful and delicious birds, climbing the trees around our property, and napping in the lovely, soft grass. I explore the woods around my house. I'm a hunter, which I often tweet about under the hashtag #MightyPanther.

Read more of our Tech Talk columns.