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- 1. Gather your materials
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To construct this project, you will need the following easily-found, inexpensive
items:
- At least one cat
- Bag of plain, clay-based cat litter
- Litterbox
- Litter scoop
- Spray shellac or clear acrylic
- Clothespin (spring type)
- Garden hose
- Chopsticks
- Large salad fork
Substitutions can be made, of course. For example, if you can't locate a large
salad fork, feel free to use an angelfood cake cutter or your wife's hairbrush instead.
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- 2. Collect the "rocks"
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Pour some litter into the litterbox, place it in the vicinity of a cat,
and let nature take its course. To save time, you may wish to use several
cats. For this project, I fed five obese adult cats inexpensive canned food (Val-U-Klown
Kitty Kombo) and locked them in a 4x5 room for three hours. Violá!
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- 3. Select the "keepers"
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Now comes the fun part: choosing which "rocks" will permanently
reside in your Zen Garden. Using the litter scoop, remove all "rocks" from the
litterbox and place them in a pile. One by one, carefully inspect each "rock," setting
aside any that are especially large, of an interesting shape, or bear an uncanny
resemblance to a sitting President. Discard the remainder. Spray each "keeper" with
a layer of shellac and allow to dry.
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- 4. Prepare the container
- Throw away the soiled litter and hose down the litterbox. You may
optionally use a deodorizing disinfectant to render it less offensive. Indeed,
at this stage you may be tempted to utilize the cleansing properties of fire, but
it's really not a good idea as Hieronymous and I discovered.
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- 5. Rake the "gravel"
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After the litterbox has dried (or cooled down, if you didn't heed my warning in
the last section), fill it with clean litter. Using the salad fork, rake pleasing
patterns into the litter. A wavy pattern could suggest waves, for example, or a
swirling pattern could represent clouds. Five interlocking rings could symbolize
the corrupt, greedy farce that the Olympics have become. Use your imagination.
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- 6. Arrange the "rocks"
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Using the chopsticks, gently place the "rocks" in the litterbox. Use discretion;
this is one area where less is definitely more. The "rocks" should look like
islands or mountains, not like... well, you know. Also, do not put the
chopsticks back in the kitchen drawer afterward, as a certain idiot nephew did.
"I forgot," indeed.
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- 7. Enjoy!
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You can now gaze on your completed Zen Garden, and meditate in peaceful serenity
upon the myriad wonders of nature. The clothespin may be of some assistance here.
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