Looking for a Trouble-Free Pet? Bypass Feline Variety

Of cats, cups and cabbages.

* In Cardiff, a cat is blamed for a $30,000 fire at a condominium.

The cat likes to sleep on the refrigerator. When he jumps off, papers and books go flying.

One day some books landed on the toaster. The toaster kicked into gear, ignited the books, and then the kitchen.

The cat escaped when firefighters arrived.

* In Encinitas, a cat started to spray a living-room electric outlet.

The outlet shorted out and the cat got a singed tail. Now he’s on Valium, older but not much wiser.

* The thrill of victory, etc.

In Oceanside, the Professional Cupstack Drill Team and its coaches from the Boys & Girls Club will be taken by NBC van to Burbank to appear on tonight’s “Tonight Show,” starring Johnny Carson.

Cupstacking, for the uninitiated, is the stacking of plastic cups in pyramid formations and then engaging in relay races.

It’s the rage of Oceanside, according to its inventor, Wayne Godinet, a director at the Boys & Girls Club. The national cupstack champion, Matt Adame, 9, lives in Oceanside and will banter with Johnny.

“Kids are getting bored with conventional games,” Godinet explained. “Cupstacking is good for self-esteem and eye-hand coordination.”

* In downtown San Diego, The Little Cafe has sold a lot of cherry pie to “Twin Peaks” cultists in recent months. (FBI Agent Dale Cooper, a character on the show, is a cherry pie eater.)

Now co-owner Dolores Miller has written to producer David Lynch suggesting that he create a character with a craving for Swedish meatballs or stuffed cabbage rolls:

“It might help your drooping Nielsen ratings and our drooping business.”

North City West Haunts Wilson

The issue of North City West is sticky for Pete Wilson.

Possibly for the first time, a campaign for governor of California has centered on questions of how to control the state’s rampant growth.

That should be a big plus for Wilson, given his undisputed leadership as mayor of San Diego in the 1970s, shaping the city’s growth-management plan.

But then there’s North City West.

First, Wilson opposed the North City West plan, then he switched sides and provided the swing vote in 1979 necessary for construction to begin.

Wilson and his loyalists have insisted, then as now, that Wilson shifted only after the city’s growth consultant, lawyer and land-use expert Robert Freilich, said North City West was the next logical place for residential development.

Others suggest that Wilson shifted on North City West to curry political favor with business interests.

The normally unflappable Wilson, in a recent interview with the Sacramento Bee, called such an allegation “bull----.” But the issue persists, and Wilson was quizzed on it last week by Robert MacNeil on PBS.

This week’s contribution disclosures may add a little last-minute fuel to the fire.

In recent days Wilson has gotten contributions from the major North City West developers: $10,000 from Pardee Construction, $5,000 from James P. Baldwin and $5,000 from Alfred Baldwin, both of the Baldwin Co.

Douglas Pardee, chairman of Pardee Construction, had earlier given $1,000.

Politics as Usual

John de Beck has not yet been elected to office, but he has already started to play in-your-face politics.

Explanation: De Beck originally had a “Jim Roache for Sheriff” sign at his home.

Then he found out that Roache endorsed De Beck’s opponent for San Diego school board, Scott Harvey.

Down went the Roache sign and up went a sign and bumper sticker for Roache’s opponent, Jack Drown. Plus a letter from De Beck, a former teachers’ union official, telling teachers to vote for Drown:

“If you think the classroom is tough, you ought to try politics. I am learning the hard way. They play hardball in this arena.”

Harvey says De Beck’s flip-flop and letter show a petty nature that would ill-behoove a school board member.