Friday Cat (etc.) Blogging

I don't know about you, but I've had a tough week. So if you too need your heart warmed, here you go: Two cat ladies and some monkey wranglers (with links, for those who'd like to make an for end-of-year donation):

Siglinda Scarpa of The Goathouse Refuge in Pittsboro, NC:



Lynea Lattanzio of Cat House on the Kings in Parlier, CA:



It's important to note that these women are not hoarders. These are not cats kept in filth, there's no dead cats in freezers. Cats at these facilities, if they are healthy and adoptable, are all up for adoption. If they aren't, they have a clean place to live where they can live out their days I haven't been to Cat House on the Kings, but I have been to the Goathouse Refuge, and it is not just a refuge for cats, but a place of calm. It's also immaculately clean. If you think you're going to walk around these fenced enclosures and step in cat poop, guess again. It takes an army of volunteers to keep these places clean and the cats healthy -- and a ton of money.

"But what about people? Isn't it better to help people in this economy?"

I'm not sure that one precludes the other. When I worked in New York City in the 1980's, I went through the World Trade Center every day for eight years. There was a homeless woman who always parked herself near the token booth at the E train terminus. Her name was Sharon. Sharon had a cat that she carried with her in her shopping cart wherever she went. On most days, you could see Sharon sitting on a blanket at that token booth, feeding that cat, often as not from a tin of Fancy Feast. The cat was always sleek and healthy-looking. I still think about her sometimes and wonder whatever happened to this woman who despite her own circumstances, always made sure that the one being that she could rely on to not torment her was cared for.

And now for something completely different: The Nosara Wildlife Rescue:



I would hope that those inclined to give to animal organizations at this time of year would eschew the envelopes full of address labels, holiday cards, and slick photos of sad-faced tragic animals -- organizations with millions of dollars in endowments and enough money to send these mailings, and focus on groups like these -- smaller rescues that put their donations towards care of the animals instead of fat executive salaries and payments to direct mail houses.

Caturday

Funny how many people in this video are male.







(via Elayne)

Baby. It's what's for dinner.

I Can Has Babeeburger?

Nom nom nom nom nom.

Caturday

Perhaps this cat should be made a watchdog (sorry) over the banks, since she's great at recognizing a shell game:

Why They Invented the Internets

It wasn't so you could go shopping. It wasn't so that you could bank online. It wasn't so that textbooks could be delivered to a device slimmer than a cigarette pack.

No, it was so that we could have memes like Cats Quote Charlie Sheen.

Which means that this is absolutely true:

Caturday: Why the Justin Bieber hate?

One thing that I've become aware of as I get older is how difficult, often impossible, it is to catch up with whatever pop zeitgeist is going on at any given time. Most of the people I work with are a lot younger than I am, and listen to music that is very different from what I listen to. Green Day is about as "today" as I get, and even that band is now a bunch of guys in their late thirties. An article about Gregg Allman is more likely to catch my eye than one about the return of Lauryn Hill, whose voice I wouldn't recognize if I heard it.

But all this is about real musicians, not about "pop stars." And that brings us to Justin Bieber. Aside from the fact that I am almost old enough to have grandchildren who would listen to Justin Bieber, I really didn't know much about him, other than that he's some cute-boy singer who got his start on YouTube, and is now the biggest thing among tween girls since Leonardo DiCaprio drowned to save Kate Winslet. This month's Vanity Fair has him as its cover boy, which used to spell Career Doom (see also: Gretchen Mol, who has turned out to be a damn fine actress, even if it took longer than Vanity Fair promised), which is perhaps why more established people like Cher and Johnny Depp have graced the cover recently. But since I am an occasional commentator on the pop culture zeitgeist, I felt obligated to read it. Bieber seems like a pretty nice kid for a pop juggernaut, aside from the religious stuff. But if religion is what this kid needs to keep him from becoming yet another teen star burnout, who could object?

Still, there seems to be the kind of hate surrounding this kid that tends to always go along with being this kind of pretty-boy teen dreamboat. Who can forget the infamous "Leo Is Gay And Kate Is Fat" wars of 1998? The only thing keeping David Cassidy from the same onslaught during the 1970's was the lack of participatory media, and even from that decade, yesterday's teen dreamboat is all too often today's addict/jailbird (see also: Leif Garrett). So if Bieber rakes in tons of cash while teen girls scream, who cares, as long as the kid has his feet firmly planted on the ground? I may shake my head, but especially with no tween girls in the house, I don't have to listen to it.

Well, here's a cat in Poland who really, really, REALLY hates Justin Bieber:

Seriously, puss....some perspective please.

Saturday insomnia blogging

So Miss Maggie, who is around 11 years old now, has what appears to be a wicked ear infection. She's always had problems with her ears. She has polyps in both ears that the vet has always said are probably congenital. Her left eye is always runny, and i would guess that the entire left side of her face has caused her some discomfort throughout her life. It seems to get worse during days of weather change, but she's usually better after a day or so. But this week I decided she should see the vet, so Mr. Brilliant took her on Friday, where there was apparently much hue and cry and kitty-screeching, as the kindly veterinarian she refers to as Dr. Mengele committed the unforgiveable crime of attempting to look at her ears, and after being unable to do so for all the gunk and blood therein, put 5 drops of Tresaderm in her ear, told Mr. B. to try giving it to her twice a day and if necessary we'll put her on painkillers.

Miss Maggie was a pretty unhappy girl when she came home, and around an hour later she started working on her ear with her paw and screaming, so off I went, careening through the streets of Bergen County at rush hour to get to the vet's office before they close to pick up painkillers.

Seventy dollars later, I walked out with five syringes of buprenorphine and instructions to give one to her every 12 hours for pain.

Buprenorphine.

Really?

For most people, drug names only have meaning to the extent that we see them on TV: Cialis. Boniva. Celebrex. Ambien. I know what buprenorphine is because in my previous job, we did studies for NIDA, and the first one after I started there was this one.

I'm supposed to give Little Baby Snookums the same thing they give detoxing junkies?

Apparently so, as I found out about a half hour ago, when I found myself evicted from bed by the very same Miss Maggie, who came up for her customary night of Spoon Mommy only to find that every spooning position resulted in pressure on her ear and a repeat of much hue and cry and drama queening.

I'm a lunatic about Things That Could Be Toxic To Cats. I don't have plants in the house because most houseplants are Toxic To Cats. After the infamous $600 Mouse Bait and Vitamin K Fracas of 2008, I refuse to have any mouse bait in or near the house, choosing instead to caulk every inch of the house where any surface meets any other surface and relying on Maggie to catch any stragglers. I spent about $400 on an echocardiogram and bloodwork before getting her teeth cleaned a few years ago because of my irrational fear that she might die on the table. This fear isn't just about Maggie, or any of the cats we've ever had. The first time I had to be sedated for an outpatient procedure, I sat in the waiting room filling out the informed consent form and weeping, certain that they would overdose me with diprivan and I would be dead in an hour.

It's times like this when I am glad I don't have children, because I would be one of those moms rushing off to the pediatrician every time the baby cries, certain that the grim reaper was right outside the door and certain that the pharmacy formulated the medicine wrong and I would unwittingly deliver an overdose.

And that is why I'm sitting here at one o'clock in the morning, pouring out my Sad Tale of Kitty Woe, fighting an upper respiratory infection and waiting for the Benadryl to kick in so that maybe I can sleep a little.

Meanwhile, say hello to Tom Degan, whom I've added to the blogroll.

How to Wrap a Cat For Christmas

via Lynn:

Friday Cat Blogging: I love my calendar girl!

It's here -- the Pets of Balloon Juice Calendar, assembled and marketed by our good friends (who have never once linked here, hmph) at Balloon Juice. All profits go to the Charlie's Angels Animal Rescue in Brevard, NC. Since the Christmas shopping season starts on Monday, order yours today!

(Miss Maggie is on the cover and is also one of the Misses March. That's her, the white cat in the photo on the middle-left of the cover, taking a break from blogging. She likes to blog about Marc Maron and baseball.)

Every day is Caturday

Maggie-mojo strikes Americablog again:

Caturday Night

Look who finally made it onto the front page of Americablog:



I'm quite certain that the rotating pet images are done by a script, but it is still very cool to go to a web site that is not one's own and see one's own kitteh. And this is one of my favorite photos of Miss Maggie Jane.

Friday Cat Blogging

Dick Cheney Eats Kittens (Hi, Gretel!);
American Soldiers in Afghanistan Rescue Them

I don't know about you, but I've had a tough day at Fortress Corporatatus, and I need a good healthy dose of "Awwwww.....":

Three US marine soldiers, Brian Chambers, Chris Berry and Aaron Shaw, started a mission to help bring home the kittens they have befriended while serving in Afghanistan . With generous donations from cat lovers and help from Noward Dogs animal rescue, Kiki and Keykey, two lovely ginger kitties, have successfully made it home in the US. Unfortunately 2 other cats, Simba and Ra-Ko, lost the battle against their illnesses a few weeks ago.

[snip]

Both Keykey and Kiki have arrived in the US. Kiki is currently living with Brian’s parents in Houston, Texas until he leaves the Marines and moves home. Keykey is living with Chris’ parents in Detroit, Michigan and enjoying his new family.

For soldiers who are on duty overseas, often time the only chance they get to cuddle is when they meet these stray animals. These soldiers are lonely and longing for love from their family and friends. The kitties are abandoned, lost and have nowhere to call home. When they find each other, they become best friends.

More, and photos so adorable they'll make your head explode, here.

Caturday

No kittens were harmed in the making of this popcorn:

Caturday

Oh. Well, that explains everything:

(h/t)

Friday Cat Blogging: Save the Twelve Bucks Edition

Look, I like a brooding, sensitive type as much as the next somewhat neurotic female. But there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about the Twilight movies that appeals to me. If you're like me, you'll be happy then to be able to go through the entire story in five minutes here...in lolcat form.

Caturday Big Blue Smurf Blogging: What They Said

Today's honoree DougJ over at Balloon Juice, commenting on how the Washington Villagers are once again having the vapors over someone who isn't part of their little club.

Money quote:

But what this article is really saying is that Desiree Rogers isn’t the right kind of person. That’s what Socksgate and Travelgate and all that other bullshit was about too—the Clintons weren’t the right kind of people. It’s what all the bullshit about Michelle Obama’s iPod and bare arms is about too.

I hate to go on and on about this, but it’s pretty remarkable that the media insisted the Clintons being investigated for using White House postage to send letters form from their cat and that the Obama White House be investigated because two weirdos crashed a White House party, but that the Bush White House should never be investigated for torture, politicizing the DOJ, falsifying intelligence, and (not that that I think this one is important but it is similar to the kinds of trivialities that are deemed important when they happen under Clinton or Obama) having a male prostitute show up to lob softball questions at White House briefings.

And now a random cat video that shows why cats rule the world. Now with bonus adorable puppies:

Caturday

I'll never call Maggie stupid again after watching this (from BadTux the Snarky Penguin, sent by skywind)

Friday Cat Blogging: Fierce Jungle Predator edition

The Mighty Huntress

For those of you who are not regular visitors, pictured above is Maggie, the dumbest cat who ever lived. I've never been sure if she's a case of arrested development (though at age almost-10, she has finally outgrown her annoying habit of trying to suckle on my upper arm), or if the congenital polyps in her ears cause her to carry her ears out to the side more than most cats, or if the fact that her head is disproportionately small for her body just makes her LOOK dumb. But we've always assumed that Maggie was as dumb as a Congressional town hall disrupter.

Maggie's always done things that are reflective of predator behavior. Jenny isn't much for toys, having always made clear that her 2-3 years as a stray before she came to us have entitled her to a lazy retirement. But Maggie has always enjoyed batting things around the floor, carrying around a crocheted ball, yowling, and then depositing it somewhere, often in her water dish.

I don't know if others have experienced this, but we tend to get pantry moths that seem to come in with packages from Trader Joe's. We had a bad infestation once, but now we keep it under control with sticky traps from Gardens Alive and Maggie takes care of the rest. As a result, she's honed her craft quite well. Moths, bees, flies, spiders -- she does it all -- except that she'd never caught a mouse, despite the fact that we have an intermittent and ongoing mouse problem which led to the infamous Final Blox Episode of 2008, in which a piece of serious rodent poison had dropped out of the ceiling where one of the celotex tiles was missing and Maggie decided to take a bite. $600 later for an emergency vet visit, a Vitamin K shot, and specially-compounded Vitamin K liquid for a month, we decided that we simply cannot have mouse bait in or around the house. Last summer I caulked every gap I could see, including all the places where the siding meets the house, and that seemed to take care of it for a while. I think this summer we've had mice inside the basement ceiling again (and I shudder to think what will be found when we finally take those damn tiles down to redo the basement), and last weekend Maggie was showing intense interest in one of the kitchen cabinets near the sink, which is usually a sure sign of mice around.

I cleared everything out of the cabinet and saw no mouse droppings, which is an encouraging sign. But she was still unusually interested in the cabinet. At first I thought she was simply trying to amuse herself by making me clear out cabinets simply by her looking at them. Cats are wont to do such things. But even after I cleared them out and found no droppings, she still wasn't satisfied.

The thing you have to know about Maggie is that with all the mouse activity that we know we've had in this house -- activity that's been demonstrated last year when we had the exterminator set up traps and bait and the rest of it -- she has never, ever, ever actually caught one.

Until Monday morning, when she came marching out of the kitchen with what I thought was one of those fur mice you buy at the A&P in her mouth, looking insufferably pleased with herself. I thought it was a toy until I saw that it had feet.

Fortunately, she dropped it immediately, but cleaning up dead-or-dying-mouse is not exactly a fun activity for a Monday morning. So I was torn between being utterly disgusted and being insanely proud of my Great Huntress, who has finally decided that there's a recession on, and so she'd better get a job.

It's too bad this is an EDS ad

...because otherwise it would make a great start for an ad about trying to get the Blue Dog Democrats to support universal health care:

I don't know about you, but I could use some kittens right about now

Ahh....I feel better already.