Fearless
And by fearless, I mean really fearless. Totally not afraid of things of things any sensible animal is afraid of, like rooftops, fire, lawn mowers, vacuum cleaners and the heavy traffic that goes up and down the road in front of the house all day.
That road. He’s not oblivious to it, he seems downright attracted to it. He’s been carried to the door by motorists twice. I run out when I hear car horns. I usually see him sauntering up the drive, but I caught him once sitting in the middle of the road with his tail curled around his paws, looking the other way while cars honked at him. For a while, I thought he might be deaf.
I’m really starting to wonder if this one will live to adulthood. That makes me terribly sad, because he’s such a nice little animal and we’ve gotten attached.
He’ll usually stay in the garden when we’re out there. We’ve taken to shutting him in when we’re not, at least during the hours of heaviest traffic. This is a hard house to seal up, though, and he’ll as soon go out a high window as a low one.
The internet doesn’t have any suggestions other than making all cats inside cats. Any idea when the fearless period wears off?
p.s. I beg you, no squashed pet stories. I’m sad enough as it is.
April 28, 2014 — 10:07 pm
Comments: 35
A tale from the Kattholt
This saucy Icelandic lad is Birkir Fjalar Viðarsson. The cat is Örvar. Seven years ago, Birkir got a puppy, and Örvar said, “see ya!” and boogered off.
Reykjavík is a smallish place, Örvar was microchipped, so Birkir checked with the shelter regularly hoping to get him back. No joy.
But here they are, reunited, seven years later. It would have been sooner, but when Örvar turned up at the shelter, all his microchip info was outdated and they had to Google for Birkir. Cat is skinny but otherwise well.
A pretty ordinary story, I realize, but it does give a small glimpse into the feline brain. The cat reacted strongly to the first sight of Birkier, apparently — lept to his shoulder and obsessively sniffed his hair and beard. If you scroll down this Icelandic version of the story, you’ll see pictures of the cat burying his face in the man’s hair.
Be careful if you translate the page, though. You’ll get a bit more information and a bit more weirdness.
For example, Google Translate tells me Kattholt is Icelandic for shelter. But Birkir Fjalar Viðarsson means Green Helen Foster Hematology. And, you know, I’m not sure that’s entirely right.
April 24, 2014 — 10:10 pm
Comments: 18
Weasel…my balls…where are they, Weasel?
We’ve had hectic day today; Mad Jack went in for the snip-snip this morning. He’s come back to us…a little loopy. Unsteady, pupils the size of saucers. He’s obsessed with getting out, going from door to window to back door and scratching at the woodwork and meeping. They told us to keep him in for 24 hours, so he’s out of luck, but it’s a trial.
Have you ever had an animal come back from general anesthesia a little wrong in the head? I sure hope he’s back to himself tomorrow.
Right! LesterIII takes the dick with Mickey Rooney! After all that drama, and all the times he was picked, the old coot was only 93? I expected a more impressive number.
That means Dead Pool Round 62 queues up on Friday. If anyone was thinking of picking Peaches Geldof, I’ve got some bad news for you.
I leave you with this moving tribute I made for Damien, my last kitty to have a snip ‘n’ chip back in 2006. Damian vanished two years later, probably looking for something he was missing.
April 7, 2014 — 8:15 pm
Comments: 29
Leader of the band
They’ve put ewes in the little field in front of the house, for lambing time is upon us. Which is nice. Today, I looked up to see the whole flock walking toward me. That’s an odd thing — sheep are shy of people. Particularly strangers. Particularly in strange places. Particularly at lambing time.
And then I spotted Jack, leading the parade. It was the oddest sight. The sheep weren’t trotting; they weren’t running him off. The were slowly walking, converging on him, like they were curious. And he was sashaying in front, calmly, waving his wild tail, not looking back, like he couldn’t give a ripe fuck.
He’s going to be trouble, this one. He’s had his first night out, and his first day outside while we ran errands. Last week, a cab driver spotted him sunning himself in the middle of the road and carried him to the nearest house. That would be our neighbor next door, who said he not only waltzes into her house like he owns the place, he wanders in and out of the house next door to her.
I tried to make the appointment for the ol’ snip snip, but ran into scheduling problems. I don’t imagine it’ll slow him down much.
March 18, 2014 — 10:08 pm
Comments: 18
Things that are crazy
Mad Jack, as he looks tonight relaxing on the sofa. Since you haven’t seen him in a while. I don’t know why he looks grumpy (maybe because I’m pointing a camera at him). The weather is finally improving a little here (sorry, ‘Muricans) and he’s having a spectacularly good time dashing up and down the lawn. Oh, how we worry about the road.
In other insane news, did you catch this thing in the New Republic, about how Vladimir Putin actually might be a little cray-cray? I know, I know…TNR. But this is their hired Putin-watcher, and it’s worth a read. This is Vlad at today’s press conference:
So I don’t know what happened there. It’s unclear. But did you see the bullets piercing the shields of the Berkut [special police]. That was obvious. As for who gave the order to shoot, I don’t know. Yanukovich didn’t give that order. He told me. I only know what Yanukovich told me. And I told him, don’t do it. You’ll bring chaos to your city. And he did it, and they toppled him. Look at that bacchanalia. The American political technologists they did their work well. And this isn’t the first time they’ve done this in Ukraine, no. Sometimes, I get the feeling that these people…these people in America. They are sitting there, in their laboratory, and doing experiments, like on rats. You’re not listening to me. I’ve already said, that yesterday, I met with three colleagues. Colleagues, you’re not listening. It’s not that Yanukovich said he’s not going to sign the agreement with Europe. What he said was that, based on the content of the agreement, having examined it, he did not like it. We have problems. We have a lot of problems in Russia. But they’re not as bad as in Ukraine.
She (the reporter) claims that’s pretty close to verbatim, and he rambled on like that for an hour. Also, Angela Merkel (who’s pretty sympatico with Vlad) said he was in “another world” after talking to him on the phone. Also (I can’t source this, I forgot where I read it, but ever’body’s talking about it) he claims those aren’t Russian troops in the Crimea. They’re locals, loyal to Russia, who just bought themselves Russian military uniforms, which you can totally get at Wal*Mart. Or something.
Honestly, I think the only reason our top guys never go entirely nuts is that they have a maximum of eight years to go loopy in.
March 4, 2014 — 11:54 pm
Comments: 9
Mad Jack’s toy, the movie
By popular acclaim — okay, one of you guys asked for it, don’t remember who — here’s a YouTube of Mad Jack playing with his kitten maddener. If you look in the sidebar next to the video, you’ll see many other people posting vids of their cats playing with the same toy. Because this is the internet, and that’s what billions of dollars of network development was destined to do. Apparently.
Back here tomorrow for Round 60 of the Dead Pool.
If we don’t wash away in the night.
February 6, 2014 — 11:24 pm
Comments: 14
Just in from the States…
You know, when I get a package from home, it’s only reeeeeesonable to expect it might be something nice for me. But no.
This dingus is a battery-operated cat-maddener. It’s got a thing that sticks out the side with a feather on it, and a motor that makes it go round and round — random directions and speeds — with a rip-stop nylon cover so el Pusso only gets glimpses of it stuttering around under there.
I had to turn it off and hide it eventually. I thought Jack was going to have a seizure.
February 5, 2014 — 11:54 pm
Comments: 18
kittehsaurus
If it looks like we got double fangage going on up there, it’s because we do. That big one is shoving aside the little one in front (or the other way around; I’m not sure). Kitteh is teething.
At around four months of age, the permanent incisors will start to come through and when the kitten is around 6 months of age the adult canines will come through. From eight months on, the premolars and molars will start to emerge.
What’s that you say? Several more months of this grumpy thumb-chewing fangasaurus?
January 21, 2014 — 11:38 pm
Comments: 16
So. Here we are.
Yesterday was Twelfth Night, the traditional end of the Christmas festivities (if you’re in the BBC viewing area and you missed the Tudor Monastery Farm series, go watch it. Or at least the Christmas special).
So, Christmas is over, and here we are again.
I call this picture, “kitten on my goddamned desk, goddamn it.”
January 7, 2014 — 12:41 am
Comments: 17
Lookit the size of him!
Fuck politics, it’s Christmas.
I’d hoped to have an adorable picture of Jack climbing the Christmas tree, or eating tinsel, or whathaveyou, but he is *completely* unimpressed with said tree. Even though it’s a lovely smelly one. So here he is on the roof. Again.
He’s getting a little heavy and slide-y for this lark.
Right. Back here. Tomorrow. 6pm WBT. Dead Pool Round 56!
Because nothin’ says “happy holidays!” like betting on the death of celebrities.
December 19, 2013 — 11:43 pm
Comments: 20