Tagged: black cat

All black cats do not look the same.

I love black cats. I don’t know why. I also love the color black. I’m not goth or anything, it just matches with things so well. And it’s slimming.

Fatty, he lives with my mom, he’s rotund (as the name implies). He’s got medium length hair so he’s extra fluffy, and he’s got big, wide greenish-gold eyes.

Large and in charge.

Jager, he was our little kitten that we lost to FIP (I always want to write about him but it’s too personal to a story for me to share just yet), he was wiry and had amber colored eyes.

Jager, my boo.

Moosh, he’s a big boy (like a panther, not like Fatty) and his eyes change color, but they’re mostly midway between Fatty’s and Jager’s.

Lurkin’ like a panther.

They all look completely different to me. When we lost Jager, the boyfriend didn’t want another black cat, because he felt like it would remind him of Jager too much. To me, this is like saying all girls with blonde hair look the same. That’s ridiculous. Moosh won him over anyway, so that was a moot point. When I talked him into a 2nd, I wanted another black one, but he thought it would be confusing. This is why we don’t have children. What if we had twins? Chaos would ensue. Also a moot point, because Taco came along, and although he has a black brother, I didn’t have much choice in the matter, because Taco was up for grabs, not his brother Zorro.

You can barely see Zorro, but that’s brotherly love.

So because all cats have slightly different facial features, eye shape, eye color, etc., it greatly surprises me when I browse around other cat blogs to see pictures of kitties that look strikingly similar to my own. This is not to say I couldn’t pick mine out of a lineup. Moosh has one little fu manchu whisker on his chin and stray white hairs here and there that I know the exact placement of. Taco has a freckle on his head and a little one on his chin.

I can usually even tell which one of them is sleeping on my feet at night, just by moving. Moosh is more bulk. Taco is more snake. He just melts into wherever he is.

Last night I was out with some friends, including the one who gave us Taco. She still has Zorro, and the momma of the two. We often compare kitty stories, but her boyfriend hadn’t heard them before and was amazed to hear that they’re so similar even though they’ve grown up in two totally different environments. Granted, my friend is one of the awesomest people that I know and a fellow crazy cat lady, so I’m sure the parenting skills are on par with my own, but cats do form their own personalities so it is pretty interesting that their genetics have such an effect on them. They’re both loud, jump chest high and get into EVERYTHING. Zorro doesn’t pee on their couch though. I got the lemon. But lemon cats are my THING, apparently, so I roll with it.

Sigh. This makes me want another black cat.

 

 

Cats in the wild? Nah, they’re pussies.

Sometimes I’m half tempted to let my cats out just to see how they would really interact with other animals. They’ll spend hours cackling at a non-moving lizard just outside the window. Taco stares down Stella, the big Boxer that lives a few houses down (she’s actually afraid of him, this amuses me).

Notice the tail thwacking.

The other day there was a random turtle on the sidewalk. Snapper turtle.

Those things have bigger claws than the cats do and a dinosaur tail. The cats didn’t see it, but Stella sure did. Her owner was holding her back while we studied it, and probably for good reason. I think “snapper turtle” is an apt name.

Stella has no idea.

Anyway, I occasionally wonder how my spoiled little brats would react without a window barring them from actual contact and smell. Would they be so big and bad? Or would they cower in the corner like Taco does when people he doesn’t know come into the house? The bunnies that eat the grass outside in the morning don’t look all that concerned. Nor does the giant neighborhood stray that comes by to ‘bow up every once in awhile. My guys act all big and mighty but I’m guessing they really wouldn’t know what to do with themselves. I’m fairly certain they would starve within days. Their natural instincts have been replaced by recognizing me and the boyfriend as the giver of food. I’m certain they have lost all intrinsic knowledge of how to catch their own food. With how much they fight, they have a better chance of catching and eating each other. I think Moosh would win. He’s bigger, even though he lets Taco push him out of the way to eat his food.

I will give them this — they are excellent bug chasers.

Taco is not, in fact, admiring the fine velvet painting of kittens I found at a thrift store. There’s a bug in the light.

But, as the crazy cat lady and overbearing kitty mommy that I am, my fear of them getting outside FAR outweighs my curiosity, so they’re safe…for now. Until someone pukes on my brand new sneakers. Then their asses are on their own.

Imma be lazy like a cat.

So I’m just posting more pictures of Moosh Moosh’s wacky hi-jinx.

Maybe he wanted a beer?

Overzealous moosh-facing.

So kind of Moosh to allow Daddy to put his head on the pillow.

This is Moosh after accidentally snorting drywall dust. Drugs are for losers, kitty.

My million-dollar idea. Bottled kitten love.

Hi! I’m a kitten. Love me!

There are very few people on this earth that can look at a baby kitten and be disgusted. Even the hardest of individuals can’t look a kitten in the eye and not at least THINK “awwwwwwwww.” There are, of course, the people who are unfeeling towards kittens, Moosh Moosh having been the victim of one of them, and I say this without a sliver of joking, they should be maimed. Death penalty is not even good enough. Not the point today, though. Today, I’m sharing my million-dollar idea. I’m sharing this because it’s an impossible million-dollar idea, so if someone actually takes this idea and makes it work, I tip my hat to you. You deserve the millions.

No one can resist this.

Bottling kitten cuteness. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there are a lot of jerks in this world these days. I can be one of them, but I usually like to reserve it for people who deserve it, like the people who don’t use turn signals or who grab my arm without warning to “look” at my tattoos. So if I could just bottle the “awww” factor kittens have, and spray it like mace, the world would be a much better place. “What’s that, Bin Laden? Terrorism? Have some kitten.” Boom. Problem solved. We might even be able to save America this whole healthcare debate. Who can possibly get sick when you’ve been dosed with kitten?

LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE

So you see, this is an amazing idea. However, without putting an actual kitten in a spray bottle (as a vegan and animal rights activist I can see this would be a very bad way to go about it), it is an impossible one. How sad.

Hey scientists, how about you stop making expensive prescription drugs that no one can afford anyway and get on this? Except for you Hadron Collider people, you stay on that. That’s good stuff. Keep it up.

Zombie parasites in my brain from cat poop.

During lunch at work, I peruse the news sites and keep up with all the latest happenings. I do very much enjoy keeping up with the most current events, like the Higgs-Boson particle likely being found. As a science nerd, I am SUPER excited about that one. But then, yesterday, I came across this. Cat Parasite Linked to Suicide Among Women. I mean, REALLY? This Toxoplasma gondii crap lurks in cat poop, waiting to get in your brain. It’s mostly harmless, I guess, unless you’re pregnant, but now it seems that’s spread to all women, because you may be 1.5 times more likely to end it all. This is not welcome news. I have never understood suicide, although I’ve had friends who have gotten that far. I like to wallow in stuff for a few days and then perk up. I’ve noticed the older I get, the more crotchety I get, but I certainly haven’t even remotely contemplated the unthinkable act of doing away with myself. I like myself WAY too much for that. I have, on occasion (ok, maybe a lot), felt the urge to wring some necks, but not my own.

This little brat is often at the top of my hit list.

I’m pretty sure with the amount of cat poop I’ve shoveled in my lifetime that it’s unlikely I’m NOT parasited. And I am not the best at washing my hands. I am from the “whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” school of thought. After the bathroom, yeah. And after the gym. For some reason the gym disgusts me enough to thoroughly wash my hands afterwards.

Gettin’ his parasites all up in my lap.

Anyway, back to my zombie brain. This story is incredibly fascinating. They found that in rats, this parasite gets in a part of their brains that makes them unafraid of cats, and instead gets all hot and bothered by evoking a sexual response. This, in turn, makes the rat more likely to be eaten by the cat, ensuring the parasite ends up where it really wants to be — in the kitty gut. This is a smart mother-effin’ parasite. Humans don’t even totally understand how the brain works but this parasite is all up in there, making you do stuff. A regular puppeteer.

Maybe I should leave my brain to science. I probably have a ton of parasites in there.Who knows what else is lurking?

So in conclusion, if anyone notices me being mopey for more than 3 days (this is the usual time limit I allow myself for moping), please call the CDC and tell them my cat made me a zombie and to please do something about it.

Ok, so maybe this is more “duck face” than sad, but I don’t have any sad pics of myself.

A plea to Jackson Galaxy.

I really wish Jackson Galaxy would come to Florida. I watched the first show of the new season of My Cat From Hell last night and while it’s great and all, I am NOT taking Taco for a walk around the block here, which was one of his suggestions for a Bengal on the show. Maybe that works in California and New York but I can just imagine the flea party that would ensue here. Plus, Taco absolutely hates fresh air. He freaks out. Which in turn, will stress him out, which will cause a flare-up of his Feline Idiopathic Cystitis and then he will pee in MORE inappropriate places. I still have a shower curtain and puppy pads on my couch. And a weekly spraying of cat stay-off spray, whatever that is.

My cats have some of the same issues these cats on the show have, but there’s always something just different enough that his solutions won’t work for me. Moosh bites randomly. Sometimes I can tell when he’s about to by a tail thump but sometimes it’s out of the blue. He’ll be purring, belly up getting pets when BAM! Bite. It’s not a certain spot that I touch…I’ve poked and prodded to check. I know what DOES provoke him, and according to last night’s episode, I am not supposed to be doing what I do, which is using my hand as a toy. I pet his head backwards and smush his face, and his eyes get big and black and he lunges as I move my hand away. Sometimes this ends badly for me. But I can immediately get him out of attack/play mode by putting my face in his face. It’s like his off switch. It’s like he knows face is a no scratch zone, and he nuzzles. Here’s the thing, though…Moosh is such a weird cat that he’s not really into toys. He has a passing interest in some occasionally and that’s about it. Taco, on the other hand, plays with anything and everything. He must know I’m writing about him because 5 minutes ago he was DEAD asleep on the bed and he’s just entered the room meowing at me. He is a SUPER attention hog.

“Can I get on the ceiling?”

Jackson also says that cats are either tree dwellers or bush dwellers. Moosh is definitely a tree dweller, he wants to be on top of everything. I found him in my cabinet once. Next to the clean glasses. Taco has no interest in jumping on much unless there’s something for him to mess with. He can, however, jump chest high. I wish I had a better camera that was capable of catching him in a leap, because it’s really a sight to see. I assume that’s the Bengal in him. I don’t know what any of this means in terms of making my cats behave better, though.

I was tempted to buy a cat wheel for Taco to get out his energy, as I saw on an older episode. I found out they are rather expensive. I decided running up and down the stairs is exercise enough.

Kitten Taco! I forgot he was ever that small.

In summary, PLEASE COME TO MY HOUSE, JACKSON GALAXY! I know that my cats are not threatening lives but I would like to use my couch again. And sleep in a little on weekends. And make Taco stop eating Moosh Moosh’s food. And find out why Moosh licks blinds, which isn’t harmful but really freakin’ weird.

You can never have too many posts about litter boxes.

Today, I have been very productive. I went to Target, Michael’s, the gym AND the beach (Debby left AMAZING weather in her wake, even if she did take an awful lot of the sand dunes with her, too). And I even took half of the recycling to the recycling place! I can’t get too excited about that one. It’s literally a 5 second drive. But YAY TO ENVIRONMENTALLY-FRIENDLINESS!

Not gonna lie, I love living in Florida.

I’m not looking forward to my next task, though. Reconfiguring the downstairs litter box placement.

So we added the 3rd box downstairs in hopes it would give Taco an alternative to peeing on the couch. It’s worked out MOST of the time, but he still has his moments.

Anyway, the perfect place for a corner-style box was in the “dining room” that we don’t use as a dining room or really anything else. And this is fine. However, the boyfriend’s mom is coming to visit and the only good place to put an inflatable bed is in that very same space. Considering the boys have made that their favorite pooping place and therefore considering the stench, it’s going to have to be moved. That’s just not nice. I love the boyfriend’s mom. If she was an evil in-law, I’d probably consider leaving it but she is most definitely on the good side.

I’ve heard cats are rather finicky about change, and although mine seem to take most things in stride except for the vacuum cleaner and mattress delivery people, I’m slightly concerned with a) where to put it and b) if they are going to have, literally, a shit fit.

Even being sandwiched by work boots doesn’t faze Taco.

It feels like such a daunting task that it almost seems easier to clear the 2nd bedroom of my craft things and put her there, except there’s a litter box here, too, and my closet and bathroom (I highly recommend separate bathrooms and closets in a relationship — I think it’s the key to longevity).

There’s also other cleaning involved in preparation. Not looking forward to that either. I’m not the cleanest person on earth. Even when I try, I’m still messy.

But I suppose this is enough procrastination. SIGH.

Moosh enjoys the peacefulness of the closet. Perhaps I can hide there too.

Kitty mommy guilt.

He luffs me.

I admit, sometimes I’m not the best kitty mommy. For example, I let the boys go without wet food for almost an entire week because I kept forgetting to go buy some (but then, I also forgot to take back my Redbox movies for a week too, I might as well just keep them at this point). In all fairness, there was a tropical storm going on earlier in the week that hindered errands a bit, and I do work two jobs. But I felt bad at my forgetfulness nevertheless.

Sometimes I forget to clean the litterbox. This is rather hard to do when there is a big stinko in there, but if there’s not or it’s covered well I’m prone to forget. Then I feel awful when I finally do and discover they’ve been slogging around in 10 pounds of waste.

I also don’t completely change out the litter every 2 weeks. I let it go sometimes. I’m pretty sure this is bad.

So forlorn and hungry!

When it’s kitty dinnertime, if I am doing something more important, I make them wait. I also don’t completely clean their dishes all the time, or at least as well as I should. This is shameful.

On occasion, I torture them for my own amusement, like holding them on my lap and laughing at them as they struggle to get away. The horror!

So tired from being mistreated.

Once, I left Taco in my car for 3 minutes while I went inside a store on the way home from the vet. It was a very nice and un-hot day, and I was parked in the shade, but I felt like I deadbeat mom as I waited in line and craned my neck to look out the window.

I’m not even remotely the best kitty mom in the world, but I justify it by telling myself that my love for them is so enormous that it eclipses my bad momminess. So far, that still assuages the guilt.

More stuff about cats and tropical storms.

That’s my back patio.

Ok, so it wasn’t just Debby’s outer bands that hit us…Debby has been a bitch for 3 days now. I put too much trust in the CONE OF UNCERTAINTY (I freaking LOVE saying that, even better if you say it through an empty paper towel roll), as I discovered shortly after my last post. I ventured out only to the grocery store Sunday, and had we not been out of beer and needed something for dinner, I wouldn’t have gone out. It is, however, a good thing that I went when I did, because it got a lot worse and there were pictures of submerged cars in the parking lot of the Publix I went to. As it was, I was doing 35 the whole way. Yesterday all the bridges were closed, which didn’t really affect me because I didn’t need to leave my little peninsula. But a lot of people were seriously inconvenienced, which is, I suppose, better than submerged.

This was on my way TO the store. It was a lot worse on my way back. If you look at the left side of the other side of the road, that is an Applebee’s in a shopping center that also holds my Publix, and where a car submerged later.

Other than being really good snugglers, cats have this to offer over dogs (yeah, I know dogs snuggle too, but that’s not the point here): THEY DON’T NEED TO BE WALKED. Although I complain about the litter boxes constantly, during 3 days of gusting wind and sideways rain, I appreciate it very, very much. This is not to say that I don’t feel bad for the dog people. I am friends with many dog people, and I have heard all their stories and sympathize appropriately. Unfortunately, nature calling does not trump Mother Nature, which if you think about it, is really a conundrum.

YAY LITTER BOXES!

So for this, kitties, I am grateful that you take your nasty dumps in my living space. I also have to give credit to the Litter Genie, it works splendidly and worth every dime.

Moosh sleeping on my galoshes.

Tropical storms make good kitty cuddle days.

This is actually during a lighter portion of the downpouring.

We aren’t TECHNICALLY getting hit with the tropical storm, although it wouldn’t be my first. As a girl born and raised in the SUNNY (hint, hint Mother Nature!) state of Florida, I’m used to it. In fact, where I live is actually a peninsula ON the peninsula of Florida, so I’m really effed if a hurricane comes a knockin’. But it hasn’t…yet. One of my first memories is Hurricane Elena, she came around when I was 3. The eye never really came on land here but most of it did, so we evacuated to what would later be my high school. Fun times.

Back to today. Tropical Storm Debby may be going to Texas, but she is dropping a lot of her back end over here. It hasn’t stopped raining all day. The kind of rain that isn’t even worth venturing to the grocery store in, even if you have really cute pink leopard print galoshes like me. It’s floody, windy, nasty rain. Every time I think it’s getting lighter, it starts deluging again.

So really, perfect weather for doing the work that I am supposed to do this weekend anyway. Oh, and laundry. Supposed to finish that too. But I haven’t started it yet, because Moosh decided he wanted to cuddle, and I can’t say no to a cuddle. I guess he doesn’t like rainy days either. He headbutted me so hard it hurt. Violent snuggler.

Never regretted a kitty snuggle.

So I have wasted a large part of my day already in bed with a book and a cat. But really, is there any other way one SHOULD spend such a craptastic day?