Tagged: cat
Lil Bub Makes My Day.
I don’t know if you crazy kids are into the instagram these days, but I sure am. I keep my “celebrity” following to a minimum, as I really would prefer to see pictures of my own friends (I make exceptions for Justin Timberlake and 2Chainz) but I do follow a few “famous” cat accounts.
You may or may not be familiar with these kitties. There’s @adventuresofbarry, he’s just cute. 
Grumpy Cat (she’s trademarked so I’ll just link to her webpage here)
@samhaseyebrows (so adorably questioning!) 
and my newest favorite, Lil Bub. 
Lil Bub makes me squeal with glee. SO FREAKING CUTE. And it was just announced yesterday that Bub is the focus of a new documentary that’s just been accepted to the Tribeca Film Festival. I really don’t care what it’s about, as long as there’s Bub in there, I’m happy. I was excited to learn that Lil Bub has quite fashionable gear for sale at reasonable prices as well, so I bought a tank top and a calendar. This made my day. PLUS…part of the proceeds go to charitable animal stuff and the rest goes to (QUITE SMARTLY) Bub’s food fund. The humans for these cats sure know how to grab on to their 15 minutes of fame. Shit, I’ve been reaching for mine for almost a year now doing this blog expecting to get discovered.
Unfortunately, as adorably unique as my kitties are, and no matter how much I know I could EASILY pick my boys out of a lineup of seemingly identical ones, they do not have funny fur colors that make them look like they have eyebrows or an eternally sticking out tongue. No, mine are just full of personality, the kind of bratty personality that kind of shows up in pictures and refuses to move an inch for video. I don’t even bother trying to catch these little imps in action anymore, they have a sixth sense for knowing when the camera’s rolling and stop doing anything remotely interesting immediately. DAMMIT, CATS. DO SOMETHING TO EARN YOUR KEEP.
Kitties for my birthday.
It’s my birthday! I’m thirty-one. I have officially been old enough to drink legally for TEN YEARS. My god, that thought is horrifying. I remember how far away 21 seemed when I longed to be able to buy my own beer, and now I’m 10 years from that on the other side.
If you’re wondering why I’m writing a blog post instead of doing something fun and exciting to celebrate, it’s because it’s miserable outside. The weather is always a little flaky on my birthday but it’s not usually outright COLD. And it’s cold. Sunny, but windy and and cold. And since I’m still expelling an ungodly amount of mucus, I’m not willing to suffer through it for even a spring training baseball game, which the boyfriend lovingly offered up even though his back’s all screwed up and I know he isn’t impressed with the weather either. Now that I think about it, it was really windy on my birthday last year too, but it was HOT. I passed up a beach day because of the wind since getting sandblasted is NOT fun (I was also really hungover). So I’m here with the boyfriend, who is laying in bed with his bad back, and the kitties, who are sleeping on the couch next to me and in the cubby hole of the cat tree. 
The boyfriend took me to get vegan pancakes this morning only for us to discover that the place serving the vegan pancakes is in fact no longer open. It was a truly lovely thought, though. And he got me vegan cupcakes!
Apparently everyone knows what I like, as most of my cards are cat-related. 
One meows the birthday song, which confused the hell out of the boys. Searching all over for the singing kitties.
I also got this amazing book, I Could Pee on This.
I also got a Richard Dawkins books, of which the title could ironically also refer to cats.
Poems by a cat. I assume they were dictated to a human. I had fun annoying the boyfriend while reciting some of them to him. Highly amused.
Except for the stupid weather, I feel loved and adored in my advanced age. I’ve had well-wishes and presents from all over, particularly on facebook, which makes one feel rather popular. Tonight I will drink with some friends and will attempt some sort of moderation, as hangovers have only gotten worse for me the older I get. We’ll see how that works.
Victorious!
I have accomplished a major goal today, on my 3rd day of vacation, and it’s only 8:30am (I’m a morning person, what can I say? I can’t sleep in). This means that I can officially spend the day lounging around reading if I so desire, and ignore the to-do list I already made. I just started a good one. I laughed about the writer’s name but it turns out she’s rather good. Joanna Trollope. I think I enjoy British writers more than American. Something about their cadence, I suppose. I will, however, read anything and everything, so long as something hooks me enough to find out what happens.
This goal goes back to the cat tree. I’m sure you’re all quite sick of hearing about the damn cat tree, and unless something incredibly fascinating happens with it someday, this will be the last I directly reference it. My dreams of the cat tree were mostly for Moosh, as he is a “tree dweller” sort of cat. I base this diagnosis on more than a few facts: he perches on my shoulders, he’s been found on more than a few occasions on top of the cupboards (once IN the cupboards), and he sits on top of the office bookcase. Taco just likes to go wherever, being UP on things isn’t that exciting to him. He just wants to be where the action is. I thought he’d enjoy the scratching stuff, though.
But guess who’s been using the cat tree more? Taco.
I don’t know what he’s looking at. Maybe the stickers numbering the pieces that REFUSE to come off. Ugh.
At first, I thought it was just him being a brat, taking over whatever space Moosh would want, but I tried putting Moosh on the highest part of the tree and he would either just jump down or step onto my shoulders and jump to the ground from there. Moosh HAS enjoyed the angled edges of the tree on various other levels, as he likes to smush his face against them. It looks very painful to me but it seems to be enjoyable for him. Whatever.
Turns out he just needed to do this on his own terms. Today, he got on the 2nd highest level. I managed to coerce him up to the next with promises of face smushes. And he stayed! I even walked away and he stayed. And realized that he had a pretty freakin’ good view.
King’s view.
MOMMY ALWAYS KNOWS BEST, BEYOTCH.
Update: For no apparent reason today, I caught Moosh on top of the fridge today, where he hasn’t been seen in months, who then, upon being spotted, made a run across the cupboards, then back again to the fridge and then down the minute I sat up to attempt a picture. This is what the cat tree was supposed to solve. Sigh.
Old cats and ex-mommy status.
My mom works weekends, because she has her awesomely fabulous bookstore to run (Sam’s Books, in Oldsmar, Florida, if you’re ever in town, please check her out). My birthday is Saturday, and of course this is a busy day for her, so we celebrated together yesterday. My mother is probably the reason I regard birthdays so highly, as she always acts as if mine is a holiday. We went out to lunch, browsed around a bit then went back to her house where she had a piece of vegan cake waiting for me. Man, I love cake. I love cake like a fat kid loves cake. If I ever lose that 20 pounds (that would still keep me in a perfectly normal range, so no, I do not have body dysmorphic whatever) that I’ve been threatening to lose for the last 16 or so years, I’m going unvegan for a day and eating an entire Publix cake. Because Publix has the best freakin’ cakes ever. I also got to grab a big stack of books which means I will probably not get all the things accomplished that I threatened to accomplish on my time off.
Being at my mom’s means I get to hang out with my kitties. Who I realized, are really now her kitties. Although I picked them both out as babies and was their mommy for the majority of their lives, I am only mildly tolerated now.
Even Fatty’s eyes are fat. I heart my big boy.
Fatty, my fat fat fat baby, doesn’t even do our choreographed stretch when I pick him up just the right way anymore. Of course, he IS turning 16 this year. And he wasted no time gaining back all the weight he lost when he almost died of anemia.
The other baby, Little, has never really been anyone’s cat. He keeps to himself. He allowed me to pet him briefly but was quite clear in letting me know that he was only humoring me.
There’s something sad about ex-mommy status, even though I have two boys of my own at home. I would probably be more upset about it if I didn’t take into account the reasons that I didn’t uproot them when I finally moved out of my mom’s house at the ripe old age of 24, those being that I rent (they’ve been freely allowed to scratch everything forever) and I didn’t want to separate them from my mom, who of course is an amazing mother (obvs, you can see how well I turned out). She’s good for them. I’m ok with being the sister. Besides, color-wise, I have an identical set here (black and a tabby). Life is good.
Side note, I got to go through a bunch of old stuff yesterday including my old dance costumes. I wish they still fit. I’m not kidding when I say I would prance around the house in them.
HOW CUTE IS THIS??? It ALMOST makes me want a kid. Almost. Not really. I just want to wear it.
I love analogies.
So far, I’m enjoying my first day of mini vacation, although the boyfriend woke me up at 6:30 to tell me I was supposed to be at work, then remembered that I was off and apologized, but I was only half asleep at that point anyway, since I had to pee and Moosh, the good son, has an incredibly astute sense of when Mommy has to pee so he purposefully (I swear, he only does it when I have to pee) steps on my bladder. I slept in till 7. This is ok, it’s better than 5:30, and to boot, I didn’t have to get dressed. I’ve been lounging around reading all morning (I turned on the TV for a bit but all the morning shows have crap about the Pope and as a recovering Catholic, NOT INTERESTED) except for some playtime with the kitties and coughing fits.
Not this lazy when it’s FOOD TIME! Lil jerk.
This sickness has a give and take relationship. Sure, the first few days I felt too icky to do anything, but “anything” included eating so it’s not as if I needed to work out. Now I’ve graduated to having my appetite back but I can’t really taste anything so as long as its warm, I’ll eat it, so I’m going with healthy options. Why waste tasty food on the tasteless? I vaguely considered working out this morning but I am afraid that the other gym-goers will rise up and kick my coughing ass out of there, even if I point out to them that I cover my mouth and that I’m not really sick anymore, it’s just the remnants working their mucus-y way out. However, I realized this morning that my abs are REALLY FREAKING SORE. I mean, “I took 5 pilates classes in a row” sore. This leads me to assume that I am burning MASSIVE amounts of calories coughing, and I might even get a 6-pack out of the deal! Now I’m thinking being sick isn’t SO bad. I’m not an eternal optimist, but I am a hopeful realist, so really, looking at the bright sides of crappy situations is just like a contingency plan.
As for the title of this post, I had an epiphany this morning, after a particularly productive coughing session. I felt like I’d accomplished something. I felt a little lighter. A little freer. And then I realized: THAT is how the kitties feel after the litter box. THAT is why they do the poop run. I would have done a lugie (is that how you spell it? Is that even a real word?) run except I thought that would make me cough more and therefore ruin the effects of the mucus expunging.
I can relate anything to anyone with an analogy. I love them.
Using my death bed productively.
Taco doesn’t care about my plight. One day of kitty snuggles with ol’ Sicko was enough for him. He’s busy with his new CAT TREE friend. Hmph.
I’m still sick. I love how optimistic I always am at the beginning of getting sick, as though THIS TIME is gonna be the time that I’m gonna whoop this sucker and get it out of my system in 24 hours. What, yours hung on and became pneumonia? Not gonna be a problem for me, because I’M KICKIN’ SICK’S ASS RIGHT NOW! And then the next day you wake up, test things out, snot starts flowing again, and you lose a little more hope. Usually I only feel like total crap for 2 days on a cold and then the rest is just getting out mucus in various ways, a la coughing fits, neti potting and nose blowing. I’m on day 4 and am now just beginning to feel like I’m in control of my brain again. Does your brain shut your brain down to conserve energy to fight germs? Seems efficient. Although not helpful at work.
To make matters better, this was also the week that I picked as my first vacation of the year at Big Brown, and decided to take a few days off the real job as well. Because…IT’S MY BIRTHDAY WEEK! I know that some people don’t think birthdays are all that important or exciting but I grew up as an only child so my understanding of it is that it is MY DAY so everyone in the land should celebrate ME! I may be turning 31, but in my head, I’m still a bratty child. I wish my newly beginning wrinkles thought that. So today was my Friday, which I can’t really enjoy because drinking a) dehydrates, and I need to keep my mucus watery and b) isn’t all that good for your immune system. I’d rather get over this crap now than prolong it because I have some half-assed desire to celebrate a fake Friday.
To further destroy my ego, the weather, which has been borderline hot, is about to swiftly swoop to much lower lows (and lower highs) than I care for. And that, of course, ruins any silly dream I may have had of birthday beach days. This is why I could never have pool parties when I was a kid. My birthday weather was always “too unpredictable.” Bah to that. Anyway, that will activate my allergies, and in turn make the snot flow even more (if that’s humanly possible).
Since I’m not doing anything fun, I decided to read. Yesterday I really needed light reading, so I read some chick lit, which turned out to be teen books, but I enjoyed anyway. Today, since my brain is a little less foggy, I’m turning to non-fiction. I decided to finally read ALL the books in my house that are about cats that I’ve been meaning to read.
I think I already know the answer to the genius one…
Turns out I have only 3. I really thought I had more than that. So imma get down to business. Perhaps I’ll let you in on my knowledge tomorrow, since I am free from working duties for the next 5 days, albeit limited in the “fun activities” department. I have a to-do list, though…
I may be a crazy cat lady, but not crazy enough to eat cat hair.
This is as close as I wanna be.
I don’t usually watch those “Strange Addiction” shows because they’re essentially just freak shows on TV. I suppose my logic is flawed since I watch Jersey Shore, but watching people who most likely have mental issues is not my cup of tea. The other night, though, I did watch one episode. One, because there was a couple from Tampa on there and I was curious, and two, because the other featured addiction was this lady who ate cat hair. The couple from Tampa was odd, they’re addicted to coffee enemas. If you don’t know what that is, you’re not missing out. Apparently they’re supposed to have some major health benefits but I’d rather not find out. Anyway, you’re not supposed to spend 5 hours a day doing coffee enemas even if you DO believe in their health benefits. But they did. I don’t know where they find the time.
But this other lady, she was a normal (well, normal for me, she had a bunch of tattoos and looked like she was into punk or some other alternative genre) lady with cats. I didn’t have my entire attention on the show the whole time so forgive me if I don’t get the story just right, but it was something like one of her cats became ill, and while the cat was being nursed back to health, she started licking the cat as a mother cat would do to a kitten. I’m not sure if she read this was supposed to help the cat recover or feel more comfortable, but I assume so. I tried googling but I lost interest after two different search term attempts. Anyway, she decided she really liked the feel of the cat hair in her mouth, so she started eating it. She says now she finds clumps of fur, checks to see if they’re clean (how the HELL do you know if a clump of fur is clean? I’d really like to know the criteria on that) and then chews and eats it. Says she enjoys the texture, it’s like eating cotton. Um, who likes eating cotton?
Don’t eat sparkle balls, either.
Personally, I’m very annoyed when I get cat hair in my mouth. Particularly after I’ve just put on a coat of sticky lip gloss. Ugh. I’ll do a lot of weird things for my cats. I love them to death. They’re my children. And I know a lot of people don’t understand what *I* do. But eating cat hair is NOT going to make me feel closer to my cats. Petting them will suffice just fine. I didn’t watch the end so I don’t know if she got professional help for this addiction, but I sincerely hope so, because I imagine it has less to do with loving her cats (which I have no doubt that she does) than it does with some sort of unhealthy compulsion.
So please, if you saw that show and think that all self-proclaimed crazy cat ladies are indeed that crazy, we are not.
Not so patiently waiting.
I finally did it.
I bought a cat tree.
I’ve shared this fact with a few non-cat people, and their response is: “HA HA HA HA That’s a f*$#ing waste of money, you FOOL! You could MAKE that!”
Well, DUH. I’ve been saying this forever. And what HASN’T happened yet? It hasn’t been made. Which is precisely why I’ve waited until my cats are almost 5 and 3 years old to buy one. My poor, deprived kitties. All because Mommy is too freakin’ stubborn to go against her DIY ego and buy one. There’s also the fact that the nice ones are kind of expensive, and I’ve never really found one I liked. But I found one. Yeah, it’s a little more expensive than the traditional carpet-y ones, but it’s nice. It’s not AS nice as the ones I wrote about before, but it’ll do. Before I put the ol’ credit card number into the interwebz, I did way more research just to see if I could possibly find another one that I’d like better. Because it’s always my luck that as soon as I buy something, I find one much, much better. The only ones I found were, again, way out of my price range. Like this one from Urban Cat Design (in the NETHERLANDS):
Books and kitties. Two of my favorite things. (Real books, because this lady will NEVER own a damn eReader.)
So I bought the one that I talked about buying recently, the one that was reasonably priced compared to the ones I LOVED but couldn’t possibly justify spending so much money on. AND…this lady never buys anything on the interwebz without a coupon. So I got free shipping and $20 off to boot. Uh huh. I’m an awesome bargain hunter on expensive things. Like the $160 boots I got for $40. I really thought that one had to be a scam, but the boots are fabulous.
Now I wait. Because it’s coming from California. If I hadn’t held off for so long, I might have it this weekend to put together, but the boys are going to have to wait for next weekend, since I rarely have time or energy during the work week. Oh well. Moosh has been entertaining himself just fine with the silver ball of sparkles that are mostly strewn around the floor right now and I really should take away from him because Taco will eat the sparkles. Taco has a, um, sensitive butt, to put it nicely. The sparkles make it bleed a lil. Not serious, but unnerving. It’s so unfortunate because it literally is the ONLY toy that Moosh will play with, and he plays with it SO enthusiastically. Kitty mom is conflicted. Meh.
Now he can jump on his OWN furniture. HAH!
Kitty mommy problems, whatcha gonna do? Ooh, another rap song. Bam.
Kittehs turn frowns upside downs! (poetic license used there)
I had kind of a crappy day. Not the kind of crappy day where something goes horribly wrong, leaving one devastated and forlorn — just the kind that leave you feeling like your brain just put on little brain running shoes and participated in a triathlon. The kind where you start out like “Oh, it’s Friday, whatever happens today, it’s still Friday!” and ends with zombie-walking out an hour late, hoping no one who has another question sees you before you can make your escape. The kind where you’re not even finished putting out a fire when another fire jumps in. So by “bad,” I suppose I should say “challenging.” In the long run, I don’t mind these days. I work best under high stress, oddly enough, so although I may look frantic, I’m actually operating in my element. But at the time, all I can think is “WTF WTF WTF” and “No, I don’t have time to look at the YouTube video of my proofreader doing the Harlem Shake, are you crazy?” (It was made by my work, in case you’re wondering. We have a very strict policy encouraging FUN at work. Crazy, right? I still haven’t watched this. Memo: watch that.)
After I zombie-walked out, successfully avoiding any further work, all I wanted was a quiet drive home (I’d already decided to skip the gym…I already felt like I ran a marathon). However, this is FLORIDA, and every old hag who shouldn’t be driving at her advanced age is driving here. As I was stopped at a light, a lil ol’ lady HIT MY EFFING CAR. I mean, she just bumped it. She was shoving herself in my lane from the other lane, for reasons I still do not know. As I looked back screaming, I saw that she was totally clueless. But then, the light changed, and everyone started going. As I pondered what to do, I saw that the lady next to me had seen the whole thing and understood what was going on, so I made a motion asking if there was any damage to my car (I honestly have no idea what motion I made to convey this, but whatever I did was spot-on) and she looked back and shook her head. Then I had to stop again because the car in front of me did (this is what normal people do) and I swear to jeebus she must have been millimeters away from my bumper yet again. I decided that it was unlikely that it would be worth it to stop, as she seemed to not understand what the hell was going on and I figured that being arrested for elderly abuse would really put a cap on the ol’ day. So I turned left. She did not. Which was funny, because she SO needed to get in the left lane a mile back that she HIT MY CAR.
Then I got home. And Taco started meowing. And meowing. And meowing. And meowing. This is hard to admit, and I would never ever ever ever actually do it, I kind of wanted to boot him across the room. I know. I’m a horrible person. But I didn’t, and that counts, right?
I flung myself on the bed with a dramatic flair. Two seconds later, a meowing Taco-rocket came barreling in, almost overshooting. And…he sat on my lap.
Excuse my french, but this is fucking adorable.
I dare you to feel sorry for yourself when a kitten puddle melts on your lap, purring. Warm, cuddly love. The best part? He shut up.
Yeah. My day really wasn’t so bad.
Give me a card and you’re set.
Kitty loves sleep.
I don’t like romance. I mean, I love it in movies and books and stuff, but in real life, it creeps me out. Taking the trash out is so much more meaningful to me. A six-pack is better enjoyed than flowers that will die (don’t get me wrong, I love flowers, but I have to hide them in my bathroom or take them to work because the cats will eat them – also, I feel kinda bad about the death of pretty flowers in general). Being serenaded seems like it would be so UNCOMFORTABLE. Where does one look? No one actually gazes into their loved ones eyes whilst being sung to. No one gazes into their loved ones eyes at all, except maybe for a few seconds. If romance is your thing, I’m not knocking it. It’s just not mine. But as far as V-Day goes, I’m not into it. Besides, my birthday is less than a month away and I DO love celebrating my birthday.
Moosh loves being near his mommy.
The kitties got me a card this year. Amazing, particularly because they don’t have opposable thumbs, means with which to get to the store to buy a card, or jobs with which to pay for said card. I guess this makes it that much more amazing that they got me one. Of course, the boyfriend did too. After almost 10 years, he knows that while I don’t care for cheesy romantical crap, I love me a damn card. So impressed the kitties know this as well. Glad they didn’t try to sign it with paw prints. The last time that was attempted, it was our cat Jager, who made a paw print with Jagermeister on my Mother’s Day card. Yeah, that went over well.
But anyway, it was a regular ol’ day for me. Work, gym, then more work. I do feel a TEENY BIT MORE loved by all my boys tonight. Wow, that made me sound like a slut. Just to be clear, I meant the boyfriend and the 2 furry sons. Really.
MEOW hear this! 