Tagged: cats
A Caturday Tribute to the Mooshbear.
I think I probably post more pictures of Taco. This is not because he’s my favorite, it’s because he’s overly photogenic. Plus, he’s always in my face so he gets more picture opportunities, and he’s better than Moosh at not moving at the exact moment the picture is being taken. Also, Moosh, being all black, tends to end up looking like a black blob depending on what he’s laying on and the lighting.
So, because I had a hellish week that fried both my brain and my body (and because I’m extraordinarily lazy today), I’m not writing more than these introductory paragraphs and some captions. Instead, I bring you a tribute to my Boo Bear, the snuggly, perching elder son.
Soft Paws only stay on Moosh for the 1st 15 minutes after I put them on. He methodically removes each one the second I put him down.
He looks weird and possibly dead here.
Yet another awkward pic. He’s obviously mid-bath, but because his tongue isn’t out, he looks really stupid.
It’s a furry ball of Moosh!
Oh hai. Can ai help youz?
Now THIS is a good picture.
Can you teach old cats new tricks?
My mom is redoing her bathroom. While that may sound very fancy, please keep in mind that it is actually her ONLY bathroom, and has never been updated the entire time she’s lived there, save for some well-meaning wall painting I once started and never finished. And it’s rather small. Despite the fact that it’s rather small, she also shares it with the kitties’ shitbox and food dishes. I’m not sure at what point we decided this was a good place for these (I was 16 and living at home then so I have to assume part of the blame), or how much smaller the bathroom must have felt sharing it with two cats and a teenager, but this is where it has remained for two cats and 15 years.
Fatty making the stinkface.
Now, Fatty is, well, fat. And gettin’ up there in years. He also has longish hair and he’s too fat to lick his butt. Little is just weird. One of them is peeing/pooping outside the box at random intervals. Clean box, no less. This is, of course, frustrating, but I think it’s a frequent occurrence
What’s my dearly beloved madre planning to do, she says?
Have a cat door built in the back door so that they have free access to the sun porch and put the box out there.
This, on the surface, seems like a splendid idea. Fatty always runs (he’s pretty freaking fast for his size) out the back door when it’s open and chills out there. It’s totally enclosed, and other than not being insulated or air conditioned, it ensures the kitties remain indoor ones (as they all should be).
But. The ages of these cats. I don’t know that you can just pick up and move a litterbox that’s been in one place for as long as they’ve been alive. And while I can see Fatty venturing out through this new door, Little spends all his time hiding. He’s really not very adventurous. I’ve been trying to think about what Jackson Galaxy would say, and all I can think of is that he would say something like humans live around cats, not the other way around, so don’t stress them out by moving everything around. However, he HAS had people on the show move boxes around. And wouldn’t the kitties feel better doing their business without a human doing THEIR business staring at them?
So what do you think? Are they too old to move the crapboxes around? Or will they adapt? Will they like the cat door? What happens if only one of them likes the cat door? How big is the cat door going to have to be to accommodate Fatty?
Lookit this giant fleshy mound of fur.
This is the first time I’ve ever had (yeah, they’re still mine even though I don’t live with them anymore) a cat this old, so I don’t know how set in their ways they are. I rely on you, dear readers, with your multitudes of cats and experiences. Don’t let me down.
Furballs need to earn their keep.
Lil Bub has had me thinking. Maybe I CAN make money off my cats.
Granted, my boys aren’t internet sensations, nor do they possess such cuteness that comes from having a smushy face and a tongue that constantly sticks out, but I have a ton of marketing savvy at my disposal and at one time I did, in fact, consider myself an artist. Applied to art school and everything. I didn’t actually pursue it farther than that, despite having an excellent portofolio and letters of recommendation (not to took my own horn, but I wasn’t half bad except for painting — colors, argh), though, because I was an idiot at 18 (whoever allows 18-year-olds to make decisions that will affect them for the rest of their lives and results in wasting their talents for 13 years at Big Brown is also an idiot).
I’d wear this. Look at those photoshop skillz! I’m a genius. Of course, I’m banking on the fact that everyone loves neon as much as me.
So there’s all kinds of crap for sale on the internet. And apparently people make money off these things. Lil Bub, however, has hip, fun, quality merchandise. It sets him apart. His website is attractive and aesthetic and his pictures are always high quality. He’s not the only famous internet cat, but he’s the one with the documentary. So I need to start merchandising. Get off my retired artist ass and make MeowHearThis a brand. High fashion couture. I could even get the cats doing slave labor and make unique products with paw prints. Just put some paint on their paws and let them run around shit. I can charge more for one-of-a-kind items. God, this is brilliant. I think. Is it?
I probably shouldn’t be writing about this in the event that someone of lesser moral character steals my ideas, but it’s such a wacky pipe dream that I highly doubt anyone will feel it’s viable enough to even poach.
On the other hand, how much does a trademark cost?
Bohemian Rhapsody = Music to Annoy Your Cats By
Fun lil fact about Freddy Mercury: he was a crazy cat lady. He wrote a song for one of his many, and even had a “waistcoat” (it looks like a vest to me, but what do I know?) painted with all of his cats.
What a lovely man. And thoroughly missed. They just don’t make music like that anymore.
I’m sure Mr. Mercury would not be all that pleased (or maybe he would, who knows) to learn that I like to use one of his songs as accompaniment to cat torture.
How did this start?
Try holding your cat.
YOU LOVE MOMMY.
If yours are anything like mine, they will struggle, as if they are saying “Let me gooooo!”
That’s where it starts. I’ll start singing this to them as I attempt to force their wriggling bodies to sit on my lap.
“Mamma mia, mamma mia, mamma mia let me go”
“NO! I will not let you go! NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!”
This goes on until I’m sick of this particular exchange. As my cats are named Taco and Moosh, it’s only right that I use their names here:
Taco Moosh, Taco Moosh, can you do the fandango? THUNDERBOLTS OF LIGHTNING VERY VERY FRIGHTENING EEE!
I’m certifiable.
Lick it. Lick it good.
Taco is a lot of things. King Brat. Adorable snuggler. Unwanted alarm clock. Needy pain in the ass. Loud.
What he is not: graceful.
Sure, he may look like he’s got his shit together here, but It’s only because he’s asleep.
This is unheard of for a cat, right?
This occurred to me tonight as I watched my cats eat. If you think this is weird, you’ve never done it. It’s really quite fascinating. Why did I ever do this? Well, Taco is also Jabba the Effin’ Hut, and if I don’t stand over them watching, he’ll take over Moosh’s food. Somehow (I’m not entirely sure how this works) my hovering presence keeps Moosh comfortably eating and Taco in his own dish.
Anyway, I water down their food, because Moosh barely eats any wet food and because Taco needs to get more water to ensure he stays crystal blockage-free. So the first couple of minutes of them eating is really drinking meat water.
Have you ever watched ANY cat drink water? It’s practically an art. This comes from an article in the Washington Post:
“While a dog curls its tongue like a ladle to collect the water and then pull up what it can, a cat curves its tongue under and slightly back, leaving the top surface of the tip of the tongue to lightly touch the liquid. The cat then raises its tongue rapidly, creating an upward mini-stream of water. The cat snaps its mouth shut and the water is captured before the countervailing force of gravity pulls it down.
An average house cat, the team found, can make four of these mini-streams per second.
‘What we found is that the cat uses fluid dynamics and physics in a way to absolutely optimize tongue lapping and water collection,’ said Jeffrey Aristoff, now at Princeton University but who was one of the four researchers who began the study out of curiosity at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.”
This is actually a fairly recent study, from 2010. Kinda crazy it took that long to get around to cats drinking water, considering Darwin studied MOTHS and shit. Forever ago. God, I love science. The mechanics of EVERYTHING is so interesting. And of course, cats are interesting anyway. And of course, I do find it amusing that cats beat dogs in the lapping game. One more reason for them to be arrogant assholes, I suppose.
Back to Taco. He is, quite literally, retarded at drinking. Watching Moosh smoothly lap up his meat juice with a rhythm you could practically set a watch to…and then compare with Taco, who laps more like an irregular heart beat. It’s almost painful to watch. In my dreams, I can NEVER run at full speed or throw a punch with all my power. It’s always like I’m running through quicksand. I don’t know what this means, nor do I particularly care, but this is what Taco’s lapping reminds me of.
This was just the catalyst that opened my eyes to how ungraceful Taco really is overall.
1. Moosh perches on my shoulders with ease.
Moosh has this down.
So long as I give him the foothold, he’ll stand up there with very little wobbling and no claws. Taco, on the other hand, is like a Weeble Wobble, but he’ll sure as hell fall down, and he’ll take my skin down with him.
2. Taco still plays like a kitten.
Might wanna look at the target, dummy.
You know how cute kittens are when they grab at stuff? Just kinda uncoordinated and grabby, no real skill at hunting. Taco’s 3. He’s not even remotely a kitten. But his paws are.
3. He falls off shit all the time. No spatial reasoning. He’ll roll over…and right off the bed.
4. When he’s jumping for a toy, he sprawls in the air and can’t hand for shit. It’s like watching Cirque De Soleil if the performers were hammer drunk. Nor does he have any consideration for what he lands on, like my foot. Or the side table.
I will give him this: There is one arena in which Taco has no equal in fluidity. And that is grabbing treats out of your hand with both paws while standing on his hind legs, checking to make sure the treat is within his greedy little paws before calmly lowering his upper half to the floor and his paws to his fat face to eat. I don’t even understand how he’s the same cat, sometimes.
Then again…like mother, like son, I suppose. I am quite possibly the most ungraceful human to walk this planet (except when I dance, and that is probably debatable, although not with me, because I think I’m bout it bout it). I’m injured every other minute. I currently have inflamed rib cartilage (not something you ever want to do, by the way, but I hear better than actually breaking one, so you REALLY never want to do that), a giant, painful bruise on my wrist I have no recollection of achieving, and I’m vaguely sure I re-sprained my thumb the other night pulling my pants down to pee. I know. Sad. But I’ve learned to laugh about it, except not right now because laughing is no bueno with the ol’ ribs.
Who knew cats were so pinteresting?
In addition to my various other obsessions (e.g. Lil Bub, Words With Friends, Grey’s Anatomy, finding my million dollar idea), I love Pinterest. I kind of scoffed at the whole “Pinterest” thing when a few of my crafty friends told me about it early on, but I wish I’d listened to them then. Pinterest is a freaking WEALTH of information and good ideas. Holy crap. I have discovered SO many amazing things, and even tried them. There’s even a blog, Pintesting (tag line: fucking up pinterest pins so you don’t have to) about testing various Pinterest things, which is pretty damn funny. I have a friend who burned her hair trying a curling tutorial but I think so far I’ve had a good run. I have discovered the most AMAZING bath and sink cleaner, and there’s 3 ingredients. No scrubbing. You can check it out here, I would suggest looking at the rest of this blog too, because there are other really good ideas. You spray, let it sit for 15 minutes and then sponge it off. I’ve found it’s easier with a brush in the tub, though. But it works amazingly, which is good because our water is so hard it might as well be diamonds.
I’ve found some kickass recipes, although I can’t personally vouch for them because they’re all meat-filled ones that I made for the boyfriend (and for my friend at work, who I started taking portions to because the boyfriend gets sick of leftovers and also refuses to eat them after 3 days, but my friend will gladly accept and appreciate) but the consensus on everything so far is that the food was MWAH. Disclaimer: while I do follow the recipes, I tend to not measure EXACTLY and I add my own touches, so if your pinterest recipes suck, don’t blame me.
I also learned how to make a pouf with a ponytail, which I’m still trying to perfect, but it’s not half bad.
Hair has never really been my forte.
Also learned how to make smoky eyes, although they look better than this picture does them justice. I’m no amateur with makeup (my best friend is practically an artist and in the 16 years we’ve been friends, I’ve picked up a few things), but I thought I’d try it out and it was awesome! A slight exercise in frustration for me because my eyes are shaped differently so I can’t ever make them look the same no matter what I do. Thanks, genetics.
And then, there’s cats. So many cats.
A sampling of my “kitties” board. I especially love the cat/poop box ring!
I did join a group board, “Meow” for a few days but there were so many people posting on it, all I could see in my feed was cat stuff. This might sounds crazy, but I DO try to have other interests. And on top of the kitties I find through pinterest searching or seeing what my other cat-crazy friends pin, I have a place to neatly organize my internet cat craziness. This is fabulous. I’m a 21st century crazy cat lady.
And I really need to buy that “I F*CKING LOVE CATS” shirt. So I can alternate with my new Lil Bub shirt, of course.
The birth of the bathroom cat.
I’m no stranger to cats who like bathrooms. Our last kitten Jager used to sit on the toilet seat while I showered (creepy or no?). But recently Moosh has gotten a wild hair and become a creature of the bathroom. I keep my bathroom door closed because my counters are cluttered with makeup that I don’t feel like picking up off the floor every day (but I do anyway because I don’t have enough counter space for all my crap, way to give the boyfriend the bathroom with the giant counter, dumbass) so I suppose it’s kind of foreign land to him. But he’s been here for almost 5 years. The mystery should be over. The boyfriend’s bathroom, in our bedroom, is always open because there’s a shitbox in it. One Moosh never uses. The downstairs half bath, we keep that closed off too, because I would run into the door probably twice a day, and who wants guests to stare at your toilet?
So this new thing with Moosh. I realized it had become a permanent trend last night as I was in the downstairs bathroom doing my business, and I see a paw snake through the crack of the door, a black blur runs in and immediately jumps onto the counter. I sat there taking pictures (after I finished my business, of course, sorry for the mental picture, unless you like that sort of thing, in which case please stop reading my blog, you’re a weirdo) as he explored the countertop chock full of magical wonders. Like a sink. WTF.
SO EXCITING, ISN’T IT???
Oh, and the flash of the camera REALLY got him interested, because his other weird quirk is loving moving light.
Oh, is that MEEEEE? I’m so HANDSOME!
He’s also taken to jumping in my tub, although not while I’m in it. I’ll be doin’ up my face (what, you think I’m this gorgeous without help? I am, really. I just cover the wrinkles.) when I feel a slight rush of air on my calves. I don’t hear him, I don’t see him, but all of a sudden he’s in the tub. Just poking around.
And he always looks like he’s ready to take a dump, which he has never (to my knowledge) attempted. Can you say “photogenic”?
He won’t come out until I come out of the bathroom.
Every once in awhile, when he can’t be found, he’s in the boyfriend’s tub. No apparent reason. Not sleeping. Again, just poking around. Not even licking the water. Just, you know, wanting to see what’s up.
This is all fairly new. Is he having some sort of midlife crisis? I would worry if it seemed sick-like but he just seems to be curious. He’s always been a curious cat, including some seared whiskers when he got too curious with a candle, but I would think his kitten curiosity would have worn off by now.
My only conclusion is that I have a very, very weird cat. Maybe HE needs to be on that strange addiction show.
A boost when I needed it.
Today was a very long day, just like every day this week has been. But it was an awesome day. Why, you ask?
BECAUSE LIL BUB CAME TODAY!
I’m having a lovefest, at least as much of a lovefest as my broken, injured self can have. The boyfriend was off from work today, and despite this fact he went all the way to the mailbox for me to pick it up (it’s at the entrance of our complex, he has the key). The only thing I’m a little upset about is that January and February are already over and I’m not able to enjoy the Lil Bub calendar for a full 12 months. January is Lil Bub and Gizmo!
EEEEEEEEEEEE!
Also a tiny bit perturbed that tomorrow isn’t going to be as warm as I’d like to wear my Lil Bub tank top, but hey, that’s what layers are for, right?
Every time I look at Lil Bub I squeal. I mentioned my squealing in an earlier post. I do it a lot. Over cute things, anyway. So I’m in a much better mood than when I hobbled out of Big Brown feeling like a big ball of pain. That could be the 3 beers, too, but who the hell cares.
Taco is rather dubious of this new arrival that I fawn over. Tough crap, kitty. His pictures are silent, unlike your loud ass. Maybe if you stuck your tongue out more often I’d fawn over you as much.
Get cuter, Taco. When are YOU gonna be t-shirt worthy? MAKE ME SOME MONEY.
The calendar is coming to work with me tomorrow for everyone to enjoy. Fridays, although they are Fridays, always end up being a frantic marathon of a day, so Lil Bub will be much needed. Be jealous.
Funny thing about cats. They don’t get daylight savings times. Neither do I.
Moosh reaching for all the sun he could get (it was a cloudy day, sunshine was in short supply)
I LOVE longer days. I don’t mind driving to work in the darkness, and I don’t even mind when a half an hour into work at 7am, the power goes out and it’s completely dark (well, except for the emergency floodlights). I DID kind of mind the power going out, because I was only a half hour into an 8-hour day of 16 hours of work. Yeah, don’t try to do the math on that, because it will never add up. But anyway, it came back on in like, 5 minutes.
I’m not a night person. I’m a morning person. By morning, I mean 8am or so, I’m not like, up at the crack of dawn. Except when I have to for work or because the cats are a-holes. So I love when the sun doesn’t go down until 8 or so. It’s Florida, what can I say?
Of course, losing an hour means that this past Monday was sucky. Because as much as you mean to go to bed earlier the night before, your clock is still off. As for the kitties, my alarm was even too early for THEM. Taco was asleep on my feet and refused to get up. Every time I attempted to force myself out of bed and rustle him off, he’d just lay back down on me wherever I rustled him and adjust back to sleepytime. This does not help one wake up. Meowing in my face helps me wake up. Not furballs draped over me, being so comfortable when I have to get up and all I really want to do is be a sleeping, comfortable furball too. Even the nighttime feedings are off. They’re usually up my ass at 7pm to get food to stuff in their fat mouths.
This was Taco 30 minutes ago.
I couldn’t even get Moosh off the cat tree for food, so Taco ate it ALL. This resulted in Moosh being STARVED and sad looking in front of his food bowl at 8. I’m pretty sure this is an act. No cat looks that pathetic that’s as well-fed (except for Taco stealing food) and well-loved as dear Moosh Moosh looks when he’s decided he wants to be hungry and sits in front of the food bowl. It’s positively sad.
Of course, now they’re making a liar out of me because since I’ve started this post, they both woke up and started swarming around me. Guess their schedules are more easily adjusted than mine. I’m not feeding them yet. Brats.
TOO CUTE IS TOO CUTE
I know I’m not really on the cutting edge here. Too Cute is a show that’s been on Animal Planet for awhile.
But I feel it’s time that I express my utter love and devotion to it.
If you’re unfamiliar with the format of this wonderful show, it follows 3 litters of different breeds of kittens (or puppies, and they branch out with other animals on occasion) from right about the time they’re going to open their eyes to a few months old, usually when they’re old enough to wean.
Now I’m not really a proponent of breeding cats. Not that I can’t appreciate the beauty of different breeds, but a) there are a lot of not-so-reputable breeders out there who can do a lot of damage with inbreeding and such, b) it’s really going against nature and natural selection which is such an amazing process in itself that I think humans have some friggin’ nerve to try and mess around with it and c) THERE ARE A BAZILLION STRAY CATS OUT THERE THAT NEED HOMES.
They never show the people in this show except for a hand here and there and occasionally children, but I do often wonder about the back story. Are these people breeders? Do they just love their purebred so much they want to pass on the bloodline? And most importantly, how the hell do these people (who usually seems to have rather nice homes) deal with cats that aren’t spayed or neutered? Both male and female cats that aren’t fixed are prone to a host of what we conceive (double entendre! Boom.) as behavorial issues because those kitties are horny little MFers. Like spraying and howling. Cat-in-heat spray is worse than cat pee.
Despite these unanswered questions, I adore this show. And I spend the entire hour (only the cat ones, sorry dog people, I love all animals but I just don’t love them as much as cats) squealing (and I mean that quite literally). I squeal, I “aww,” I talk to the kittens as if they’re actually in front of me (and as if they give a shit). I watched last week’s episode last night (god, I love my DVR). One of the breeds was Munchkins. I know from watching Cats 101 that this is actually a controversial breed, and in fact not really a breed at all, it’s just a genenic mutation. They have tiny legs. Which is why some people feel they shouldn’t be bred for that specifically. Putting all controversy aside, watching a munchkin kitten try to get around on tiny legs is AMAZINGLY ADORABLE. Only 2 of the 6 kittens in the litter got the tiny leg trait, and they were named PORKCHOP AND NUGGET. 
I could just die. There was also a gratuitously delightful scene of a kitten getting lost under a hat. I don’t think I need to tell you how cute a hat/cat turtle is.
Sometimes I can get Taco interested in the TV. He’ll sit there and stare intently. Sometimes I can’t get him into it. Maybe he’s feeling his age. Moosh watched it once. The boyfriend refuses to watch this show. In fact, he thinks I’m crazy. I think it’s the squealing and the baby talk. I can’t help it. It’s just TOO CUTE. And honestly, we need more of that in the world.
MEOW hear this! 