She's BEYOOTIFUL And She Knows It

Sometimes you just have to get yourself a little something special, to make life worth living. You know, like when you get all depressed and shit. Or, if you're really lucky, you have a wonderful partner who delivers the proverbial kick in the pants with a beautiful new 85-mm lens for the beautiful new Nikon D7000 he bought you.

At any rate, the Nikon was 2013's birthday present, and the lens was 2013's anniversary present, and it's a damn good ROI on 14 happy years together, so there.

And wut better way to celebrate one's favourite toy than by featuring one's favourite beasts through its ever-alert eye? Here's Madu:

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And Gojira.

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Who would ever believe they were brother and sister? Or, as I'm sure they put it, Bother & Satanspawn. Guess which is which.

Adorable.

Copyright ThePoliticalCat all rights reserved

Copyright ThePoliticalCat all rights reserved

We're totally pussy-whipped in this house. And not ashamed to admit it, either.

Copyright ThePoliticalCat all rights reserved

It's true that Boy doesn't get equal camera time. He's usually asleep, and when he's not, loud noises, sudden movement, or light will scare him into running out of the house in a snit. Whereas Miss Thang is convinced she is the most beautiful creature in the world and all the pandemonium is just her fans showing their appreciation.

Stumble It!

Caturday!

It's raining!

Ordinarily, we don't care for this pissy little thing that passes for rain in these dry damned parts. We like REAL rain. Like thunderstorms, with pelting water from the sky that hits your head hard enough to hurt, and lightning flashing in sheets and bolts, sizzling near one's feet as one runs screaming through the wet dark streets on a warm tropical night to the sound of rolling thunder. THAT'S rain.

Not this endless minge of gray fog and gray damp drizzly skies and gray-brown hills all sere from the long, dry summer, and gray wet roads and gray wet buildings looming grayly out of the gray swathe of city streets and byways.

But it's been dry. How dry? Dry enough that people are vaguely starting to resemble some sort of lizardoid alien. Cracked lips and wrinkly dry shiny skins. Talking about reducing showers and graywater systems and single-rinse laundry cycles kinda dry. And the trees were dying from the dry, leaves drooping and dull, twigs wrinkled at their tender ends instead of plump babyish fists of leaves. It was so fucking dry I thought I'd lost my WISTERIA, for Christ's sake, and that thing has survived nearly 30 years of my lazy-assed failure to feed, water, or otherwise care for in any way; yearly hot Santa Ana winds; a fire that took down 2,000 houses in the vicinity; earthquakes; temporary use as a gravesite for murdered squirrels (looking at YOU, Ramon Rivera of the Rainbow Bridge) and god only knows what-all else kinda disasters and shenanigans.

So this rain's a welcome addition, right now. A surprise, but welcome nonetheless.

We're supposed to get all kinds stuff fixed around the old homestead, stuff I haven't been able to take care of for a decade because I was so badly disabled. Yes, yes, we're using the D-word now, admitting to a whole fuckin' lotta suffering and shit. The house is almost literally falling down around our ears. The fabled thousand-step stairs need replacing with some solid construction-type construction. The retaining walls are collapsing. The deck supports need shoring up, and replacement in parts. Bleh. Lotsa work.

And you can't work in this rain.

Oh, fuck it, it's Caturday. Have a wonderful one, y'awl.

Stumble It!

Goodbye, dear Gustav

Gustav is gone.

After 13 years of living with us, he has taken his earsplitting yowls and his chrysanthemum bud of a tail to the other side of the Rainbow Bridge, there to await us with a cynical expression and a complaint, no doubt.

He was not the easiest of cats, but the poor little guy had a very hard life before we got him. Abuse, neglect, abandonment, kicks, and beatings were his lot from birth, pretty much. He was rescued, with his mother and siblings, from a drain in which he was born. Some cruel person had dumped the pregnant mama cat in there and poured liquid on her. Ants were biting her and the babies. You could say his hard life began at birth.

He survived a few years of being passed around -- nobody wanted him, because he was not a 'pretty' animal. He was lean and rangy and the suspicious look got worse, I imagine, after a few different people rejected him with kicks and blows. When he came to us, we had a houseful of cats. We took him in because his alternative was death. We will never regret saving his life. He was not an affectionate cat, and it took him years to learn how to play with toys, or interact with us. The first time he ever played with a toy, after he'd lived with us for two years, he sneaked downstairs in the wee hours of the morning. We were awakened by odd, scrabbling noises in the living room. When we turned on the light, there was Gustav, lying on his back, batting at a ball -- looking embarrassed as hell.

He never liked people. He was not the kind of cat to approach people looking for petting. He shrank away from them and yowled loudly, convinced they meant him no good. He came to us with his mother, Greta, to whom he was greatly attached. He would attack any cat who came near her. He never attacked people, to his credit. But he did not like sharing Greta with anyone. Greta was a sweet, affectionate kitty, and it was difficult to interact with her, with Gustav getting anxious and yowly when she would approach us for pets or treats. Unfortunately for us all, she died shortly after her arrival. She threw a blood clot. A terrible death. Gustav was never the same after, although Bandicoot, the best of all kitties in the world, took him under a mighty fraternal paw. The Coot was easily three times Gustav's size, weighing in at an impressive 20 lbs in his fattitude, whereas Gustav never got much beyond 7, maybe 8 at the most. And the Coot was very fluffy, and he would let Gustav curl up in his enormous furry coat to sleep. So Gustav was somewhat consoled by the Coot, although he got on everyone's nerves with his unending complaints, and occasionally, the Coot would bite him about the ears. Which just made him complain louder.

After the Coot passed on, Gustav started deteriorating pretty quickly, poor guy. His legs got weaker and weaker, and eventually he couldn't get up on our giant bed any more. We couldn't train him to use the kitty stairs we bought, so we made him a comfortable bed on the floor. Little by little, his world shrank to the scope of the bedroom, although he did still go outside when it was warm and sunny. Then he got a nasty infection in his eye, right around the time we learned that our beloved friend, Cris, had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Life became very hard, then, with Gus on the verge of losing his eye while Cris died by inches.

It cost us a lot of money and he needed a veterinary opthalmologist's services, but we managed to save his eye. Shortly thereafter, Cris died. I lost a dear and very much-loved friend, someone I had loved for nearly two decades. And I thought we had saved Gustav.

Lately he seemed to have more and more difficulty walking. His feet were acting strange, and his gait was very unsteady. Sometimes he would trip over his own feet because one foot had turned inward or outward unexpectedly. And the crying was getting worse. It was hard to tell whether he was just screaming because he screamed a lot of the time anyway, or if he was screaming because he was in pain. We had him on pain medication for his arthritis, but his kidneys were going and his digestive system was pretty messed up and he had lost most of the sight in one eye, and he never could smell very well because he'd always had herpes.

So when we heard him yowling on Friday, we thought, it's probably time for his pain medication, poor guy. But then the yowling got very strange, and we ran into the bathroom and found him lying on the floor having a seizure, or something. His body was rigid and trembling, he was lying on his side, he had peed himself and was drooling and frothing at the mouth, with one foot drawn up to his chest. We dried him and wrapped him warmly in a towel and held him and tried to calm him, but it was obvious something was very wrong with the old guy, and not so clear that anything would help. But we called the vet anyway, and finally found someone.

She didn't know much about his history, so she suggested we try to save him. Apparently, Gustav's retinas had blown out, so he had suddenly gone blind. The treatment she recommended would have meant medicating him daily. He might not regain his vision. And it was just a matter of time before his kidneys gave out anyway. He would have to stay in the hospital for 36 hours.

We did the right thing by the boy. It was a hard choice, not because there was any possibility that we were wrong, but because it feels so arrogant to take a life, when we cannot give one. But for Gustav, there was no quality of life left. Blind, surrounded by two rambunctious younger cats who seem to remember how he attacked them when he was younger, not really enjoying his food, unable to see, smell, walk, or hear very well, in a house full of stairs? If I were in his place, I'd want the bliss of the needle. Can't eat, can't shit, can't walk, can't hear, can't smell, can't taste, can't see? What's left of life to enjoy?

And for a cat so averse to human contact to be picked up and medicated three times a day? He only let us medicate him when he was very, very sick, because he was too weak to run away. As soon as he got his strength back he started fighting me over the medication. He's never bitten me, but he has, on occasion, got a claw stuck -- deep -- in me and caused some not insignificant bleeding. I know he doesn't mean to, but that doesn't make it hurt any the less. And he's very good at refusing to do things. Plus, he never really learned to interact with people. He's always preferred the company of his own species. And these last two remaining cats of the family never liked him and never will. His life would have been hell.

We said goodbye to him at the doctor's after assuring ourselves that he suffered no more. I hope by the time we go, we have the same option. Goodbye dear little Gustav. You tried so hard to be a good kitty. Life was not very fair or very kind to you. We tried our best to give you everything that made you happy, dear. We miss you very much, and always will.

Stumble It!

Caturday?

NO we don't have any more cats, geez

This is what it feels like at La Casa de Los Gatos, these days. Like we're mothering some kittens. And we desperately need a DRINK, goddammit.

You ever try raising kittens? Geezus, they're a pain. So, what's going on, we ask? Bandicoot was sick for quite a while, and then we had to leave him and go away, and he wasn't doing too great when we got back. We've spent the past couple of months curing him of whatever stomach ailment he picked up and making sure he's doing OK.

Bandicoot with Gustav

See, he's getting old. He wants to be fed about once an hour, all day. Sometimes he'll eat some kibble, but mostly he wants his food brought to him, and he always was a messy eater, and he's gotten a hundred times worse. Seems like he's not seeing or smelling too well, either. If you don't bring his food to him, he climbs up on the bed and pokes you in the face with one enormous smelly paw. Actually, his paws aren't smelly at all. Just big. Bigger than my eyeballs. Which is what he likes to poke, mostly. He doesn't want water from a bowl, either. He wants to lick the water in the shower. And his coat was a matted mess after the long stay at the vet. We're clipping and brushing and what-all, but he's a pig in a fur suit, he does not care for this grooming shit.

And Gustav is kinda sensing something in the offing because Bandicoot just wants to be left alone to sleep all the time. So Gustav has taken to howling every night, I mean Siamese cat x water buffalo bellows every night from, like, 1 am to 3 am. I'd kill him, except he's suffered enough already. I think. Little fucker. Sleeping like a baby next to me right now. Just half an hour ago he was trying to sit on Gojira's face and howling because she bit him in the ass. Apparently she does not care for this face-sitting business.

Gojira with Zingi-bee

Gojira is still freaked out about Zingiber dying and won't go outside any more. She only wants to be at home, preferably in bed with us. (Fucking bitch wants to be RIGHT BETWEEN both of us, too, so forget a sex life.) And she squeaks like a motherfucker when she doesn't get her way. Also, too, claws. Hers are like tiny little razors. You can't tell you've been scratched till part of your leg bleeds and falls off. There's no possibility of trimming them, either. She's not the type to hold still that long, and we'd have to *catch* her first. Always an exciting sight, watching two rapidly aging people chasing an extremely lithe, swift, and nimble cat around. And when she's not being obnoxious and shrieking in your ear and bouncing off the walls, she's demanding attention. Pet me, pet me, scratch my ears, check my butt for poop stains, pet my belly so I can remove the skin from your hands. If she weren't so stunningly cute, she would have been a slipper a LONG time ago. Little bitch.

And MADU has suddenly developed a need for affection. What's with this? The lady with the French-perfumey big bosoms isn't giving him enough lately, or what? He's still running off to visit her regularly, I see him hiking down the road all the time, the little slut. Then he comes home and wants to drape himself all over us, and could we please pick him up and hold him so he can fall asleep in the most comfortable position and drool.

There was a time when the little fucker would barely give us the time of day. AFAHWC, we were convenient stepping stones for hunting mice on the hill.

I miss those days.

Yeah, so, WTF, y'all, check out the fucking heat wave that's cooking the whole middle of the country AND the eastern seabord, is this reality time for global warming deniers, or what? Will the stupid subside long enough for the marching morons to realize that they ARE every bit as stupid as everyone else has believed for years, and that global warming has finally decided to, like, personally cook their asses or something for being such fucking dolts? Only thing is, they'll be sure to take all of us with them when they go, y'know? Just to be assholes. Srsly, this heat is nothing to fuck with. Remember to wear sunblock, stay cool and aerated, go to a public place that's airconditioned, or your local pool, or whatever. Stay indoors, if you can. Drink LOTS of water, but not too much too fast. Stay safe!

Here's something for y'all to enjoy!

Stumble It!

Hey, everybody!

Your proprietors have been the shit about keeping this place clean and up to date, eh? Fuckwits.

So here's the deal. We're going AWAY! For a while! But. It's a journey of pains in the ass, which deserve memorialization.

No, I am not going to poop all over your lives by giving you all kinds of TMI unwanted crap about, I don't know, whatever the Tweeters are tweeting these days, mostly their bowel movements or their children's. We do not do this kind of cheap shit at this fine cathouse. No. Instead, we will wax eloquent upon all the people whose asses we would enjoy to kick if we weren't a crabby, curmudgeonly, elderly GIMP. Yeah, fuck this shit, we still have Teh GIMPITUDE. And someone will be made to PAY. We could start with John BONER, oh, eh, I mean Boehner, of course, the Dooky of Orange, the man of colour, except it's a colour not found anywhere in Nature.

Get ready to return to drinking yourself green by 5 pm daily, John. I hear Nancy Pelosi's gunning, heh, I mean, angling, for your job, and if you know Nancy like I know Nancy, then you know what Nancy wants she usually gets. HAHAHA. I am so going to enjoy watching your fat ass being kicked all the way back to the golf courses where you can stumble around drunk like the drunk stumblebum you are.

OK, enough with the fucking vitriol already. John Boner has actually almost kind of thought about making arguey noises at bloated limpdick misogynist whale, Flush Rimbowl, who is busy trying to sex some law student who might just sue his fucking ass off with extreme prejudice. HAHAHA, so to speak. Whatevs. We're supposed to be fucking packing for Chrisake, 30 books and 2 changes of clothing plus socks, haha, is that enough for a month? It could be more.

Awright, awreddy. We're off.

Here is a video of a cat for both our faithful readers. Because we know you love cats. You can stay in touch with some of us through the blog. We're not saying squat about the slackers who are supposed to be blogging and keeping things up while yours truly rolls around in agony recovering from various fucking surgeries and pains and trips to deathbeds. Jesus, my life sucks something awful, don't it? Anyway. This cat looks JUST like Bandicoot! Except Bandicoot would probably disembowel me if I tried to get him to swim anywhere. Enjoy!

Stumble It!

Caturday

That's Bandicoot. The big one. Gustav, the normal-sized kitty sitting next to him, has been desolate for the past two days.

Bandicoot was very, very sick this weekend, and we have no idea what happened. He spent all of Thursday night vomiting (yes, all fucking night, like every couple of hours). As you all know, certain people at La Casa de Los Gatos have extremely sensitive stomachs. We're talkin' hear someone/thing yarking within the limits of hearing distance, and barf along in tune. We're talking smell anything barfacious, like shit, stale piss, vomit, rotting corpses, and it's technicolour yawn time in old Hollywood city.

We're not naming any names now. We are not. But let me tell ya, anybody who has hardwood floors and can sleep through cat barfage, well, you're a better man than I am, Nelson.

Cats barf all the time, right? No big deal? I mean, do you know how much cats barf? If someone could figure out how to turn cat barf into a power source, we could probly run the whole planet very efficiently with low pollution thankyewveddymuch.

Wrong. If your cat barfs a LOT? Like all night a lot? Take the little fucker to the ER. They're really sick, and chances are their core temperature has dropped really low and they're completely dehydrated from all the vomiting, and if their gums are white or bluish, they may have been poisoned and could be close to death.

He was crying in a strange voice, and no beast in pain goes unheard in these parts. That's the policy. So we bundled him up and took him to the vet, and he had a chest x-ray and a sonogram and a blood panel, and I plan to plate him in gold when he returns. Lets just say it cost an arm and a leg, but I am grateful.

He has feline enteritis. Not the panleukopenia (FPV) kind. It made his tubby hurt a lot. He's on painkillers, antibiotics, and an IV drip for fluids and has been in the hospital for two days now. We're leaving in a little while to bring the babby home.

Oh, and Gustav, up there? When Gustav's mom threw a blood clot and had to be ... killed, OK? She was killed. Gustav was desolate. He had never really been separated from his Mom and didn't know how to cope. Bandicoot very kindly took him under an enormous Maine Coon paw and kept him company and kept him out of trouble and slept next to him to keep him warm, and put up with his bullshit. (Gustav was extremely neurotic and crazy when he first came, attacking all the other cats constantly and yowling in a voice like a Siamese on crack. Rescue kitteh. Bad history. Tranquilizers for two years.) So ever since The Coot has been in the horse spittle, Gustav has been inconsolable. And when he's inconsolable, he yowls. LOUDLY. You know, just in case you don't realize he's, like, suffering, or whatever.

Geezus, I can't wait for it to stop. He didn't let us sleep much so I ended up taking a pill, which I hate (I don't like taking medication of any sort and react badly to most of it, but two days without sleep is too much) and I have a splitting fucking headache from the medication. I sure hope he quits yowling soon or I'll have to kill myself.

Just kidding. If I killed myself I would miss out on the joy of bringing our own dear Bandicoot home at last, after two whole days away!

Just look at that little punim. Who could resist such a one?

Stumble It!

Caturday!

Yes it R CATURDAY!

Confession of the week: things have been very very very stressful at La Casa de Los Gatos. It's Yahrzeit time for Dad and Zingiber, who passed over the Rainbow Bridge just a smidge over a year ago.

Bandicoot decided to celebrate by developing a bad cold which blocked his little tubes, so his eyes were running, and getting ooky and almost-infectable, which means daily (sometimes twice or thrice) eye-washings and cleanings. He's a good little trouper, especially since he gets rewarded with some horrendously stinky vitamin treat. It seems to be helping a bit with the eyes, but Jesus what a fucking pain. All the others want one too, or at least want to know what's going on, which doesn't help.

We have surgery coming up in three weeks (slightly less). House has to be clean, cats medicated and doctored, garden put up for the winter, books put away so someone on crutches can get around. It's minor surgery but still fucking painful. Actually, it's fucking painful now, so what's the diff? Anyway. Nothing like icing your knee during winter. Still need to make several gallons of soup so I won't have to try to get down the stairs on crutches to cook dinner. Not that it helped the last time. I dropped a bunch of weight from being vomitous all the time. Can't take pain medication, it just makes me feel gross and pukey and brainless. Hopefully, I can smoke pot for the pain. Well, not *smoke* as such, since we quit smoking this year, for good and finally.

Meanwhile one of my nearest and dearest has just had massive surgery for a very rare disease. Called the hospital late last night, out of surgery (must have been about 9 hours, jezus how can they cut on anybody for that long?), in recovery, things are looking good. Now for rest, rehab, and recovery.

I have PT to look forward to starting mid-December. The knee is killingly painful now with pain running across the bone, not just the muscles, which makes me wonder just what the fuck is going on. X-rays and MRIs show the implant is holding firm. So why the fuck is it so painful? The pain is crippling my foot, goddamnit, I can't put the weight on the foot, flat. And the small muscles of the ankle seem to be working at odds. The nerves aren't firing properly, so the foot drags. What a joy! Walking becomes an exercise in coordination. Are the toes lifting high enough? Or is there a chance they're not lifting properly, which means they'll catch and drag, and possibly twist all the ankle muscles again? The swelling from the last spectacular twisting hasn't quite subsided yet.

Anyway. Fun and games at the old homestead. Countdown to surgery. On the PLUS side, I'll get to watch LOTS of films. And I've read close to 100 books this year, so I needn't feel too bad about being a brainless vegetable for the end of the year. On the MINUS side, Gojira Helen Wheels is *already* sleeping on the knee or ankle every chance she gets. We'll have to get the Old Protective Plastic Bucket out to guard against her. What a fucking brat.

Also, Bandicoot has a new, irritating habit: Licking Teh Hoomin. He will lick my hand (or nose) for up to an hour, if I let him (I don't; his breath smells like fish). I've taken to wearing my sleeves down over my fingertips. Thank god for winter (did anybody think they would EVER hear me be grateful for the cold? Yes. It's official. I am fucking grateful for the cold).

When he can't lick me, he licks my mouse. Yes, THAT mouse. The electronic, wireless, purchased from fucking Radio Shack or whatever guaranteed to be mouse-flavour-free mouse. Or my little table for my laptop. Pica?

Anyway. This is why we have kitten fever at La Casa de Los Gatos:

Hippity-hoppity!

Stumble It!

Anniversaries

You know what day it is. A day when we should all be remembering those young men and women that we have repeatedly sent into harm's way, by lying to them, telling them they were fighting for their country, or democracy, or freedom, or some such other bullshit.

A day when we should be weeping over the fact that so many of them come home broken in body and mind to a nation that seems to have forgotten all about them, except when it comes time to buy yellow ribbon magnets from China for a dollar or two. A day when we should be doing something about the fact that SO fucking MANY of our vets are unemployed, or homeless, or struggling to get by.

Today is all those things. If you know a veteran? Give them a hug or a thank you, call them up to say hello, take them to lunch or dinner, offer to help them out with something, anything. It could be something as small as picking up groceries, babysitting their kids, polishing their resume, setting up their computer, taking their damn dog for a walk. Do something. Anything. Just to let them know you appreciate what they went through while they were sweltering in a trench somewhere getting their ass shot off or getting water tainted with decaying corpses and rotting food thanks to George Bush, Dick Cheney, KBR, and/or Halliburton.

If you don't PERSONALLY know a veteran, you can always volunteer with one of the many fine organizations that help our vets in various ways.

These men and women risked their lives and their minds and bodies to do what they saw as their duty to the nation. You don't have to agree with their politics or their service to do them the kindness you would do any other human being. Step up and do your bit for them, and remember, in one month's time, a WHOLE LOTTA them will be coming home from Iraq.

If you're a business owner, you can help by hiring them. If you're working for a big corporation, ask them if they're interested in hiring veterans. If you work at a restaurant or other service/retail business, ask your employers if they will offer vets discounts, then publicize those discounts. Everything you do helps.

And, if you're a voter? Get your ass out there, register to vote, make sure all the vets you know are registered to vote. They don't have to vote for YOUR candidate. Just make sure they vote. Offer to drive them to the polls if they're disabled. Help them register by mail. But make DAMN sure they don't vote for Mittens Romneycare, because that miserable plastic-faced billionaire bastard is talking about PRIVATIZING the VA. After G.W. Bush's disastrous experiment with Walter Reed, I don't EVAH want to hear about veterans lying in pools of their own piss while rats run across the floor and mold spreads from leaky ceilings.

Today is also a very sad day here at La Casa de Los Gatos. It is the anniversary of my father's death. Dad fought in WW II, and was on the losing side, initially, so he spent some time as a POW. He came back from the war deaf in one ear, due to shrapnel, and with an enlarged heart. He lived a long, and mostly healthy, life, but his war stories were enough to give us kids nightmares for weeks. And I know he suffered from PTSD, although he was a gentle man who turned it inward into deep depression rather than outward into beating his wife and kids.

Goodbye, Dad. I still miss you so very much. I think I always will. You loved me and you taught me to love myself, even if the lesson took a long, long time to root itself.

Today is also the anniversary of Zingiber's death. For 14 long years, he was with me every moment, a fat, silly, fearful, neurotic, sweet, affectionate, jealous, possessive, overweight lump of love. I miss him every single day. No one has ever loved me the way that fool did. No matter what I did to him — and here I have to admit, shamefacedly, that there were times when he got on my very last nerve, and I did yell at him and torment him in various small ways — he never, ever held anything against me, not even for a second. I could attribute this to his complete and total brainlessness, I guess, but every night when he put his fat, furry little head on the pillow next to me and breathed softly and warmly into my ear, I realized that he might have been as stupid as the day was long, but that was real love in those big green eyes.

I miss you baby. I wish I could tell you one more time just how much.

Stumble It!

Caturday!

Of a long weekend, no less!

Happy Fourth of July, all. Enjoy lying back, relaxing, resting, hanging with family and friends.

This feline is crawling into the overgrown garden for yet another valiant battle with the goddamn weeds. They're taller than me right now (OK, so I'm height-impaired, let's get THAT out of the way shall we, and quit the snickering?), especially the dog-fennel, and the buddleia has dead branches that could prove to be a fire hazard. Wish I had rappelling gear to make me feel secure on those slopes, but them's the breaks.

Missing our Zingiber more than ever, on these warm summer days when he would walk through the tall weeds, his eyes the same perfect shade of green, the giant whipping plume of his tail marking his passage through the overgrown garden. His quiet cat-smiles (that slow, lazy blink of the magnificent orbs) at all the other small life.

I never saw Zingiber kill anything, not even a fly. Poor sweet silly feline, gone and so sorely missed.

For all you other cat-lovers, here's a thoroughly enjoyable video:

Stumble It!

For Nina!

Because you know who you are. (And so do the doggies. They got your name, girl.)



A very happy birthday to a very wonderful lady.

PS: Show it to your Mom and tell her I said HI!

Stumble It!

Can't We All

Just do like these guys and GET THE FUCK ALONG?

I mean ... how cute is this?

Stumble It!

O Death, Where Is Thy Sting?

Right here. It's stung me too many times this year to toss it off casually. Two family members (I think both were the last of their generation); too many feline friends.


Dad died last month. He was in his 90s, so it came as no great surprise except, apparently, to my inner child or summat, because I keep catching myself speaking or thinking of him all the time, in the present, or worse yet, as if he was actually present.

It's been almost exactly a month since I got the phone call. I had made reservations months ago to spend a couple of weeks around Thanksgiving with him. Let us give thanks for those parents we have left. Those relatives, of any degree of relativity. No, not really. I'm not terribly fond of my relatives. Although I was very fond of Dad.

I've been told I look like him. (A piece of flattery that would earn anyone a place in my good books, or on my Xmas list.) He was a handsome man. All I know is, I got his teeth (fragile), his feet (flat), and his tendency to tear up in old age. Also, thick eyebrows, early graying (he was 30 when he went completely silver, but the fates were kind and gave me an extra decade to get used to it), and a reading addiction I just can't shake. Thanks, Dad.

My father was a good man. One of the few I've ever met. His word was his bond. He never said anything he didn't mean (and because he was a gentle man, that meant he often said nothing at all, because he couldn't bear to be mean); he never told a lie. I miss him a great deal already. But he's been gone for several years now, fading a little each year. Losing his hearing, and then his sight, and finally even words. At first, at the beginning of his long decline, he would answer my questions with "I don't know. I don't know how to say. I've forgotten the words." In the end, he could not speak at all, although his brain could decipher that we were making patterns of sounds. He attempted to join in, but could only produce strange, disjointed noises, shouts, barks, mutters, all cadenced just like his normal speech.

Hard as it was to hear that he was gone, it wasn't intensely painful. After all, he was no longer mobile, nor continent, and the last stroke left him with a feeding tube. If he had understood what was happening, he would have hated every minute of it. So perhaps it's just as well that multiple small strokes took away his power of understanding.

But barely had I placed his bones in a funeral urn, crushing them with my hands, when came more bad news: Zingiber died suddenly, a week after my father.

O grave, here is thy victory. Stop taking my nearest and dearest away. Or at least slow your pace a little. Over the past decade, I've buried two sets of parents (natal and in-law); lost too many dearly-loved friends; and said goodbye to six cats and a dog, two charming chickens, and several bunnies. I'm done. I want a year or two without funerals and burials and mourning. Is that too much to ask? I'm feeling my own years, and I've spent thirty of the past X years worrying about, and taking care of (in my own incompetent fashion) my parents. They're gone, now, and I really have stopped caring. I don't want to give any more hostages to fortune. I'm ready for my own last trip to the banquet, goddammit. Ready to be worm food. Life sure is a lot bleaker without my dearly beloveds. Goodbye, Dad. I wish I could have talked to you more, but I really did spend every single day's worth of vacation over the last three decades with you. And Mum made every second of it a hell, so I'm sorry I didn't bite the bullet and sit through her needling, her vicious jibes, and her petty, pointed remarks and stay for the delight of your company. I couldn't do it, in the end. I just couldn't take any more. I'm sorry. I have always loved you, and I will always love you. And I always felt your love, Dad, surrounding me, making my life a better place. Making me all the good things I have ever been, or could be.

Goodbye, little Zingiber. I'll tell your story, my love. It will live in my heart always, just as you will, with my beloved father, and my sister, and all the others I loved who left me behind in their dance between matter and energy.

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Health and Cats

For the third day in a row your faithful blogviator is suffering an intensely painful headache. Plenty of research was done, but brain says "No bloggee or I KEEEL yew."

I obey.

If all is well tomorrow I will continue opining on the fucking Aryanzona situation. Or the oil disaster in the Gulf. Or something useful like that.

For now, we leave you with the birfday celebration of one Maru teh Scottish Fold kitteh of Japan:



It is to die for. I ask you: is Maru not teh kyootest?

I mean, all Marus are cute but this one is a fucking viral sensation.

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The Secret Loves of Animals

Over on Treehugger.com, some fine individual posted a few videos that will touch you to the very depths of your soul.

Watching these, who can say that animals do not feel love, joy, gratitude, kinship, friendship — all those emotions that we arrogantly assume are reserved only to us humans?

Here is a gorilla named Kwibi, meeting again someone who helped raise him a decade ago:



Kwibi clearly has not forgotten his human friend, to whom he clung, and by whose sleeping place he stayed all night, calling and crying out. If we could understand his words, what would they say? "I love you, I remember you, I've missed you all these years? Thank you so much for saving my life?"

And what about this lion, returned to the wild to live among his kind?



Obviously, he hasn't forgotten the people who loved him and played with him when he was just a cub. What a joy, to be privileged to witness the friendship between these members of two different species.

And here, a dog tells her person how happy she is that he came home in one piece, safe, from a battlefield far away.



Hey, little doggie, you tell that human. Hey, human person, lucky you to be the object of such lavish affection!

Love is love. It doesn't matter what race you are or, obviously, even what species you are. La Casa de Los Gatos is grateful for these beautiful glimpses of the enduring power of love.

May the long time sun shine upon you
All love surround you
And the pure light within you
Guide you all the way on.

A Very Cellular Song, The Incredible String Band

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Caturday: Goodbye Reggie, Darling

Reggie The LoveBoot

Normally, our Caturday posts are happy posts. Goodness knows, there's plenty of shit happening in the world out there that's just plain depressing (Haiti, Darfur, North Korea, South Africa, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Kazakhstan, ... do we need to go on?), if not actually suicide-inducing.

But every now and then we have to say goodbye to one of our sweet little four-footed friends, here at La Casa de Los Gatos.

Clue? Wut?


Although Reggie never lived with us, we met him in his wild adventurous yoof, when he was found by none other than SGTG, longtime friend and general terrorist nun. He lived very happily with the SGTG household for many years, curling up in bed to spoon with his hoominz and demanding belly rubs in his generally sweet, if somewhat clueless, way.

The Famous Belly

Goodbye, Reggie, darling. Be sure to say hi to all the others waiting at the Rainbow Bridge. We'll come see you soon, you sweet little lover boy.

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Caturday!

ICHC

More science blogging tomorrow. For now, it is Caturday, and the felines have decreed Movie Night at La Casa. Firefly, no less. Why they like these wham-bang pseudo-Libertarian things is beyond us. Bad kittehs.

Gojira and Zingiber practice scorching the wall behind us wif Lazer Glares (tm)

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Health: Swine Flu

Since we had so much success with the Large Hadron Collider Rap posted here, we absolutely (and our kittehs are unanimous in this) had to, had to, fucking HAD to post this heah H1N1 Rap:



Dr. Clarke, that handsome gentleman you see, is the Medical Director for the Long Island Rail Road. He's a finalist in a contest for the best PSA about swine flu. The denizens of La Casa de Los Gatos are way too fucking hot to dance to this, but we sure did give it two pointy ears up. OK, how 'bout four pointy claws up?



Science sure is sexy, ain't it, boyz and grlz?

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Animal Lovers: Animals on Fresh Air All Week

ANIMAL LOVERS ... Fresh Air is a National Public Radio program hosted by the fabulous Terry Gross. This week Terry is interviewing people about animals -- all week.

To get to the Fresh Air website so that you can listen to the shows on your computer, go here.

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Belated Caturday!

ICHC

Those lazy little slackers never did remind me to post my regular Caturday diatribe. Hairy fuckwits. As the not-so-happy beneficiary of their hairball disgorgement (thanks to the summer weather, they're shedding like deciduous trees in Fall; also, brushing and combing? Not on their menu of preferences), I'm posting belated Caturday greetings to all in the hope that they'll at least leave off my pillow, deity.

In the event, apart from hairballs, life at La Casa de Los Gatos has been uneventful. Regular pissing in the hallways followed by teh employment of teh Scooba for removing all traces. Regular sleeptalking by Madu of the endlessly twitching tail (he holds it down when he sleeps; probably to keep it from twitching and waking him up). Regular threats of violence from Gustav who, after eight years with us has finally mellowed enough to not actually offer violence anymore, although he still has serious Tail Envy. (Gustav is a Japanese bobtail; his tail is best described as "looking like a chrysanthemum bud.")

Regular sproinging about the house by one Gojira Helen Wheels, who seems to think the fastest way to get from Point A to Point B is by bouncing off an intervening wall. She is also largely preoccupied with assassinating the local birdlife through the curtains. Why she doesn't actually try to do it from the other side of the curtains, where the birdies actually are, is beyond us. Somewhere in her tiny, demented brain, she probably considers the curtains part of the general birdishness of the Great Outdoors.

Late-night excursions by Bandicoot. Lying about in the mud aplenty. (It's August. One must water. Mud ensues.) Attempts to clip his copious bellyfur have led to naught. Also, pokeage. The boy has huge snowshoe paws with exceedingly long, strong claws, and he is fond of using them. When demanding pets.

Meanwhile, Zingiber, our favorite Cat of Very Little Brain, has developed a new fondness for his recently-laundered cloth doggie. (The damn thing must be stuffed with catnip.) Every single day it is thrown downstairs to reside with all the other fucking cat toys, fer crisake, you'd think he'd get a clue. But no, every evening, he lumbers up the stairs with it clasped firmly in his jaws, trying not to trip over it, while vocalizing much in the manner of a mother cat trying to demonstrate (and call her young'uns to) a fresh kill. Eeejit. Feckin' eejit. Will ye no leave the puir thing alone, ye great gob?

Guess who

What the hell, at least the lazy fucker is getting some exercise. At 23 lbs., he desperately needs it.

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Animals: Rare Clouded Leopard Found

in Bangladesh. Nomming on a monkey.

Image copyright AFP

The Independent is reporting that this cute little 3-month-old clouded leopard cub was discovered with his mother and sibling having a little nom on a related (to us) species. Clouded leopards have been believed to be extinct in Bangladesh for over 20 years.

Villagers captured the cub in the hope of selling it, but have since been persuaded to release it. Hopefully, its mother will find the poor little thing and successfully raise it to adulthood.

OTOH, La Casa de Los Gatos feels that stupid hoominz deserve to be exterminated in large numbers to give other species with whom we share the planet a chance at reweaving the ecoweb. OTOH, it's somewhat heartening that the villagers gave Baby plenty of chicken (which he nommed enthusiastically) and milk to keep him fed and fit for his journey back to Mom.

Good luck, little one! Grow big and strong, and the rest of us will try to save your habitat so you'll have someplace to live when you grow up.

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