Rock!

I’m not annieangel. Can this thread be about me?

Slow night, Gavin?

Marita, you’re so nice when you’re not being mean to me.
— oops, is it all about me now? How else can I ruin our thread?

I think we all have our suspicions.

Great 2 parter on Iraq over at http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml

Tomgram: Mark Danner, How a War of Unbound Fantasies Happened.

And yet, there will be crossover.

Hooray, beer!

“mmmmm, beer– Is there anything it can’t do?”
-Homer

– oops, is it all about me now? How else can I ruin our thread?

Umm…. let’s see…. Me, me me, me me me. And don’t my legs look hot in this picture?

PS – ME!

Forbidden
Error 403

damn, must be super-hot

Yeah, super hot, and super cool…

That split picture in the main post is March in the upcoming Steven den Beste 2007 Calendar, right?

Man, JPod’s really let himself go.

Will Gavin’s efforts at self-selected segregation succeed? Sadly, no! I’d say it’s like herding cats, but then I’d probably get flamed by Mehitabel and Ganesh . . .

It’s Marita’s turn! It’s all about you, girlfriend! Go for it.

I like you, g. I hope we can be friends.

I want to be friends with everybody.

I was a goalie for a few games. Mainly because I thought it was cool to throw myself around and against shit (down the stairs) with all those pads on. Then the other kids got bigger and I didn’t. Switched to skiing around 7th grade. ahh. all about me again. sweet.

. ahh. all about me again. sweet.

Noooo! Don’t make me post pictures of my sexy, sexy shoulder. I’m warning you…

2-shay. It’s about you again. yikes.

Marita!

Marita, you’re making me blush.

Don’t copy me, Gavin.

Marita!

Yay!

[does little dance]

Phew! Being the center of attention certainly gets exhausting. How ’bout we make this about you for a little while, MelodyMaker? I could use a breather.

I could post a photo of my first hip surgery?

I could post a photo of my first hip surgery?

Sure! But when it’s about me again, I’m totally putting up a picture of my rotator cuff tear and my busted lip.

Do you have little animated roses with it? Or maybe little animated…I dunno…scalpels? forceps?

Don’t copy me, Gavin.

I have a picture of my broken dislocated finger. How’s that?

You need a spanking, Gavin. On your bare ass.

I have a picture of my broken dislocated finger. How’s that?

Sweet! Is the picture from the earlier purple stages, or the later yellow-greens?

Is that crazy lady threatening Gavin?

It’s early, purple, and has the extra bonus of having my wedding ring stuck in the swollen purple flesh.. I had to go find someone to cut it off, and everybody thought I was in the middle of some fraught domestic drama. Nope, I just broke my ring finger.

Never mind the crazy lady. She always hangs out on this corner, she sleeps over the grating because the warm air comes up out of the subway.

If you go near her, she’s snarl at you, so ignore her. Really.

I can’t find the ghastly purple and yellow and stitched aftermath photo of my 8 inch scar. But I describe it here with respect and deference to Marita’s thread. Hope it helps. Marita!

OMG, Gavin I get it! It’s SWEEPS week!

Thanks MelodyMaker! Marita!©☮☯ has an early flight and needs to get some sleep now, but Marita!!©☮☯ would like to encourage you all to continue basking in her glory while she’s passed out.

PS – Marita!

M..M.. has an early something or other. yeah. gavin and annie can debate the glory of the Marita.

annie, you SO totally don’t get it.

Marita, you’re a princess.

Marita is way cooler than annieangle.

If Princess Marita is gone, I’d like to add that I had my appendix out.
But only if she’s gone. I don’t want to horn in on her not-annie thread.

You guys are all loony lefty idiots who are dumb and who I am so much smarter than. And I have legs, look at them, look, look, please?

I just want to be friends. Why don’t you FUCKING CRAZY IDIOTIC ANTI-GOD MOONBATS like me? I love you and pity you and pray for you. You’re a bunch of morons. I am so much better for this blog than Mikey or Jillian. Especially Jillian, that bitch. I think she’s queer.

Rob, that’s enough. You’ll have us start thinking you’re possessed.

Oops. Was that an annie related program activity?

I wonder if, rather than an outright ban, a script could be written that would simply relegate all of her comments to the aa-only thread. That way she could exercise her “right” to post comments on the site; anyone who is actually interested could look up her latest inaninity in the archive. The rest of us can do… whatever the hell it is we were doing before. It would be kind of like the children’s table at Thanksgiving…

Rob, this thread is about Marita. NOt annie. Go to the annie thread if you want to talk about her.

Management loves me.

Management totally loves me more. Just ask Gavin. He’ll tell you.

(Actually going to sleep now)

I’m Ganesh Bengal Cat, and I approved this message.

Smiling Mortician, I do not flame. Far from it. I am a cat of mellow disposition, and despite my fearsome appearance, extreme gentleness. When one is nearly twenty pounds of muscular (albeit neutered) masculinity, resembles a minature leopard or an ocelot, can run like a cheetah, and can leap 6-8 feet from a sitting position, one rarely needs to resort to violence to work one’s will upon the world. I find a remonstrative look is usually enough to repress members of inferior species (I’m looking at you, stupid, yapping little Corgi who lives down the hall) who are thinking of initiating hostilities.

To demonstrate my good will (it’s really more like indifference, but I’m being polite–we cats have very good manners, when we feel like it) toward you and to all humankind, I offer you the pickled rice from my sushi, as I do not care for pickled rice, and I do not know why my handmaiden persists in serving it to me with the lovely sashimi offerings.

You could have had some of the nori, but my adopted sister has just yacked that up in the handmaiden’s velvet slipper. I find regurgitated, half digested food perfectly acceptable, but YMMV. Anyway, the velvet slippers have followed the plushy slippers (which were ‘decorated’ with turkey last month) into the trash, and the handmaiden is reduced to wearing plastic shower shoes, which have the advantage of washability.

Eel is much better, but there was no eel. If there had been eel, I just know I could seduce that lissome and demanding Supermodel of the Cat World, Mehitabel. I have a serious thing for the the Abys, know what I mean? They’re soooooo sleek. Mmmm. Sleek.

I consider the oceans and continents between us no obstacle to my devotion, and when I attempt to molest my sister, I always pretend it’s Mehitabel who smacks me upside the head and knocks me off the fleecy sunny window perch.

Oh, and btw, Hail, Marita!

My apologies. I will continue my anniebashing downthread.

Ganesh, how do you feel about good-natured geriatric Rottweilers with bony growths sticking out of their skulls?

Just curious. I know of one who’s moving to the neighborhood.

For those of you who love metal, the Atlanta group Mastodon has made probably the best metal record of the decade, the classic “Blood Mountain.” They’re like a more math-y Slayer or a heavier Iron Maiden.

Mastodon. I’m serious. Best metal band in the world.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aVLdeIKZuM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4B9qT8zaPU&mode=related&search=
Bengals?

g, I mostly approve of dogs. It’s just that stupid Corgi down the hall who yaps a lot and is afraid to even walk past my door that I hold in contempt.

Until my infatuation with the lovely, and alas! unobtainable Mehitabel, my girlfriend was a giant poodle. Unfortunately, Chloe no longer lives next door, and so we do not get to romp and knock over furniture and break table lamps (we broke three, and the handmaiden was extremely displeased), and expensive laptop computers (I draw a veil over the consequences of this unfortunate incident), and alarm clocks (that green one was ugly, anyway), and assorted crockery, eat each other’s food, and then, when we got tired and the food was all gone, snuggle up and take naps on the handmaiden’s bed.

I have friends who are pugdogs and mini dachsunds, and a Bichon puppy has just moved into my domain, and I have high hopes for him, as he does not seem to fear me like Daisy Teh Stoopid Corgi.

I have never met a Rottweiler, geriatric or otherwise, but if it likes to sleep a lot and would let me groom it obsessively, I would not forsee any difficulties. I doubt it would replace Chloe in my affections (poodle grooming is fun because they don’t shed so you don’t get hairballs), but I am friendly to all creatures I do not consider prey. *looks significantly at small yappy Corgi*

Alright, GW, err, I mean Ganesh, I can’t tell you how much I needed that tonight. Now I’m going to curl up in front of the fireplace and get some sleep. Won’t be a ton tonight no matter what, but I like the outlook a little better now. G’night one and all…

mikeey

The Rottweiler sleeps a lot, Ganesh. It has short hair, so the hairball potential is pretty low.

However, the Rottweiler will be joining our elderly and deaf Malamute, and there is considerable hairball potential there, especially since he has a coat that is known in the dog-show business as “wooly” or “collie coat” — very long and soft and totally undesireable in the show ring.

Malamutes are known for chasing small animals, even such magnificent ones as cats. but this particular Malamute seems indifferent to such distractions.

We are curious how he and the Rottie are going to get along. We envision something like Oscar and Felix of “The Odd Couple.”

Hey, mikey. Good to hear from you. We had a nice fire last night, but tonight we’re too lazy and too cold to go outside in our undies for some more firewood. So we’re just going to take our last glass of pinot noir off to bed and snuggle up and read under the covers.

Hee hee, Some Guy, I had not seen those before. Yes, those are Bengals. The larger one who ‘changes direction’ on the wheel resembles Ganesh in its markings, but I don’t think it’s quite so large as he is.

They all look like young ones, Bengals don’t usually reach full growth until they’re at least two years old. The ‘talking’ is also, unfortunately, a typical Bengal trait. Ganesh never shuts up unless he’s asleep or has his head stuck in his food dish.

One of the other smaller, younger (or female–they’re not so large as the males) ones is what they call a ‘marble’ Bengal. I prefer the spotted ones like Ganesh.

They also come in so called ‘snow leopard’ colors, but those have blue eyes, and I think they’re sorta creepy. They just look to me like more muscular Siamese.

Oooh. Want to google me some images of “snow leopard” colored bengals.

Sigh. Only I can’t keep cats. I’m allergic. I will stick with the dogs for now.

I wish I knew how to post pictures here. If I did, I’d post one of the Malamute that time last spring when he met the Feral Peacock that came into our yard.

Niters, mikey! Sleep well, Ganesh is curled up asleep on my bed. We miss having a fireplace to curl up in front of.

Malamutes are known for chasing small animals, even such magnificent ones as cats. but this particular Malamute seems indifferent to such distractions.

g, Ganesh has met big dogs who are ‘known for chasing small animals,’ but they don’t seem to know what to do about one who doesn’t run. 😉

They have actually now bred some ‘hypoallergenic’ cats btw, but they are fabulously expensive.

My friend Patrick is allergic to cats, also, but for some reason, Ganesh has never made him sneeze or come out in hives. Ditto for the manager of my apartment building. She usually gets allergic just looking at pictures of cats, but she can pet and hold Ganesh with no ill effects. Dunno if that holds true for all Bengals, although I have heard anecdotal evidence that they have less dander than other cat breeds.

Mmmm. Pinot Noir. OK, I’m now officially jealous of your Pinot Noir and Mikey’s fireplace.

Oh and I forgot to Hail, Marita! my last couple of comments. Sorry, Marita! I am not worthy! *leaves offering of chocolate by way of apology*

Weapons are the tools of violence;
all decent men detest them.

Weapons are the tools of fear;
a decent man will avoid them
except in the direst necessity
and, if compelled, will use them
only with the utmost restraint.
Peace is his highest value.
If the peace has been shattered,
how can he be content?
His enemies are not demons,
but human beings like himself.
He doesn’t wish them personal harm.
Nor does he rejoice in victory.
How could he rejoice in victory
and delight in the slaughter of men?

He enters a battle gravely,
with sorrow and with great compassion,
as if he were attending a funeral.

g, you can open a free Flickr account:

http://www.flickr.com/

to post photos just about anywhere. If you have a Yahoo ID, you can use that.

Ganesh outdoors:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/83668456@N00/131612139/

Young Ganesh:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/83668456@N00/131612140/in/photostream/

Just copy and paste, once you’ve uploaded the photos to Flickr.

Because I need to see the Malamute and the feral peacock!

point taken, Gavin.

I hear Rex cats are hypoallergenic, but they creep me out. If bengals are, too, they are very attractive – way more than Rex cats. [apologizing in advance to any Rex cat lovers who might be offended.]

But I think my household needs to come to some kind of stability regarding animals. Introducing a second dog is upheaval enough.

Whoa. Ganesh is…..godlike. What a magnificent creature.

Cool with the Flickr account. Can’t deal with it tonight, but maybe tomorrow.

I’m off to bed. G’night.

This is all about me, isn’t it? That is good. Things are supposed to be about me. Sometimes the house-apes forget that, and busy themselves in ways that do not involve me, so I have to break objects or hit another cat until they remember their duties.

Other cats will be permitted in this thread, but only if they acknowledge my paramount status.

Hehe, though you guys might like those. The fruits of my hours-long youtube surfing binges.

g I hope I catch you before you go to bed to say…

HAPPY BIRFDAY!

Many happy returns of the day. And Ganesh says ‘mrow mrow’ but then he always does. 😉

Mehitabel! I worship the very thought of you!

If you lived with my handmaiden, and you yacked up on things, I would totally eat the regurgitated, half-digested food products of your spite and boredom until the handmaiden pushed me away to clean it up. Now, you must admit, that’s devotion.

Hell, I do it for my sister, and I don’t even like her all that much because she is the Number One Cat, which I think is totally unfair. Just because she’s been with the handmaiden for 16 years and is, I will admit, waaaay smarter than me, is just not reason enough, dammit! She gets to sleep closer to the handmaiden at night, and everything, and it’s just not fair.

I know that if you were here with us, YOU would be the Number One Cat, and I would not mind at all, unless you tried to eat my tuna sashimi. If you were here, perhaps there would even be EEL, which the handmaiden does not like and never orders and that is not fair, either.

So, yes, Mehitabel, lissome Abyssinian Idol of my dreams, Supermodel of Teh Cat World, this thread is all about YOU!

And Marita, but I think she went to bed.

This is all about me. You make it more all about me by pretending it’s not all about me.

I’m like a superhero. You know how the villians make their evil plans specifically to include the hero somehow, so as to be popular?

Someone should draw a comic strip.

umm, I mean, Point Taken from the POV of someone who just got here and saw the 1st post, scrolled down to the 2nd and…. just commented out of stupidity.

I’m sure this is all your fault too!

I’m hungry. Everything here is mine.

I’m hungry.

Ganesh,
We appreciate your dishonourable intentions towards Mehitabel. Alas, she does not respond well to other cats. She bitterly resents the fact that she has to share the house with three Kitty Minions — they eat her food, and occupy attention meant for her — but she tolerates their continued existence as long as they tremble and obey and respect her authoriteh. Male cats are even lower, in her rigidly matriarchal world-view, than other females.
‘Lissome’? ‘Sleek’? I am not sure that these are best descriptions for her. Perhaps ‘svelte’, or some other euphemistic way of saying ‘over-weight’.

I will not introduce her to Flickr, for then she would harass us mercilessly until we swamped it with photographs of her.

Lol, Herr Doktor, Mehitabel sounds like the Number One Cat in my household. Ganesh was about six weeks old when he came to live with us, and Scampers adopted him as her ‘baby,’ but when the baby reached full growth (i.e. twice her size), she decided she’d had enough of motherhood. And that he should probably go back to wherever he came from. This did not happen. She’s been sulking ever since.

Now, she belts him if he is in her space on the sofa, she belts him if he attempts to occupy ‘her’ kitty condo, she belts him if he tries to sleep too close to me on the bed, she belts him if he tries to muscle her off the fleecy sunny window perch (Although there are two perches, obviously one is superior. Just as obviously, the superior one is hers.), etc.

So poor Ganesh is used to living under matriarchal authority.

I wish you would post at least one photo of Mehitabel. You could do it and not tell her. 😉

I have never seen a portly Aby, I am sure you do her a disservice by even suggesting such a thing!

This thread is pure love. I can feel it through my monitor.

It’s either pure love, or cadmium radiation from an older CRT monitor.
Just, uhh.. just make sure you’re not casting a shadow even when the thing’s turned off, is all I’m sayin.

at least they’re keeping each other off the streets.

I really prefer dry food.

Wet food is okay, but I would have to say that I really prefer dry food.

It smells like possum outside.

Hello. I like dry food.

“Someone should draw a comic strip.”

Except comic strips are occasionally funny. Except for Apt. 3G. So, OK. annie can be Tommie the closeted lesbian.

Detente!

Lou-

Day by Day is not funny also, even when wound up on a liter of Mountain Dew and some primo weed.

and Mallard Fillmore is the anti-funny. Like a cartoon black hole, so dense a focus of suck that no funny can escape, even inadvertently.

And teh Family Circus. Not funny. Unless it’s the Dysfunctional version.

http://www.spymac.com/upload/gallery/2004/04/27/g115460_upload_115460.jpg

I am Salome the sexy dancing cat who will entice you and play for you only to turn around and show you my disdain for being the lowly human you are.
I love to catch mice and bring the half-dead bodies to my humans on a platter.
My favorite thing to do is pretend to like you.

I am Salome the sexy dancing cat who will entice you and play for you only to turn around and show you my disdain for being the lowly human you are.

Do you like the dry food? I saw a squirrel. It’s not time to eat yet, but I would have to say that I like the dry food.

Got any Pez?

Indeed I do, Max. I have a collector’s set of–haha!–Hello Kitty Pez dispensers!

I’m really enjoying this thread for reasons I put down to week-old-screaming-migraine-with-no-pharmacy-delivery. The cats are at about my level.

By the way, Bobby, have you tried dry food? It’s very nice.

Monday’s prez is long of face,
Tuesday’s prez is lost in space,
Wednesday’s prez is full of woe,
Thursday’s prez has far to go.
Friday’s prez is all take and no giving,
Saturday’s prez never worked for a living,
But the prez seen on the Sabbath Day,
Is selfish and dumb and bad and heterosexual for sure.

RoD hearts Annie! It’s always about her with us.

Now please stop distracting her because she’s supposed to be making her gingerbread church for our first annual RoD Holiday Bake-off.

Awww, D. Sidhe, I am so sorry about your migraine. If I could email you some Neurontin, I would!

I’m not really sure why we got started on the cats. I think it was Smiling Mortician who began it, but I am too lazy to scroll up to see for certain. And Herr Doktor Bimler and I have been posting as our cats occasionally for a while.

What can I say? It was late at night, my sleep meds weren’t working, etc. At least we helped make mikey un-cross and sent him off to bed smiling. I hope we did, anyway.

Check out Some Guy’s Bengal YouTubes. Someone has a fecking HUGE excercise wheel for their Bengal cats. I think that wheel might be bigger than my apartment. It’s certainly bigger than some cars I’ve seen.

I still can’t figure out why Max ate Righteous Bubba’s Pez. Cats can’t even taste sugar. So, either it was a texture thing, or it was REVENGE. Search your conscience, Bubba! Or there may be more retribution to come!

excuse me people, this thread is about Marita – have you forgotten?! Sheesh we got some short attention spans here.

Kathleen, Marita gave it over to MelodyMaker. I think she needed to get some rest.

Marita went to bed. MelodyMaker went to bed. Then the cats took over.

Nevertheless: All Hail Marita! All Hail MelodyMaker! They pwn3d this thread!

Gross! shoelimpy at his computer naked! Yech!!

Thanks Kathleen and GW! I’m back now, awake and landed safely and everything, so I’m ready to resume my reign.

Although I’m perfectly willing to share the spotlight with the cats. I wouldn’t want to step on anyone’s paws.

I still can’t figure out why Max ate Righteous Bubba’s Pez. Cats can’t even taste sugar. So, either it was a texture thing, or it was REVENGE. Search your conscience, Bubba! Or there may be more retribution to come!

I just affixed a catnip mouse to a string of rubber bands and hung it from the ceiling (note: sewing required). It’s working out a lot like that skiing “agony of defeat” guy, over and over. It’s the greatest kitty toy ever, from the spectator’s perspective. My conscience is murky.

Heh.

I once inherited a friend’s cat which, for whatever reason, had spent most of its kittenhood in a dorm room, without a lot of extensive exercise opportunities.

When he moved in, we had a floor to ceiling cat pole with four perches on it. At first he ignored it, but after a while, tried out the lowest perch.

Thus encouraged, at one point he decided to go for one of the higher platforms. Seriously understimating his leap, he clung to the perch with his front paws, while the back paws scrabbled and kicked, trying to propel him onto the platform.

Eventually, he made it; the process was neither “cat-like” or elegant; but it left me breathless in laughter. Even now I giggle when remembering it. Ever afterward, he was (affectionately) known as Numbnuts.

When Our Feline Overlords come, I suspect I will have to pay for that.

I hope our feline overlords come soon. I just got two little kittens that lurve me.

I’m not sure I believe that “cats can’t taste sugar” meme. I’ll accept that MOST cats can’t taste sugar, or that they don’t have the same sugar tastebuds us houseapes have, but there is a tiny yet trackable minority of cats who love things like jelly donuts, oreo filling, tomato sauce, and now pez. Maybe something in the corn-syrup molecules activates whatever replaced the sugar-tasting-buds as a random mutation?

Ok, Anne. I’m in. For this experiment we’re gonna need a large, varied population of cats and a broad assortmant of confectionaries. I’ll take the midwatch. The question is, do we provide any other choices of food? Hmm, I guess we’d have to. Bobby the cat, I understand, recomends the dry food. So what we’ll do is we’ll give each cat a name, and keep this humonguous clipboard (we don’ need no stinking ‘puters) and keep a record of which cats consume which confections how often. We’ll need a control group that…Oh shit, I’m no good at this. What would the control group do? And do we need any placebo pez?

mikey

Hmmmm… the control group should be given crappy sugar-free foods that are but pale imitations of their sweet, sweet, counterparts. Like placebo pez. If the cats go for that crap, we know there’s something lacking in their taste buds.

This is fun! Can I include the cat experiments in my thesis? It’s due next week, and might need a little bulking up.

We need something that looks like Pez but doesn’t taste sweet, something that looks and tastes like Pez but doesn’t have sugar in it, and something that looks and tastes like Pez, complete with that wicked sugary goodness (my suggestion for the last one would be Pez).

And then I need to escape this research institute into a world that won’t force me to understand scientific method against my will.

Bobby the cat, I understand, recomends the dry food.

And we have a winner — I’ve been waiting all day for the line that would force me to write gawd I love this place — which, by the way, I do.

It’s the greatest kitty toy ever, from the spectator’s perspective.

Perhaps it is, for a spectator. For a more participatory approach:

1 Catnip mouse or other bait
12 feet of yarn
1 Toy fishing rod’n’reel from Fisher-Price

It’s like fly fishing in your living room. I can cast out into the hall or the bedroom and slowly reel it in. It never takes more than 2 casts to get a bite. They set the hooks themselves, naturally. Landing them on the sofa is another matter.

AHA! So, that was YOU?? You bastard. When the Overlords come, you’ll be first to feel my claws as I lap up the blood spewing from your throat…

Wait… DAMMIT! There’s that slow-moving mouse in the hall again!

‘Scuse me, I have to go kill this thing. I’ll deal with you later.

Godammit, that’s two headless pigeons I’ve left under your car this week. So are you gonna let me in to screw Catherine or not??

You people crack me up!

Ah, but the best toy with which to torment a cat still remains the laser pointer.

OK, I should probably explain – full name is Octavia (that’s Princess Octavia!) because of the 8 count-em 8! toes on her right forepaw (3 of which look like a little mini-paw). That’s freaky even for a polydactyl…

We need something that looks like Pez but doesn’t taste sweet

Uuhh… Tylenol?

I once had a cat that loved chocolate. But he was intensely weird. He also tore open a pack of cigarettes and ate several of them. He was unconsious for several hours and his eyes were crossed for the rest of his life. Which wasn’t terribly long after that.

And if you think THAT’s stupid… I still smoke cigarettes.

Random thoughts:

Pez isn’t sweet. It’s actually pretty nasty and bitter. I dunno why I like it.

I do have one cat who prefers the dry food, she’s a black and white kitty we call Brownie because her real name upsets anyone else who has to try to pronounce it (Iala). She also likes fortune cookies, and gets annoyed when I break them open to take the fortunes away from her.

The other cat stopped eating a few months ago and since then it’s been a constant, expensive, and crazed far-reaching search for food she’ll eat. She’s completely off the dry food, and seems to like food in inverse proportion to its price and therefore nutritional content. Friskies canned? Yummy. MeowMix canned? Awesome. Fancy Feast? Not bad. Any of that frou frou crap with “organic” on the can? Gross. And she’ll happily eat a treat one day and turn up her nose at it later, only to go back to it with glee the next day. I’ve lost any sort of grasp on what cats can and can’t taste and do and don’t like. I can only assume she’s holding out for something better, and if she reliably eats any given thing, I’ll stop trying new stuff. The only flaw here is that if she ultimately decides she likes best something she originally turned her nose up at while hoping for something better, she has no way of telling me this. So possibly not the perfect scheme.

Forgive my babbling, but I like cats. I like to talk about my cats and nobody around here is very interested, even my partner just sort of puts up with them. Also, my Maxalt came today and I’m drugged up in ways that would make Rush Limbaugh drool with envy. I tried Neurontin years ago, actually. I tried everything years ago. At this point I’m on my second cycle through the various triptans to see if my tolerance for any of them has worn off. (Answer: not really.) Right now I’m back on the Inderal, which makes me hallucinate. And not fun stuff like zebras and seaslugs and whatnot, but zombies. It’s kind of lame. I’ll stop babbling now because it’s snowing and I’m happy about that and I have a paper tray of sushi to make.

Happy Monday, y’all.

Never mind the Seinfeld quotes. “It smells like possum outside.” Needs to be put into the rotation!

Or maybe I’ll just steal it for a tagline…

OK, I should probably explain – full name is Octavia (that’s Princess Octavia!) because of the 8 count-em 8! toes on her right forepaw (3 of which look like a little mini-paw). That’s freaky even for a polydactyl…

Ok, so this is a cat? Not a flying dinosaur?

I once got a cat (not my own) to do a double backflip over the arm of a couch using nothing but a laser pointer. Ha!

Yes, I do realize the cat in question would debate the entire notion of a mere human “getting” him to “do” anything, but I enjoy the illusion.

What kind of food does Bobby the cat prefer?

SM- You meant to say, the cat got you to wave the pointer around in a manner that it found amusing, right?

Well, I — .

Yeah.

This calls to mind a favorite cartoon: “Cats are Democrats, Dogs are Republicans.”

http://www.hollow-hill.com/sabina/images/cats-are-dems.jpg

Cat’s are libertarians. geez. I can’t believe I came back to this, but hey…
MARITA!!

err, whiney welfare libertarians.

1. The dry food is good. I actually like the crunchies much better than the slimies. The handmaiden no longer serves the dry food. The handmaiden says it’s for my health. I don’t know what that is, but I wish the dry food would come back. I like the dry food.

2. Sushi!

3. The laser pointer is a good toy, but I can run into the walls and fall off of furniture without encouragement from handmaiden-type technology. Especially when I put my paper lunch sack on my head and walk around. Fun! The best toy is the feathers on the fishing pole thingy, but the handmaiden hides it from me when we are not playing so that I do not consume the feathers and further do something to my health. Whatever that is. See 1.

4. When my belly hurt a lot, and I wouldn’t eat much of anything, the handmaiden got me something called ‘baby food.’ I don’t think it’s really made from babies, but it was damned tasty and got me eating again.

5. There is something in the cheap, nasty slimies (especially Whiskas!) that is not in the expensive prescription slimies. I think it might be kitty crack. Whatever it is, that shit is good! My sister and I would gobble down the Whiskas insanely fast until we threw up, then we would gobble down some more. The handmaiden does not provide Whiskas any more, even at the end of the month when the money runs short.

6. My sister eats all kind of weird, non-meat, non-fish food. Like vegetarian tomato sauce, but only if the handmaiden cooks it from scratch. And Cherry Garcia ice cream with the chocolate bits picked out because chocolate is poison or something for cats. But she won’t eat the expensive vanilla kind. Just the Cherry Garcia. She will eat the roast meat with garlic, too, and that garlic stuff is nasty, plus the meat should not be cooked, in my expert opinion, but my handmaiden is stubborn on this topic, so I will say no more about it. My sister is only my adopted sister and I’m not sure she’s really a cat. The handmaiden treats her like the Number One Cat, and my sister acts like she’s the Number One Cat, which is totally unfair. Please see my previous comments and those of the handmaiden for details, but trust me, it’s so not fair.

7. Mehitabel! Mrow!

8. Did I say how unfair it is that I am not the Number One Cat? Also, I have to take two nasty tasting medicines twice a day, but I always forget that when the slimies are served, the nasty medicine gets served, too. I’ll bet if I were the Number One Cat I wouldn’t have to take nasty medicine. Because my sister doesn’t have to. And it’s so totally not fair.

9. RobW poisoned a cat with chocolate and tobacco. When he cowers before the Great Cat in the afterlife, he will be very, very sorry. My handmaiden might intercede for him, because she likes him; and since she has done good service for cats on this plane of existence, she might be able to get him out of Eternal Litterbox Duty. But he had better watch his step around cats for the rest of his life. And he should probably adopt a homeless cat from the pound, like, tomorrow and not let it have chocolate or tobacco or aspirin or anything poison like that. That’s what I think is his best bet. He should stop smoking, too. So should my handmaiden, but this is another topic on which I shall say no more.

10. But the servants-to-cats who laugh when we do stupid things like fall off stuff and shit like that will be OK. We do those things when we sense that y’all need to feel like a superior species. You’re welcome.

Ganesh Bengal Cat (Remover of Obstacles)

Mrow!

What? I was looking outside just then.

Mehitabel is taking her fourth or umpteenth nap of the day. I will not try to channel my inner Abyssinian and comment on her behalf… method acting is a terrible thing when it goes wrong. One minute I am asking myself, “So what’s my motivation in this scene”, and the next minute — under the control of my inner Metty — I’m climbing into the fridge in search of chicken necks, and wondering why the Frau Doktorin is shouting at me.

I’m trying to stop, Herr Doktor. I really am. But there is something liberating in channelling my inner Ganesh. Perhaps it’s the ability to not worry about appearing to be not terribly bright?

t’s actually quite relaxing.

Ganesh, sweetie-boo, I believe the sekrit ingreedjint in Whiskas is “sugar”, hiding under some long chemical moniker for plausible deniability. Which is yet another reason why I’m not sure about the cats-can’t-taste-sweets theory those lab apes keep propounding. As for the Cherry Garcia, many cats like ice cream, even cheapo vanilla-flavored ice cream, but not the high-price goo-er-may stuff with the vanilla bean specks in it. I think cats just have much more sensitive taste buds than us apes for a lot of things, and various trace chemicals that we don’t notice either appall or entice you guys. Like vanilla bean specks.

Lots of cats DO like garlic, though. Back when I was young and poor, we’d put a little garlic salt on the wet food to entice our cats to try a new food or to perk up a peaky cat’s appetite. Now we just use “kitty ice cream”, as the baby-food-chicken is known around here.

Anne, the ‘cats can’t taste sugar’ thing I picked up on the intertoobz at a science site, probably PZ’s because that’s the one I read the most. I don’t think it’s a taste bud issue; I vaguely remember it as something genetic, which means it is perfectly likely that there are some cats with genetic anomalies who can taste it. Which could explain Max’s consumption of Bubba’s Pez. Because even though Pez is not sweet, as D. Sidhe says (I don’t know because I don’t eat Pez, I like the containers, but I really only like chocolate or mint candy), it most likely is almost pure sugar.

And Scampers really will not eat any flavor of ice cream, expensive or cheap, other than Cherry Garcia, even though she mostly adores all dairy products.

I knew lots of cats liked garlic, that’s why it startled me when I found out that Ganesh doesn’t. I think that’s the attraction of the vegetarian tomato sauce for Scampers, too, as I love garlic and use a lot of it when I make that sauce.

I know people use garlic supplements as natural flea control for dogs, does anyone know if it’s effective for cats? Idle curiosity, mine are on Revolution and have never had fleas.

I don’t know from cats. I just know from dogs, and I’m talking geriatric deaf Malmutes who like to eat their own vomit. Soon I will know the habits of geriatric arthritic Rottweilers, who, presumably have subtley different preferences from geriatric deaf Malamutes. I think maybe we can use Bobby the cat’s ideas about dietary preference to guide us.

Dogs also like very much to eat cat excrement. We don’t have many cats around here, due to the prevalence of wildlife such as coyotes and red-tailed hawks. Natural selection has decreed that my neighborhoods’ pets tend to be Malamutes and Rottweilers and similar breed.

I suspect that cats can taste sugar, but evolution has given them no particular motivation to seek out ripe fruit, unlike their house-apes.

We had a Siamese once who luurved sweetcorn. Her dentition wasn’t designed to bite the corn from the cob, of course — so we would be eating the stuff and she would hang around, waiting for us to spit out every 3rd or 4th masticated mouthful onto her own little plate.

Eeww, OK, too much information.

That same cat also liked avocado, mushrooms (cooked), tomato, egg sandwich, and sweet potato. Not all at once, I hasten to add.

Rob W: “OK, so this is a cat? Not a flying dinosaur?”

Um, yeah. actually a cute little sideshow freak with a different number of toes on each foot (ah, genetics!) For those who don’t know, polydactls are kitties with extra toes due to a genetic mutation. Earnest Hemingway had a bunch of them. Tavvi looks like a sealpoint Siamese with snow white socks – and toes! Lots and lots of toes! Her brother Max has the classic “thumbs” mutation, so not quite as odd looking – he just has these really huge front paws. I got them from a shelter, two of the sweetest kids you could ever meet – even for cat overlords!

Remember the old saying: dogs have owners, cats have staff.

http://www.catsthatlooklikehitler.com/

For the record I didn’t poison the damned cat… He would lick leftover ice cream bowls, but only chocolate ice cream. The cigarettes were left on the table, and he went for them. We never left any out after that, naturally. Who would figure a cat would go for tobacco? But then, this cat was retard…er, special.

Annie- the hitler cats site is awesome.

Libertarians, my ass. Every cat I’ve ever known was a fascist.

This is all going to end badly, I know it is. One day soon — and we all know it will be sooner rather than later — some politician seeking re-election will form the usual symbiotic relationship with with a bottom-feeding tabloid newspaper in search of sales, and together they will embark on a Moral Panic beat-up. Oh no (they will say) — the old Underage Cyber Stalking moral panic doesn’t work anymore, not since that sticky business with Mark Foley. What shall we do instead to agitate the public and establish our own moral superiority?

Pet Cyber Stalking. Are your cats safe on the Internetz?

When the S,N archives are sub-poena’ed by the Congressional Committee Hearings into Feline Sock-puppeteering, everyone hyperventilating about the prospect of uncovering the true identity of “Ganesh Bengal Cat”, I for one intend to be in another country. I am already, which helps.

When the S,N archives are sub-poena’ed by the Congressional Committee Hearings into Feline Sock-puppeteering, everyone hyperventilating about the prospect of uncovering the true identity of “Ganesh Bengal Cat�, I for one intend to be in another country. I am already, which helps.

Herr Doktor, I am an avatar of a god for fuck’s sake!

You think Congress can do anything to me? Get a grip, man!

Lord Ganesha, Remover of Obstacles
(just in case you have forgotten)

Pet Cyber Stalking. Are your cats safe on the Internetz?

MAF54: do i make u horny?

xxxx: purrrrrrr…. i have to chase fake mice again

MAF54: love to watch that

MAF54: those great legs running…

xxxx: 2 days pawing, 3 days napping

xxxx: every week

MAF54: you’ll be way hot then

MAF54: did u spank it this weekend yourself?

xxxx: no, too busy licking myself

MAF54: haha. can i help?

And he should probably adopt a homeless cat from the pound, like, tomorrow

Does keeping a cat that was abandoned by a deadbeat roommate count for adoption? She’s been with me for 8 years now.

mehitabel?

€

RobW 🙂

The Great Cat will smile on you in the afterlife, I am sure. You are a good person. The deadbeat roommate scenario is one with which I am familiar. I didn’t get a cat out of the deal, just a lot of bills.

Both my cats are rescues. Yes, even Ganesh Bengal Cat. Purebred cats are not abandoned or dumped somewhere as often as your common moggies, but there are often some that need homes.

Since I had kept Bengal cats before, the Bengal Rescue people got me to take Ganesh when a Bengal breeder was shut down for zoning violations or something.

Connecticut has laws about keeping ‘wild’ animals in residential neighborhoods; and the foundation cats used in Bengal breeding programs, since they are usually only one or two generations removed from Asian Leopard Cats, are considered wild animals.

The people who wrote the laws have obviously never met a foundation cat. I have had an F1 cat (half domestic, half Asian Leopard Cat) draped around my shoulders licking my hair and purring like a car engine.

Still, the law is the law, and that’s how Ganesh came to live with me.

Here in Missouri, you could probably keep a Bengal tiger in your apartment, like that kook in NYC did, with no repercussions.

archie–lololol

Congrats, I think you are the first person I’ve seen who remembers archie and mehitabel. I have a friend who is a nut about Don Marquis, he has first editions of most of his books.

We must ask Herr Doktor Bimler if Mehitabel was named after that Mehitabel.

There’s also some HTML Project Mehitabel, but I am technologically moronic, so I don’t know WTF it’s about.

Stalking? I am a crafty stalker; I ambushed the catnip mouse. I ripped open its belly and disembowelled it. I will deal with that annoying cockroach next, but right now I need a wee nap.

Purebred cats are not abandoned or dumped somewhere as often as your common moggies, but there are often some that need homes.

That’s how I got the himilayan, too. She wasn’t actually abandoned, it was more like she abandoned herself. Previous owner left her alone too often and she kept jumping onto my mother’s patio from the upstairs apartment. Finally the owner just gave her to Mom, who gave her to me. I’ve had a lot of strays in my life, but this is the first one with papers.

I think hybrids are cool. I had a friend with a hybrid wolf/shepherd dog. He was the sweetest dog, totally gentle and loving, despite their terrible reputation. And huge, the size of a pony I swear. The only weird thing about the dog was that he never made any sounds. Never barked, never whined, never growled. It is a very strange sensation to have a huge dog like that just sneak up behind you, as quietly as a… cat?