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May 9, 2013May 9, 2013

Clash of the Titan

The Marshal has been annoyed with the neighbors lately. You see, Titanescu spends most of his evenings on the bed with us, and glares towards our front door whenever their baby can be heard or nails are hammered, like the other day.

He is generally cranky, and can go from 0 to Pissy in less than two seconds but he kept staring at the window with a look that said: “Твою мать!”

And I made the mistake to reach out to pet him on the head.

It was like a scene from a bar fight: he spun round to stare at my outstretched hand with a pissed off look and smacked it with an audible “whap!”

Sounded like a handful of putty thrown hard against a wall, no sh*t. It echoed through the room.

Unfortunately for Rhuda-an, he was sitting on her chest as she started laughing.

When Titanescu gets mad, everyone needs to be real quiet for a while. Those guffaws pissed him off all the more and he snapped his jaws at her hand before rearing his head back, mouth wide open in the longest hiss I’ve heard since 1979, exhaling a cloud of fetid fish breath at her.
His lips curled, some spittle blew forth, some just dribbled out and it lasted so long he almost coughed at the end… Right in her face.

Because we couldn’t stop laughing uncontrollably, he jumped off and ambled into the kitchen with his weird walk, ankles together, feet kicking outward.

We followed him in there, but there’s one more thing about the old coot: when you piss him off, he shuns you. He turns his back to you and will ignore you completely. A little bit like this:

It took him maybe another 20 minutes to cool down enough that he could come back and be with us…

…and we love him.

April 23, 2013April 26, 2013

Midnight Movie Madness: “Red Dog”

“Red Dog” – (92 minutes, Australia, 2011 – PG)

I really want to like movies featuring animal protagonist(s), and I’ll often check out movie listings for older, newer as well as foreign films hoping to find a good one.

But my problem is the same as with Science-Fiction, especially space operas: they both tend to be formulaic and “anthropomorphize” their subject.

Which brings us to “Red Dog“, an Australian film based on actual events. The poster tag lines read: “sometimes you pick the dog. Sometimes the dog picks you”, and “he’s been everywhere, mate.”

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February 27, 2013

Beach, Stairs, and a Tyrant named Titan

Fist things first. We want to congratulate our friend StateOfGrace for her adoption of Pearl, a bengal mix and Mabel, a beautiful black kitty. We know those two furbabies are very lucky and have a wonderful human who will love them, forever. Hugs and head bonks from the JBoD family.

Now… I’m beginning to get cranky. I want my rain and/or fog darnit! There’s too much sunshine. It’s hard to take pics that aren’t over exposed or suffering from terminal purple fringe. Oh well. We managed to escape and Lastech got a few nice pics in spite of the sunshine. These were taken around Lands End and Sutro Baths. It provided me with some much needed exercise as there were lots of stairs to deal with.

Pretty purple flower at Mile Rock Beach by Lastech

Stairs near Sutro Bath — That’s a lot of stairs. This is just one of the ones we climbed. There were many more. Photo by Lastech

A Great Blue Heron (left), a seagull and seal rocks from Sutro Baths, by Lastech

As for that white whiskered tyrant named Titan… He’s coming along. He’s still a hissing spitting old fart. Today we opened the door to his room and left it open for a while. He hissed at Tito. Tito was unfazed and ignored it while exploring Titan’s room. Jenny was napping elsewhere. 🙂

September 5, 2012October 18, 2013

Traveling with pets: additional musings

Ah, San Francisco… We fancied a trip to Baker Beach yesterday and took a long walk barefoot through the edge of the surf, having the enchanting experience of watching porpoises breaching the waves just offshore.

At one point a sea lion pup watched us before slipping back under the water, while dogs chased birds and each other, a perfect jellybeansofdoom kind of day.

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August 11, 2012August 17, 2012

Caturday: four legged Klingons

“And they call it kitty love…”

That’s where the cuteness ends: Jenny starts by kissing on Tito, they exchange a few licks, and settle down for a minute, maybe a few seconds.

Tito & Jenny on love cushion — The quiet before the storm

Then the wrestling begins. The headlocks and body slamming, what every Trekker recognizes as the Klingon mating ritual, somewhat different from the Vulcan mating ritual which also involves ass kicking, but of a Starship Captain.

Star Trek yourself — Someone could get hurt…

As I type this, for instance, Jenny is still greeting me home, dancing figure eights under the chair, pawing at my leg and grabbing my arm to rub against. With purring and claws. I’m already bleeding in three spots. I got bit. Not too hard but firmly.

Must be the Tortie (Tortoiseshell) in her, the little brute. As a wrestler, she has a very solid stance: wide with hind legs bent. We saw her more than once using this position to wrap Tito in an embrace before slamming him down. Then again, he gives as good as he gets, and even has her retreating often, though never for long. Never for long.

I’m bleeding from a fourth scratch now.

Jenny will also walk on my pillow stopping just long enough to nom on my skull. If I pet her, which I always do, she farts. If my wife leans over to nose bonk her, Jenny’ll cough in her face, like Carol Beer on “Little Britain”:

Her newest trick: not a cough, but a vurp (a burp which sounds vomitous). All I can say is thank Ceiling Cat she doesn’t eat mice. Things are gross enough. Annnnd, I’ve got an eighth scratch… Well, a puncture, more like… Still, I feel like one of Jack the Ripper’s playthings.

March 24, 2012October 29, 2013

Caturday: a tale of two kittehs. Or three.

All four of our kittoons here have needed a bit of socializing right from the start. It might seem that Maz Whang didn’t, but his universe was turned upside down when we adopted him, as he’d grown up a full year with Sphynx siblings, and a couple other cats and dog.

To be wrenched from his home was traumatic, and the poor beastie gacked and crapped all over himself in the cat carrier on the way to his new digs.

We had to stop, clean him up and comfort him as best we could before driving on.

Sphynxes are social, but on their own terms, which aren’t always easy to decipher. They really are driven by the two related needs of warmth and sustenance, with much playtime in between.

Just like you test the warmth of a baby bottle prior to feeding, you have to ensure your hands are warm enough before petting Maz or he’ll recoil and dart away in shock and horror. I call this “ghosting” because that’s what his reaction makes me think of. We’ve said he’s been very good for Tito (and vice versa), drawing Tito out of his ‘goth’ period following Boober’s passing.

Finally, Tito was able to chase and play to his heart’s content with the streaker, losing excess weight in the process, and bonding with, well, an alien. Even Miss Jenny finds Mazuzu irresistible: both want to nom on Maz, who’ll leap straight up a couple feet in the air and maybe growl if a tooth racks his spine. Mmmmh. Baby back ribs…

Given Tito and Jenny’s “affection” for shoes, I suspect they enjoy Maz’ gym locker smell when it’s time to give him a bath. That’s usually a signal for us to drag him into the tub, but then they love the new cat smell just as much and are all over him again.

Affection? They have it. Tito tricks us into feeding him and leaves the food for Maz, knowing the alien always needs more. Smart Tito…

Maz grooms both Tito and Jenny when he beds down with either in the basket atop the computer desk, later gacking hairballs and meowing his discontent, but what can you do..? Jenny also grooms both, focusing on Maz’ ears in particular, an unexpected boon for us since Maz and Q-tips don’t mix well.

One of the biggest changes is something Maz started and Jenny continues: helping Tito find his voice. Because he never was very vocal at all, this watchful little thing which grew into a big cat. He now trills and coos and meows, although always in the higher pitch of a kitten. And it may be early yet to tell, but I think Jenny’s going to be the same. They both will always sound like kittens.

This may sound like a sign of arrested development but I prefer to think of it as a display of happiness, along with Tito’s joy at being picked up and carried from room to room for a few minutes, purring and discovering a new perspective on his world with wide eyes, rubbing his chin on our cheek as we do so. And Jenny’s happiness at going to sleep hugging my hand to her head, like a pillow.

Our two little feral rescues no longer have to survive on mean streets, they only have to romp and warm each other and their “cousin” from outer space.

Love is in the air and scarcely displaced by Maz and Jenny’s farts. It’s all good.

December 17, 2011December 17, 2011

Caturday blogging: Saturday morning cattoons

Time for the Pointy Eared Superstars to shine a bit:

Maz on black blanket — I make this look goooood....

Tito Jenny in basket — Wake us when the food's ready...

There’s still the occasional bout of hissing, and Miss Jenny sounds a little bit like this (sorry about the definition, but we’re talking post WWII cartoons, here):

The little romance between Tito and Jenny is a little bit like this:

November 12, 2011October 30, 2013

Something wicked this way comes

Wicked as in “cool”, that is. This little gal was named Nightshade by the wonderful staff at the San Francisco SPCA, and we’ve decided to call her Nightshade Jenny, Jenny as in Pirate Jenny from Threepenny Opera.

Little Miss Nightshade Jenny. She is quite small with ice blue eyes. Yes, she is gorgeous.

She’ll need time to get acclimated and has a quiet room to do so, always with one of us in it with her, she’s a shy little thing that one. Hopefully, the pictures will do her justice, she is absolutely gorgeous. But then as Leonardo Da Vinci said, the smallest feline is a masterpiece.

April 22, 2011October 30, 2013

Friday Night Cat Blogging and a bird

Good evening everyone. I hope everyone has had a nice Good Friday.

Now it’s time for the boys to shine.

Here is Tito and who is he hugging?

He’s hugging Kitsy, of course

And now, for the bonus bird. It’s California Quail. It was wandering around in the arboretum at Golden Gate Park.

April 17, 2011December 13, 2012

Midnight Movie Madness: “isolation” or why every farm should have a cat

“Isolation” – (2005, UK/Ireland, 95 minutes – NR)

Irish farmer Dan Reilly (John Lynch) has fallen on hard times and agreed to let an obscure biotech concern conduct fertility experiments on his cows.
The idea is to speed up the maturation process while simultaneously increasing the animals’ fertility. The research is conducted by a non-too-friendly scientist named John (Marcel Iures), assisted by local vet Orla (Essie Davis).

isolation john marcel iures — Marcel Iures as “John”

Dan, the farmer, doesn’t quite understand the science behind the program and probably wouldn’t care if he actually saw the money he was promised. But both he and the vet, Orla, have yet to see some dough.

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