This made the naked food thief perk up… He is feeling much better after all.
Raptor Jesus be praised!
Friday Night Cats Blogging: Black Friday edition…
Maz Whang’s been under the weather these past few days, something which wasn’t readily apparent at first.
Update by Rudha-an: Maz is better this evening. He’s eating more and has gone exploring in Jenny’s room instead of heading straight back to bed. He still has a way to go before he’s fully recovered, but he’s definitely on the road. 🙂
All three cats had the sneezes and got a little extra L-Lysine in their food. I thought at first he might be taken aback a bit by the new arrival, stifling his usual enthusiasm.
In addition, the weather’s turned colder, driving Maz under the blankets. That said, he spent an inordinate amount of time hidden there and –gasp – even stopped eating a couple days ago. Today was to be decision time about a trip to the vet, but Maz perked up early this morning, eating and even chasing Tito and Jenny briefly.
We’re monitoring him closely as even this bit of progress can be deceptive, but it’s still encouraging.
Tito and Jenny spend much of the day wrestling, Jenny meowing “UNCLE!” every so often, only to launch herself at Tito again once he lets go. PSYCH!
“She’s the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen
Such a beautiful violence coming in”
– The Creatures “Prettiest Thing”
She now knows all the good sleeping spots: the chair by the kitchen window, the cat tower, the doggie bed by the computer and Tito’s paisley dog cushion by our bed.
I’m also very happy to announce that the turd flicking has stopped and that she no longer runs to hide when one of us bipeds lumbers around.
Tito played a huge part in bringing her out of her shell, and she is a loving little dynamo, purring up a storm at the slightest touch, grabbing the petting hand with both paws (but no claws) to rub her chin against it and patting it with both sets of pink jellybeans.
Yes, her tiny jellybeans are the color of pink lemonade.
What lovable creatures they all are… The cute is strong in this one.
She!
The most accurate way to describe the cats’ breakthrough is to compare it to a kind of movie trailer: the epic blockbuster.
With somber music, we are introduced to the main characters, one after the other, in slow motion, each one fading into the other before the action explodes on screen.
Yeah. It was like that. Each kittoune* venturing further into the light until…
One of the funniest moments was Jenny darting in the hallway and squeezing under Maz’ gut, between his legs. She looked like an X-fighter trying to trip an All Terrain Armored Transport in “the empire strikes back”….
But perhaps the better comparison is with the “fast and the furious” movies or “Tokyo drift” (dunno, Ain’t seen it and don’t need to after what we witnessed):
It seems like, despite the now occasional hiss and (mild) slap to the head, the boys want to be friends with Ms. Jenny. I should point out that she gives as good as she gets, taking Mazuzu’s demonic impersonation down a notch to, say, “impish”. Tito’s pooped from all the playing and tentative cooing he exchanged with Jenny, and we are just astounded by the innate skills cats have to win you over. Chin rubs. Purrs (loud, too). Pettings, cooing and more of the arsenal of cuteness the furry (and naked) ones deploy to conquer us humans. From birth. Right out of the box!
I’ll put it this way: I’d gladly sign up to crew Jenny’s 8 sails ship across the seas of cheese.
Thank you, Raptor Jesus, I shall now read from the first book of Titus, of the LOLBible:
“Old pplz wiv tall hatz gotted to be gud, coz workin for teh Ceiling Cat. That meanz no catnipz, no fightin on teh garden fence, no scratchin other kittehs, an not pooin on teh monies, kthx.”
To add, please Jenny, quit flicking them out the box. KTHXBAI.
Kittoune: Pronounced Kit-toon. This word came about as a result of our kitties staring us, damaging our brain cells, and reducing us to silly mushballs. From the French suffix “toune” (ph: toon: little, small, colloquial).
Friday Night Cats Blogging: early transmission
Yet another dawn broke over JBoD’s realm, streaming photons into the fearsome three. Or two, since Tito is really more of a lovebug.
Miss Nightshade Jenny slumbers in her private room dreaming of the void between stars, while Tito longs to make friends and Maz Whang plots another food theft. Jenny’s food.
As a friend of Rudha-an suggested, it could well be that the mix of Siamese and Tortoiseshell in Jenny’s make up has resulted in a creature fit for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
Witness the gnawing on my wife’s arm alternating with grooming: I chew, I lick, I chew, I lick… Look at her crossways and she hisses before grooming you again. Okay, but what about the chewing on Rudha-an’s eyebrows? By the way, for those of you who never experienced a kitten chewing contentedly on your eyebrows, the hardest part is fighting the giggles. Laughing could be deadly, and Mister Bean would be a perfect target for her “attentions”.
Looking at Jenny’s angelic face and the arch of her eyes, one could easily forget the unusual red fiery spots on her ears, giving a clue as to her temperament. I foresee epic encounters with Mazuzu Whang, himself so much larger than life, on a scale not seen since, well, since Galactus and the Silver Surfer showed up in our system, with Tito and us playing the role of the Fantastic Four.
By the way, just to clarify the kibble tossing: Jenny flicks her head to spit out the kibble, then bats it around. In other words she spits and smacks it around savagely. I am thinking of her more and more as Heddy. Miss Heddy Hades…
The sun will be setting soon, and knowing She owns the night, I shiver.
Day two: Hedwig and the angry hiss..?
Hmmm… Is Nightshade Jenny trying to tell us something, I wonder?
Previously, on this channel, butt-head Maz Whang hissed at Jenny and at my wife when she picked him up to, let’s say “decrease the atmospheric pressure” in the room. Made me wish I had the camera ready, it looked like something out of the first “exorcist” and all I could think of was:
Not Mazuzu Whang, but close enough. Tito, on the other hand, seems much more mellow and just very curious about the little ball of fur. There is a possibility that Tito could help in bringing her out of her shell, but we’ll explore that later.
In another post, this one about Mazuzu, I’d mentioned that it’s sometimes better to wait for the newly adopted to come up with their own name. And well, beyond the oh-so-sweet blinking gaze of Jenny’s blue peepers, I now sense something more than just the cute, vulnerable fuzzy-wuzzy that makes us go all kajagoogooey and ghoo-buh-ghee? Goo-buh-ghee-ish.
What happened yesterday, I can’t quite discount or otherwise sweep under the carpet. When in the safe room with my wife in the evening, Jenny decided to do a bit of exploring. Wonderful! Yes?
But when my wife was perceived to be getting “danger close” to the dish of wet food, Jenny fixed her with her ice-blue eyes and hissed a clear warning. Sooo-eee! We got us a handful there I think, so let’s see:
Hedwig \he(d)-wig\ as a girl’s name is of Old German origin, and the meaning of Hedwig is “contention, strife“. Actress Hedy Lamarr was born Hedwig Kiesler.
Hmmm. Hedy… Hedwige… Hedda…
Do dishwashers need resumes..?
After wandering the desert for the last several months, it’s about time that I return to blogging. I had a sort of Howard Beale (Network) moment which lasted a while.
See, earlier this year, I did something I did not expect to do, ever: I walked away from a job.
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.
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.
Klingon for cats: a “Kajagoogoo” revival of sorts…
Everyone does it. It’s only a problem when you actually do it on purpose, and a sickness when you work at making it into a language.
Baby talk. Whether with infants or pets. Maybe it starts with the ‘shorthand’ people develop when they live as a couple for a while, sharing an ever increasing frame of reference. I was reminded of this while watching “date night” with Tina Fey and Steve Carell, a pretty funny and fresh take on marriage.
Here, in the realm of jellybeansofdoom, Tito and Maz Whang do it in their own way: the cooing, meowing, purring and other vocalizations.
And I’ll confess we imitate them, only to have them both look at us as though we speak in a heavily accented version of cat. Silly humans and their funny walk…
For having led such a sheltered life (by comparison), Maz speaks in harsh tones (unless he’s cold, in which case he whimpers ‘sotto voce’). His language is positively Klingon and I’m certain I heard him more than once calling Tito a p’tahk, whatever that means.
But where it gets really questionable is when I find myself (this is hard to admit, gimme credit) pulling the covers away from Maz’ sleepy head and whispering…. Buh-ghee! Buh-ghee! Ghoo! Ghoo-ghee..?
No, I don’t even know what it means but it does make us both feel good. I think.
Oh and speaking of Kajagoogoo, this guy wouldn’t last a minute around cats with this hairdo, and that’s before he put beads in. Hey, you know, I guess I do remember the ‘80s after all…
Caturday: in the mood for rain…
The rain is making a comeback and the City always looks best when shrouded in fog or damp with rain. It’s just that kind of lazy afternoon, perfect for cuddling with the cats…
Add a few minutes of Miles Davis…
Musical archeology: where the switchblade came from…
Made you look. Okay, what was with the switchblade waved by Julien Doré in his video “les limites” posted here previously.
Glad you asked, because thanks to some hardcore detective work (okay: reading comments on youtube), we knew the video was inspired by an old Serge Gainsbourg song, back when they were called ‘clips’. Question was: which one? After hours of research fueled by coffee and aspirin, we found it in Gainsbourg’s song “les yé-yés”.
More can be found about the yé-yés here.
Now, Gainsbourg was always a better songwriter than singer and had a hit in 1965 with “laisse tomber les filles” sung by France Gall, then 17. This song might sound familiar as Quentin Tarantino used it in “Kill Bill”:
Now you know. Let’s bask again in a bit of retro-cool with another version of Doré’s song: it’s got dogs, a rooster, a pony!