Catymology

Welcome to the Carnival of the Cats, #162. Mog is only one of the many catted ones who continue to protest the Pet Food of Death. Our prayers go out to all those cats, dogs, and humans who have been touched by this tragedy.

Since today is Kitty Day, we thank the Great Cat for all of the wonderful qualities of our felines.



Intelligence and creativity . . .

Friday demonstrates remarkable paws-ability: It's Four A.M. Why aren't you up yet?.

Himalayan kittens say "Bastante Already"--and a lot more, too.

Got Cattitude? Rico Loco shows his off.

Have you seen this new meme? Seems like cats are pretty smart. Victor Tabbycat reads up on how to be a Thinking Blogger.

Baby and Tiny exhibit extraordinary supervisory skills.

Here's a cat who really is on top of things.

Smokey has a vast appreciation for his engine.


Conflict resolution . . .

Bebe encounters Conflict on a spring day.

Ferdy grumps about The Other Cat.

Amber and Mouse argue over who gets screen time.

Cat and dog compete for laptime: Furfur Cutting In.

There's no competition between a thoughtful toddler and her cat.

When it comes to sharing a cozy spot, there's always the chance of a feline-canine face-off.

Tiny deals with an incursion.

KittyKitty drops by for some loving, much to the chagrin of the resident felines.

While Meoza is out, Izzy and Bazel have a bit of a dust-up. And with multiple cats in Mog's house, who wouldn't expect the occasional ruckus?


Physical prowess . . .

Maggie the Ragdoll cutie practices for the cat olympics. (Oh, she looks a lot like me!)

Miss Chloe exhibits remarkable form--in upright sleeping.


Remarkable powers of recovery . . .

Bad Kitty cats succumb an epidemic of Tail Woes. Ouch!

As if that’s not enough, TeaCup Is In The Hospital And Headline News.


Adorably adoptable . . .

Adorable little Oscar seeks a forever home in south Florida.

Kittens: you can’t live with them, you can’t live without them—especially these 5 Brats, who are only a week old, but will soon be ready to own their own humans.


Entertaining . . .

Gracie instructs Ping in the finer points of tunneling.

Prince Henry ascends to the throne.

The very au courant Mister Gato stars in Un homage a les LOLcats.

Parker proclaims herself The Champion of the Nip Fest!.

China Cat prefers the grass. And both China Cat and Willow settle in for treats.

Tigger and SonnyBob love their cat teaser.

Morris is simply bowled over by Springtime.


Mysterious . . .

After helping his human with her work, Pepi gets a New Nickname.

But Mew has decided she wants to stick with traditiion.

The friendly neighborhood calico reveals her name.

Bean Sidhe, one might say, is hygienically challenged.


Just sitting around looking gorgeous . . .

Bagheera is a natural for Chiaroscuro. Huckleberry looks blissed out.

Looking for THE PERFECT ACCESSORY? Try one of these.

And Miss Marilyn shows us her gorgeous tummy; she also wishes us happy trails. Meanwhile, some pedigreed Illiniois cats show off their form.

Isabel basks in sunshine and admiration.

Every view looks better with a cat in it.

Someone's really glad that Mom's home.

Sabby and Captain are waiting loyally.

K T Cat has no motivation, but looks regal anyway.

Whew! That was a lot of work. Thanks to everyone who sent their entries. Now it's time for a little relaxation.




Be sure to check the Carnival of the Cats home page for next week's Carnival host.

Labels: Carnival of the Cats

Rae Armantrout has a new book of poems out called Next Life. It includes a poem called "Thing," which you can read on the Academy of American Poets web site. In "Thing," Armantrout observes her cat's perfect self-regard. I was reminded of this picture of me enjoying the sunshine.




I'll be boarding the Modulator's Friday Ark tomorrow; and on Sunday, the Carnival of the Cats will be right here at Catymology.

Labels: Carnival of the Cats, poetry

It's Aloysius' day to simply be a cat, so I am filling in. For the past couple of weeks, I've taken up your time with "3 annoying things on Tuesday." But today, I have a better idea.

You can help provide free mammograms for needy women with a simple click of your mouse. Just click on over to The Breast Cancer Site and you'll see what I mean.

At the same site, you can also support free food for shelter animals and other good causes.

These sites are funded by corporate sponsors. They count the number of clicks per day and give accordingly. After you click on the appropriate button, you'll see ads for the sponsors' products, but they're unobtrusive. Each individual can click once per day. I'm guessing that the site puts a cookie in your browser cache in order to be able to track your clicks.

But, you ask, is it for real? Does money really go to the charities that these sites name? The answer is yes, according to the Urban Legends site, Snopes.com, and About.com. So take a minute and visit these sites.

Next Sunday, April 29, we'll be hosting the Carnival of the Cats here at Catymology. Get your entries ready. We're looking for stories, pictures, poems, or what have you about cats and their catted ones. To enter, use the form at the Blog Carnival Index. The deadline is 6 p.m. Central Time. Rumor has it that Darcy Xenophon will be returning from his extended stay at the "feline spa" in order to help with the curatorial duties.

Meanwhile, roll over and enjoy the 161st edition of the Carnival, hosted by our friend K T Cat, the Maximum Leader of the Feline Theocracy. I especially liked her invocation:

Oh Lord, we beseech thee, bring all of these kitties tuna in their bowls, sunbeams on their sofas and fresh catnip rubbed on their toys. Amen.

Amen!

Labels: Carnival of the Cats, fun and games

Labels: poetry

News from the Wildcat Sanctuary: Baby Shalico Grows Up

Shalico was surrendered by a college student who ordered him off the internet when he was just weeks old. Over the winter, Shalico grew and has really come into his own. Recently, it was time to introduce him to his own kind. Kitty, an older female lynx met Shalico and wasn't all that impressed. She felt he was too rowdy and didn't respect her personal space. But little by little they learned how to co-habitate and can be found lying back to back during naps.

Less than a month ago, we received Ramsey, a 3-year-old Canadian lynx, who was living in a condo near Washington DC. The owner chose to surrender Ramsey because he was destroying the house and was a threat to visitors. At TWS, Ramsey will get to experience what life is like as a lynx for the first time.

Ramsey was introduced to Shalico and Kitty. Much like Kitty, Ramsey thought Shalico had too much energy but he decided he could deal with it. All three moved outside into a new habitat this past weekend. Ramsey was nervous of his cougar neighbors but curled up in a summer den. Kitty investigated all the surrounding cougars and bobcats while Shalico thought he had gone to heaven. He ran from one side of the enclosure to the other, he chased his neighbors through a shared wall and was in motion for hours.

Though Shalico seemed to enjoy his first day as an adult lynx, he didn't want to leave behind being a kitten all together. He still wanted his baby blanket (pictured) for his first few days out.

-----

The Wildcat Sanctuary in Sandstone, Minnesota, works to save my cousins, the big cats.

Labels: lynx, wildcats

Since Tuesday is Aloysius' day to simply be a cat,

I get to write whatever I want.

Here's an amusing quiz from Ravenblack, the site that brought us the Random Surrealism Generator. What poetic form are you? Since I know Aloysius like the inside of a litter box, I answered on his behalf. Here's what I found out:

I'm terza rima, and I talk and smile. Where others lock their rhymes and thoughts away I let mine out, and chatter all the while. I'm rarely on my own - a wasted day Is any day that's spent without a friend, With nothing much to do or hear or say. I like to be with people, and depend On company for being entertained; Which seems a good solution, in the end. What Poetry Form Are You?

This poem does seem to describe Aloysius' personality. Although he thinks he's a big, brave cat, he's usually in the same room as his humans, or nearby, where he can keep his eye on us.
Lately, he's been keeping a close eye on the patio door, in case it should open to let him outside.


What's terza rima? Let's ask the teacher:

A type of poetry consisting of 10- or 11-syllable lines arranged in three-line "tercets" with the rhyme scheme aba bcb cdc, etc. The poet Dante is credited with inventing terza rima, which he used in his Divine Comedy. Terza rima was borrowed into English by Chaucer, and it has been used by many English poets, including Milton, Shelley, and Auden.

P.S. The questions are not easy, though some of them seem specifically designed for felines; for example:

• 2. Which of these are well suited to holding together makeshift constructions made of boxes?
• 3. Which of the little piggies behaved in a sensible manner?:

But please don't ask me about what Aloysius would drop from a 66-story building--certainly not a cat!

Labels: cats, poetry

1. Pology Magazine Online: Writers' guidelines:

The best stories resemble prose.

2. [from a recent Craig's List job posting] Are YOU a POWER BLOGGER?

We're looking for someone who wants to work from home - updating about 9-10 of my client's blogs - once per month with 250-400 words of real estate-investing related information (as if you were this female "investment property specialist" yourself).

THE TECHNICAL PART:

I am producing training videos to walk you through the process.

You will have to be able to make several separate blog entries per month (each in it's own independent blog).

Insert 2 hyperlinks back to our site within the text of each entry.- and then type the blog's URL into a simple online ping-service to let the search engines know that there's a new post.

Initially, your first month would just be getting use to the videos and audios we'll provide, and just writing posts as fast as you can into WORD documents (for $3 per post). We need to get caught up on our content - so you will need to be able to crank this stuff out.

3. Sign posted in a South Minneapolis alley:

Respect the

Neighborhood

Residents

only beyond

this point

Someone had hand-written a colon : after "neighborhood." Thank the Great Cat for copy editors!

Labels: 3 annoying things

The other day, Rocky from Artsycatsy left me a comment that had me nodding my head in agreement:

I think impoochment should be on the table because this country is going to the dogs!

Now I gotta get back to the dining room and wait for some Easter dinner to fall OFF the table!!

Happy Easter,
Rocky
Rocky | Homepage | 04.08.07 - 4:36 pm | #

I whined until my human got on the thingpoddy and looked up "impoochment." It turns out that the word is extremely rare. Other than Rocky, only one other blogger seems to have employed the term: lulu57 used it in December 2005 in response to a post on Daily Kos, which was written from the point of view of a dog:

• wurking for chainee (4.00 / 5)

  is grounds for impoochment.

  Visit me at Season Liberally!

  by lulu57 on Fri Dec 23, 2005 at 06:49:21 AM PDT

  [ Parent ]

Impoochment surfaced again on March 6, 2007, when Rocky used the word in his press conference on the Scooter Libby trial:

Cheney may be going to the dogs, as well; rumors of his impoochment are rabidly circulating.

Rocky has the right idea, although the paucity of posts advocating impoochment to date indicates that the term "impoochment" has yet to enter the mainstream of political dialogue. Perhaps the status of this rare term will change once this sign begins appearing on blogs across the catosphere:



If you want use the sign on your blog, please link to this post.

Labels: catymology, dogs

This is Mowgli, a new friend of mine. (Mowgli, as you may recall, was a human child who was adopted by wolves in Kipling's Jungle Book.) Mowgli, the cat, is very smart and is an excellent PR agent:

Hi, Aloysius,

I'm a Himalayan cat, so, as you can tell from my picture, I combine the best qualities of a Siamese and a Persian.

I live in Arlington, Virginia, with my parents, Rick and Farnell. They always keep my bowl full, and they even play with me every evening, so I have a pretty easy life. I love running up and down stairs, so it's great that we live in a four-story townhome.

My favorite plaything is a 12-foot long ribbon that I often carry with me around the house. Whenever I do I get so excited I yowl. Sometimes I do this in the middle of the night. Rick always sleeps through it, but Farnell usually wakes up and says things that aren't very nice.

I used to like getting cat hair on everything, but it's not so much fun since Rick and Farnell discovered the "gonzo sponge" that removes cat hair from just about anything. I've had to resort to coming up to them just as they're sitting down to dinner. I try to look as cute as I can, and they can't keep themselves from petting me. Before they know it, they're chewing cat hair along with their dinner.

Rick is a freelance writer who writes annual reports, brochures, articles, and a ton of other stuff for businesses and nonprofits. ( He always likes it when I mention that his website is at http://www.holton.cc.)

Love,

Mowgli
--
"If you have a MOUSE, I can help you EAT IT."®

Mowgli | Scratching for Results®

Mowgli's going to board the Friday Ark this week at Modulator, and also the Carnival of the Cats, hosted on Sunday at Books for Israel .

Labels: guest cats

Since Tuesday is Aloysius' day to simply be a cat, he's turned the forum over to me so that I can vent. Here are three of the X things that annoy amanuensis:

1. Automated call from a credit card company offers me a lower interest rate on "all my cards."

To speak to a representative, press 9. To stop receiving these calls in the future, press 8.

I press 8.

Incorrect response. To speak to a representative, press 9. To stop receiving these calls in the future, press 8.

I press 8.

Incorrect response. To speak to a representative, press 9. To stop receiving these calls in the future, press 8.

I press 8

incorrect

8

incorrect

8888888888888888

Silence.

Ahh!

2. I open up the dishwasher and the bottom is crawling with ANTS! Yes, I said ants. Legions of tiny, crawly, little reddish-brown ants.

I wonder if I am the only person who has ever found ants in the dishwasher. I google "ants in dishwasher."
Amazingly, I get a pile of hits. Non-toxic remedies are recommended:

a. white vinegar
I throw half a gallon of white vinegar into the dishwasher and run a cycle.
Wednesday: The ants are gone.
Thursday: The ants come back: legions of tiny, crawly, little reddish-brown ants. I wash ants down the drain, clean the filter, and run the dishwasher.

b. Borax powder
Friday: I obtain Twenty Mule Team Borax at the local supermarket. throw a couple of cups of borax into the bottom of the dishwasher and wet it.
Saturday: Ants crawling over the borax. I wash ants down the drain, clean the filter, and run the dishwasher.

This calls for escalation. At the hardware store, I buy some Terro, an insecticide that is designed to be eaten by worker ants and carried back to the nest. Following directions, I squeeze some of the gooey liquid onto a little squares of cardboard and place them on the counter.

Sunday: ants in the dishwasher, no ants on the Terro.
I place more gooey-liquid smeared squares on the floor in front of the dishwasher.
Sunday night: lots of ants swarming over the Terro.

For the next three days, I pick up, bag, and dispose of the used cardboard squares and replace them with new ones.

Day 4: no ants in dishwasher. Some dead ants on the cardboard squares. No ants moving around. Ahhh!

3. A former member of my freelance writers' union complains that the union has a left-wing political agenda. Then he tells me how much he makes per day as a business consultant. Ahhh!

Labels: 3 annoying things

I got this text message from Darcy today:

Yo, cats and catted ones!

Last week's Carnival of the Cats has a sequel:

IMAO: Carnival of the Cats 158--April Fools Edition--Part II: where Cadet Happy riffs:

amanuensis presents darcy--(who is currently in negotiations for the lead in Powder II)

Now, it'd be really up my alley to recreate the role played by John Patrick Shanley in the 1995 movie, Powder. But who are those dudes in the background? The first one to give me the right answer gets a gift certificate to my favorite feline spa.

Darcy X

When humans get to the point in an argument where they just can't agree, the wise leader may step in and decide to tell them: "That's off the table!" For example, last year, then Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) told her caucus members during their weekly closed meeting "that impeachment [of President Bush] is off the table; she is not interested in pursuing it." Meanwhile, though, apparently other things are still on the table, including humans invading other humans' countries. It's not clear to me how things get on or off the table, but it generally involves a lot of screaming and shouting--which reminds me of my house, when this happens:


Later today: the Carnival of the Cats at Bad Kitty Cats. Their humans say the computer is back online, so the Carnival is definitely on the table.

Labels: fun and games

Iowa Library’s Cat Has a Rich Second Life as a Biography - New York Times

Dewey Readmore Books, the heroic library cat who ruled for 19 years in the Spencer, Iowa, public library, passed away last November, and now his life will be celebrated in a biography. The book just sold to Grand Central Books, for an advance of $1.25 Million! The Times' report compares this book to the very popular Marly & Me, which was about a Labrador retriever.

The article notes that the dog bio went for an advance of only $200,000. That's just more proof that, as I've always maintained, cats are better than dogs! Aside from the monetary implications, you have to admit that a cat so dedicated to books and libraries was truly a great public servant. Dewey, and the library he adopted, deserve every penny.

I'm sorry I never got to meet Dewey, although he lived not far from me. I'm going to ask for this book for Christmas! I'm sure that it will inspire me to write my own autobiography. I'm going to sit down and start writing the proposal right now.

P.S. You can find out more about Dewey on the Spencer Library site. His rules for cats who run a library are just perfect.


P.P. S., Despite my derogatory comments about dogs, I'll be keeping company with some of them, and lots of cats and birds (yummy!), at this week's Friday Ark. On Sunday, look for the Carnival of the Cats at Bad Kitty Cats. (At least I hope so; the cats report that their humans are having some computer issues. Check at the Carnival of the Cats home page for updates.)

Labels: books, cats, catymology

International playcat Darcy Xenophon recently celebrated the first anniversary of his wedding.

Darcy is said to still be enjoying the exclusive services of the feline spa to which he repaired several weeks ago.

For a blast from the past about Darcy's wedding, see this story.

Labels: April Fools' Day, darcy, wedding