catblogging

So Much for Substance

Dana Hunter

I got the other half of Connie Willis’s two-part book today.  I’m about to go devour it, much like egg-eating snakes devour their dinner.  Alas, my darlings, this means you should expect no posts of substance from me for at least 24 hours.

Instead, you’re being subjected to a grab-bag of kitteh stuff.  Why?  Because I can, and because it’s funny.  And at times heartwarming, such as this rescue reported by Jerry Coyne.  Moral: do not let your toddlers get their hands on kittens small enough to flush.  And Aussie firemen are awesome.

Lockwood found two items aptly demonstrating a writer’s life with a cat:





Lotsa other funny stuff there both having and not having to do with cats, so if you haven’t read his Sunday Funnies yet, what the hell are you waiting for?

Callan Bentley demonstrates that cats have no appreciation for the artist’s workspace, either:



Well, actually, they appreciate it quite a lot, I suppose.  Just not in the way we might wish.

Bora tweeted a helpful guide to petting a cat.  Here’s a taste:



Click for the rest.  Even if you’re not a feline aficionado, you may still require these skills someday.  Think of the rich, cat crazy relative you may need to placate, who knows you’re not allergic.

There.  Something fun for ye.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to WWII London.  Laters!

So Much for Substance
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Jerry Coyne's Traveling Cats

Dana Hunter1 Comment

Love cats, love science, really love a scientist who loves cats!  Jerry Coyne’s had a felid road show this week.  We’re talking about a man who carries a box of cat food around with him for teh kittehs.  He’s got lots of travel photos with kittehs!

U can see dem in Greece:



And Istanbul:



And on teh way to a glacier:



Dey r in Guatemala:



And dere are kittehs in teh biology lab doin science:



Dere r moar kittehs at teh linkz!

Jerry Coyne's Traveling Cats

Scenes From the Cat-Servant Life

Dana Hunter1 Comment

I had ambition today.  I promise, I did.  Aaalll sorts of things planned.  Wasn’t gonna be like the cat, doing nothing but lazing round in sunbeams:



Yeah, well.  Long day o’ work later, Rocko on me teevee, cat on me arm…



And yes, it’s really damned hard to snap photos of the cat with only one arm free.  I asked her to move, and this is all the movement I got:



My cat is my inspiration… to crawl into bed with a good book, stretch out my toeses, and be all the lazy I can be.

Substantive content tomorrow, my darlings.  Promise.  Unless the cat suggests otherwise…

Scenes From the Cat-Servant Life

Bookstore Kittehs!

Dana Hunter

We haven’t had enough of the cute and furry round here lately.  Happily, thanks to Brian Switek and Brian Romans, that sad situation is remedied:

When they aren’t trashing the occasional pricey manuscript with their teeth and claws, cats – in all their blissful sloth – serve as wonderfully calming (if sometimes haughty) hosts: Have a seat, take it easy, get lost in a book. A bookstore cat is a shop’s mascot and keeper, equally adept at charming customers and, when the lights go out, chasing away rodents.
I do not believe it to be a coincidence that as I was squealing over the slideshow of adorable bookstore kittehs, my very own little hell beast went and posed prettily against our own bookshelves.  Alas, the camera was out of reach, and I made the mistake of mentioning that if she really was a bookstore kitteh, she’d have to put up with children wanting to pet her, so she stopped playing bookstore kitteh before the camera could be retrieved.  There’s only one thing she hates more than humans, and that’s small humans.
So no, she’d never make it in a bookstore, but the other kittehs profiled love their job.  So do go enjoy their company.
Bookstore Kittehs!

Cunning Kittehs

Dana Hunter1 Comment

My cat will sometimes sit somewhere just out of view and howl and yowl like she’s trapped, mortally wounded, or otherwise in dire straits.  She does it to see how fast she can make me get up.  She especially loves doing it just as I’m drifting off to sleep.  Apparently, the sight of a frantic, half-asleep human tumbling out of bed amuses her.

Now I see where she gets it from:

Many people see dogs as open, loving, and honest, and cats as duplicitous, cunning, and sly (Fig. 1).  This gross misconception will be reinforced by a paper in the new (but dated July 2009) issue of Neotropical Primates, which you can download for free. The authors, Fabiano de Olivera Calleia, Fabio Rohe, and Marcelo Gordo, show that a wild cat imitates the sounds of baby monkeys  to lure its prey within reach.

And I think she may be related to the cat Jerry Coyne encountered:

Margay babies are sometimes tamed by the locals. I once got to hold a (relatively) tame margay that belonged to a bar in Costa Rica; it let me pet it but then sank its teeth into my silver ring, leaving a sizeable dent. 

That’s her favorite trick, too: sucker in the human by being all cute and cuddly so that the flesh is made more vulnerable.  When visiting my house, body armor is a good idea if you plan on getting acquainted with the cat.

The next time she attempts to lure me out of bed by pretending injury, I’ll think of a margay somewhere deep in the rainforest luring dinner with baby monkey cries, and go back to sleep.

Cunning Kittehs

Mah Excuses

Dana Hunter1 Comment

If we’re very fortunate, this week’s Sunday Sensational Science will be all about botany. It was supposed to be about the geology of the Wupatki region, but, well, you see, the cat got involved…


It’s a large book with glossy pages, and she thinks I purchased it for her comfort rather than our edification.

All right, so the fact that the Colorado Plateau has a complicated history also has something to do with it. Whereas plants are dead easy. So botany it shall be – as long as the cat doesn’t get Ideas.

I wouldn’t put it past her. Every day, I come home at lunch intending to get some reading done, and every day, I end up on the floor playing hair tie instead:


I mean, really, how am I supposed to resist something so cute and homicidal?

Mah Excuses

Study Proves Cats Rule

Dana Hunter2 Comments


I knew it:

If you’ve ever wondered who’s in control, you or your cat, a new study points to the obvious. It’s your cat.

Household cats exercise this control with a certain type of urgent-sounding, high-pitched meow, according to the findings.

This meow is actually a purr mixed with a high-pitched cry. While people usually think of cat purring as a sign of happiness, some cats make this purr-cry sound when they want to be fed.

[snip]

Previous research has shown similarities between cat cries and human infant cries.

McComb suggests that the purr-cry may subtly take advantage of humans’ sensitivity to cries they associate with nurturing offspring. Also, including the cry within the purr could make the sound “less harmonic and thus more difficult to habituate to,” she said.

Cunning little fuckers, aren’t they? Ah, well. I always knew “cat owner” was a complete misnomer anyway.

(Tip o’ the shot glass to John Amato at Crooks and Liars, who also has the exquisite good taste to be owned by a tuxedo cat.)

Study Proves Cats Rule

Pansophic Kitteh Sez: Read This Book

Dana Hunter

My cat may be homicidal, but she’s also a discerning reader. Here she is, drawing your attention to a particularly interesting passage in Guns, Germs and Steel:


I’m not sure which passage it was, alas. Too busy photographing the cat. It looks to be the Epilogue, but I can tell you that the entire book is an excellent read. You’ll never see the world in quite the same way again. And it answers that pesky question: why were Europeans the ones who pretty much took over the world?

Bad news for those who wish to believe in the inherent superiority of a subset of humanity, I’m afraid.

For those who haven’t read it, but like me spent years intending to, let this be your meaningful nudge: it’s a really fucking excellent book. And my cat says you should read it. When a homicidal feline places a meaningful paw on a book and recommends you peruse it, it’s probably safest just to do what she says.

Pansophic Kitteh Sez: Read This Book

I Should Say Something Witty, Profound and Insightful About Current Events…

Dana Hunter

Instead, I give you Boxing Kitteh:

Because while my body came back from vacation, my desire to blog about serious shit is still loafing in the sunshine with a prickly pear vodka in its hand, that’s why. (And yes, the stuff is delish. If you’re ever in AZ, have some.)

If it makes you feel any better, I’m signing off to make fajitas and read Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel. If that’s not serious, I don’t know what is. It could signal a return to blogging about the Really Serious Issues shortly.

Or just drive me back into the loving arms of ICanHasCheezburger.com. Oh, look! There’s an awesome Fox Affiliate Fail!

I Should Say Something Witty, Profound and Insightful About Current Events…

Things You Should Never Try At Home

Dana Hunter


I’ve been clearing out the DVR whilst catching up on household chores and framing the various bits of art I picked up during my vacation. It’s hard to fast-forward through commercials when your hands are full. Usually, I pay no attention to the blather, but it’s a little hard to ignore a scuba-diving cat.

If you watch teevee, you might have seen that ad for HowStuffWorks.com. There’s some dude steering a cat in diving gear around a pool. I know that people do bizarre things, but this is the first time I’ve seen a man retain his hand after dumping a feline in several thousand gallons of water. It caught my interest. And in these days of the intertoobz, I could find out if this was clever CGI or true insanity.

Turns out the cat really does dive:

So what does Hawkeye do when she’s scuba diving? Sometimes she bounds around along the pool’s bottom like Neil Armstrong on the moon’s surface. She hasn’t quite figured out how to swim underwater, even though she’s a proficient surface swimmer. This is where Alba comes in. He’ll typically hold Hawkeye’s tank and lead her around the pool while she hangs around, checking everything out. According to Alba, scuba diving relaxes her — the weightlessness of being underwater could be a welcome change from the gravity-bound shackles of dry land.

Apparently, since the commercial came out, people have been requesting scuba gear for their cats. I won’t be among them. Granted, my rotund little beastie could use the exercise, but I value my limbs. I do not want to have to explain to curious members of the public just how I became a multiple amputee.

Besides, Hawkeye’s owner isn’t honoring requests for kitty scuba outfits. He knows the vast majority of cats wouldn’t appreciate the opportunity to obtain a fish-eye view of the world. He only ever stuck his cat in scuba gear because she started swimming on her own.

It just goes to show there’s an oddball in every bunch, dunnit?

For those of you who haven’t overdosed on cute lately, watch and aw:

Things You Should Never Try At Home