I couldn’t decide whether to file this under Fuzzy Friday or WTF Wednesday. It’s got a bit of both to it, but since I already had a very excellent video about sex with elves to share earlier this week, I decided to save this for today. Eternal Earth-Bound Pets has an offer for Christians preoccupied with the fate of their pets in a post-rapture world. Simply pay them $110.00 and these certified atheists will come collect your pet while you’re off enjoying the hereafter with Jesus. (They’ll collect a second pet for just $15.00, quite a bargain, amiright?)
This leaves me with more questions than it answers, primarily how enjoyable would the hereafter really be without my most beloved 4-legged family members? Thankfully, being not the religious type, I probably won’t be invited to this pet-free Christian after-party, so I guess I won’t worry too much about that. I’m perfectly happy to chill here with my fuzzy besties, anyway. Speaking of which, please enjoy the following photos of Bigby, he was being such a ham for the camera this week, I couldn’t resist.
As excited as I am for my upcoming European vacation (May cannot arrive soon enough), stuff like this just serves to make me pine for a Tokyo visit in the near future.
We always joke that our cat, Oliver, is the sandman. If you’re trying to get out of bed in the morning, he’ll try to keep you there with his kneading and cuddling. If you sit down on our bed (or his bed, if you ask him) to pet him, his hypnotic purrs will have you knocked out faster than a dose of Lunesta.
But these kitties at the Cincinnati Zoo are actually sandmen! Well, sand cats technically. These little desert cats have fur on their paw pads so they can walk around on the hot sand. At just 4.5 to 5.5 pounds, these cuties are even tinier than the kitties at our house. Admire the cute below:
So, as I’ve blogged before, my wife and I are pretty active volunteers at the local SPCA. Our love of companion animals is well-documented throughout the site, from our tee designs to our philanthropicendeavors, but it also carries over into the three dimensional world.
About a month ago, we got a call from the volunteer coordinator over at the SPCA asking if we’d be able to foster a pair of puppies for a couple of weeks until they were old enough to be spayed and neutered before going up for adoption. Despite a split second of reticence brought on by memories of our first attempt at fostering a dog, I said “YES!” Cuteness trumps good sense 99.9% of the time.
So I drove up the next day on my lunch break to pick up Grace (fawn) and her brother Harlowe (black).
Enjoy the cuteness while it lasts!
About six hours later, I was seriously regretting my decision.
While these two are unassailably adorable, all of that goes out the window when they’re, y’know, awake. It’s ridiculous how much energy and poop is contained in those tiny bodies. I feel like the Ms. and I spent two weeks just following these two around with paper towels and sanitary wipes. The good news is, these two were both adopted on their first day of eligibility. As much of a headache as they were, I wanted nothing more than for them to end up in a loving home as soon as possible. As great as the staff and facilities at the Maryland SPCA are, a 2′3 kennel is a 2′3 kennel, and the best thing for these guys is a lot of space where they can run around, if only to tire them out so they revert to their cute and unconscious state. It’s kind of funny how they’d run and wrestle and scamper non-stop for 20 minutes, and then just more or less keel over onto their blanket and pass out. ON or OFF, there is no dimmer switch!
For whatever reason, being an SPCA foster parent tends to be something of a feast-or-famine proposition. Once we’d been approved as foster parents last January, it was a whole two months before we got a call asking us to care for an animal. After that 10-day stint, it was another two and a half months before our next call. Then, we get the call for Grace & Harlowe in mid-October, and the day we returned them two weeks later, we were sent home with 18-month old Jezebel and her six kittens!
Nom nom nom!
Nom nom nom!
Originally (and imaginatively) named Momcat and 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, we slowly over the last two weeks got to know every member of the family on an intimate (very intimate—you should have seen the state of that litter box every 6-12 hours; yikes!) level. Being the jailbait strumpet single mom of six, Momcat became Jezebel.
Her brood is made up of two boys, Chunk and Thor, and four girls: Pixie, Rosebud, Clementine, and Valentina.
Sleepy Valentina
Rosebud!
EPIC CUTENESS.
Unlike Grace & Harlowe, these guys were a little more manageable when awake; small size and quiet voices are like that.
While we love every last one of these guys, I can say that I hope we get a little time off now. I miss living in a two bathroom household!
I designed a new tee over the weekend. I think it’s cute’ish.
We had a dinner party over the weekend and between salad and soup, my cat decided to steal my seat at the table. Check him out, he looks like he’s waiting to be served.
New design, ladies and gents. Please buy one? I have to feed my ever-expanding cat expensive diet food.
If you’re a regular visitor to this blog, you may remember that a few months ago I rescued two abandoned cats. Yesterday the wife and I (Wife! Crazy!) took Hobbes for a booster shot and the vet told us this guy needs to lose some weight. Because he. is. seventeen. and a half. pounds. Before you report us to social services, please understand that this cat is big-boned. Seriously; this guy’s paws are gigantic, and when he stands on his hind paws he can put his front paws on our counter top. It’s like we have a little mountain lion running around the house. You should hear him trotting down the hall upstairs, it sounds like a herd of elephants. I tried to point this out to our vet, but she still insisted Hobbes was getting pudgy, even for a big-boned part-mountain lion.
So Hobbes (and our other cats) are now on a new and more expensive diet cat food. Awesome. Maybe if you guys didn’t spend 22 hours a day in bed you wouldn’t be packing on the pounds. Just a thought. I am amazed they don’t get bed sores. You’ve never seen lazier animals.
I’m hoping Hobbes’ new food will help him slim down a bit, but if that doesn’t work, there are options:
1. Coffee in the water fountain
The cats have a fancy water fountain that’s supposed to encourage them to drink more water. I’m thinking maybe it’s time to switch my boys to coffee. Kitties on speed will not only result in good Youtube fooder, but all that caffeine might keep them from spending their entire day in bed. Imagine how much more productive my cats could be with a little morning joe. I bet I’d never see another house fly again.
2. Treadmill
We’ve all seen the very excellent videos of cats on treadmills, no? Perhaps it’s time to invest in one for my cats. Not only would this be great exercise, I am thinking we could knit them some leg warmers and headbands. They’d look adorable, like feline Jane Fondas or Olivia Newton Johns.
3. Kitty Thinspiration
I think part of the issue with my cats’ obesity is that they’re pretty proud of themselves. You should see them lying on their backs, tummies in full view, paws in the air. They take great pride in their excess baggage.
You’ve heard of pasting skinny models to your fridge to keep on your diet? Maybe what we need are photos from Cat Fancy of svelte pretty kitties to shame our boys into some self-control. Living in the media-free bubble that is our household, our cats have no concept of socially accepted beauty. A self-conscious cat is a health-conscious cat. Bring on the kitty fashion mags!
P.S. None of the above suggestions are approved by veterinarians. I am only kidding. Please do not try these ideas at home.
P.P.S. I (and our vet) think our cats are pretty rad at any size. We just don’t want them developing kitty diabetes or heart failure. Shit is real. Protect ya neck!
First of all, a quick update on the foster kittens. They are super cute and getting bigger by the day. Buster is by far the bravest kitty, venturing out to explore when when put him in our room with us, and falling asleep on our comforter. The other two kitties are still very skittish, but we’re working on them. The cutest thing we’ve discovered about the kittens is that they purr in unison. Once you start scratching the top of one kitten’s head and he starts purring about it, the other two join in, even if they aren’t getting petted. Adorable!
I managed to tear myself away from the cute for a few hours and designed this new tee.
Sorry for the lack of updates, but I’ve been on vacation. Actually, I was away getting married to my long-time girlfriend. That is the reason for the lack of new art and updates here and on Facebook. Getting ready for your wedding can keep you busy, no matter how small you try to make it. Anyway, the exciting news is that we’re home now and we are fostering three adorable and mischievous kittens! This post is going to be very heavy on the pictures and videos because I had too many favorites to just pick one.
I also have a mischievous kitten story for you guys. The littlest of the kittens is a tiny calico girl named Laura. She weighs about 1.5 lbs (and that’s a generous estimate.) Saturday morning I went to check on our kittens and Laura was nowhere to be found. I totally freaked out. The kittens have been living in our upstairs bathroom, frolicking in our large empty bathtub and skittering about under the toilet. There aren’t many places for them to disappear, but this tiny Houdini had certainly managed to make herself scarce. I wondered if maybe she’d snuck out when I opened the door.
I woke up my wife and we called all our friends, enlisting them to tear apart our house for the better part of Independence Day. We worried our adult cats had gotten their paws on the missing kitten and eaten her. We worried the missing kitten had scurried into a vent somehow and was lurking inside our walls. We pulled appliances out from their corners, we left treats out hoping to entice her back. It seemed hopeless, and I dreaded fessing up to the SPCA that we’d lost one of their charges.
Around dinner time I went to check on the remaining kittens, and what did I see out of the corner of my eye? The missing kitten! I only caught a glimpse of the little fiend, but I definitely saw her. She’d been in the bathroom with her brothers all day. She disappeared as fast as she appeared, but I noticed that she had run behind our pedestal sink. I checked behind the sink and discovered there was a small cut-out in the porcelain where the pipes go in. I reached inside and felt something soft and fuzzy. The hideout was so small that only Laura could fit in there, and I was barely able to get my hand inside to pull her out. Luckily, I was able to get her by the scruff of her neck and pull her out. I duct taped the entrance to her hideout and returned her to her brothers. Hopefully that was the last of her disappearing tricks, but whoever adopts this kitten is definitely in for some trouble.
Anyway, trouble or not, the kittens are too adorable for words, so here are some pix and videos. Enjoy!
