Tag Archives: animals

My Cat is the Spawn of Satan

1 May

I need to book an exorcism for my cat.

No, not my beloved Lola. This is a new one.

Unfortunately, my near and dear Lola Bear recently got very ill and slowly passed away. It hurt so very badly and my parents tried to help make it better by bringing me a seemingly innocent-looking spawn of Satan to help with the pain. Meet the hellchild with which they’ve cursed my life:

IMG_8974

Now, I know that your first impression of Monk (The Monkfish, Monkey, Monk) might be to trust him. Or to assume his innocence. It’s okay, I understand: he does look so cute that you just want to squeeze all the life juice out of him – but it’s just a tool to lure you in so that he can badger-jab you in the face.

As Monk grew up, I tried to remember that things he does as a tiny kitten may be charming, but when he does them as a cat, they will hurt. So I tried to remain vigilant in his training: no table tops, no eating out of the garbage or from my leftover food, no flying from all dimensions of space toward my head, etc. Basically, the things I never had to worry about with Lola – but I was at least twelve years out of practice in my cat training, and honestly guys I don’t think I did a very good job. Because though I did try to back off the number of times I would let him play with my hands instead of a toy, I did also simultaneously encourage regular Ninja Training Courses with Dave.

Dave is a forest child and in his heart, he can speak to animals. (He frequently scolds me for talking down to cats or talking about them where they can hear me.) Because of this hypersensitivity, when it comes to animal training, Dave’s skills really shine and I wanted Monk to benefit from it. And has he.

Monk can do flips in the air, scale the most difficult of mountains (fire places), and is generally a badass. He can lurk in the tiniest of corner spaces, hunt down even the best hidden cat toy, and keep up with a laser pointer with no sweat. When he was little, these skills were pretty darn exciting. Now that he’s older, they’re terrifying.

Three separate times during this post, I looked at him and thought: what a cute kitty! and pet him. And then he full-body hooked around my arm and rabbit kicked the bejeezus out of me. Three separate times.

Oh, and he’s bigger now:

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He’s up there at the top. See him? And yeah, I know – he still looks pretty cute. But then ask yourself: …how did he even get up there? I do love this cat, but he is no Lola. He was born straight from Satan’s fire.  How did he get up there, you ask? With the power of Lucifer.

Now, I understand that lots of cats are assholes and that’s just the way it is. But you have to believe me: this is something unnatural. The list of grievances is quite large, and means that when someone is catsitting for me, I have to prepare ample notes in advance. They include:

  • Sometimes he’ll climb up your legs or back and begin to eat your hair
  • Sometimes he’ll hop on your face in bed and…eat your hair.
  • He is a master ninja and it won’t take long for him to learn how to dart out your door the moment it opens. Be prepared with some sort of Monkblocker when you enter. 
  • He’ll frequently weave in and out of your legs as you walk. Stopping and letting him go first won’t make a difference – he walks when you walk. You’re going to hit him in the face; it’s okay – it’s just a fact.
  • He doesn’t like to be left out, so he meows when you close a door on him. Even the bathroom.
  • If you don’t play with him enough during the day, he’ll be batshit crazy while you try to sleep. 
  • He eats plants and climbs on things and does every other imaginable terrible cat thing.
  • He’ll attack your hands if you let him.
  • He love, love, loves a good laser pointer session. Be careful – he’ll run directly into things if you let him. He already suffers from a few minor concussions.
  • He’s obsessed with seltzer water. If you leave a container of unfinished seltzer water out, he will immediately come knock it over. Please don’t leave it unattended.

It goes on. Just like this. For a long time.

Now, I have read at least the first forty available articles on what to do about a hypercrazy cat, but they haven’t worked. I’ve talked to the vet, who suggested scaring the bejeezus out of him when he’s doing something wrong by crashing something loud near him (Monk couldn’t care less). I’ve played directly before dinner (nope), played at least two hours a day (nope), moved eating times around (nope), ignored him (nope), paid too much attention to him (nope), yelled at him (nope), took things away from him (nope), moved my entire apartment around to accommodate for him (nope)– I’m simply out of ideas. I think he’s possessed.

I’ve been cranking down my social calendar in the hopes that spending even more time with him will help his issues. So I’m officially moving into a deeply unhealthy relationship. I’ve thought about getting another cat to help him cope with whatever his internal struggle is, but I’m worried he’ll take it out on me that I show affection for another. Or worse: that the demon in him will move from being to being, and I will double the horror of my plight. So there may be only one option left: an exorcism.

I think I read somewhere in those forty articles I googled that it takes a level 35 cat lady mage to conduct a proper exorcism – but that’s a pretty high level cat lady and no doubt the path I must go on to seek her out is dark and full of terrors. Still – this is no way to live and I have no real choice. I must go into the unknown – to trace the untraceable. 

Wish me luck. ♣

cat lady

 

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Flurries and Furries

20 Jun

Ladies and gentlemen, I have a blender.

Okay, I know – I’ve had a blender for a while.  That’s what you’re thinking.  Because obviously you’ve read every single one of my posts and you know that one time, in the year of The Jackie Blog postaday 2011 super festival, Jackie posted about wanting a blender.  And you’re right; I got one.  I called it The Blender of Shame and when I brought it home, I was disappointed that for 20 American dollars, you cannot buy a blender that will uniformly chip and blend ice.

The Blender of Shame post was March 9, 2011; over a year ago.  My blender hasn’t done anything since.   For a year, I’ve thought about things I could do with a good blender:  frappaccinos, alcoholic milkshakes, smoothies and protein shakes of all kinds.  And I wept.

But yesterday I found myself at Target.   But yesterday, I went to Target for a blender.  And while in the blender aisle (there’s an entire AISLE OF THEM), I stared at varying price levels with a multitude of claims.  And because I was upset that I had been duped into a terrible blender a year prior, I bought the most ridiculous one there even though it was a terrible financial decision.  I told myself that it would pay for itself in avoided Starbucks trips and in the number of times I will repeatedly buy crappy blenders until one day I give up and just buy expensive ones anyway.

It’s called the Ninja.  It claims to turn ice into powder, which, at first seems just a bit intense.  But I was mad, so I liked it. I set it up the very moment I got it home.

Actually, once I took it out of the box, I ran into my living room and tried to get my black cat to go in it so I could take a picture of her being a ninja in a Ninja box.

I lead a very exciting life.

I say all this to say: this blender is amazing.  It scares the bejeezus out of me.  Right before I touch the speed button, I get this little rush to my chest because I kind of feel like the blades will somehow whip themselves through the blender lid, into the sky, and directly toward my face.  That, and I’m excited about a good smoothie.  

I’ve already made three smoothie concoctions in only two days.  I think Dave is afraid that I’m going to make dinner and throw it into a blender out of enthusiasm.  And he’d probably try it too.

He’s a good man.

Anyway, I’m telling you about my blender today because I actually want to be telling you that I experienced a fantastical Lollipop Tuesday by going to the Furry Convention held in Pittsburgh this past week.   But I can’t tell you that because it didn’t dawn on me until they were packing up that I should have dressed like a kitten and run down to the convention center to do some insider reporting.

Furries, by the way, are folks who are so into animals that they dress like them.  Sometimes they even act like them.  Some go so far as to copulate when in costume or to never even take off the costume at all.  Here’s a picture for full effect:

 I remember a friend of mine who worked in a hotel downtown reminiscing about the troubles of furries in the hotel.  One furry in particular, deemed it prudent to use the hotel floor as a litter box and did not, in fact, clean up after himself. 

itself.

the furry’s self.

Not all of them do that.  I like to think of those folks as furry extremists.  They can also be people who just like a certain character so much that they associate themselves with it or like to dress up as it.  I love it when the Furry Convention is in town because it’s nice to run into a random raccoon in my favorite restaurant or see a family of small rodents downtown.  Life should always be fun like that.  I also like it because it significantly increases my chances of getting to explain to my boss what a furry is when she asks.

She did.  It was excellent.

But aside from all that, I am genuinely disappointed in myself.  I can’t imagine the absolute wave of inspiration that would wash over me the moment I step foot into that convention center.  It would have been glorious.  But I’m an idiot and by the time it occurred to me, they were packing away their tails and ears. 

Unless they were hardcore.  Then they just walked home or became strays I guess.

Anyway, it would have been easy and wonderful and instead it wasn’t and so instead I wrote about my blender.  And I vowed that next year I would have to continue the blog because by golly I’m not going to rest until I cover a furry convention.

Mark my words. ♣

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Lions, Tigers, and Bears – Oh My! Exotic Animals Run Free in Ohio

19 Oct

It appears that Ohio has a circus on its hands.

Or so the Associated Press reported yesterday.  Not in those specific words, but after reading an article on how scores of exotic animals escaped an Ohio farm, I could easily draw the conclusion.  

Yesterday the fences were “left unsecured” at the Muskingum County Animal Farm, which housed wolves, bears, tigers, giraffes, and various other animals that are now roaming the roadways and suburban developments of east-central Ohio.   Authorities reported to the scene after calls during rush hour that wild animals were spotted along the road.  

How I’ve longed to be on my way home from work one day and see a giraffe trotting along, minding its own business.  I feel like that would really help alleviate my end-of-day stress. 

 

 

It appears that things happened quite out of order in this scenario.  Now, I’m not an authority of any kind, but it seems to me that when one gets a call about exotic animals on the loose, one calls animal handlers, heads to the scene, and waits for their arrival. Instead, it appears that deputies simply began shooting animals with assault rifles.  I’m sorry, you probably think I meant tranquilizers.  I didn’t.  I meant assault rifles.

 

The deputies, who saw many animals standing outside their cages and others that had escaped past the fencing surrounding the property, began shooting them. They said there had been no reports of injuries among the public.

Staffers from the Columbus Zoo went to the scene, hoping to tranquilize and capture the animals. The sheriff said caretakers might put food in the animals’ open cages to try to lure them back. (Associated Press via FoxNews.com)

If you put an assault rifle in that left hand instead, I imagine the scene looked much the same as this.

25, by the way.  In case you were wondering how many animals were shot.  Animals in cage = pay admission.  Animals out of cage = SHOOT! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, SHOOT!

There’s a silver lining to all of this.  Local school districts canceled classes for today.  That’s kind of cool.  I always loved a good snow day, but nothing beats staying inside for fear that an ostrich will peck you to death or a tiger will pounce the school bus.  That’s rad.

My favorite quotation in the article is from Sheriff Matt Lut, who says “Any kind of cat species or bear species is what we are concerned about.  We don’t know how much of a head start these animals have on us”.  He talked about them like they’re escaped murder convicts.  I can just see the staff meeting now, with maps and pushpins up all CSI-like as they try to get inside the tigers’ heads and figure out where their next stops would be. 

The article mentions that Ohio happens to have the nation’s weakest restrictions on exotic pets.  It requires permits for bears, but so long as you snatch yourself a lion, tiger, or other nonnative animal, you don’t need to worry about regulation for now.   So strap up and head over to Ohio before the deputies down them all with assault rifles.  And if you happen to be an Ohio native, enjoy your day off school, and take a family field trip to the Interstate.  See if dad can finally round up that camel you’ve asked for every Christmas. ♣

You can read more about the incident here, at FoxNews.com.  Just promise you won’t believe the little tagline under their logo that reads “fair and balanced”.

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