Posts tagged with "cat" - Faerye Net

Felis catus is your taxonomic nomenclature...

2011-11-08T22:22:31+00:00

Yesterday I found myself rubbing my cat’s tummy and telling her out loud a list of diagnostic anatomical features that convince me she can be classified as a felid.

I’m not sure what the implications may be for the famous xkcd Cat Proximity graph.

New Etiquette Rule: Kittens vs. babies

2010-10-18T14:42:10+00:00

As we all know, technology changes the way humans communicate. New communication means new etiquette. Some of this is more or less known already: the use of Bcc when emailing groups is discreet and considerate. The blink tag is the equivalent of bringing a vuvuzela to a garden party. But I have devised — or should one say discovered? — a new etiquette rule.

Rule: While it is acceptable to impart news of a human birth without photographs, it is improper to send or post news of a pet adoption without same.

Explanation: The arrival of a baby is a major effort: usually tiring and medical, if not traumatic. The newly arrived baby is not yet at his or her best and most photogenic. A new kitten (or puppy, I suppose) is not usually adopted until already weaned, furry, playful and delightful, and the humans by whom it is adopted are by no means incapacitated by the advent. Thus, there is no reason not to include a photo with the announcement, and a strong reason to do so: the terrifying prospect of inducing prostrating kitten letdown in your friends and associates. Send a photo! Strike a blow against kitten letdown.

I have no new kitten to announce, but since I’ve said “kitten” approximately 16 times, I will allay your potential kitten letdown through the use of a photo of a kitten who is no longer a kitten and no longer mine:

Terminator Week: Top Five + Five ways pets are like movie monsters

2009-11-02T11:17:08+00:00

Spoiler: Still spoiling Terminator after more than a week.

As we all know — because surely those who have not watched Terminator have either rectified the oversight or abandoned my blog for the duration of Terminator Week — at the end of the original film, Sarah Connor has a dog. There is a certain thread of pro-dog propaganda in the Terminator movies which has always led me to believe James Cameron is a dog person. After all, he was stuck with that cat when he made Aliens: it was left over from Ridley Scott.

But perhaps something deeper is at play here. Let us consider the Terminator and the Alien.

5 by 5. Terminators don’t get along with dogs. Aliens don’t get along with cats. While they don’t necessarily eat them, it’s clear Aliens and cats have a natural antipathy, as manifested in copious hissing. Dogs, on the other hand, flip out when they detect a Terminator.

4. Terminators keep themselves clean. Aliens slobber. You don’t see any Aliens heading home to freshen up and check the mirror before continuing their killing sprees.

3. Terminators are lone predators. Aliens hunt in packs. Yup.

2. Terminators don’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. Aliens are full of family feeling. Now here I’ll admit the cat/terminator parallel has its flaws — cats do appear to feel fear, tho’ pity and remorse are quite unlikely. But cats do tend to have a centered self-sufficiency more akin to the autonomous Terminator than the social xenomorph.

1. Terminators are manipulative. Aliens are straightforward. Either an Alien is going to growl and attack, or he’s going to sniff and attempt to snuggle you (really, Joss Whedon told me so.) There’s none of this “Oh, I’m just a cute cat, please further my mission goals.” Sure, currently they wiggle their way into our homes in order to eat food and sleep in the window, not open fire with chainguns, but you can give a Terminator a friendly mission too. Cats are infiltration units. We may love them, but let’s not let them have access to our launch codes. I don’t want to know how far this parallel goes.

Stages of Feline Grief

2009-02-28T14:45:51+00:00

Ryan periodically takes a week off from his fifteen foot commute and goes down to California for some face-to-face meetings.

This is the single greatest tragedy in Qubit’s life.

She has a very short memory. One could probably figure out its precise length from the fact that she treats Steve, with whom she once lived, like an acceptable piece of furniture, and Ruth, who picked her for Ryan as a kitten and lived with her for a while, as a potential moving man or monster. But she is particularly prone to forgetting times when she was less pampered than today. In her mind, I’m sure, Ryan has ALWAYS worked from home, and I have always been ~~semi-unemp~~ a writer. Unfettered access to humans at all waking hours is a Ceiling Cat-given right.

And then Ryan goes to California. Which brings us to the Stages of Feline Grief, as observed in Qubit. They may also occur when I leave town, but I doubt they’re as floridly expressed.

Alarm. Marked by whining and running around, trying to figure out why the schedule is off and Ryan is using his luggage to pack things in (instead of letting her sleep in or scratch up said luggage.)

Indignation. Once he’s actually gone, she stalks around with an air of affronted dignity. He’s not in this room! Well, I never! He’s not in this room, either!

Affection. This is my favorite part. She really doesn’t bother with me much, these days. My workspace doesn’t even have a door, after all: I’m her secondary human and I’m devalued by my constant availability. At this point, and periodically throughout the absence, though, she jumps in my lap constantly, purrs at the least provocation, and generally treats me like I’m the center of her world. I think she wants to make sure she holds on to the backup human, at least.

Suspicion. Qubit starts eyeing me from a wary distance, then searches the house. She chooses a closed door (usually the bedroom, since it stays closed) and sits next to it, wailing her distress. This is the door behind which I have obviously imprisoned Ryan, because there’s no other reason he would leave her for over 24 hours. This stage will randomly occur in between bouts of affection.

Joy and Nonchalance. I see her rehearse this every time I come back from a walk or a grocery trip. She runs to greet me, utters a few sharp exclamations about the nerve of leaving her all alone or surprised pleasure at seeing me again, then runs off for a few minutes to make it clear she didn’t miss me. She exhibited this behavior just now, when her horrible ordeal ended and I brought Primary Human back through the door*.

As you can tell, Kübler-Ross didn’t study cats.

*This was supposed to post last night. I guess I failed to press ‘Publish’?

Are they gone?

2008-10-15T09:20:39+00:00

Qubit took refuge from the movers and emerged cautiously onto a world transformed:

Sloth, thy name is cat

2008-09-09T14:21:37+00:00

I know, I know, hardly news. But when I awoke this morning, Qubit did not greet me. This, also, is not remarkable; ever since I graduated and entered a stay-at-home limbo period, she has gotten used to thinking of me as a useful part of her surroundings, not to be taken special notice of. Do you break into your important sleeping and eating routine to greet your sofa and bookshelves? Breakfast done, I thought, “Still no cat? I am going to TIME her and tell Ryan how many hours it took for her to think she might want to see me.”

I just finished lunch, and suddenly it hit me that the timer was still ticking. Four hours and twenty minutes, and that cat had not tried to shove the lapdesk out of my lap, walk on my laptop, or anything else of the sort. I hadn’t even heard her scratching my toilet paper to shreds or trying to get into the cabinets to sit in my clean pots and pans.

I admit it, I panicked a bit (she always gets me, this cat). I checked my study, the bedroom, every cabinet, the bathtub, empty cardboard boxes for packing/Qubit qastles. Then I remembered Ryan telling me about a time recently when he had panicked about a missing Qubit, and found her in his office closet. Sure enough, all my whistling and calling and shaking of treat bags had been unable to dislodge her from her perch, in an open bin of stuff and storage media three feet up in the back corner of his office. I shook the treats again. She blinked.

Four hours, forty minutes and counting.

Qubit helps

2008-08-29T09:56:39+00:00

This is her helping with the newsprint I meant to pack things in.

Morning

2008-06-02T11:01:28+00:00

The silver cat coils around my calf, then pauses. She sniffs along my knee, intent, as if she can smell the cat I dreamt last night.

Tell me you don't see it.

2007-07-25T22:36:40+00:00

My kitten and I were outside yesterday. Since her return to indoor living, she has regained more of her bravo spirit, and she likes to climb trees when allowed.

Doesn’t she remind you of something?

A poem

2007-04-19T22:52:51+00:00

A silver cat paws the edge of my mirror
waiting to be let in.