11 posts tagged “animals”
It's no secret I desperately want a cat. As you might remember, back in August the universe was sending me cats, even though I feel certain the universe is aware that my apartment does not allow them. The most memorable of these was an adorable little black-and-white kitten who I just so happened to take two pictures of on my cell phone:
So! This past weekend I was forced to get a new phone due to my LG Chocolate's general suckage. (Just after the one year warranty was up, the touch screen starts acting funny--either not working at all or repeatedly pressing buttons that I only pressed once. This is especially annoying if the button is "send" and the phone continually redials after I've hung up.) I also got a micro SD card and adapter in order to save the 150-ish pictures/movies I had on my old phone. I found the two above pictures and wondered about my little kitten--I never saw him again.
Fast forward a week to today, when I pull into my apartment's parking lot and notice near the House of 1,000 Cats that's across the street a small but adult black and white cat. I think, "Man, look at his white paws. And his absurdly large ears. It couldn't be...?" After some persuasion I convince him to come over to me and give him some lovins... And confirm the weird little white-lip marks on both this cat and the pictures of the kitten!
He's still pretty tiny and very playful. Except now he has the sort of nervous-crazy thing happening that the other cats that hang out at House of 1,000 Cats have--always moving and swishing his tail (thus the blurriness of some pictures). It's sooo hard not to take him in, but no! I must resist. At least this time he's not a tiny kitten crying outside my door, I suppose. I'm so glad to see he's okay!!
Which breed of dog is your favorite? Post a picture of it.
Submitted by Melissa.
Aside from the ever-faithful and lovable mutt (I mean really--why pay hundreds to thousands of dollars for a designer breed guaranteed to get a home if there are tons of free or almost free mutts out there that desperately need good homes... /endvisityourlocalanimalshelterrant), I love love love Afghan Hounds:
...or whatever her name may end up being.
Last weekend I persuaded my mom to take me to the new Petsmart in my hometown. We looked at two adult kitties in particular: a very pretty little calico named Tashi, and a tabby named Nicole (not an excellent cat name imho, but whatever). My mom was particularly taken with Tashi, and even made my dad take her to go visit again the following Monday.
This weekend I of course wanted to go see what new kitties we might find... imagine our surprise to find Tashi and Nicole still there! Okay, truth be told I'm not surprised about Nicole. She was a little older than most people tend to find adorable (2 years), had no crazy markings, and wasn't especially active from what I could tell. (I, of course, loved her for these very reasons.) But Tashi was cute, gorgeously marked, and seemed friendly--especially when they let you into the back to interact with her. I was surprised no one had snatched her up.
Unfortunately, Nicole = not a cat cat. Furthermore, after the month-and-a-half of life-in-a-box that she and Tashi had each spent in Petsmart, she apparently had started to crack; the workers said she had been very sweet until this last week, when she started getting angry and a little claw/bite-happy. She was very affectionate with me, but got agitated and unhappy when other cats were brought out.
After returning home, convincing an oh-so-unwilling father to go see the kitties, and deciding that Tashi was just too lovable to pass up... my mommy got herself her very own kitty. =)
Pardon the craptastical formatting, but I'm too tired to make this post look pretty. Also, all the pictures were taken on my cell phone (geez, if I'd've known my parents were getting a kitty I would've brought my camera home...), so the color looks a bit weird. But she's so pretty!
There's more to this story, specifically involving Nicole... but it could get a little sad, and I'll know more Monday, so perhaps a post then. Until then, there's Tashi! =D
And now it's time for an excellent band: Travis.
I want to sing, to sing my song
I want to live in a world where I belong
I want to live, I will survive
And I believe that it won't be very long
If we turn, turn, turn, turn turn
We might learn.
Okay, those lyrics do the song no justice. Frankly, I think the band writes some gorgeous melodies. The music is pretty mellow (aside from what I think is their first album, Good Feeling), the band is (according to all-knowing Wikipedia) "Scottish indie-rock," and you should listen to something. The big singles that I know of were "Why Does It Always Rain on Me" and "Sing." I think this "Turn" song was featured on a recent episode of Scrubs. I COULD BE WRONG, AND I'VE WRITTEN TOO MUCH.
The reason I'm listening to music, a strange phenomenon I haven't been doing enough of lately, is that I'm packing for--what else?--a trip to California. Normally, I'm nerdtastically enthusiastic about packing; frankly, it's fun to plan outfits, make lists of things to not forget, and strategically place objects in suitcases so that they fit perfectly (a feat that's never as easy to do when you're repacking your stuff to come home). But tonight... meh. In fact, "meh" seems to mostly describe the past week or so. I'm in some sort of summer funk; I like nothing better than to sleep for 12 hours a day, take care of the requisite 3-5 hours of work four days a week, then spend the remainder of my day on the couch. No bueno, I declare. I usually have to work to keep myself from packing days in advance; tonight, it's been a struggle to bust out the suitcases, 12 hours before my flight leaves.
Hopefully, the trip out to California (and some much needed interaction with other people, including of course the boyfriend) will make this mood lift. I'm looking forward to it, even if I'm too tired/lethargic to realize it.
As for cats. It's been rather freaky, actually, but I'll try and make this story short (I'm pretty sure it interests no one but me). The Saturday before last, I had a Most Adorable Kitten show up at my door. Anyone who knows me knows that what I want more than anything is a kitty, so I found this pretty weird; here's this cute and very affectionate cat. I know I can't have a cat, though, so eventually I went inside and left him outside (where he cried). The next morning, he was still hanging around; I left to sing, and he was still there two hours later when I returned. Eventually he left for good, and I spent the week regretting my lack of balls--why didn't I just take him in?
Exactly one week later, as I walk out to my car, a black cat sees me and runs up to me. A second black cat runs up to me from the other side of the parking lot. A third runs up to me from behind me, a small gray kitten in tow. ...Double-you tee eff, I ask. They hang out for awhile; I go inside. I peek back outside a while later, and they have literally left this kitten on my doormat. I remind myself that I CANNOT HAVE A CAT, and go back inside. The next morning, I'm woken up by a kitten crying; it's the same gray kitten, this time outside my apartment's back window.
I was terribly amused when I stumbled across the following children's book at work, which repeated the lines, "Hundreds of cats; Thousands of cats; Millions and billions and trillions of cats." It felt very like my own story. (Except the cats around me didn't end up eating each other, as in the slightly disturbing book.)
1. Remember when I got my ears pierced? As you might remember, I noted that I used to have two piercings in each earlobe. Piercings that have been grown in for several years now. ...Except apparently, at some point, I have managed to re-pierce one of those. I have no idea how or when this happened (most likely when I changed earrings yesterday), or how some excruciating pain didn't manage to inform me that I was making a hole where a hole no longer existed. All I know is that this evening I went to put my old earrings back in, and I noticed that the middle stud was slightly out of line with the surrounding ones. I also noticed what looked like another hole beside it, and when I tried that hole... I discovered I'd actually had the stud in my old, many-years-closed-for-business hole.
Aside from the fact that I now have two holes within a millimeter or less of each other, I find this incredibly amusing--and maybe a little scary.
2. More scary is that while I've been gone for the past day-and-a-half, I've had a new neighbor move into my bathroom. He looks a little something like this:
Also... Happy Fourth, everyone! Hope everybody had a good one. I'm off to squeal like a girl while coaxing an arachnid into a cup.
I decided to take a break from reading to make myself some deliciousness (chicken and mashed potatoes!--out of a bag and a box respectively, but who cares, it's still cookin'). While waiting for the oven to preheat, I decided to diddle around on the intarwebz. Something made me think of this nugget from my youth:
Sadly, this book appears to be out of print now, but Amazon seems to have a number of used copies for dirt cheap. I'm gonna have to dig through my mom's books and see if I can find this one.
Aaaand back to my laziness.
Today's Nugget of Information that Makes Me Infinitely Happy: bald eagles have been taken off the endangered species list!
It may be tiny in comparison to y'know... the number of things that are going exctinct daily. But still. It's nice to see a little win!
Actually, not baby-sitting--more like bunny- and guinea pig-sitting.
Some friends of mine are out of town for three days and needed someone to watch over their guinea pig and baby bunny. Who's the lucky gal? Why yes, that would be me.
For the most part, I'm excited. They spent the night last night; I gave the bunny a little run-around-and-be-happy-outside-your-box time (and in doing so discovered just how un-bunny-proof my apartment is--I'm still trying to plug up little spaces into which the tiny furball can hide), I mostly gave the guinea pig the leave-me-the-hell-alone time she clearly desires, and we all went to bed happy.
Unfortunately, the bunny was not aware that my 11:00am class was canceled, and didn't seem to share my enthusiasm for sleeping until noon. A little before 10:00 I started hearing him try to make a Daring Escape out of his box, and I felt bad enough to get up and let him run around and poo in all sorts of secret places that I probably won't find until months from now.
I've never had any pets but cats, dogs, and fish, so I don't really know how these guys work. The guinea pig will be sweet after I'm able to wrench her from her hiding spot in the box, but doesn't seem to keen on the whole human interaction thing. And I'm not sure what to think about the bunny. He's only 8 weeks old; do baby bunnies play? He seems to be enjoying running frantically around my apartment. He also seems to enjoy that place behind my TV stand that he got into last night, because ever since I blocked the whole area off (hello, wires for him to electrocute himself on), he's more determined then ever to get back there.
The highlight of today has definitely been earlier, when he ran, gave a little jump, then landed on his back legs and did what I'm certain was his imitation of Mario's Super Jump. Now if he could figure out how to get himself back into his box as easily as he figured out how to escape, we'd be in business.
