I had an interesting moment with my soon-to-be-ex cat. Ever had a string Continue reading
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Random Thought #57
Posted in Cats, Humor, Official Random Thought, Random with tags ass, awesome, blog, cat, humor, life, random, random thought, shit, string on August 13, 2013 by BrainRantsLost and Found
Posted in Family, Home, Humor with tags cat, lost, search, Smudge on June 30, 2011 by BrainRantsI’ve been authorized by the Household Administration to release this public news story in conjunction with one or two Facebook posts:
We lost our Maine Coon cat, the one called Smudge.
Ultimately this will in fact be my fault, because: A) I am a man, and; B) Because.
Story: We’ve been pretty busy the past few days organizing shit to go on a road trip to Southwest Missouri and hang out with my Stepdad/Di’s Dad up until the 4th. Part of this manic activity was some of the house maintenance guys coming to lay down a chemical barrier to the Borg Onslaught (nod to Trekkies) of insects this summer. Anyway, lots of people have gone in and out of my house today. When Di called me at 1650 hours (4:50 PM Civilianese) today, I assumed it was a ploy to get me home marginally early prior to an Army 4-day weekend. Not true – Smudge, our Maine Coon Huge-Ass MegaCat (of previous blog here fame), had vanished.
I tore away from wrapping-up activity for the weekend in my office, and came home. Di was near tears… yeah, we kinda dig the Smudger. After I recapitulated Di’s six top-to-bottom inspections of every nook and cranny of our four-level Stairmaster (also of past blog), we concluded that three scenarios were possible:
Scenario One: Dixie (also of blog fame here) had got pissed off and bitch-slapped the cosmic hell out of Smudge and he was cowering somewhere we were not used to.
Scenario Two: Smudge had adventured somewhere and somehow, some way, had fallen/crawled/climbed/wegdged his huge ass into an interstitial space in our home. This was a possible outcome.
Scenario Three: (The Worst Case): Smudge had somehow escaped the doors and was living the free-range-cat life at large somewhere in between the Missouri River and the foothills of the Rockies (STFU: we have no idea how fast the little ‘tard can run… he’s a housecat).
So after my detailed military search of the house – and note this is after Di had run about five self-manned reconnaissance patrols of her own, we were considering a roving movement to contact outside on foot. Knowing my Lovely And Talented Spouse, this would have concluded somewhere between finding the retarded cat and dropping from exhaustion walking the sidewalks of Fort Leavenworth.
Did I mention we were set to hit the road tomorrow morning for SW Missou? And that our cousin is driving up from Amarillo to accompany us this weekend? Right, you see the implications here, I am sure.
Anyway, Di erupted from the house claiming she heard Smudge in the basement. After sitting patiently in the basement for close on to an hour while quietly sipping beer, I had no proof and will now forever be harangued about asking whether or not Di heard Smudge for real, or out of creative confabulation driven by emotion… shut up and just Google the words. It means I’m wrong.
Ultimately, Smudge was somehow trapped under the basement stairs. Yes, Honey, that means you were Right. Got it. Anyway, he somehow, some way, managed to work his way under the basement stairs and was trapped. At this point, The Smudge is fed, adjusted, and acting normally.
Just in case you all needed to know.
Our Cats: Smudge
Posted in Best, Family with tags cat, Maine Coon on June 24, 2011 by BrainRants
Holy Miniature Horses, Batman! That's a Monster Cat!
All of my regular readers will know by now to expect this entry, which deals with our second (chronologically speaking) cat that adopted us in 2006. This would be Smudge. What’s that? Oh, the name. Well, as dedicated readers know, my youngest daughter named Dixie after a major street in Fort Knox. When we stumbled on Smudge, it was just me and Di, so I exercised my superior naming talent which also came up with Booger, another cat/family pet. Based on what the little guy looked like, I picked the name ‘Smudge.’ This is based on the fact that as a dark gray cat, he often looks like a smear on a photograph. Except his eyes, which look like miniature yellow searchlights shining from his head as he stares his humans down.
The story of finding this big little guy goes back to our first quarters on Fort Leavenworth while I was in school here. Di and I were out on our screened-in back porch and heard a funny, high-pitched sound. We discovered a tiny kitten that had fallen into the basement storm window dugout, trapped and unable to get out. The wild cat who is/was his mother had obviously concluded he was beyond rescue as she did not have thumbs and could not engineer her offspring a way out.
He clung to my flesh with tiny but sharp hooked claws, and he fit snugly in the palm of my hand at the time. His tiny mewls were barely auduble, they were so high-pitched. Diana fed him for two nights with an eyedropper, and of course debate over what to do with the little shit ended. The name followed in about a week, and then the growth was off and running. Our adult-sized Smudge is over two feet long from nose to tail tip, a very healthy Maine Coon with fluffy and floaty hair. Web sites on Maine Coons peg his color as ‘blue’ but to look at him he appears as a large… well, smudge, of gray fireplace ash with two glowing eyes that watch your every move.
Smudge is so huge that he prefers laying on his back like a human. His ‘meow’ has not dropped in pitch much, and is somewhat girly when it comes out of a cat that could earn money for us with a small saddle and a steady supply of toddlers. In spite of his hugeness and hooked claws, he is quite possibly the most whipped cat this century. Dixie regularly bitch-slaps him into submission for the general reason of being in the room. Smudge could disembowl our tabby in seconds but doesn’t as he still thinks he fits into my palm. He also thinks he is a human.
Smudge follows Di (to whom he has attached permanently) everywhere, to include the bathroom at 3AM, and back. He eats like a small horse (his approximate size I should note). He is not a cuddler at all. He tolerates about ten seconds of ‘lap time’ before moving to his self-appointed spot at the far end of the sofa. Smudge is resistant to being picked up, and does not think that ‘Long Cat’ is funny when posed as such.
Our Smudge is in fact so huge that he sounds like a child coming down the stairs, making them creak and pop like a human. I would estimate his weight at around 20 pounds (thankfully he does not make biscuits), believe it or not. Jumping upon the bed, it moves as if I climbed in myself. Dude is our door monitor, watching through the screen when we are outside, making sure we have come back inside as soon as possible so he can resume staring us down.
Smudge is our guy and is actually loving in his own bizarre way. He headbutts us in the morning when he is tired of finding an empty food dish. Really, he does. I have taken to headbutting him back at random times throughout the day when I find him (as usual) reclining on the nearest upholstered furniture. He just blinks and stares me down, as if to say, “Oh, and you want me to make you food? Did you notice I don’t have thumbs, asshat?”
So the guy is here to stay for sure. He’s turned out to be a pretty good cat overall, not acting like the typical disinterested cat. He does actually respond to calling his name. He will be around for a while. That’s a good thing.
Our Cats: Dixie
Posted in Awesome, Family with tags cat, cat hair, cute, Dixie, Jackie, pet on June 17, 2011 by BrainRants
Dixie in the Sweet Spot
This will be the first of at least two entries on our cats. We are cat people, at least for the time being. The history of this development goes back to 2002 when our daughter demanded (!) a pet, and not some lame-ass terrarium pet, but a fully-vertibrate, pelt-wearing animal pet larger than five pounds. I managed to move the discussion from the problematic dog category to other ones. When we were settled on a rabbit (to be living free-range inside the house), I decided to go with the Nuclear Option: a cat. Hence we came to be owned by Dixie.
Other cat people will understand that last sentence completely. Dixie is your typical American shorthair tabby calico. She is mainly gray with some brown, and has coloration on her face that makes her look like she wears one eye with eyeliner. She is the product of a shelter in Kentucky, coming to us quite small and active. At this point almost nine years later, she is showing signs of being elderly as her six boobs are sagging visibly. I am relieved she can’t read English.
Now, the irony of pet ownership is that you never really know to whom the pet will bond with. Yeah, you see this one coming, right? Anyway, like all major pets, Dixie (named by our youngest daughter for a street on Fort Knox) was ostensibly our daughter’s, though somehow my wife and I fed, cleaned, and scooped poop only between the two of us. One of each of our daughters has claimed Dix as “hers” over the years. The truth is, Dixie has decided that I belong to her.
As other cat people know, there are advantages to being owned by cats. You can put out a big pile of food and leave the toilet lid up and you have automatic pet care during vacations. No walking is required, and for true housecats, the main sacrifice is small, hairy pieces of your living space. That and the constant disdain with which only a cat can treat their humans. Dix is a master of this. Completely unresponsive to calling, begging, or other verbal cues, she merely rotates her ears around while presenting you with her back to let you know she registered the fact that you uttered her name, all the while staring down a fly buzzing in a ceiling corner. This is the cat equivalent of the middle finger: F*#!k off you, I’m busy.
In her advancing cat years (7:1 ratio like dogs, making her 63ish), Dixie has become intensely warmth-focused. This is, in large part, the reason for her decision to make me her human. I am warm, generally, and when I am comfortable I usually tend to be completely immobile. Thus, I am her ultimate warming pad. I cannot estimate the number of total hours of television programming I’ve missed because Dixie was perched on my chest making biscuits (the odd tenderizing motions cats do with their wee little paws) on my moobs (English: Man bOOBS) prior to actually laying down there in a hairy purring catloaf. Each night I will inevitably wind up with a furry tumor pressed against my snoring (loud purring to her) bed-turd self.
While this is always endearing, I’d note at this point that Dix has a hair issue. Most pelted animals shed during summer months. Dixie’s Shed Gene has her constantly in summer mode. If you’ve read a comic book in your life, you know the funny, wavy lines artists like to use to indicate a smell or sound emitting from the comic character. If Dixie were a comic strip cat, she would have hair wave lines, emanating from all surfaces of her furriness, leaving a white, nose-tickling cloud in her wake much like Pig Pen from ‘Peanuts’ emanates a cloud of dusty dirt wherever he goes.
I’d also mention that Dixie tends to have binge/purge bulimia, leaving moist and chunky landmines on the floor as rewards for our attentiveness. She is also the dominant cat of the house, regularly bitch-slapping the shit out of our other cat, Smudge, for reasons along the lines of “its Tuesday.” My sister-in-law Jackie nicknamed her Yelly-Head because she will verbalize loudly in the morning when she decides she needs someone to come downstairs and get coffee and sit still so she can warm up. Most amazing to me: when I put my boots on each morning, she somehow knows the sound of cotton slipping against nylon and suede, and comes running to catch at the long ends of my combat bootlaces as I tighten and tie them. Immediately afterward, she flops onto her back in her best cheesecake pose, writhing in kitty-esque ‘S-es’ hoping you will warble “pretty girl” in falsetto and scritch her tummy. This is our morning ritual.
I only hope she lives another nine years.
BrainRants 