Just got Tunch back from my friends who watched him for the past few days. He went from living with me and just me to living with two people and their five cats and one dog. Needless to say, I think he is relieved to be back home and I am hoping I can get through the day without bleeding.
*** Update ***
Actually, now that he has been home for a while, he just seems very happy to be here. Actually is being pretty affectionate. I went to brush him and he had no hair to spare, so he must have done a lot of nervous shedding. Right now, though, he is passed out on the desk, sleeping like a rock. Poor fellow couldn’t handle all the excitement of 5 cats and a dog at Brian and Tammy’s.
gbear
Tunch will soon be wondering why he can’t have more buddies too.
Alan
When are you going to post that picture of the Obama girl with the purple hair? :)
mellowjohn
our cats pointedly ignore us when we come back from vacation.
little ingrates.
wonkie
When I came back from vacation I found a turd on my pillow–right smack in the middle.
‘Nuff said.
JimPortlandOR
Cats quite often retribution for cat-perceived slights and neglects – using classic passive-aggressive techniques.
Dogs seem to have missed the passive-aggressive classes on how to punish their owner/slave.
Why this is so is unclear but probably related to how different cats and dogs are committed to unconditional love. Cats are weird. Dogs are buddies.
CIRCVS MAXIMVS MMVIII
My cat likes to stand on me, sit on me, walk on me, lay on me, sleep on me, perhaps I need to go on a vacation and sufficiently piss him off for a while. He’s a high maintenance cat.
Richard Bottoms
Mason Williams allowed me to license his music to do a video celebrating Obama’s win with a new version of Classical Gas.
Enjoy:
America’s Moment
Punchy
Can this be the official college football thread?
Mah Hawkeyes gunna upset the Penn State Nancy Lions. You heard it here first. Paterno and his All-Felon offense will be stymied.
Charity
When our cats were kittens, we used to take them to my parents. But it was traumatizing for them to get packed in the car and taken to a new place, then traumatizing to get packed up again to go home. Now my dad is nice enough to stop by and feed them every other day when we go out of town. Them staying at home is just better all the way around. We just prop doors open so they don’t get locked in our bedroom or bathroom.
Mah kittehs, let me show u dem.
JGabriel
With respect to Palin calling the people spreading rumors about her "jerks", did anyone else think, "Of course they’re jerks, they’re Republicans. Just like you, Sarah."?
I mean, really. What did she expect?
Also, after seeing her response about Africa being a country, I’m absolutely convinced that rumor is true.
At first I thought they were making it up, or that it was exaggerated, but her story about people in debate prep taking it out of context is more damning than if she’d said nothing at all, since it implies that there is context in which she thought Africa is a country.
.
redbeardjim
@JimPortlandOR:
Dogs were domesticated.
Cats moved in because there were mice around.
rawshark
My animals sleep like logs when I get back from a few days away. I think they don’t sleep much while I’m gone.
J.
Glad to know Tunch survived. So, where is the cute picture of Tunch asleep on your desk? I am waiting.
In the meantime, don’t you think the Obamas should adopt a cat (or two), or at least a dog and a cat? Cats are so much easier to care for, and can be quite affectionate and entertaining (as we both know).
Glen
John,
I’ve heard it said (and I truly believe) that cats are the ultimate conservatives: they hate and despise anything related to change. (Moving, being away for a few days, rearranging the furniture…)
I had to be away for a few days recently (and my usual cat-sitter/neighbor was not available). Food, water, and other needs were pre-prepared. I was greeted by the "I turn my back" initial response, followed closely by "I will wrap myself around your face" mode. Think Aliens.
Tim Fuller
Something I think this crowd will really get a kick out of.
My first online poll;
Why did God abandon Palin and the Republicans in 2008?
http://thetimchannel.com/?p=242
FWIW, I like cats (2) but love dogs (4). If fact, I enjoy dogs more than people, but that might just be the fact that I live in the heart of Ignorant Valley Mississippi, where what passes for stimulating conversation is the ‘hot bait feed’ for inducing deer to slaughter. Somehow I find the animals these folks around here want to slaughter way more interesting than the folks doing the slaughtering. Guess I’m just funny that way?
Enjoy.
kommrade jakevich
Our cats make a point of dashing outside when we return from trips and ignoring the hell out of us.
Of course it means we can’t get at them when we see what they’ve done in our absence.
JGabriel
Tim Fuller:
There are laws against that, you know.
.
smiley
Want to stress out your cat(s)? Try staying in a motel with them for four days. For my previous long-range moves, I’ve had them flown. The last time was a two-day drive including a say in a in a pet-friendly motel. When I got here, the house I had arranged to rent wasn’t ready to be moved into (contrary to what I was told). I got the last room in one of the two pet-friendly motels here for three days as the renovations were being completed. Poor cats were so stressed out that they acted as if they didn’t recognize each other (hissing, arching back, fighting). And they’re litter mates.
Tim Fuller
You get bonus points for nailing the ‘low hanging fruit’ in my last post. I do not accuse you of the same type of venality I highlight below. I’m laughing with you on that one, not only because I knew somebody would pounce on it, but also that my wife is out of the country and I do sleep with the furry bastards, but not in any way that would make Ted Haggard proud.
Reminds me of when I was debating rightwing talk show host Kim Wade (WJNT 1180am Jackson, MS) about applying the death penalty to young kids (Kim is a Black religious and Republican apologist of the Dominionist/Christian Reconstructionist variety).
I was arguing the point that it is savage to think of applying the death penalty to some poor black kid (think he was 11) who shot and killed his teacher. I argued against his insistence that capital punishment would be a deserved justice for this youth. I told him I understood his anger, but that UNLESS he was willing to grant other adult ‘rights’ to eleven year old children, he ought to rethink his strategy. I made the point that under his plan, if we are to grant that any 11 year old child should/could be considered adult enough for execution, then we’d effectively lose the ability to prosecute molesters who fondle children over 11 (the age of the child murderer). FWIW, I do think our children our overcoddled and sheltered WAY TOO LONG. People in Jefferson’s era often graduated college at age 16. Get these kids off the vidya games and onto the learnin’. Lower the age of consent and responsibility to something that approaches sanity and teach kids the responsibilities thereof. In no case did I think that age should be anywhere near 11, although I pointed to prophets he revered in HIS BIBLE that certainly married children under God’s approval. Aren’t there still quite a few Mormon fundamentalists still playing that card?
The net result of my pointing out his hypocrisy on when children could/should be considered adults vis-a-vis crime vrs consent, was met with the standard ad hominen attacks that Mr. Wade is known for. He was forever suggesting that I was some sort of a pervert (one day I was late for the show and he speculated ON AIR that it was probably because I was out negotiating the purchase of an Ice Cream truck!! As the resident heathen, I took the slings and arrows in jest, but quit doing the show because I’m sure I was way too entertaining (and likely raising HIS ratings) for what amounted to a bad version of a wannabe Black Hannity – White Tim show.
J. Michael Neal
Fortunately, in a few days, it’s always been that way.
Geeno
Aww – poor Tunch. My own cat gets regularly freaked out every time the boys visit (every weekend). He gets terribly pitiful. Then just as he’s getting used them being around, they leave.
Comrade Nikolita
Our kitten is a little more cuddly with me than with my boyfriend. He’s always happy to see me when I come home, even if I haven’t been away for very long.
My cat is another story. A year ago when I lived in another town with myself (and a roommate for awhile), I was almost always home at night. A couple of times I left overnight when my roommate was home, so she got fed and whatnot and there was still someone at home. But one time he was away, and I had to be gone overnight, and she was NOT happy. I came home and there was either puke or kitty crap in the middle of my kitchen mat waiting for me.
Living with my boyfriend where we are now, I went back home for a week earlier this year. My boyfriend was home and the kitten was here too, but a few days after I left, she started peeing in the kitchen sink at night. She’s never, ever done that before, and we were mystified why. So he filled the sink with water at night so she’d be unable to use it, and that seemed to work. After I got back we put her in the bathroom for one night (on the advice of the vet) and tried to get her to pee in the bathtub so we could get a urine sample and see if she was infected with something. Unfortunately the bathtub drain doesn’t close all the way and we lost our sample, but we took her for a checkup anyways and she ended up on meds for two weeks.
My point was, weird cat. She’s a diva and a prissy bitch, and definitely cares more if I’m gone for long periods of time. Although the other night she peed on the kitchen floor and we have no clue why… stress maybe?
AnneLaurie
Current scienteriffic thinking, actually, is that dogs invited themselves in because humans are a prolific scavenger resource. Basically, we didn’t ‘tame the noble wolf’ so much as we inherited the lazier/less successful wolves who were willing to put up with our primate quirks in return for first rights at our garbage middens. Most dogs, across most of the world, still spend their lives as ‘pariahs’ hanging around scarfing whatever scraps a subsistence-level village provides. The luckiest individuals get promoted to "house" status because they’re cuter or smarter or more self-promoting, and the least lucky end up in the stewpots during times of particular economic stress.
If the anthropologists are right, "Man’s First Friend" was not Dog but Goat, and the real difference between dogs & cats is that dogs have a five-thousand-year head start on convincing us that their successful parasitism was all *our* idea!
annie
Poor Tunch. How would you feel, abandoned, left with strangers, fighting for food and attention, lowest guy on the totum pole…?
Our cats would never forgive us, if we did that to them. So instead, I pay through the nose to have "pet sitters," come to our house to continue their spoiling ritual.
Yes, I do love our cats…