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You are here: Home / Pet Blogging / Cat Blogging / And Now For Something Completely Different

And Now For Something Completely Different

by | 68 Comments

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All the piglets are fed, walked, freshly shatted, and luxuriating:

piglets

theman

Actually felt guilty today because Steve has so much taken over the house that I realize it had been about a week since I had gotten upset about Tunch. He’s really a magnificent specimen, and every time I look at him I keep waiting for Charlotte to write “SOME CAT” over his head.

I really want another Maine Coon, Steve has turned out to be so awesome. My sister is in town for Christmas and she finally met Steve (she lives in Connecticut) and thought the name sucked until she met him, and he came and loves all over her, and she said “Now I get it. He is a Steve.”

Yes, he is. He’s a band cat beyond description.

*** Update ***

The other funny thing is I thought a lot of Maine Coon cats just looked sloppy with their long, unkept hair, and I liked the look of Tunch, with his pristine white plush fur and his delicate little paws. Now, I look at Steve sauntering in with his enormous mane and floofy coat and dramatic 7 and 6 toes respectively, and when I see other cats, I think they look funny- “What happened to that cat’s toes? It only has 4?”

tunchblimp

Reader Interactions

68Comments

  4. 4.

    PhoenixRising

    Today was the day. The kitten we’d been waiting for came in from foster at the pound.

    My 14 year old’s dream of someday having a kitten? Check.
    My dream of a pet she can take with her when she goes, God willing? Check.
    My wife’s dream that it would be her turn to name the next pet? Out the window. This is a task for a committee of 12 experts on cat naming.

    He’s silver and white, medium hair, already fixed so this one’s gonna be whale-sized. If he were black I’d have already named him Steinway. (He’ll grow into it.)

  6. 6.

    Fuzzy

    We had a great coon cat who hunted the little gophers we have here in CA by waiting for hours without moving for the them to pop their heads out of the holes. Our whole neighborhood agreed not to feed him so he would hunt. He was fed at home of course.

  9. 9.

    Suzanne

    Steve seems wonderful. Though every time I see his picture, I have that millisecond-long flash thinking that it’s a picture of my dearly departed Nico, the best cat ever. All cats I will ever have will be measured against her.

  11. 11.

    Yatsuno

    @Suzanne: Somewhat. They slapped a shit ton of ice on the incision (can’t do an anti-inflammatory because of spike in the blood work) and I have moved as little as possible since. Hoping next dose will help calm it further and more important they keep on schedule.

  12. 12.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Cole: “Steve is my copilot, which explains why my Subaru is in a field and it doesn’t really bother me.”

  14. 14.

    Violet

    @Yatsuno: How are you feeling? Hope all is going well. Glad you are well enough to comment here!

    Cole, that cat is all ear.

    @PhoenixRising:

    He’s silver and white, medium hair, already fixed so this one’s gonna be whale-sized.

    Sounds like he’s Moby Dick to me.

  16. 16.

    Karen in GA

    The vet that diagnosed Phoebe, the World’s Most Affectionate Cat, looked over the results from the second opinion vet, consulted with her boss, and got input from the vet at the lab that handles their testing. The verdict: stage 2 chronic renal failure. She still has at least 2/3rds of her kidney function if not more, and might only need a good senior diet rather than a prescription food — the vet’s boss says at this point it’s up to me, since it was caught early.

    I’m relieved. Now I just have to make sure whatever food I choose won’t kill her quickly, and we’re good to go.

  18. 18.

    Hungry Joe

    Last Sunday, Phoebe, our five-month-old kitten monster, managed to wriggle behind a 4′ x 5′ mirror leaning against a wall. (My wife used it to practice her nia dance stuff.) From the kitchen we heard a shattering explosion and ran into the living room just as a small calico blur was streaking out. Guess how we spent the rest of the morning. Does anyone need two large boxes of broken mirror shards, a la Dan Aykroyd’s “Bag o’ Glass”? $0.00 + $19.95 postage & handling.

  22. 22.

    Mike in NC

    Maine Coons are awesome. Our friends had a pair that lived about 20 years, and they were very cool.

  25. 25.

    indycat32

    Got an email from a former coworker asking if I wanted the kitten he rescued from the cold. I already have two cats, so I told him only as a last resort if all other options failed. I have a feeling I’m getting a kitten for Christmas.

  26. 26.

    PhoenixRising

    @Culture of Truth: Um, much like my daughter: I know where I went (in this case, the pound) and I know what’s written on the receipt (background “info”), but that’s an unknown at this time.

    He’s grey and white on the outside, pink on the inside, and purrs like an outboard. I wanted to call him Evenrude, but that’s been spiked already.

    (In related pet news, the Dane is going to the vet in the AM to get her left eyeball examined. This dog has lived with cats at least once before; getting that close to a baby one means she needs her head examined.)

  29. 29.

    Yatsuno

    @Omnes Omnibus: No reason it can’t be both of us. But there’s another round of meds approaching in a few minutes then an hour after. Sleep will happen, but in awhile.

  30. 30.

    Violet

    @Karen in GA: A friend’s senior kitty wasn’t doing well at all. The vet didn’t have any suggestions and said it was a matter of a few months. My friend decided to switch both her cats (the other one of the same age was doing pretty well) to a raw food diet. They bought some fancy grinder on Craigslist and grind up chicken and rabbit, freeze it in single serving portions and put them out for the kitties as needed.

    Both cats are doing amazingly well on the new diet. The sicker of the two has really improved and the other one acts like a young cat again. It’s kind of an amazing change.

    Just wanted to mention it as encouragement in case you do decide to go in that direction. It can have an amazing effect, even in cats that are doing pretty well.

  36. 36.

    Yatsuno

    @Omnes Omnibus: Oh and possible interest to you: at the Women’s NCAA volleyball tournament, 12th seeded Wisconsin defeated first seed Texas. So yeah, go Lady Badgers.

  37. 37.

    trollhattan

    Gawdamn that TunchBlimp pic is hilarious. May he forever circle the Rose Bowl, mewling for tuna. Good tuna.

  38. 38.

    CaseyL

    @Yatsuno: Hey, good to see you posting… er, haven’t they brought the Good Stuff around yet?

    And what is it about the holiday season that turns a young man’s thoughts to major surgery? Another friend of mine had his hip replacement done today, too. Is this a trend?

  39. 39.

    Keith P

    I’m starting to wonder if one of mine is part Maine coon. He’s a long-haired gray, like a feral cat (although years of high-end cat food has given him a somewhat purple coat), but he’s got a thick mane that he likes to keep fluffed up. He doesn’t meow like normal cats; he sounds more like a baby going “Wahh! Wahh!”. And his tail action is weird, too…keeps it close to the ground but flicks the tip left and right (all my other cats keep them high and move them with a flourish). Real wide face with ginormous round eyes…huge baby face. Don’t know what he is, but he’s definitely different from every other cat I’ve had.

  40. 40.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Yatsuno: I really don’t like volleyball. I was never good at it, and I recently was decent enough to watch my 10 y/o niece in a VB tournament (3 hours of the “game”) – because I am a fucking fantastic uncle. God, volleyball sucks.

  44. 44.

    Anne Laurie

    @Villago Delenda Est: Phoebe the kitten monster: “I meant to do that!”

    @Citizen_X:

    That second shot’s a Kzin, right?

    Hani. (Don’t know if Cherryh’s ever admitted the Hani were based on Maine Coons, but it’s a common enough joke in the fandom.)

  45. 45.

    Anne Laurie

    @Keith P: Used to be the Maine Coon breeders said the ‘markers’ for MC genes were little pointed fur tufts at the ends of the ears, the lion mane & squirrel tail, and extra fur between the toes of the (usually very large) paws. And that little high-pitched baby-kitten voice (I call it the Tom Selleck voice) is pretty common, too. The gene set obviously arose independently in a number of places (see also Siberians and Norwegian Forest cats), and because their possessors are gorgeous & usually quite people-friendly, the primates encourage them to breed & spread. (Around heah they’re still called ‘captain’s cats’ by some of the locals.)

  46. 46.

    CaseyL

    @John Cole: That lamp? Hah! It looks a lot like one I used to have. They’re more solid than I am.

    @Omnes Omnibus: FSM, that’s a T&H piece? It is vaguely disturbing, in an evil-velvet-Elvis kind of way. I don’t think I’d want them staring down at me…

  47. 47.

    Anne Laurie

    @John Cole: I was gonna accuse you of posting that photo just to show off your Fra-GEE-lee lamp, but you couldn’t wait, couldya?

    Gift, or did you actually save up & buy it to match the rest of your day-core?

  50. 50.

    max

    @Citizen_X: That second shot’s a Kzin, right?

    Anne Laurie is right – the Kzinti are giant orange tabbies, basically.

    Also, in unrelated matters, I concur with Wonkette on Larry Klayman:

    Fresh off his ridiculous unexpected but sadly deserved glorious defeat of the gubmint reading your sexts, one would have thought that Larry Klayman’s victory lap would at least be somewhat coherent. One would be oh so very wrong, of course, because when it comes to Larry Klayman, all bets are on him reverting to his true weird form.

    Klayman went on CNN Tuesday to discuss his big win, as you do when your lawyerin’ succeeds, with Don Lemon and CNN’s ubiquitous legal analyst Jeff Toobin. So far so good. Klayman, of course, can never leave well enough alone, because of how he can’t stop perseverating about the evils of the Kenyan Muslin president, so rather than talking about the NSA case like a normal person, he spent most of the time attacking Don Lemon as a super-left-winger. Wait what?

    The freak put all his chips on red, on the day when that was actually the right thing to do, and whaddya know, the ball dropped.

    max
    [‘Stranger shit has happened.’]

  51. 51.

    eemom

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    the T&H painting on the wall.

    The thing about T&H’s art is, it looks sort of cool until you realize it all looks the same.

    What ever happened to T&H, anyway? Don’t come around here no more from what I’ve seen.

  52. 52.

    piratedan

    @Yatsuno: endeavor to persevere…. hope that the blood work gets better and the pain meds do their thang for you good sir.

    @Anne Laurie: possibly with a tabby cross because they do get kinda persnickity, don’t you think?

  54. 54.

    pseudonymous in nc

    @Anne Laurie:

    The gene set obviously arose independently in a number of places (see also Siberians and Norwegian Forest cats)

    One of ours is what we call a “Carolina Grumpcat”, because we see many others in the area with very similar features, either with people or listed at shelters. Big, black, fuzzy, MC characteristics, soft undercoat, double purr, chirrups as often as he miaows, usually unimpressed with his people.

  57. 57.

    Yatsuno

    @MikeJ: Awake, but it’s also med time here in a few anyway. Might be going over to Cherry Hill either today or tomorrow, will update info as I know more.

    Chocolate chip scone for brekkies. Also. Too.

  59. 59.

    WereBear

    Actually felt guilty today because Steve has so much taken over the house that I realize it had been about a week since I had gotten upset about Tunch.

    Tunch sent him, obviously. Be cool.

  60. 60.

    Amir Khalid

    @eemom:
    He kind of tapered off his presence here over a period of months, as I recall, because fewer and fewer of us were responding to him. Then he was down to just pimping his “art” for a while, and now he doesn’t do even that anymore. The only thing I feel about his absence is relief..

  62. 62.

    WaterGIrl

    @Karen in GA: So glad you have an answer! I have just one thing to say:

    WET FOOD, WET FOOD, WET FOOD

    Best thing you can do for kitties, food wise. Add extra water to the food, too.

    There are several websites that have really good info about kidney failure in cats. My sweet quiver was diagnosed too late, but IIRC there are quite a few things you can do to support the kidneys, so hopefully it never becomes life threatening.

  63. 63.

    WaterGIrl

    @Karen in GA: So glad you have an answer! I have just one thing to say:

    WET FOOD, WET FOOD, WET FOOD

    Best thing you can do for kitties, food wise. Add extra water to the food, too.

    There are several websites that have really good info about kidney failure in cats. My sweet quiver was diagnosed too late, but IIRC there are quite a few things you can do to support the kidneys, so hopefully it never becomes life threatening.

  64. 64.

    WaterGIrl

    To all kitty lovers out there:

    Be really careful about snacks around kitties.

    Even cheese goldfish, which seem really harmless if you don’t know better, have onion salt in them, and onion is a killer for cats. They have even added onion salt to the yummy organic cheese bunnies.

    Also, garlic is very bad, too.

    So that yummy chex mix? Do not let the kitties near it.

    Anything sweetened with xylitol is very dangerous.

  65. 65.

    PaulW

    The cat I just rescued from the forest/parking lot of my apartment complex is a young tuxedo Maine Coon -esque cat (very furry and fuzzier than my previous two shorthair cats). She is more talkative than Page, although much like Tehya the conversations must have some meaning (Page just meowed sometimes just to make sure there was noise in the house).

    Ocean (it’s from Neil Gaiman’s latest book, if you read “The Ocean At the End of the Lane” you’d understand) is a very purring cat. She’s a bit moody right now that she doesn’t go outside anymore (she wants to run back into the woods like she used to, but she doesn’t understand the human’s concerns about fleas and raccoons that humans have), but she wants to get into my face to love me once she knows I’m settled in for the night and she’s been fed.

  67. 67.

    Jay

    “Even saw the lights of the Goodyear Blimp/And it read ‘Tunch Cat’s a pimp.’ “-From the rap song “It Was A Good Day,” by Ice Cube.

    I’ll be here all week.

  68. 68.

    GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)

    @shelly:

    That’s a commissioned painting of the grateful dead that John bought from the douchiest douche on the blog a couple years ago, IIRC. He’s still fucking paying for it, according to the douche.

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