UPDATE: UncleEbenezer has a GoFundMe up to help with relocation and recovery after the Eaton Fire. Go here to give. Thanks to comrade scott for the tip.
Now back to cat blogging:
In addition to packing a year’s worth of news into a handful of days, 2025 has been quite cold over here so far—not polar-vortex cold, but still frosty enough to ice the canals over.
This evening, as I was getting the woodburner going, I realized I hadn’t seen the cat since lunchtime. I looked on and under the beds, in The Child’s closet, under the sofa—nothing. Just as I was beginning to worry, I came back into the living room, and:
In my defense, when has a cat ever used the actual cat furniture? He could hardly have picked a better hiding spot.
Happy Friday, for what it’s worth. Open thread.
trollhattan
Heh, cat being a weird little dude.
Sunny here in the not burning half of California.
Kosh III
Cold and snowing here in McMinnville TN. They say we’ll get about 5″ when it’s done.
Cats are endlessly and adorably capricious.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
Your cat looks a lot like our tuxedo cat Buster 😀. Tuxedos are the best
And very cute little pink toe beans!
West of the Rockies
I’d nap in that basket if I could fit…
comrade scotts agenda of rage
“MY EXPERTLY CATMOFLAUGED POSITION BETRAYED BY JELLY BEANS!”
Rose Judson
@Kosh III: A lady I work with lives in Nashville and she took a snow day today. Purely for her own amusement – like me, she works from home.
Steve LaBonne
Our 20 pound big dude wouldn’t begin to fit in that.
H.E.Wolf
@Steve LaBonne:
One of our cats liked sitting in a small open-topped basket when he was a kitten. As he grew larger, he still liked sitting in it… which, when he was full grown and lapped over the edges on all sides, made him look like a chicken on a nest.
He was a goofball, but very sweet.
Joy in FL
What an adorable cat hiding place. I love the photos. Thanks for sharing.
At first, from the title, I thought this was going to be a political post. What a lovely surprise that it is about a magnificent feline : )
dr. luba
My lake (SE Michigan) appears to have finally iced over. I can see it across the street from my window. It’s been in the 20s for about a week now, after an unseasonably warm December.
When I first moved out here in 1989, the lake always froze, and there would be skaters and ice fishermen out on it much of the winter. The past few years the ice has been dodgy, and last year the lake never froze over — open water all winter.
It’s snowing today, we’re supposed to get 2-4 inches. Once again missing all the major storms passing thorough, but being west of the Great Lakes usually guarantees that. I remember huge snows when I was in university and medical school (70s-80s), but much less so the past few decades.
I’m retired and staying in today. It’s damn cold out there, and the roads will be a mess. I don’t fear driving in the snow–I learned winter driving in the Keweenaw peninsula in a rear wheel drive car–but I fear the other drivers.
Chacal Charles Calthrop
my friend in LA and I have been texting each other – “Greetings from Hoth!” “Greetings from Mordor!”
Her apartment is fine but they’re still not home yet because their block has no power.
Sis
Extra credit for kitty for not clawing that wicker to pieces, which would be Job One for my cats.
Debg
Cat being cat. Very cute.
A Ghost to Most
Most cat trees are too small for large cats. I had to disassemble and enlarge one to fit our cats. It gets daily use.
hitchhiker
@dr. luba:
Respect! That right there is old school. We (me and mr h, who both grew up in that world) once spent an evening watching from the dining room window of our 17th floor apartment as hapless Seattle drivers tried to navigate a steep hill during a 4-inch snowfall.
You could easily spot the ones who knew what they were doing, but sometimes they couldn’t drive defensively enough to avoid the others.
FelonyGovt
My daughter and her girlfriend thought briefly last night that they would have to evacuate (false alarm, of which there have been many here). Girlfriend has 3 cats, and I told my daughter to bring them along here. Spent some time figuring out how to quickly cat-proof this place, but turns out I didn’t need to.
hells littlest angel
I love your podcast, but Leviathan was written by Thomas Hobbes, not John Locke. Did Locke really recommend Aesop’s fables for children? Because he’s best known as an advocate of child labor, believing that poor children should have been entering the workforce at the age of THREE.
JCJ
@dr. luba: Dang! Winter driving in the Keweenaw peninsula! Although I suppose there were times when there was so much snow nothing could move. I remember during the two years I was at Indiana University – Bloomington I would avoid driving when there was snow as the locals had so little experience and many had next to no tread on their tires
Kelly
My first car was a a 1956 Ford rear wheel drive pickup. It required tire chains for many trips to ski Oregon’s Cascade passes. Handy thing about a pickup is we could leave the chains stretched out and ready to go in the bed. My brother and I made a competition out of who could get a wheel chained up and be back in the cab first. We could get it done in under a under a minute.
I also fear other drivers more than the snow.
Rose Judson
@hells littlest angel: Oh shit! Thanks for the correction.
Yes, Locke did recommend that – I assume he was not thinking of poor children, tho.
Another Scott
@Rose Judson: Thanks for the link. Made me look…
Ack!
He tried to warn us!!11
Best wishes,
Scott.
TBone
There is a lot of ice on our branch of the Susquehanna River, it is very pretty.
I learned about ice here in central PA the hard way many years ago. Young and dumb flatlander! Had a room at the Scarlet D Tavern, complete with a claw foot bathtub, could have stayed happy all day there, between the room and the Tavern, but no! We wanted to go hiking in the mountains so off we drove in my little convertible Sunbird to the State Forest. It was a rather mild morning and we parked and walked for hours that day in the beautiful scenery. On our way back to the car mid-afternoon, the temperature suddenly dropped. I mean DROPPED. Everything froze solid within minutes, every surface covered in ice (it had been a misty, wettish morning). We were pretty far into the middle of nowhere and it had started to get dark because we couldn’t drive more than 5mph. I suggested breaking into one of the cabins we’d seen, leaving money for the door window pane, and staying warm by a toasty fire until the next morning. BF wouldn’t hear of it. GAH! We were getting further and further from safety, on treacherous ice roads with steep cliff drop offs at the road’s edge. We ended up opening the car doors and using our legs & feet to keep the car from going over the side of the mountain. In this way, foot by foot, straining mightily, we managed to get back to civilization by midnight. I now never venture anywhere wild by car in the winter that I can’t walk out of on foot. Never!
ronno2018
would be awesome to ice skate on those canals!
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Uncle Eb’s GoFundMe link:
https://gofund.me/341829bb
Give like he was running for president.
TBone
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: hahaha!
tam1MI
I live in the Capital area, and today I had this conversation with my neighbor:
NEIGHBOR: “So, How much snow are we supposed to get?”
ME: “About 1 to 3 inches.”
NEIGHBOR: “Could be worse.”
ME: “Yeah, Holland and Pentwater and all those towns along the Lake are gonna get buried.”
NEIGHBOR: “EVERYWHERE along the Lake always gets buried”.
You Might Be From Michigan If… You know EXACTLY which lake we were talking about, LOL!
Thor Heyerdahl
Queston for the legal juicers.
If there is a person on death row or wrongly accused by the state, could a SuperPAC be set up for that person- with a declaration that they’re running for president?
Then go to the Supreme Court and request an emergency session to delay court action against the candidate?
At the very least to get the Roberts court to eat their shit sandwich.
TBone
Did someone say JELLY BEANS?
https://www.robertleefulghum.com/what-i-want-now/
Rose Judson
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Thanks for sharing this! Added it to the top of this post.
zhena gogolia
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Thanks — did you send it to WG or another front-pager?
ETA: Never mind, I see Rose got it!
Spanky
@Rose Judson: Not sure “rebuilding and recovery” is an apt description of Uncle Eb’s GoFundMe, as they make it clear that they were renting and may not stay in LA.
Rusty
Cold in southern New Hampshire, but absolutely no snow. I am missing it!! The sustained low temps however has allowed the ski hills to make snow, hopefully in the next few weeks I will get to enjoy them.
Spanky
Friday is winding down here in Southern MD. The low sun has already been covered by the clouds coming from the southwest, promising to add another couple of inches to the 10.5 we got on Monday.
No hidden cats around here! They’re all napping on top of furniture. Maybe that’s a hint that I’ve got the temperature too warm in here?
Doc Sardonic
@hells littlest angel: I thought Leviathan was an album by Mastodon
jackmac
We just had good news from nephews and in-laws in L.A., reporting that their house was unscathed and that “the air wasn’t too bad,” according to one nephew. Everyone had to evacuate a few days ago for Irvine but hope to return home later today.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@zhena gogolia:
I also emailed Water Girl with the link.
BeautifulPlumage
@Spanky: I take it as “rebuilding their lives” since they lost all the furniture, clothes, etc., etc.
eclare
@Kosh III:
We have about seven or eight inches of snow here in Memphis. It’s a really heavy snow, my shrubs are crushed, but at least it’s not ice.
zhena gogolia
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Great. I will contribute tomorrow.
Geminid
A recent post from news aggregator “Osintdefender”:
Old School
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
A $3 donation?
eclare
@TBone:
Good list.
Scout211
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Thanks. Donated.
TBone
@eclare: he’s an elderly UU minister and always makes me feel childlike, which is why I adore him. Connecting to the magic that the child inside still believes in… I’ll never feel too old.
twbrandt
@dr. luba: I’m on the other side of the state from you in suburban Detroit, where we are in the early stage of a 2”-5” snowfall, the first significant snowfall of the season. It wasn’t that long ago when we would get snow like that in November.
I’m staying in too, for the same reasons.
Old School
comrade scotts agenda of rage
One thing:
We all also know that BigJimSlade also lost his home. Let’s hope somebody gets some “giving” link up for him as well. Water Girl originally indicated that such things via gofundme had certain restrictions as to who could start them so maybe that’s the hurdle in that case.
Gin & Tonic
@Old School: Lock him up!
Elma
@tam1MI: In Manitowoc, on the west shore of THAT LAKE, as you come around a wide sweeping curve there is one of those little green and white signs that usually identify a creek or river announcing that you are looking at Lake Michigan. It makes me laugh every time at just how lost one must be to be need that bit of information.
TBone
@Old School: also too
WaterGirl
@H.E.Wolf: Goofballs are the best. Goofballs of any species.
dr. luba
@twbrandt: I’m in West Bloomfield, so same here. I live off of Union Lake, up in the NW suburbs.
My friend in GR hasn’t gotten much snow this year, but it looks like they won’t be getting much, either–one inch predicted.
TBone
@Geminid: I salute!
Old School
@TBone:
This part made me chuckle:
TBone
@Old School: makes me snicker too! He tried the 9/11 lung condition gambit – Judge said, oh then you’re too sick to attend the inauguration!
dr. luba
@Elma: Don’t laugh. You’d be surprised.
Up in the Keweenaw, on Brockway Mountain, there is an overlook from which you can see Lake Superior. There is also a raptor watch in the spring. The bird counters there tell me they’ve had many people come up, gaze out, as ask which ocean that it……
Steve in the ATL
@Kosh III: seriously? I went to summer camp in McMinnville!
catclub
@Thor Heyerdahl: creative!
sab
@Steve LaBonne: A determined cat can fit into any space it wants to fit, as our Solomon proves daily.
Old School
Steve in the ATL
@Old School: indeed. Zuck is the epitome of masculinity!
Scout211
@Old School: And Zuck also whined to Joe Rogan that Biden officials would “scream and curse” when they called to request posts be taken down.
Poor little guy.
Dan B
@Old School: Just what corporate culture needs more of to run roughshod over the poors. That’ll toughen up them poors. Four jobs is better than three!
karen marie
@Old School: I’m in love with that judge.
scav
@Dan B: What’s more, neutering all the management and denying them their perq of grabbing in-house pussy.
Elizabelle
Love those little cat feet.
Radio Dave
Way late to this thread, as usual, but re: cats…
https://icelandmonitor.mbl.is/news/news/2024/12/31/gorgeous_weather_in_28_degrees_of_frost/
sab
We have seven cats, two of them new to us. Everyone of them are masters of hiding. The new guys seem to hate or fear my husband, which is weird because he is our resident cat whisperer.
After all the holidays with parties and strange visitors in the guest room and the furnace failure and all that, things finally got back to normal. The Big Cat got a laser pointer for Christmas. His sister got more treats.
Also too we changed all five feliways, which were running low.
Today the cats were apparently in heaven or at least relaxed. Or high.
This afternoon the diehard basement cat ( Big Cat) came up for a visit with my husband. They played a raucus set of chase the laser pointer. Then they sat and watched soccer on tv. My husband discussed the game with him, but Big Cat had no comments. He just watched. Then the big cat went downstairs to the basement for a nap.
Husband is shocked and amazed and very happy. The three month cat rejection had hurt his feelings.