cats

Furry waves of wondrous white
Will you be grooming yourself tonight?
You’ve left yourself in quite a mess. I’m Grabbing the Brush!
It’s giving me stress!

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/52647012

He closes his eyes as the room grows still, One paw reaches out of its own free will. Touch it once if you’re daring to know— He’ll show you the places your future will go.

The good and the grim are whispered to him, Some futures are bright, while others are dim. So reach for his paw if you’re daring to know… He already knows if you’re going to, though.

Not much actually. But she knows a good box when she finds it.

Ivanova and I just had a breakthrough.

She is a spicy girl.

I have sat with her for hours on my chest and the most I ever got from her was the faintest hint of a purr.

A few days ago we removed all her roommates. I am now her only link to other lifeforms. I pulled her out of her kennel and did my usual attempts to pet her.

And then Charlie walked up purring very loudly. I decided to let them touch noses. The moment I did that Ivanova started purring loudly. And it wasn't in that self soothing passive aggressive way that some cats do. She was experiencing joy.

I don't know if she will ever be adoptable but this was a big step in the right direction. She needs a house where she can be a ghost and someone is going to be okay with that until she eventually decides that a person is better than nothing and both can experience the joy I just had.

Every day, she yells for her catgrass until I give her a bit. Sometimes (when it's grown long) she gets to eat straight from the planter.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/52294203

Two pretty faces, hiding away,
Certain they’ve fooled me again today.
One guards the entrance, serious and white,
One’s in the back going, “Dude… move right.”

It’s secret. It’s clever. Their plan is complete.
Except for the whiskers.
And faces.
And feet.

I adopted him last month, he's adorable! It's hard to get pictures of him because every time he notices the camera he moves

Bacon, moz, feta, Parmesan, garden banana peppers, sauce, home made crust.

Tasslehoff, bobtail orange girl.

Cost per half sheet pan $9.63 Feeds 2+ people so at most 4.72 per person.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/52169038

The world is full of naming sins.
It's chaos, I declare.
If cats were put in charge of words,
we'd straighten things out there.

Blue things would all be blue things.
Cat things would all be cats.
And hot dogs would be called
"Not Dogs"—

which ultimately settles that. 🐾

cross-posted @ 145 UpVotes: https://lemmy.world/post/52129177

"If I fits," he hummed with grace,
And pressed his paws into our space.
We creaked, we bowed, our corners split

He did not care. He fits. He sits.

Now we are throne and bed and fort,
A corrugated royal court.

Our shipping days are long since quits-
We serve the one who fits and sits.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/52099512

The best things don’t arrive at the door because you clicked “buy now.”

They arrive because, while you were searching somewhere else,

they had already, on quiet paws,

found you.

I don't see any rules prohibiting memes so I'm posting this.

I do a lot of TNR and feral cat rescue. I would love to get a wild cat in the mix.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/52079299

White as winter, soft as snow,
One green, one blue with their own glow.
You think you chose me long ago...
But you and I, yeah we both know.

cross-posted at 100 UpVotes from: https://lemmy.world/post/52041938

I sat up straight, refined and neat,
With perfectly arranged little feet.
My ears were crisp, my gaze intense—
A portrait worthy of immense...

Admiring looks and glowing praise.
I practiced for this shot for days!
The lighting? Flawless. Pose? Supreme.
Exactly as I'd always dreamed.

Then out of nowhere, sleek as night,
My black-cat friend steals every sight.
He struts behind with swishy tail,
As if he's starring in this tale.

He wasn't posed. He wasn't asked.
He simply wandered past.
Yet somehow all the humans say,
"Look at that black cat! What a display!"

Excuse me? I'm the one in front!
I'm serving elegance—not a stunt.
I'm giving statuesque allure...

He's just... a fuzzy saboteur.

He does this every single time.
I'm art.

He's feline pantomime.

One day I'll schedule my debut...

When Mr. "Oops-I-Just-Walked-Through"

Is napping somewhere out of sight—

So I can have my spotlight. 😼🐈‍⬛

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/52011874

Black cat, black cat,
what do you think?
You stare at my paper,
you stare at my ink.

Black cat, black cat,
what do you know?
You sit like a king
with nowhere to go.

Black cat, black cat,
why look at me?
I've written twelve poems
on feline mystery.

I need a new gig.
I need something big.
A whale! A giraffe!
A tap-dancing pig!

But cats are my curse.
They're filling my verse.
Each poem gets cattier,
each stanza gets worse.

Black cat, black cat,
get off of my page.

The cat did not move.

I trembled with rage.

“I'll write about mountains!
I'll write about ships!
I'll write of adventure
and perilous trips!”

The black cat just blinked
and gave a small yawn,
then sat on my keyboard
from midnight till dawn.

I need a new gig.
This cat thing's too big.
I'm drowning in whiskers
and rhyme schemes and—SIG—

No, wait. That's not right.
I meant to write fig.

Oh, wonderful. Great.

Now I'm rhyming with pig.

Black cat, black cat,
what do you think?

He knocked down my coffee.

It spilled on my ink.

I stared at the cat.

The cat stared at me.

And that is the end—

of Cat Poem One Thousand and Thirty-Three.

In 2016, Paola Nogales-Ascarrunz, a biologist and National Geographic Explorer working in Bolivia, received a call from a local wildlife sanctuary that had just been given what they described as “a weird cat.” It came from a local man who found it as a kitten on a road near a forest. The man took the animal home, believing it to be a domestic breed. But after about a year of living with the clearly wild animal, he realized it would be better off at a sanctuary.

As the lead scientist and founder of the Bolivian Felids Research Program (Programa de Investigación de Félidos Bolivia), Nogales-Ascarrunz was intrigued. The animal had a small, scrunched-up face, short and round ears, and long whiskers. It was, indeed, too small to be a housecat, and, most notably, it was covered in leopard-like spots. So she went to visit the creature at the Senda Verde wildlife sanctuary on the subtropical flank of the Bolivian Andes.

“I took a hundred pictures of it,” remembers Nogales-Ascarrunz. “I was so fascinated.”

What she couldn’t know at the time was that this curious cat had a secret. It would become the first new species of felid (i.e. the cat family) discovered in over 100 years, according to a study published today in the journal Current Biology. What’s exciting is the discovery is not a validation of a species proposed in the distant past, nor a previously recognized subspecies raised to species status—which are both more commonly reported and important findings. No, this cat was something totally new to science.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/51965091

TL;DR My cat regularly traps me like this. The first time he did it, I was wearing IZOD socks, so I wrote a story about how a superhero IZOD Man was trapped by his sleeping cat. That story is posted here too. This time he got me and I was wearing plain White Sox, so that became the superheroes mild mannered disguise.

---

In our previous story, our hero Izod Man had been trapped. On a couch. By a cat.

As the saga continues, we find him in a similar state, but something has changed....

The world recalls, as legends can,
the noble deeds of Izod Man.

A hero bold. A soul refined.
A champion of humankind.

Yet fame is hard. The burden weighs.
One cannot save the world always.

And so, when all the work is done,
a hero's second life's begun.

He sheds the symbols of his brand.
No logo marks his noble stand.

No mighty crest is there to spy.

He's now just merely White Socks Guy.

A fellow plain and mild of speech.
A man who keeps the remote within reach.

He sits upon an ordinary chair.
No sign of greatness lingers there.

He thinks himself concealed from sight.

The disguise appears quite airtight.

Yet hidden deep within the room
there stirs a watcher through the gloom.

Two ears arise.

One nose will twitch.

The cat detects the subtle switch.

For while the world may pass him by,
she knows he's not just White Socks Guy.

She knows the truth. She always can.

White Socks Guy is Izod Man.

And so she springs with practiced grace
directly to her chosen place.

She settles in.

She starts to purr.

The trap is set.

The end for her—

or rather him.

The hero sighs.

The cat half-opens sleepy eyes.

One snowy paw comes drifting down
upon his leg without a sound.

No force is used.

No threat is made.

No villain's scheme need be displayed.

The message needs no spoken plan:

"I know exactly who you am."

The hero freezes where he sits.
The cat continues all her bits

of sleeping, stretching, breathing deep,
and looking very much asleep.

Yet White Socks Guy knows better than
to test the laws that govern Man.

For countless times throughout the years
he's learned the truth all captives hear:

The world may think that cats are small.

The world is wrong.

That's really all.

And thus the secret still survives,
preserved through quiet household lives.

By day he's just some ordinary guy.

By night he's still unable to stand up and get a drink because there's a cat sleeping on him.

Such is the fate, since time began,

of White Socks Guy—

and Izod Man.

🐾

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/51954371

Her courtroom is her home, and she sits there as the judge. She knows the house’s laws by heart— and with the law she will not fudge.

She listens to each argument with one unblinking stare, then silently decides that you were wrong for sitting in her chair.

The charge: her bowl was empty— well, she saw the bottom through.

The verdict: guilty, obviously. The culprit? Clearly you.

No pleading and no bargaining. No case can be dismissed.

And treats shall be delivered from the court’s approved snack list.

So mind your step and watch yourself— her rulings are quite firm. For every household member will someday get their turn.

She runs a tight courtroom, and justice gets no nudge—

This home belongs to Her Honor... and with the law, she will not fudge. ⚖️🐾