Everyone Needs Cat Videos The Weekend Before A Presidential Election And The Week After A Storm Such As Sandy

Recent mentions of Buddy, the Freakishly Large Kitten (adopted with not even an inkling of a suspicion that he was a Maine Coon, the sort that do not achieve adult size until their third year...) have made me a sentimental fool.  So it's a Buddy Retrospective!

I have no shame.  It's 1:30 in the morning -- no, wait! It's but a half hour after midnight -- and I feel... catty.



The seemingly diminutive kitten...


                                          ....meets the Dobster for the first time:

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So I thought I'd do a very little mopping.  Buddy thought he'd help.Clearly, the following things are true in BuddyLand:1.  Nothing bad can happen on Buddy's Blanket.  Buddy, himself, has positioned (and repositioned, ad infinitum) said Blanket with an eye toward strategic advantage.  It lies next to the refrigerator, a tremendous source of wonder for him, and, paradoxically, warmth.  The little square of cloth is always carefully situated between the trash can, from which goodies may fall, and the Food and Water Bowls, the center of Buddy's Universe.2.  Only an attack on the Food and Water Bowls is sufficient cause to go to war.3.  While #2 is true, it is also true that he who fights and runs away, may live to fight another day.  These conflicting truths make the decision to go to war much too much of a decision for a very small animal and leaves only #1 as uncompromisingly reliable -- Nothing bad can happen on Buddy's Blanket.

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Buddy the Kitten versus The Blanket
[my favorite captured moment]

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Ah, do you remember his "soft paw" training, for which foresight we are thankful several times a day?

Soft Paws.  I was able to make two very short videos of Buddy's training.  As usual, what I recorded turned out to be aberrant from the norm.  Dobby has become jealous of the Big-Little Guy and so his pink nose turns up quite close to the camera every time.  He's a bit of a diva.  And Marmy even has decided that there must be something inherently rewarding about this camera business, but when she pops up (she's the one who always looks a little confused), that scares Buddy in the extreme.  Her terrorism of him, early and often, is now paying its dividends.  In one of these videos, he has turned to chase the beloved mouse, after successfully tapping my hand at the Soft Paw command, and then he FREEZES.  That would be because Marmy Fluffy Butt decided to appear, just out of camera range.  It is a testimonial to her ridiculous power that the kitten nearly ceases to breathe, holds his crouch, and -- though we cannot see them -- allows his pupils to madly dilate as he points like a Bracco Italiano after feathered game in old Lombardy.

I've come to dearly love Buddy's face.  He is so clueless, you might think.  You might even hold this wrongheaded opinion for six months or so, and who could blame you?  Because until you have the chance to watch his cagey self on video -- hitting rewind with frequency -- you are fooled by the vacant expression, the goofy grin. 

He's sly, this one. 

He has developed little tics as he plays Soft Paw Fetch.  He wants to NOT tap my hand.  Or if he gives in, and goes for a tap, he wants to claw me to death, just a little.  But then he won't get the mouse.  So he bobs and weaves, ducks his head, does a little rope-a-dope.   

If you see Buddy tap my hand but not receive the Fetch reward of a Tossed Mouse, it's because he forgot the soft part of the command.  When that happens, he does sometimes have to do some Quality Control calibrations, the first of which is always to offer his head as a paw replacement.  This is terribly important to him, so I give him verbal praise, but repeat the request for a Soft Paw.  It's cool, watching him weigh how much he wants what, what he's willing to do, etcetera. 

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Next we have the Old Married Couple Series.  These are three videos of Dobby and Buddy, who suddenly have decided to promulgate peace, love, and understanding instead of trying to wipe each other from the face of the planet.  Okay, so Buddy is something of a recidivist, as he goes for Dobby's throat in the second video -- but he gets over the impulse and is soon right back to being a perversely large kitten, and all cuddly again in the third take.

As usual, please ignore the audio.  Seriously, it's embarrassing.

Caption Contest

Buddy is still a kitten, officially, and yet, he is also a Maine Coon, which makes him unusually large for his age and sometimes gives us the creeps.

He is a loving fellow but not much of that inner goodwill ever shows up on his face.  We've just learned to assume his basic jolliness and ignore the severe nature of his visage.

As Fred was going through our carefully maintained files, looking for our birth certificates (see Endive On A Stick), he realized that The Somber Gaze was upon him and snapped this photo.  Fred asked me to caption it. I am asking you...

Anthropo-what?

Buddy the Freakishly Large Kitten

"Hello in there!"

Buddy, The Freakishly Large Kitten

It turns out that making changes while receiving weeks and months of subanesthetic ketamine infusions may result in feelings of complete amnesia about those changes down the line.

Several times a day, I find myself gazing in wonder at Buddy, the Freakishly Large Kitten.  Where the hell did he come from?

Thanks to this blog, I have documentation of his early days here, but I have no actual memory of that time.  It feels like I first met the Strangely Huge Young Cat yesterday, or maybe just after Coffee Hour this morning.

He was suddenly just there, and looking mighty pleased about it.

He thinks I am great and that makes me feel good.

I'd feel a lot better if I could remember more about him.  It's hard to believe we got another animal so soon after Uncle Kitty Big Balls' unexpected illness and death.  Even that sad event is hazy in my poor head.  I do remember the callousness of the vet, who essentially broadcast his demise over the phone.  She'd called to give us an update.  It ended up going something like this:  "I don't think he's gonna make it, he is looking pretty bad.  Hang on, hang on!  Oops!  Yep, he's dead."

Fred was just waking from a needed nap and I remember that he was looking at me with a totally open, unsuspecting face, looking forward to hearing that his Friend was doing better.   I cannot imagine the contortions of my face, because I wanted, simultaneously, to kill the vet and to gather us all in a time machine so that we could rescue our sweet guy from this unfair fate.

Anyway, the next day I had my first ketamine treatment -- and we adopted Buddy from the local no-kill shelter.

Video evidence suggests that Dobby and Marmy Fluffy Butt were fascinated and threatened, both, by this tiny kitten, found abandoned with his siblings on a local horse farm.  Dobby, ever the Peacemaker, Diplomat, and Official Manor Greeter, immediately made nice and pointed out the best spots for soaking up the sun and observing humanity.  Marmy hissed and issued a warning "*ack*-*ack*."

Buddy smiled to himself and... grew.

They evidently knew he was a Maine Coon.  I'd never heard of a Maine Coon.  What can I say?  I am a Dog-and-Bird Person trapped in a Cat Person's life.

In my infusion fog, I apparently did a lot of hugging of Buddy, playing with Buddy, and was, generally, Buddy's buddy.  So when I recently began wondering where the hell he came from, exactly, and cast a jaundiced eye upon his humongousness, he took offense.

This morning, for instance, he stared me in the eye and dared me to object to the dipping of his amazing prehensile tail into my coffee cup.

He has even vocalized his displeasure with my cool assessments, standing on my chest, nose-to-nose,  issuing amazing yowls.

The cat is smart.

Fred says I patiently taught him about "soft paws." That is a command used solely with Buddy the Freakishly Large Kitten and His Alarmingly Long and Sharp Claws.  *Seriously*, his claws are razor-sharp talons and his sweet nature cannot compensate for the gaping wounds and deep punctures exacted by their  accidental application.  Add CRPS to the equation, and I am sometimes panicked by his paws, by his teeth.

He loves to play fetch, retrieving little felt mice with an enthusiasm that seems to last forever.  The only problem I had was that when he retrieved the mice, he was so excited by the prospect of chasing after it again that he would lunge at my hands and leave my skin hanging in slightly exaggerated shreds...

Or maybe I just found it hard to manage, being as hypersensitive as I am to touch.

So I taught him that he must tap our hands, GENTLY, if he wishes to play fetch.  If he fails to do that, we issue the command "soft paw." He then stares at you with pure disdain, thinks about things for a bit, and makes his choice.  Usually he opts to retract his claws and ever so softly tap the extended hand.  Occasionally, he gets confused and offers his head for us to pat.  In maybe one instance out of ten, he swings for the fences, with a crazed Slasher Cat face and a throaty meeeoowwww.

We are clearly in charge.

Listen, I am trying, okay?  I have wholesome food percolating in a slow cooker.  I got a hair cut (and have almost forgiven Fred for reacting with "What have you done?").  I have refilled all my prescriptions, started the ball rolling on getting a new wheelchair, and both made and cancelled appointments.  I cooked for Fred and his gaggle of Militant Existentialist Lesbian Feminists.  In the predawn hours, I listened to an assortment of musical styles and resisted the urge to eat chocolate while watching infomercials.  You know, I am getting stuff done, my oars are in the water, I'm engaged.

But there is this disconnect that is undeniable.  The Ketamine Experiment was a massive FAIL and I'm now clueless.  Almost bereft.  Not quite bereaved, quasi-daunted.  Not sleeping, in nothing but pain, trying to fake my way through the next second, the next minute.  Never a hero, I'm wimpified by headaches and nausea, even if it is the easiest way, ever, to lose weight, despite all the cooking binges it seems to inspire.  I mean, what else is there to do in the middle of the night that will have some kind of compensatory result?

It hardly matters that we are smack dab in the middle of Marlinspike Hall with its attendant opulence and ease;  I get little relief from the solicitous Domestic Staff or the constant operatic cheer of La Bonne et Belle Bianca Castafiore.  I am an ungrateful you-know-what.

And then there is this Behemoth Feline who likes to sit on me, who gets under my wheels -- he trusts me! -- and who just won't leave me the hell alone.

Soft paw!  Soft paw!


Today's completely random raw cat video captures the chilling effect of one Ms. Marmy Fluffy Butt.  The Feline Trio had all run to a window, hearing something that I couldn't even detect.  That's her in the middle, Dobby, her son, on the right, with Buddy, the Freakishly Large Kitten safely hovering on her left.  Please note that Dobby -- poor, put-upon Dobster -- simply makes an affectionate gesture toward his beloved Mum and that is what prompts her to cuff him, to the tune of one of her patented fishy hisses, for good measure.

What cracks me up is Buddy... no fool, he.  No sudden moves and he never takes his eyes off her after that.  Just after I stopped the video, he s-l-o-w-l-y tip-toed across the bed behind her, taking up a position wayyyy off to the right.  I feel for Dobby, and Marmy's schizoid nature is a daily wonder.

But where the hell did he come from, again?  And how long before he realizes that he outweighs the others and that Marmy is all fish breath and no bite?  You say he's been here since *March*?!