Cat-iversary: I believe amoxicillin is traditional

Today is Christabel and my second anniversary. My gift to her: a plastic ball that rolls down the stairs quite satisfactorily, which I found in the back yard, probably courtesy of the children next door, but I’m sure they must have intended it as a present for my cat. Her gift to me: an accidental scratch that became infected and spread to my lymph system. I think that sums up the human-cat relationship pretty well.

I could show you the pictures I took of my gnarly infection, or, alternatively, the most recent cat pictures.

Cat pictures

Christabel, taken today. Because why not?

What sort of person takes pictures while their cat is being tortured?

Christabel and I went to the vet for her shots. She was not best pleased.

Flies are traditional

Today is Christabel and my 1st anniversary. I plan to give her as a present some of her favorite toys by letting in a few flying insects for her to chase. Hours of fun.

I should mention that one of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s budget proposals is to reduce the time county pounds are required to keep strays before killing them to three days, and it would be nice if some pressure were put on him not to do that.

Also, if someone could adopt that black cat at my local Humane Society who I seriously considered last year but passed on and whose picture still shows up in the Society’s ads in the local paper, making me feel a little guilty each time I see it.

Of learning goals, savage-ry, and the dreaded Tennis Balls of Doom

Bumper sticker seen yesterday: “I achieved my learning goals at Salvador Elementary.”

Thanks a lot, Britain, for making me have to side with Michael Savage in the interests of civil liberties. By the way, it may not have been clear in the news reports that when Britain released the list of people it was banning from entering the country because their opinions are too unpleasant for Brits to cope with, those people hadn’t actually applied to enter Britain. Indeed, some of them are Russian skin heads currently serving long prison terms. So it was just sort of a random list of People We Don’t Like. Of course the real point of the exercise is that Britain’s policy of excluding “radical imams” was beginning to look anti-Muslim, so, like Bush tacking non-Muslim North Korea onto his “axis of evil,” they decided to include Savage and the skinheads. But they couldn’t say that that was the reason they were releasing the list to the press, so it was presented as “naming and shaming” hate-mongers.

Important follow-up: the cat is still not warming to the tennis balls.


Where can I get me one of those hats?

Of moving on from debates about the past and killer tennis balls from hell

John McCain and his aged catamite Lindsey Graham have an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal, mostly about how “preventive detention” of enemy combatants should go on for as long as The War Against Terror (TWAT) continues (i.e., forever) and how America’s silly criminal courts aren’t up to the task of dealing with such prisoners. They also reiterate McCain’s position on the legal memos that it is time to “move on from debates about the past,” i.e., torture, which is interesting from John “I hate the gooks. I will hate them as long as I live” McCain.

I was in a dollar store today. The cat is currently staring dubiously at the tennis ball I bought her. It’s just sitting there, but she’s seen it roll, and that’s pretty suspicious in her book. Wait till she finds out there are two more tennis balls.

But the real question of the day is, who would buy a home pregnancy test at a dollar store?

Besides a member of the Palin family, I mean.

In the extreme minority

First line of a story in the London Times (it’s kind ofdownhill from there, so don’t bother reading it): “A man who found a 20p coin showing the Queen wearing what appears to be a pair of ear muffs thought it must be counterfeit.”

The NYT quotes Republican whip Eric Cantor: “I talk to Newt on a regular basis because he was in the position that we are in: in the extreme minority.” He said it, not me.

The article contained the interesting fact that Cantor is the only Jewish Republican in the House of Representatives.


The cat just got her head stuck in an empty Kleenex box. Like that time she licked the soap dispenser, I don’t think she’ll be doing it again.

Miscellaneous Last Saturday of the Bush Era Blogging

Will people stop dying already? First Patrick McGoohan, now John Mortimer, Claude Berri and KHAAANNNN!

John Oliver on The Bugle: Bush apologizing for the “Mission Accomplished” banner is like apologizing for spelling someone’s name wrong on a birthday cake you made them out of shit.

By popular demand, more cat pictures.

No borons

More personal ads from the London Review of Books (the complete WIIIAI collection of LRB personals is here.) After that, because it’s our 6-month anniversary today, and as a special treat for the almost three of you who have asked for new pictures of Christabel, there will be some.

Cobalt blue eyes, bronze hair and a heart of gold but also Nerves of steel! Legs of potassium! A forehead of lithium! All the most attractive elements than you could want or that your first Salter Science kit could ever have delivered from reactive lady (F. 31) seeking generous physics man to 35, who has at least seen a woman naked before, and won’t passively aggressively play muted classical music while I’m trying to read during quiet time. No Borons. Box no. 24/04

Yesterday I was a disgusting spectacle in end-stage alcoholism with a gambling problem and not a hope in the world. Today I am the author of this magnificent life-altering statement of yearning and desire. You are a woman to 55 with plenty of cash and very little self-respect. When you reply to this advert your life will never be the same again. My name is Bernard. Never call me Bernie. Box no. 31/01

Dear LRB, I have no money. Please run my advert for free. I want a woman who is 38. Let her know I’m really clever and good-looking. Thanks. Box no. 31/03

I hate you all. I hate London. I hate books. I hate critics. I hate this magazine, I hate this column and I hate all the goons who appear in it. But if you have large breasts, are younger than 30 and don’t want to talk about the novel you’re ‘writing’ I’ll put all that aside for approximately two hours one Saturday afternoon in January. Man, 33. Box no. 31/04

Everyone. My life is a mind-numbing cesspit of despair and self-loathing. Just fuck off. Or else write back and we’ll make love. Gentleman, 37. Box no. 31/05

I make my own sexual lubricant. The secret ingredient is Bovril. Man, 56. Congleton. Box no. 31/07

Of rubber bands, cats and killing Syrians

Did I really just wash off a rubber band my cat dropped on the bathroom floor, rather than throw it out, because it’s her favorite rubber band?

Okay, who had “war with Syria” in the October Surprise office pool? Launching this splendid little war from Iraqi soil should make any status-of-forces agreement with Iraq impossible.

The trouble with a kitten

is that
When it grows up, it’s always a cat. (Ogden Nash)

The same could be said of cat-blogging, but I thought some of you must be on the edge of your seats waiting for an update. Remember when Christabel came home with us three months ago today, gentle readers?



Well, she’s all grown up now, roughly six months old. Can’t fit under that chair anymore. She’s fairly smart, affectionate, good-natured (I’ve never heard her hiss; don’t think she knows how), will fetch a plastic bottle cap if I throw it, will attempt to eat almost anything (although she only tried to eat the liquid soap dispenser once), can hit the keyboard button for sleep mode with unerring accuracy, runs around like an idiot, um... turns out it’s hard to write interestingly about a cat. Pictures, then:









More here.

Wherein is revealed what George Bush respects a lot

The White House claims that retroactive immunity (which they call “retroactive liability protection”) for the telecoms “does not immunize any criminal conduct.”

AP: “Mariann Fischer Boel, Agriculture Commissioner at the EU, asked German farmers to stop sending her milk in protest at higher quotas that may lower prices. She has received more than 2,000 gallons. Much of it had gone off.”

Speaking of having gone off, George Bush, at the G8, met Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for “a typical conversation among friends.”


WHO DOES GEORGE RESPECT A LOT? “and we did it in a spirit of respect -- and it was easy for me to do because I respect the Prime Minister a lot.” Really, George? Can you tell us what his first name is?

AND WHAT ELSE DOES GEORGE RESPECT A LOT? “I also respect India a lot”.

HE IS THE REMINDERER: “We talked about educational exchanges. I reminded the Prime Minister that the Indian American population is very proud of this relationship, and proud of their heritage, and proud of the leadership of the Prime Minister.”


FELINE UPDATE: The cat’s been here ten days now. Yesterday I had her vaccinated and de-wormed (as I do with all my roommates), but she still has no name. Your suggestions have been taken aboard, but none really leaped out at me (unlike the cat). One of the problems in this endeavor is that many names appropriate for a kitten are no good for a full-grown cat, and vice-versa. For example, some of you made Marx Brothers-related suggestions, as per the theme of this blog, but missed a rather good cat name, “Mrs. Rittenhouse,” the most Margaret Dumont-y of the names given to Margaret Dumont’s roles. It is, however, a name that can only be grown into. She may be a Mrs. Rittenhouse five years from now, but for the present she’s chewing newspapers, batting around bottle caps, and tearing up and down the stairs like Harpo (and no, I am not naming her Harpo) (not unless I can train her to come when she hears an old-fashioned bicycle horn).

I’m thinking about Christabel. Does she look like a Christabel?

Chimpish ignorance and superstition

Language Log takes Bush to task for selectively quoting from a Thomas Jefferson letter in his July 4th speech yesterday in a way that distorted its meaning. Here’s the full quote, with the words Bush for some reason skipped highlighted:

May it [the United States] be to the world, what I believe it will be — to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all — the Signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government.

Today, Bush’s Indy-Day-themed weekly radio address claimed that “human freedom is the birthright of all people and a gift from the Almighty” and concluded, “And with the protection of Divine Providence it will continue to shine brightly for generations to come.” He may talk about liberty, but it’s always in that tone of monkish ignorance and superstition. People who don’t believe in liberty as being maintained solely by the thoughts and efforts of mere mortals, as opposed to “Divine Providence,” do not understand liberty.

My (still unnamed) cat...

would just as soon that 1) the fireworks would stop, 2) and while she’s hiding from the fireworks under the chair, someone wouldn’t take flash pictures of her. Just sayin’.

Caption contest, kitten version

Meet my new cat. Currently hiding behind the couch.


Don’t take it personally. She’s friendly, really.



Been here four hours now. She’s about three months old. Thing is, the humane society people or someone named her (shudder) “Dot.” After the dot on her back, I guess.


We can do better.


And by we, I mean you.


Because I’m perfectly capable of calling a cat “Cat” for thirteen or so years. Done it before.


So it’s up to you. Give this kitty a name!