I’ve tried. This busy little cat we’re fostering simply will not sit still for a good photograph. This week we tried torture: she was sent off to the vet for a day where they applied needles and knives to her, injecting her with vaccines and doing tests and snipping various organs. I was sure she’d come home worn out and sore and tired, but no — she’s running around the place, jumping on me, chasing dust bunnies as if she hadn’t had her belly sliced open and both forelegs shaved for the various needles she was stuck with. This was getting ridiculous.
Then, moments ago, she found a good book and curled up with it. Unbelievable.
She’s a developmental biologist. Either that or she’s a Wolpert fan.
I’m thinking of trying the ultimate test, and leaving out a copy of The Happy Atheist
You want her? Contact the Stevens Community Humane Society. Tell them you want to save Ivy. I’ll even throw in a developmental biology textbook to sweeten the deal. I wouldn’t want her to get bored.
Oh, my sympathies. Just had two of ours spayed, and they came home and were bouncing off the bloody walls. Haven’t stopped, either. The vet noted they had been administered pain medication good for three days, and all I can say is “that stuff, I want some.”
Of course cats are godless, PZ. What need have gods to worship other gods?
Ivy’s adorable. I wish she could fly to Oz via the intertubes and arrive in my house.
Clearly this is a cat of taste and erudition (as well as megalomaniacal dreams of world domination, as all felines). If there wasn’t an ocean in the way, I’d be really tempted.
Once again, I must declare my love for shaved cat bellies.
Little Picasso popped a stitch… I think the only way we could have kept her still was to set her paws in concrete. The other cats agreed that was a good idea regardless.
http://i.imgur.com/7tfQBjl.jpg
As you can see, not exactly a quiet one.
I think she’s adopted y’all :D
Somehow I suspect you want to save PZ. Given this crowd, throw in a Pratchett.
They’re famously autotheists, see comment 2.
Aw, my little kitties get their visit to the vet soon. I plan to weep on the techs when I drop them off.
If cats looked like frogs we’d realize what nasty, cruel little bastards they are. Style. That’s what people remember.”
― Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies
Right.
What next? Pictures of yourself, your shoes, and your dinner?
Optimal Cynic @5 – squee! What an adorbs.
David Marjanović @8 – autotheists, what a perfect word for kitties.
Though I’m sure if I used it around here people’d think it mean car worship, like the next step from autoerotica.
She is so very beautiful!
She looks EXACTLY like our Kool Cat, who passed away in 2009 at the age of 18.
Keep her, PZ. She has settled in nicely and shows that she appreciates education.
“All cats are godless, right?” Not necessarily — you’ve got it backwards. They just don’t believe in dog.
Cats are gods and will take pains to tell you so, usually with the equivalent of “Miserable slave!”
When I brought my foster kitten home from her surgery she wanted to run around too. I was her savior, the one who saved her from that horrible office. She also popped her stitches due to her active lifestyle and it didn’t hurt her. Looking at Ivy’s expression, she loves you too.
anuran – true, though when they are feeling generous they will allow you to worship them with belly scritches.
Awwww…PZ…you finally have seen the light! May I be the first to wish you a very happy Caturday?
Ivy is beautiful! (And her expression shows she knows she runs the place.)
@David (#8): I love the word you coined! Cats ARE sutotheists.
You’re a good man PZ.
Classic signs of Feline Attention Deficit Disorder and Autism due to vaccinations!
Years ago, when I was moving in with my old roommate, the day I started moving my stuff in she had brought one of her cats home from getting spayed. The cat was supposedly given medication so that she’d rest and heal. Instead she decided to use the empty boxes I had set aside to reuse to practice for the Kitty Olympics as if nothing had happened.
That was fourteen years ago, the cat was at least two years old then, and she’s still going strong. Come the apocalypse I think Keith Richards and the cockroaches are going to have some serious competition with that cat.
aka “You aren’t paying enough attention to me, human!”
Of course, sometimes when you have to gods in the same room, one of which at least is a monotheist…
In our house it’s the young white male threatening and attacking the older black female. I try not to anthropomorphize this too much. But he’s still an ass, like most gods are.
@Optimal Cynic
I can beat that. When Fortran was spayed, she managed to take her stitches out before she’d even woken up from the anesthesia. They had to put in staples and fit her with a cone. And she *still* managed to ditch her cone and have a staple out before I managed to get hold of her.
The woman at the shelter shook her head and said “NOTHING surprises me about THAT cat.”
Yup. Autotheists.
http://farleftside.com/2011/6-29-2011.html
And the enslavement of poor Paul Zachary Myers continue, while his backstabbing readership cheers at the process, simply refusing to lend him an helping hand.
auntbenjy – LOL love it!
laurentweppe – but we are the agents of the Furrinati*. Of course we wish to see another human succumb to their overlordship.
*like the Illuminati, but more fun. Plus they really do secretly rule the world.
One of our rats woke up from the anaesthesia after having her bumblefoot debrided, and inspected it closely. The next morning we woke up to find she’d done the other foot herself, and had a very smug “Stupid vet didn’t do as good a job as me” look on her face.
Surely UMM must have one of those motion-triggered cameras lying around the place that you could borrow? And/or some zoology students who need practice at this kind of thing?
Failing that, hire some bigfoot researchers. An out-of-focus shot of a man wearing a cat costume is acceptable, right?
When we had the current female cat spayed (she was around six months or so) we were told to keep her quiet. No climbing. No jumping. Since she was fond of climbing the ladder to the upper bunk in our sons’ room, we took the ladder out.
We put the ladder back after the first time she jumped straight up there from the floor.
I’m not convinced Ivy decided to lie down with that book. I think PZ put the book on her tail to keep her still for a moment.
I know many of my textbooks were sure-fire cures for insomnia. Maybe she just caught enough of a glimpse of the contents to stun her into immobility but not enough to put her in a textbook induced coma?
I didn’t! I’m far from the first to apply it to cats either!
Come on. The Wolpert isn’t Lenin’s Collected Works. :-)
One use for a spare cat??
http://bridesthrowingcats.com/
I’ll not mention “101 Uses for a Dead Cat” by Simon Bond
(Available for Amazon UK for 1p(UK) plus postage and handling.)
Best wishes to all cat lovers!
From PZ I’d expect a picture of his dinner in the process of being digested.
…I want pics of the shaved kitty belly. They’re so hilariously undignified.
When my calico, Calliope, was spayed at 5 months old, I noticed that the shaved patch was pretty uneven, climbing up one side more than the other. I asked the vet about it — he’s a friend — while admitting that if I had clippers and an anesthetized cat, I probably wouldn’t stop. He said he had the same problem, and it was uneven because he basically just kept shaving until the vet tech made him stop.
That may be why Calliope was comparatively restrained after her operation — she didn’t want to show her unevenly bald tummy. It was the first time in her life she slept like a normal cat, instead of sprawled on her back.
shades, that’s a great story and gave me a good chuckle. Now if only I had a shaved cat belly around here somewhere…