Reader Phil submitted his ineffably cute kitten. I’m trying to get a more recent picture since this was sent in May of last year (I have a huge backlog!). In the meantime, enjoy Darwin:
Please find attached 4 pictures of Darwin McMiaou. He’s a six weeks-old orphan (his mom was killed by a dog a few days after he and his sisters were born). We’ve adopted him one and a half weeks ago, and I can say he’s adopted us too. We can’t move around the house without him following us. He’s very cuddly and always looking for our contact when he wants to sleep. He shares our bed, too. We were a bit worried about solid food and toilet training, but it turns out he’s a smart little fella and has posed no problems at all.
UPDATE: Phil has sent me a recent picture of Darwin and an update—they found out it’s a female. Will he rename her “Darwina”?
As for her story, well, it turns out she was female after all. Still very found of hugs, petting, biting and clawing off our hands. Favorite pastime: chirping at pigeons from the windowsill. Favorite toy: still her blue rabbit, but I don’t have contemporary pics right now, which is a shame since she out-sizes it by quite a stretch now.
dear wee thing 🙂
Probably a ferocious giant monster by now.
Certainly looks like he’s about to eviscerate that blue toy.
NOT THE FACE, NOT THE FACE!!
A thing of beauty is a joy for ever. Kittehs are so expressive.
Nature was indifferent to suffering until humans evolved enough to invent compassion.
Ah cgosling….wonderful thought — But I’m far from being convinced the so-called *superior* specie on this weenie little dying planet are sufficiently evolved to harbor enough compassion towards the animals still existing on this earth! But of course I do agree with you, there are still many, many compassionate humans shedding an ocean of tears, anger and frustration with today’s inhumane “farm factories”, useless chambers of horror in “animal experiment labs” (which have not proved one darn thing of any use to actual *humans*) Sickening!
—–FWIW — I’ve been an avid animal welfare advocate for about 40 years now, difference today is there are more advocacy organizations for saving animals on earth than when I started …sorry, can’t stop the “COC” [cranky old crone] when the rusty skullmotor gets antsy] LOL
P.S. Sorry. I never know when to stop. Wanna know which is my favorite animal on this planet? The TIGER. Bengal, Sumatran, whoever. Most beautiful, amazing, powerful masterpiece of wild animal ever !! And the Chinese people like to kill them just to obtain a tiny bit of whatever part of this magnificent creature to use for what they believe will cure them of whatever illness they might have. And here we thought the Chinese population was more educated than OUR kids (and adults). PFffft !
I don’t quite see where you’re going with this, Annie. I’ve seen enough stills and video of dolphins attacking, tormenting and killing porpoises to have no doubt that they’re capable of inflicting needless suffering – same for orcas, come to think of it – and to do that you have to have empathy of some sort with the organism that you’re tormenting, in order to know that you’re inflicting additional suffering to that which is strictly necessary.
Or … were you thinking of some other “superior species” on the planet than the dolphins. I mean, they’re the clear leaders. Look at what humans have achieved (the wheel, New York, war, and so on) while all the dolphins have ever done is muck around in the seas having a good time and torturing the occasional harbour seal.
(With apologies, slight, to Douglas Noel Adams for the shameless recycling of his meme.)
Arrgh, “harbour porpoise”, not “harbour seal”.
Too long checking (and guessing) the HTML and not enough reading the effing text!
She’s grown into a very regal cat! Quite beautiful.
She is absolutely gorgeous, as a kitten and an adult.
Great photos, too. L
Will he rename her “Darwina”?
How about Charla Darwin? L
Oh what a pretty girl she turned out to be. Congrats to all!
“ineffably cute”
Now there’s a contradiction if ever I heard one! 😛
Not at all! Ineffable just means “too extreme to be expressed in words”. That can certainly apply to cuteness!
But by saying that it is too extreme to be expressed in words, you have expressed something about it!
Don’t get me wrong, I left the comment above as a joke, but it is actually true – the word “ineffable” cannot mean what dictionaries say it means, because it falsifies itself. The definition must be more like “too extreme to be well-expressed in words.”
Is the definition of ineffible really a definition, or is it more of a description than a definition? Is the definition a literal meaning, or describing what the word means? Do describe and define mean the exact same thing?
This reminds me of the word UFO. What identifiable feature would classify something as unidentified? Is an unidentified object identified as unidentified, or does a lack of ability to identify the object merely put it into a group of unknowns with other unidentified objects?
That reminds me of how I got my cat (who’s now my dad’s cat, since I went off to school).
These days, we call her Darwin, Darwinette, Bougnette or Boubougnette, depending on the kitteh-struck mood…
Thanks Jerry for posting the pics 🙂
I have a male named Darwin and a female gray tabby named Wallace. If Wallace works for a female kitteh, I see no reason why Darwin shouldn’t work as well.
http://www.amazon.com/Cat-Named-Darwin-Stray-Changed/dp/0395986427/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1330477118&sr=8-1
Since Darwin is a last name – I say she gets to keep it as is…who’s a pretty kiteee….who’s a pretty kiteee…
Absolutely!
Love the pics of Darwin as a squee-inducing kitten and an absolutely gorgeous cat.
“Darwina”?
Wait, what? I didn’t know Darwin was a slavic name.
(If anyone is interested, it’s very germanic.)
Adorable kitteh of whatever sex/gender. I have a friend who has a female dog named Darwin, and I once had a female cat named Newton. For that matter, why are we so stuck on having properly gendered names? I know both male and females named “Jerry”, for example.
Gorgeous 🙂 I might have to get a little cat bed like that too.
Wow, look at that tail!!
George was renamed Georgie!
I also have a female Darwin kitteh as well. People always assume she’s a he. Ignoring the historical significance as a last name, its actually fairly gender neutral sounding, if not slightly feminine as a first name.
Now all you need is a bulldog named Huxley of course.