It’s snowing heavily in Chicago, and there’s no sign it will stop. Professor Ceiling Cat had to dig out the CatMobile, I’ve got a book to write, and so posting may be light today. But of course there will be Caturday felids: three today.
***
The BBC News reports a mysterious felid journey:
Mystery surrounds the discovery of a cat in an Aberdeenshire garage which has been traced via its identity chip to Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands.
BBC Scotland has learned the cat was found by a family in Muchalls on Thursday.
They contacted Cats Protection before taking it to a vet, and the cat was traced to the Spanish island through an international database after the national one drew a blank.
It has been named Juanita.
It will be found a new home if the owners cannot be traced.
Here’s Juanita, a lovely tabby with a lovely name. How do you suppose she made it? In the absence of firm evidence, I suppose the Discovery Institute would implicate the Hand of God!
••••
Some of my favorite cat videos are those in which cats, wild or otherwise, encounter snow for the first time. It’s a fascinating study of animal behavior to see how an animal reacts when its world is covered with white, cold stuff. (Hili, I’m told, is affronted, and runs from one side of the house to the other, expecting that if there’s snow on one side, perhaps it will be summer on the other. Her owners call this “looking for the door to summer”).
At any rate, here’s a new video showing a cat from Alabama deals with its first snow. As you may know, Alabama, Birmingham in particular, had a very rare heavy snowfall last week, paralyzing the city.
*****
And a reminder that tomorrow’s Superbowl, which I won’t be watching, has a halftime in which cute animals disport themselves in a mock football game to the delight of the viewers and the enrichment of the sponsors.
I’m not a big fan of these shenanigans (I’ve never watched a Kittenbowl of Pu**ybowl), but this year’s Kittenbowl had a worthy cause. According to Care2Makeadifference, it was to get all 71 cats adopted—and they were. The event was taped a few weeks ago
The North Shore Animal League America and the Hallmark Channel joined forces for an event of adorable cuteness. Hosted by animal activist and TV personality Beth Stern, the Kitten Bowl will pit over 70 kittens on four teams against one another until one team emerges victorious. John Sterling, the famed radio voice of the New York Yankees, will emcee.
While the Kitten Bowl is a light spirited bit of fun, behind the scenes this event is serving a serious purpose. NSALA became involved so it could find every homeless kitten in the game a loving forever home. That’s right — the folks backing the Kitten Bowl promised they’d find adoptive families for 71 abandoned kittens.
Curiously, the sponsor of this event is Beth Stern, who’s married to Howard Stern: yes, the Howard Stern, the potty-mouthed shock jock on the radio. Apparently Howard has his soft side. And the bowl was a success, and you can watch the taped event tomorrow at Superbowl halftime:
Beth Stern is the official spokesperson for NSALA. She and her husband, radio personality Howard Stern, have fostered more than 50 cats and kittens during the past year or so. That combination made hosting the Kitten Bowl a perfect fit for Beth. She says she had a great time.
“At one point there was one [kitten] on the ceiling and you pull them off like Velcro and put them down on the field,” Beth told Newsday. “And some of them in the middle of the field, they take little catnaps. Really adorable, that’s all I can say. It’s just the cutest thing I’ve ever been a part of.”
And the best news (my emphasis):
The Kitten Bowl hasn’t even aired yet but remarkably, its primary mission for 2014 is already complete.
“I had the time of my life frolicking on a field with 71 kittens,” Beth told Newsday. “And after the taping we held an adoption event at North Shore Animal League and all 71 kittens have since been adopted.”
The Care2 site has more information on the players, as well as this video about the kittenbowl, which shows far too much of the bizarre Regis Philbin and far too few kittens:
Lagniappe: reader Lynn has sent a very nice video of a Canadian student visiting several of Japan’s many cat cafes. And one has just opened in London!
h/t: Su, Matthew Cobb
You won’t be watching the Superbowl? What kind of ‘Merican are you anyhow?
An awful one, apparently, as I don’t even have cable t.v.
The kind that supports making ‘Merica a better place.
I was one of the lucky people in Birmingham to make it home on Tuesday. My wife spent the night, and most of the next day, in school with her students. Most of my colleagues spent at least one night, some two nights, on campus. (One got halfway home and slept in a stranger’s house. There was a lot of that going on.)
Anyway, as I was trudging up my road with a shovel to see if I could help anyone up the hills into my neighborhood, I witnessed a neighbor’s cat behaving exactly this way. It was so adorable, I had to stop and watch.
Love the kitty in the snow. I’m another weird ‘murican who doesn’t like football, or Regis Philbin. I did listen to Howard Stern for a short while on my drives to school a few years ago. He could be quite funny in 10 minute doses. I was surprised myself.
Not 100% on topic, but what on earth is the deal with all the “this snow won’t melt with a Bic lighter” stuff? It seems like kittens are able to make more sense of the world than some large chunk of the Bible Belt populace.
> How do you suppose she made it?
My guess: Some tourists brought her with them, assuming she was a stray (or not caring about if she belonged to someone) and she either ran away later, or was abandoned.
In plausibility, this theory can’t compare to the hand of god, of course.
I have a Facebook friend who runs one of the few cat shelters in the Canaries. Despite being named for dogs, the islands are rampant with feral cats. Pet cats often are permitted outside as well, so she could have easily been picked up by a tourist.
OK, this is my first time replying or submitting anything, so please be gentle. 570 is my cat Hope after trying to luck the bottom of the soup cup. I swear to D*g it’s not staged. 006 is Hope sleeping on a fast food dinner box. Kinda weird, but impossibly cute.
567 is Hope sharing a bed with my d*g,Moose. She absolutely adores the little guy, and Moose is very nervous around cats. He submits to the loving and kicking with groans.
I would be honored if any of these pics made the Felid Trifecta, and I love this feed! (BTW, WEIT is one of my favorite books. Is there a way to get an autographed copy (with a Hope illustration)? Thanks! Randy F.
Sent via the Samsung GALAXY S®4, an AT&T 4G LTE smartphone
Randy, I don’t believe your intended links are coming through. You can find Ceiling Cat’s eddress by clicking on the “Research Interests” link at the top of this site (or simply through Google), and send him your items directly. Please do–sounds like some worthy material. 🙂
The riddle of how the cat made it to Scotland may well have been solved. It seems the chip was issued to a cat rescue charity in the Canary Islands, and this charity rehomes some of the cats in the UK. They have tracked down the women who rehomed the cat in question back in the UK and she is getting touch with the rescue centre who currently have it.
So it may be good news.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-25997769
Forgot to post the link.
So Tina (for that is her name) reached Scotland by conventional means.
I had been going to suggest something like Orr at the end of Catch-22, who paddled his way to Sweden…
And here I was thinking we finally had miraculous proof of God acting in the world.
4 seconds of good cat can almost offset 1 minute of bad Pillbin.
Almost.
Just to make sure, you do know that “the door to summer” is a reference to a Heinlein book?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Door_into_Summer
An excellent book, which Jerry should definitely read as soon as he is finished writing his. Petronius the Arbiter is one of my favorite Heinlein characters.
Heinlein was one of literature’s great ailurophiles, putting cats in many of his best works. One of his characters asserted that, “Cats are citizens, but dogs are slaves.”
“The door into Summer” is a book by Robert A. Heinlein, and the title refers to a cat who, when winter and snow arrive, tries every door looking for the one where it is still summer.
A friend of mine had a cat that would do something similar – when it rained, he would try to find a “dry” door.
I’ve got one even weirder. He usually enters and exits the house via one particular window. Usually from the left side of the window. If it’s raining, he’ll check out the other edge of the window as well, just to be sure it’s raining on that side, too.
After seeing that cat’s introduction to the snow, I’m more determined than ever to introduce Baihu to snow. Not likely to happen this season, but, hopefully next year we’ll be able to make a drive up north….
b&
I can spare a bit, where do I ship it?
1022 West Apollo Avenue, Tempe, Arizona, 85283-2627.
Thanks!
b&
P.S. If it’s yellow, please use my delivery service at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C. 20500. b^
Ha Ha Ha!
I’ve got both yellow & brown-spotted*. I’ll send the variety pack.
*(Two d*gs.)
In that case, bulk delivery by ballistic means is preferred, and to 39.018889 N by 76.771389 W.
Thanks so much!
b&
Don’t answer your door. It’s the NSA…
That’s the great thing about the NSA: no need to answer; they already know who’s there and why!
b&
Ya gotta hand it to ’em.
No, wait, they already have it.
And if they don’t, and they want it, they’ll just take it anyway.
Nice work if you can get it….
b&
Wonder if Snowden will win the Peace Prize?
As I’m sure you know, he’s been nominated. I think his chances are actually excellent. The same committee that gave it to Obama for not being Bush is likely to be royally pissed off at Obama for being Bush after all. It’s also a chance for the committee to influence both US and global politics in a very significant way…the whole dynamic of the affair changes if the US continues to want to capture and imprison a Peace Prize winner for that for which he was awarded the Prize.
And I don’t think the US government’s usual types of intimidation tactics will actually work on the committee. Indeed, they’d be likely to have the opposite effect.
Cheers,
b&
Exactly my thinking! Though I hadn’t yet gotten to the subject of your final paragraph.
Hope we’ll be raising a toast in October. (Long time to wait! But I verified the info here, http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/
…which is a pretty interesting site to poke around on…)
Do we owe Ceiling Cat an apology for the extensive one-on-one, do you think?
I don’t think Jerry minds these kinds of tangents so much as the ones that involve poo-flinging — and, especially, when the same bits of poo keep getting flung back and forth over and over again.
Besides, there’re only a few dozen comments attached to this post — it’s not like one of the Free the Willies ones that easily get several times as many.
b&
Oh, good, because I was having fun.
Be careful about that. I had the same thought. My Foxbat is an inside-mostly cat, but she often accompanies me out onto our patio during the day. I thought to introduce her to snow, as I had seen many charming videos.
Her response was to streak down the walkway and take shelter under a car, where the ground was still dry, as it was the first snow of the season. I had to scrape a bare spot and dangle my headphone cord to entice her far enough into it that I could grab her and carry her back in.
We are eagerly awaiting spring.
Whenever Baihu and I leave the house, he’s on a leash. And he’s always welcome on my shoulders should he not like the lay of the land.
I suppose an ideal first-snow experience would be some sort of outdoor cat-proof enclosure, but I’m sure it’s nowhere near worth the trouble to try to search one out. Instead, we’ll simply get out of the car to go for an hike as usual, him on my shoulders, and presumably his curiosity prompting him to jump down and investigate sooner rather than later.
b&
With a nod to Stephen Colbert, please provide some Superb Owl coverage tomorrow in your wildlife photo post.
Groan.
But, yes. that would not be inappropriate….
b&
>
Well, yes Birmingham was paralyzed, as was Atlanta. But how does a guy living in Chicago call that a heavy snowfall? As I recall, Atlanta got 2 whole inches … which prompted idiot climate deniers to cite it as evidence that that our socialist president O’Bummer was a such dope when he said that global warming is a reality.
Somewhat off-topic but Matthew Cobb’s book on the French Resistance is only £2.99 (Kindle edition) on UK Amazon this month; highly recommended natch.