Caturday felid trifecta: A cat who loved potatoes; kayaking adventure cat, the bodega cats of NYC; and lagniappe

A senior rescue cat name Nugget loves potatoes so much that he always wants to be near them, though, having no teeth, he can’t eat them. There are two short articles on Nugget below, but also a few videos showing the cats obsession.  I’ll just give some excerpts (indented). Click the headlines to read:

From The Dodo: (2021)

A toothless senior cat named Nugget is so obsessed with potatoes of any shape, style, and size that he wants to be around them all the time, as if they were his own children. According to his human Anshu these potatoes help Nugget with his anxiety, particularly when it comes to car rides.

He just loves his potatoes. No matter where they are, he would always go sit where his potatoes are. …We moved from from east coast to Texas so it was like a 3-day drive and Nugget doesn’t like being in the car at all. He’s very anxious, so I took two potatoes from our cabinet and we put them in his carrier. Lo and behold, he is sleeping calmly in the carrier.

And a few videos. Note that sweet potatoes count as potatoes for Nugget. Listen to him chirp with joy when he’s in the spud cabinet!

Some very short video of Nugget. Potatoes appear to be a kind of Prozac for this cat:

Nugget gets a big haul of spuds and is elated! Science has not yet explained (and may not explain) why potatoes affect this cat in such a way:

***************************

Here is a 14-minute video of an adventure cat, complete with a life jacket, going kayaking for the first time. (The kayak seems to have a motor, at least from its speed and the noise.)  It’s fun to ponder what the cat is thinking when he sees all this stuff.  Yes, not much happens here, but I find the video very peaceful.

*************************

“Bodega cats”, or cats that inhabit stores run by Hispanic folks, are a fixture in NYC. I’m sure this is illegal but nobody enforces such a draconian law. The NYT had an article about this shop moggies on June 16, which you can read by clicking on the headline below or reading it archived here.  The article is about a Tik Tok series called “Shop Cats”, and there are many photos in the piece.

I’ll give a few quotes (indented):

If you’re in a bodega in New York City and need to speak with “the manager,” you may find her underneath the fridge or nestled between bags of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos.

Bodegas being managed by the cats that live in them is part of a “big running joke among a lot of New Yorkers,” said Drew Rosenthal, the creative producer of “Shop Cats,” a web show that recently found a large audience on TikTok for its feel-good feline coverage.

When Mr. Rosenthal, 35, moved to Brooklyn eight years ago, he was surprised by the ubiquity of semi-feral cats patrolling the city’s bodegas and delis. Even more so by the scarcity of online bodega cat registries documenting their addresses and personal updates, given their beloved role in the city’s ecosystem.

Last summer, working for Mad Realities — a media company with ambitions of becoming “the MTV of the internet,” according to its chief executive and founder, Alice Ma — Mr. Rosenthal addressed this gap in the kitty catalog by pitching a bodega cat talk show he characterized as “‘Cribs’ meets Steve Irwin.” It was greenlit almost immediately.

The pilot of “Shop Cats” featured Mr. Rosenthal’s local bodega cat in Crown Heights, a cuddly but capricious gray and white tabby named Kiki, who sleeps behind a display of corn chips. In the minute-and-a-half-long episode, Michelladonna, the flamboyant host of “Shop Cats,” interviews the whiskered bodega manager — who introduces herself by hissing into the microphone — and the locals who take care of her. The interview culminates in a test of Kiki’s hunting skills via her ability (or desire, rather) to chase a feathered toy. The hunt was set to a zany, “Looney Tunes”-style soundtrack, a signature of the show.

. . . Shop patrons are similarly quick to fawn over their local working kitten. Simcoe, a courteous, long-whiskered tuxedo cat who runs a brewery in East Williamsburg, has inspired T-shirts and even tattoos. “Simcoe is the best!” Yoko, a brewery regular who wears homemade earrings featuring Simcoe’s face, testifies in the episode. Ms. Reiss, too, tends to style herself in feline fashions, often sporting a long ponytail that shimmies behind her like a sassy cat tail. “You’ve got to lean into that kitty fever,” she said. She also has a penchant for winged cat-eye liner.

. . .Many of the shop owners like to claim a cultural affinity with their cats. The adoptive caregivers of Rambo, a scrappy brown tomcat from the Bronx, for example, like to claim that he is Yemeni on his father’s side and Dominican on his mother’s side. Charlie, the 15-year-old striped “employee of the month” at Flowers by Giorgie in Queens, was lauded by his owner for being “the best Ecuadorean cat in New York.” And on a recent sunny Tuesday afternoon in the Bed-Stuy section of Brooklyn, the “Shop Cats” team had the pleasure of meeting Jamal — a puckish tabby whose name means “beauty” in Arabic.

You can also find a video, “The Truth About Bodega Cats,” that shows the dark side of shop cats, like their sometimes being locked in a basement or denied veterinary care. I’ll link to it, but watch for yourself.

The Tik Tok site for “Shop Cats” is here, and I’ll put up a few videos. First, “Kiki,” mentioned above:

@shopcatsshow

Meet Kiki in Crown Heights #cat #bodegacat #bodega #nyc #brooklyn Producer: Drew Rosenthal Art Direction: Sunny Li A show by @madrealities.tv

♬ original sound – Shop Cats

. . . and here’s Simcoe:

@shopcatsshow

Meet Simcoe in East Williamsburg #cat #shopcat #brewery #nyc #brooklyn

♬ original sound – Shop Cats

There are 46 other videos on the page if you want to see more!

***********************

Lagniappe: From Wholesome Memes:

Extra lagniappe: The caption to this cute YouTube video is “Our Grand Baby Lynnly Was Scolding Her Cat For Running Out of The House… She Went and Got Her Cat and Brought Him Home…”   Sound up.

h/t: Gregory, Greg, Merilee