warning: ancient crone blood

rainbow 's cat Jack has passed, his gofundme is here. Rainbow and S.O. are both disabled so do not have discretionary income/savings for the vet bill, but do have themselves and other cats to support.

Signal boosting or conributions appreciated.

I have limited hand usage so forgive me for not captioning these the way I usually would; I am about to go poop out in front of a TV and maybe fall asleep for a long time. But yay, Chance and Lily cuddling and also TOE BEANS especially for tyger!



( two moar kitty photos! )

So you know how there is talk in US English about "Kitty Crazies"? That thing cats do roughly once a day where they look at you as though they have never seen you before, run around the house, etc?

Well partner's family speaks North African Arabic (also other dialects in other branches of the family). Anyway, there is another name for "kitty crazies". You say that the cat "has tagoug" (Anglicized spelling completely mine because partner is out; note that the correct grammar is not that the cat "is tagoug"). Basically it means that the cat is "possessed" (by a Djinn/demon -- what we call "genies" -- also note that not all Djinn are evil, some are aligned with God/Allah and the evil ones are not; there is a WHOLE area of study around this which not all Muslims and/or Arabs and/or Lots of Peoples I don't have room to specify agree on that I do not even begin to understand so I'm going to stop there). I kind of like this imagery because it ties back to all the ideas of cats and witchcraft and everything. It also kind of explains why cats look so uncomfortable.

Or you could go by my definition, which is that more specific than the "kitty crazies", your cat is just having a short manic episode. (Seriously, not that different from how I feel when fully manic versus hypomanic).

With our dogs, we always called these occasional bouts of RUN EVERYWHERES "racehorse dog" (though srsly they would be really poorly trained racehorses because they did not go in a ring at all). Though once my dog did get hold of the slug trap (which contained beer) and, er, emptied it into his belly before grabbing hold of the container and running round the yard. I think that was a chemically induced racehorse dog. (And don't worry, despite the alcohol/dog poison, he was fine. It was cheap crap beer with low alcohol content, which helped.)

Anyone else have other terminology for such things? Do bunnies have similar bouts of ALL THE ENERGIES? (I'm looking at you for this vital information, shanaqui .) What about other species?

ETA: I wonder if animals have names/thoughts for our shenanigans? Like "omg they are picking out those clothes things again"? Or whatever their idea of our recreational sex is. Or what the hell is the holiday season madness. Or VACUUMING. I mean, basically most of what we do around animals would seem to me to be nonsense to them? IDK. *curious*

FWIW, I think I hurt my shoulder playing with cats. I woke up with that horrible, "I slept weird and pinched a nerve," feeling, which I thought was what had happened. Then I went to wave a mouse toy tantalizingly in front of a cat or two and my shoulder went, "Nooooo, there's the pain!"

This is where my frowny face goes.

So, uh, I did play with them this morning because I'd already started and unhappy cats are not pleasant to live with. Amelie went all RUN RUN EVERYWHERE HIDE JUMP BAT RUN on me, which is great. Chance also had a good time. They are good cats.

The other humans in my household better step up their playtime is what I'm saying, because otherwise there may be feline rebellion.

Awhile ago partner put a cat noises app on my phone. Initially it was a way for myself and various family members who were not so familiar with cats to get a sense of different types of cat noises and what they might mean.

However, it has another very useful purpose, if one doesn't overuse it. That purpose is distracting cats.

For example, when Bubba and Chance were getting a little *intense* in their play (read: Chance mostly was the intense one), sometimes I would play random cat meows from the app. Both cats would stop what they were doing and go, "Wait, there's another cat? Are you making that noise? Where is that coming from? What?" It was enough of a distraction to kind of break the cycle of predator-prey-intensity and kind of reset things.

Note: use sparingly so as not to acclimate cats to random cat noises and render ineffective.

Another useful tool is random bird noise apps or YouTube videos. Your cat may or may not respond as mine has, but there have been times when we've needed to get Chance in a cat carrier or give him meds and he has (wisely) hidden under the bed or another difficult to reach location. Rather than doing the ill-advised move-the-bed or reach-under-to-meet-unhappy-cat-pull-out-of-hiding-maneuvers, at times we have played bird noises on the phone. This has sometimes led to cat coming out to go, "Wait birds? I like birds. Where are you hiding the birds? How did they get in the tiny box?"

Again, using sparingly is key. It also helps if the noises come sometimes not when cat is about to be trapped for medicine or the carrier, but also for fun things like investigating magic bird box or getting food.

I am guessing probably more experienced cat guardians have already figured these things out, but I thought I would share for kicks, in case people find this helpful, and because my memory is sometimes swiss-cheese-like.

…I am either:

1. A mermaid who has given up her underwater breathing and tail fins and shell bra to a sea witch in exchange for legs and talking like a human.
2. A selkie whose skin has been stolen while I was out on land.
3. An X-man/person whose superpower is feeling AWESOME in cold water (think 62 degrees) but whose kryptonite is anything warm.
4. Someone with Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome whose symptoms disappear in freaking cold sea water, and whose limbs also return to their proper size & color even when everyone in the sea at the same time (all two other people) eventually have their feet turn yellow. Yellow. My feet go from purplish to a color I'd call "regular." My fingers go from a shape I call "sausage" to one I'd call "bendable without screaming."

Personally, I think any of the first three would be kind of awesome (although the mermaid and selkie stories tend to end rather tragically like, always; also if I were an X-man person I would get to meet Professor Xavier and Magneto theoretically yes I know that it is not "real" just let me have my fantasy!)

I did somewhat enjoy chuckling to myself at the mere mortals who saw us in the water and thought, "Oh yes swimming sounds fun," and then mostly made it to about knee depth before running out screaming.

This is a vast improvement from yesterday, when I was basically curled up in a Ball Of Pain crying. Two swims and an epically awesome massage later and I feel vastly improved. Really wish I could steal the massage therapist back home with me (and his really cute dog); too bad they probably would not enjoy that and also the ocean is not portable either.

Today we bought Chance a cheap feather boa, because he has a Thing for feathers. At the moment he is not sure What to do with it. Partner and I are pretty sure he will probable decide in the middle of the night, and we will wake up in a room full of  feathers and no boa.

Chance explores some of his perches near his window to the birdfeeders (at night, blinds closed); he also wonders what an iPhone is so he is standing at the edge of his table perch and is leaning towards the camera. He has golden/greenish eyes and a white spot or threeish on his chest/belly (only one showing). Otherwise he is all black. He is fairly small, we think maybe 9-10 lbs but have not weighed him yet.
( Many things about Chance and also cn: Sarge attempts to eat mushrooms & medically-induced vomiting )
And now off to nap like my cat is doing, or perhaps just squee a bit more that KITTY.