So it turns out that in some places with wise city fathers it will soon be illegal to own more than three cats at a time. This is:

a)     Good. My cat allergy + my current hosts’ four cats (also a drooling, shedding dog) + the person who lives here who likes cats threatening to get more cats + the person who lives here who likes dogs threatening to get more dogs without building a fence in the yard so they can all stay outside = Jonathan dead by the New Year (or odd accidents befalling said cats by the New Year… mwahahaha).

b)    Bad. Because, let’s face it, crazy cat ladies are one of those sad types of people that always seem like they’re fictional characters that have walked straight out of a children’s book or a weird-people documentary and now walk around in the real world. Using them in books is only going to be half as fun if they no longer can exist in real life and join the ranks of  formerly plausible characters, like milkmen, chimneysweeps, or gouvernesses. And what are we going to replace the extra dozen cats with? Add a few parakeets and maybe a turtle? (By the way, I once knew a pair of turtles named Helmut and Katharina, and by the end of our acquaintance they were deposited in this pond at the University of Chicago’s old Botany building by their owner, which wasn’t me, although I may have driven the getaway car. It turns out the pond is a concrete basin with too high sides for turtles to climb back out once the frost hits. RIP Helmut and Katharina. Sorry, Mother Earth.)

c)     Yes, I realize it’s sexist to assume that all the people in question (officially referred to as “animal hoarders” – in the worst recent case, 488 cats for one cat lady) are “cat ladies,” but it appears that two thirds of them are, and 70% are single. I wonder why that is… maybe it has to do with cat hair and litterbox kernels everywhere when the guests come over. Maybe. (Before you demur, studies show “that animal hoarders tended to be somewhat isolated” and “his seemed to be the result—and not the cause—of their large pet collections.”) Also, it’s a pathology having to do with a false belief they’re doing good.

Cat Ladies is a one-hour long documentary about women who are living examples of the “crazy cat lady” stereotype. They believe that the love of men will never match the love of cats.

What do you get when you combine heavy metal with making fun of cat ladies? AWESOME.

And note, I think making fun of cat ladies is awesome because I am one. I would wear a Garfield sweatshirt! Mine would fit better, though.

Hello,

I just thought I’d post a friendly little note to tell you that I’ve started doing some articles for Transmission X Comics. I’m pretty stoked as I haven’t written for any form of publication since 2007. It’s nice to put that hat back on.

My first article is tiny, just a re-cap on the Fan Expo weekend, you can read it here.

I’ll probably link to these whenever they get posted on the main site, so I assume you’ll see quite a few more in the future.

Anyhoo,

I also wanted to tell you that I want to see this Cat Ladies documentary SOOOOO badly.

The official website is here, and of course you can see the trailer below. Enjoy.

K

This trailer for a documentary about cat ladies is scary enough, I don’t think I could make it through the whole movie. As a kid, I didn’t like cats, mostly due to having a strong allergic reaction to their presence. I am not better around cats, but seeing a house with them everywhere gives me the heebie jeebies. It makes me worry they will go evil and eat their owner. That nearly happens in this video:

Today I brought a great cat from my shelter out to a pet store to try and find him a home.  His name is Amadeus, and he is a dramatic solid black charmer that loooves to snuggle. I knew he’d be a cat lady magnet.

Pretty quickly he caught the eye of an eccentric woman wearing a t-shirt reading ”I’m half elf!” under her waist length salt and pepper hair.   Oh! He is so friendly! she exclaimed. 

Upon reading the name tag on his cage she gasped. “Amadeus! that name is sooooo me! You know,  my last cat was named Agamemnon. I love naming my pets after Egyptian deities.” 

I am busy with learning to new photoshop stuff so I’m doing quick notes today. Quick Notes are articles and blips that I do not feel on typing out full news that could just be viewed in shorts that I don’t feel are as important to rant about. They are all just a bunch of random hooblah of sorts that fell into this little section of fun and goodness after the jump:

• The big elephant – ‘Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen’ opens first day with $16 mil, 3rd to ‘The Dark Knight ‘ (18.5) and ‘Star Wars: Episode III’

• General Zod comes to ‘Smallville’

• M. Night Shyamalan has his own website to pick at his brain……

• Go behind the scenes of Rob Zombie’s ‘Halloween II’

• Daniel Craigs goes to horror in ‘Dream House’

• ‘Pandorum’ opens up two weeks later than it is suppose to, so now September 18th

• Non-Humans have escaped as ‘District 9′ viral marketing continues

• David Fincher, director of ‘Benjamin Button’ and ‘Fight Club,’ is directing the social network movie based off of Facebook fame and rise to making it big from the book, Accidental Billionaires

• If you love cats you’ll love this, ‘Cat Ladies’

• The Oscar nominees expand to 10 instead of 5 for best picture

• FOX is up to no good with ‘Hitman 2′ is in the works

]]> http://worldwidewhiskers.org/2009/06/22/what-makes-a-cat-lady/ Mon, 22 Jun 2009 13:51:22 +0000 worldwidewhiskers http://worldwidewhiskers.org/2009/06/22/what-makes-a-cat-lady/

The moment I met Jack, I knew he was meant to be our cat. And while I haven’t felt anything that strongly towards another cat, I do melt at the sight of those trucks with cats up for adoption. As I said to Jon yesterday, if Jack wasn’t destined to be an only cat (his megacolon means we have to monitor his “output,” which would be hard to do with another cat around), we would have adopted another one by now. But another and another? Probably not.

Unlike the ladies in the following documentary trailer.

Yet despite the fact that I’ll never have anywhere from 16 to 116 cats, I still consider myself a cat lady. I do, after all, run a cat news blog. And I got jealous of an old lady on the street the other day who had a kitten umbrella.

(Here is the trailer.)

…I think it looks good. And important. To me, anyways. I already have 3. It’s a slippery slope. But no. more. cats. (Right now.) I’m pretty sure there is a large community of cat hoarding men that is overlooked. I’d be interested in seeing something about that… but for some reason it seems a bit more depressing. Or maybe it would just hit too close to home.  So, … anyways, uh… Yeah.

I saw this 45-year-old man at Publix pushing a cart filled over the brim of the basket with stacks of what I deemed bachelor-esque food: microwavable burritos, frozen pizzas, cases of beer, TV dinners and cans of Chef Boyardee Ravioli.

And just to be clear, I was not checking him out nor staring at him like a creeper. I promise and swear. I just happened to glance at his cart on the way to the yogurt. Anyone else would have looked at his cart just like me and would have said to themselves, you, man, are single. Just like anyone would have glanced in my cart and said, you, lady, are not only single, but also a starving college student. I thought to myself, we’re not so different, you and I.

And I forgot all about it because as I swung down another aisle, I saw my favorite soup was buy-one get-one. I deliberated. How many of these will fit on my shelf? While I was speculating the volume of the space between my shelf and bottom of Drew’s shelf, the man passed by again.

With a sideways glance I noticed, more to my horror, that a giant container of kitty litter sat on the bottom of his cart.

At that moment, I decided that soup on sale should not make my day. I put a few cans back. What are you, Ginna, some kind of sale-reveling, coupon-cutter? That’s a slippery slope. I stared up at the fluorescent lights as if they were beams from heaven and prayed: “Dear Lord, please, please don’t let me be the cat person.”

And yes, I am aware of the implications of my last name. Go ahead and joke. Try to tell me one I haven’t heard.

Goofy music nerd shirts. Here’s a little tribute to The Cure, plus one for J.S. Bach, (and possibly Meatloaf at the same time?)

Snuggly bedlinen from Rachel Castle.

These Songsmith creations. Be sure to scroll down for some Van Halen lounge music. And is it wrong that I actually love me some bluegrass White Wedding?

I’m not crazy about Banksy, but I absolutely adore his use of animatronics in The Village Pet Store and Charcoal Grill. This is kind of old, I think it happened in October of last year, but you can watch videos at the website I’ve linked.

The Martha Blog. I’m a bit of a Martha Stewart fan, and though I once viewed her as a robot only useful for brilliant DIY advice and Conan O’Brien hilarity, I’ve recently decided that she is the cutest cat/dog lady ever. Upon adding her blog to my reader, I was treated to posts of her dogs making crafts, and her cats having a new years party. I nearly died from the amazing, heart-warming weirdness. When she adopted two more cats she was sure to feature plenty of animals in the shelter, and I bet they found a home soon after their Martha endorsement.

As an employee at a large fabric chain store, I get to interact with all sorts of interesting and “creative” people.  Not saying that our customers are all the same way, but some of them are complete nutcases. I never thought that I would ever find the elderly frightening, but today has proved me wrong.  I’m sorry, but if you’re talking to me and your teeth fall out, then I might be scared of you.

Another regular customer comes in every week and spends damn near 300 smackers on fabric alone.  Yet without fail, she zones in on me to help her with whatever project she is working on.  This week she is making all six of her cats clown costumes.  Yes, clown costumes. Kitten McCrazy even brought in the measurements on index cards. With highlighting and stickers.  This baffled me and motivates me to complete the plan that I have in my head.

I have been sketching like a mad woman and hopefully this will lead to some pretty decent appareal line ups. After collecting some fabric swatches, I have a general idea as to what I want my color scheme to be, but that is on quarter of the battle.

Crazy cat lady/Angela from the Office was displaying her freak flag proudly on last week’s episode.  Watch her cat antics (catantcis?) here.   Skip to 1:14 to hear her announce the newest member of her family.

Angela isn’t the only one from the Office with a cat habit (catabit?).  According to People, Jenna Fischer is also a little cray cray for cats.

Who you calling crazy?

No matter how famous she gets, it’s nice to see that Jenna Fischer knows who the real celebrities are.

xoxo,

Brat Cat

so for as long as i can remember i have been telling anyone who will listen about this premonition i have of myself getting old, being alone, and having a hoard of cats. you know the crazy old cat lady cliche. i find the story mildly amusing mostly ’cause i really dislike cats. i mean i would never end up with even one disgusting, drooly, kneading its claws into my leg, cat; let alone more than one all up in my face, jumping into my lap when i’m trying to eat, relentless meowing, tiny embodiment of satan. the thing i find the most repelling about these miserable creatures is that their butt-holes are entirely exposed, and what’s more they are constantly trying to jam it right into my face, gross! but no that was until a couple of years ago when i first heard the sex howling. you don’t even want me to get started on how much i loathe the sex howling, holy crap! so sean is always telling me “there’s truth in all sarcasm” boy is that annoying! but sometimes i find myself wondering if he actually believes this. i mean is there some validity to this statement i usually blow off as an attempt to put a damper on, and ultimately ruin, the punchline of an otherwise hilarious sarcastic remark i’m trying to make. and then the other day the kids and i are talking about plans to get into a house by the end of summer, and all of a sudden i find myself saying “yeah and maybe we can get a cat” huh? followed by silently thinking to myself “it would be nice to have a cat around when the kids are hanging out with sean” WTF?!!!? there’s nowhere to go but up from here, right? right???

*Ten points if you can figure out which song was stuck in my head when I wrote this little ditty…

The Sound of…Panic?

Fog in the morning
and cool breezes blowing,
Sunrise is later
and fall leaves are showing.
Thick swarms of snow birds soon take to their wings…

 

These are a few of my favorite things.

 

When the snow falls,
And the tree’s trimmed,
And the New Year looms:
I’ll quickly remember my birthday is near!

 

And suddenly the panic kicks in again and I realize:

“Oh my god I’m going to be 30 and I’m still single with no kids and I’ll probably end up like that crazy cat lady that I saw on TV who has like 500 cats all roaming around on her property and then the word will get out and I’ll REALLY be alone for the rest of my life and when I die then all of my cats will survive by eating my decaying body since no one will know I’ve expired and the smell of my rotting corpse is masked by the filthy stench of all those damn cats! Holy hell, 30!!!”

For more cringe-worthy, horrible, so-bad-it’s-funny poetry from yours truly and others, click here.

Fog in the morning
and cool breezes blowing,
Sunrise is later
and fall leaves are showing.
Thick swarms of snow birds soon take to their wings…

These are a few of my favorite things.

When the snow falls,
And the tree’s trimmed,
And the New Year looms:
I’ll quickly remember my birthday is near!

And suddenly the panic kicks in again and I realize “Oh my god I’m going to be 30 and I’m still single with no kids and I’ll probably end up like that crazy cat lady that I saw on TV who has like 500 cats all roaming around on her property and then the word will get out and I’ll REALLY be alone for the rest of my life and when I die then all of my cats will survive by eating my decaying body since no one will know I’ve expired and the smell of my rotting corpse is masked by the filthy stench of all those damn cats! Holy hell, 30!!!”

-Essaytch