Rita Vigovszky captures the essence of cats with her whimsical illustrations.
Rita Vigovszky knows cats.
The Budapest woman, who earns a living as an illustrator, often puts her own cat in her drawings to illustrate confounding and amusing feline behaviors, but she also draws various cats in silly and amusing situations.
Who among us doesn’t sympathize with this? I can give Bud two vigorous play sessions with laser pointers and wand toys, and he’ll still reliably do this at night:
As George Carlin once said: “Cats don’t accept blame.” They also have no shame. At this point, probably every surface except the kitchen counters has been “groomed on.”
Prior to 2020, I would not have sympathized with this. Then the pandemic happened, barbershops in New York were closed for ages, I binged the entire run of Vikings during lockdown, and when I finally made it back to my barber, told him: “Give me that awesome Ragnar Lothbrok haircut!” So now I have a viking man bun (go ahead, laugh at me) with shaved sides and back, and Bud has many new hair band toys that tend to disappear under couches and in crevices:
Pretty soon no one will want to watch the little guy. 😦
I’ve been in Washington, D.C. the last few days and have left Buddy in the care of his long-time sitter, a friend who has known him since he was a kitten.
You may recall I wrote about howhe attacked her back in the summer of 2020, but she’s such a nice person that she continued to look after him, including during my trip to the Outer Banks earlier this year and my current absence.
If she won’t care for Buddy in the future, I can’t blame her. Bud attacked her this time for the unspeakable crime of…playing with him! (She’s had several cats of her own, so it’s not like she doesn’t know how to interact with a feline.)
I fear I am going to have to hire men armed with tactical gear and ballistic shields, who will breach the apartment, refill Bud’s bowls under the protection of a phalanx of shields, and then make careful egress without taking their eyes off him.
Either that or board him, which probably won’t go well.
Ah well. I’ll see him tomorrow. He’ll probably run to the door to greet me and rub up against me, then remember he’s supposed to be mad at me. He’ll give me a dismissive “Hrrrrrrmmmmph!” and pad off to ignore me for as long as he can before returning to his normal behavior.
Cats and humans began their grand partnership some 10,000 years ago, when kitties handled humans’ pesky rodent problem and people repaid the felines with food, shelter and companionship.
Now the deal’s off, apparently.
Yesterday a Reddit user shared a video titled “When you get a cat hoping it will help you get rid of the big rat in your yard.”
The video shows the user’s new cat, a tortoiseshell/calico, “solving” the rat problem by befriending the rodent, playing with it and even grooming it.
The video has amassed almost 86,000 upvotes in 24 hours.
The odd friendship between feline and rodent is not without precedent. Studies have shown that cats are not effective rodent hunters in urban settings where rats have gone unchallenged for so long that they rival or exceed the size of most members of Felis catus.
In certain neighborhoods of New York City, for example, researchers observed cats essentially ignoring massive rats and in some cases eating trash side by side with them. The largest rats, apparently aware of the truce, are equally unconcerned by the presence of the cats. Other rats were more cautious around kitties.
The scene reminded me of the time my brother wanted me to bring Bud over to handle his rat problem. At the time he was living on 88th St. in Manhattan, less than a block from Gracie Mansion. His apartment had an unusual perk for Manhattan living — it was a spacious ground floor flat that opened up into a private, fenced-in backyard with grass and a few trees.
Tremble before him! Buddy the Mighty Slayer of Rodents!
In fact, it was one of the first places I took Buddy after adopting him. He was just a kitten, maybe 14 weeks old, and I brought him with me on a warm summer day when my brother had a few friends over for a barbecue.
Buddy made fast friends with my brother’s Chihuahua-terrier mix, Cosmo, and spent the day playing with his doggie cousin, frolicking in the grass and chasing bugs around the yard. Then he got a treat: Steak from the grill, chopped into tiny Buddy-size pieces.
Having a backyard in Manhattan was awesome, but there was a downside. At night the yard was like a stretch of highway for marauding rats who ran across it in numbers with impunity, probably en route to raiding the garbage bins of a bodega on the corner of 88th. The rats were so emboldened and so numerous, you could hear them scurrying across the yard at night.
My brother proposed bringing Buddy over and letting him loose in the yard after dark, letting his claws and predatorial instincts thin the rodential herd.
I declined, using the excuse that Bud could pick up diseases from going to war with the rats. That was true, but I’m sure it wouldn’t have come to that: At the first sign of those rats, Buddy would have run screaming!
(We don’t acknowledge that around him, of course. Officially, Buddy was not set loose upon the Manhattan rats because it would be grossly unfair to unleash such a meowscular, brave and battle-hardened feline warrior upon them.)
It’s one thing if Buddy won’t kill rats. He’s a wimp. But as the Reddit video illustrates, we are apparently closing the chapter on 10,000 glorious years of human-feline partnership, and officially entering the Era of Zero Reciprocity.
We do everything for our cats, and in return they nap, eat and allow us to serve them. From their point of view, it’s a fine deal.
Just look at those meowscular guns and vicious claws!
Buddy finds success as a magician who makes all manner of delicious foods disappear.
NEW YORK — A thousand people are engaged in lively chatter inside the 42nd St. Illusionist Theatre when a tiny figure appears at the periphery of the stage and a hush falls over the crowd.
The lights dim and a drum roll echoes up from the orchestra pit.
“Is it him?” a man in the balcony asks.
“It’s him! It’s him!” a woman seated near the front answers, waving her handkerchief. “The Great Buddini!”
The crowd erupts into rapturous applause and the orchestra plays an excitingly mysterious tune as the Great Buddini pads across the stage, illuminated by a green spotlight.
“Thank you! Thank you!” the tuxedoed feline says, doffing his top hat. He touches a paw to his heart. “You’re too kind! Thank you!”
A whimsical melody drifts up from the pit and the Great Buddini produces a bag of Blue Buffalo Bursts from a pocket in his tuxedo. He presents it to the crowd, turns it over and tears it open theatrically.
“For my first trick, I’m going to make these Bursts disappear,” Buddini says, tossing the treats into the air and gobbling them all in quick succession.
The crowd loves it. Women clap, men stomp their feet and enthusiasts near the back whistle in appreciation.
An advertisement for one of The Great Buddini’s shows.
“For my next trick,” Buddini says, “I’m going to make this entire turkey disappear!”
Two calicoes in bedazzled gowns emerge from behind the curtain, pushing a cart with a large turkey on top of it. They turn the cart 360 degrees, lift the black table cloth so the audience can see there are no hidden compartments, and stop just before the Great Buddini launches himself at the turkey and consumes it like an insane Pac Man, wolfing the entire bird down in less than eight seconds.
A drum roll begins anew, the Great Buddini turns, bows with a flourish and issues a massive belch that reverberates around the hall. Once again the theater shakes with the roaring approval of the crowd.
“He’s a genius!” a woman yells out later as Buddini, balanced on stilts, makes pieces of cheese vanish into his mouth. “He’s mad! He’s mad!”
The Great Buddini’s show, in which the famed magician makes 17 different kinds of food disappear, has been sold out for more than three weeks running since he arrived in New York.
A review in the New York Times called Buddini “an unrivaled master of sleight of paw” and noted kittens from as far away as Delaware were arriving in New York, hoping to apprentice for the master feline. The New York Evening News was equally flattering, writing that the Great Buddini “blurs the line between ho-hum magic and astonishing feats that border on the supernatural.”
Among the few negative reviews was a scathing piece in the New York Post, which chided enthusiasts for “falling for” Buddini’s “obviously mundane tricks.”
“He’s not ‘making the food disappear,’ he’s just eating it!” the Post’s critic seethed. “Am I going crazy? I can’t be the only one to notice this. People are paying to watch a chubby cat pig out on snacks on a stage. What has the world come to?”
The sanctuary’s expansion will allow staff to care for FeLV-infected cats who are highly contagious and cannot be housed with the other kitties.
In 2015, a Good Samaritan found a tiny kitten abandoned in the snow and brought her to Tabby’s Place.
Staff at the Ringoes, New Jersey-based sanctuary nursed her back to health, but tests confirmed the little one had Feline leukemia virus (FeLV). While they set up a makeshift isolation ward (FeLV is highly contagious), a woman came by and told the staff she wanted to adopt a cat no one else wanted.
She chose the FeLV+ kitten, who was dubbed Quinn, even though she knew they might only have a few months or perhaps a year or two together.
Seven years later and despite the odds, Quinn is still with her human mom. The latter decided she wanted to thank Tabby’s Place with a $3.5 million donation to help FeLV+ cats like Quinn. With the hefty donation and the support of many other donors, the sanctuary is closing in on the $5.5 million to cover the construction of Quinn’s Corner, a first-of-its-kind center for treating cats infected with FeLV.
“These little ones are really the ‘final frontier’ in terms of cats who have nowhere to turn,” Tabby’s Place Development Director Angela Hartley told PITB, “and we’re thrilled to finally be in a position to welcome them at Tabby’s Place.”
Staff at Tabby’s Place see Quinn’s Corner as a major step forward in caring for kitties who normally don’t have a chance. Because they don’t have the facilities, know-how or resources to treat FeLV+ cats, many shelters simply euthanize them.
In the initial announcement, the sanctuary described Quinn’s Corner as a place where “cats who wandered the world looking for love will find cage-free bliss, matchless medical care, and the dignity and tenderness that every Tabby’s Place cat enjoys.”
The construction crew broke ground about a year ago and, if factors like supply chain issues for construction materials and the weather cooperate, the staff at Tabby’s Place hope to celebrate with a grand opening in autumn.
Because of how contagious and deadly FeLV is — it can pass by grooming, sharing food and water bowls, and close contact — infected cats must be kept apart from the other feline residents. Quinn’s Corner will have its own entrance and lobby, individual suites and a large communal room for FeLV cats, and “solaria,” which are like fancy catios for the ailing furballs to get fresh air and enjoy chirping at birds.
Separately, the project will add a nursery and adoption suite for kittens and an “operations center” where staff can attend to all the behind-the-scenes work of caring for felines, including laundry and food prep.
Tabby’s Place will match donations until they reach the $2 million goal to supplement the initial donation of $3.5 million, but cat lovers can continue to donate at any time, Hartley said.
All construction photos and renderings provided by Tabby’s Place. Top photo credit Asish Aji/Pexels.
Pain In The Bud 