Festivus is a holiday celebrated “as an alternative to the pressures and commercialism of the Christmas season.”
The holiday’s traditions include a Festivus pole, which must not be decorated (“I find tinsel distracting,” Festivus creator Frank Costanza explains), a Festivus dinner which typically includes family and friends, an Airing of Grievances and the Feats of Strength. The Airing of Grievances (Buddy’s favorite part) is an after-dinner tradition in which participants go around the table and tell everyone else how disappointing they’ve been all year, while the Feats of Strength signals the end of the holiday if younger members of the family are able to pin the family patriarch.
Jerry Stiller in 1979
Because 2020 has been such a lousy year, many people likely forgot we lost Jerry Stiller this year. Stiller famously played Frank Costanza on Seinfeld, arguably the most well-known of the many roles the 93-year-old actor took on during his long career.
It may be a small mercy, in a way, since Stiller didn’t have to witness the first socially-distanced Festivus and holiday season as the Coronavirus rages across the US this winter. (Contrary to some clown’s vandalism on Wikipedia, Stiller died of natural causes, not COVID-19.)
In the real world, Festivus was created in 1966 by the writer Daniel O’Keefe. The holiday wasn’t popularly celebrated until 1997 when O’Keefe’s son, then a writer for Seinfeld, included the now-beloved holiday in an episode of the show.
Over the next two-plus decades, Festivus has become a “real” holiday, with many people marking the occasion by getting together with friends.
A Texas cat’s epic trek home covered 228 miles, and no one’s sure how she did it.
Despite the current golden age of feline cognition studies and a growing body of research that shows cats have genuine affection for their humans, people still think of the little fluffballs as aloof, antisocial and ambivalent.
Old stereotypes about cats die hard, but maybe this latest story will finally give people pause: A cat named Gray C. made an epic, 228-mile journey back to a Texas town after she was ‘rehomed’ a week earlier.
Vikki and Eugene Braun told KTBC, a Fox affiliate in Austin, that they brought Gray C. and their other cat, Sissy, to a friend’s ranch in Terrell, about 35 miles east of Dallas. Both were outdoor cats, they said.
“We thought because they weren’t ‘pet’ cats, they wanted to live outside, we thought, well, maybe they’d rather live in the barn,” Eugene told the Fox affiliate.
The next day, their friend from the ranch in Terrell phoned to tell them the cats were gone. A week later, Vikki Braun was shocked when she came home and found Gray C. inside, helping herself to some food.
“I thought one of the neighbor’s cats had got in through the doggie door and that’s never happened, but I picked it up and I was like, this is Gray C.!” Vikki Braun said.
Gray C. is held by Vikki Braun after her long trek back to Burnet, Texas.
That was about three weeks ago. The Brauns say they don’t know what happened to Sissy. Hopefully she shows up unhurt.
No one is sure how Gray C. managed to cover so much distance in a little more than a weeks’ time. It seems unlikely a cat could cover more than 32 miles in a day. The little felines are considerably faster than humans but like all felids, they’re built for shorter bursts of intense activity and require lots of rest.
“That’s a lot of miles per day, you know, but I’m sure she probably didn’t stop. She just kept on going,” Eugene Braun said.
Garfield walked 40 miles back to his owners in London in June 2020.
Gray C’s story mirrors the story of Garfield, an orange tabby who walked 40 miles back home this summer after his owners gave him away. It took Garfield considerably longer to get home as he navigated London and its crowded suburbs, but his determination struck a chord with his people, who reconsidered their decision and kept him after his journey.
“This cat has not always been feral. It had known the warm spot on the rug in front of the fireplace. But on a summer’s day someone left the door open. The cat, not knowing any dark thing, leapt away from love.”
I stumbled into this on Twitter, and it’s a reminder that amazing things can still exist in this cesspit we call the internet.
Teacher Kate Clanchy writes: “What animal is your heart? Is one of my favourite poetry questions. But I’ve never had an answer like this.” She’s referring to this poem by one of her students, 17-year-old Kyla Pereles:
“My heart is a cockroach caught in the mouth of an alley cat.
This cat has not always been feral. It had known the warm spot on the rug in front of the fireplace. But on a summer’s day someone left the door open.
The cat, not knowing any dark thing, leapt away from love. (My heart leaves open cans of sardines for the alley cat. Every runaway full of regret deserves to be fed.)
The cat makes a bed of missing pet posters the wind tore down.
And the cat is hissing at shadows in its sleep.
And the cat is shivering in its matted fur.
And the cat is meowing at the restaurant backdoor.
A waiter, who is also my heart, leaves the back door open so the cat can be warm for the rest of his shift.
But the cat is feral. The owner of the restaurant shoves him back into the snow with a broom.
The cat sleeps until the snow reminds it of the rug. Small things seem sadder when they are alone.
So the cockroach does not mind being in the jaw of something just as lonely.
A little girl follows the paw prints that made a snow angel around the cat. Despite the cockroach in its mouth and its matted fur, she picks it up.
And the cat, who knows of dark things now, spends summer in the lap of the little girl, who is also my heart.”
Kyla’s got a hell of a career ahead of her if she chooses to pursue writing.
Dubbed “Da Zooms,” the ultra-potent new nip is a hybrid of the popular Purrple Haze and Meowie Wowie variants sprinkled with catnip-flavored Temptations that have been crushed into powder.
LOS ANGELES — At least 14 feline overdoses have been linked to a powerful new strain of catnip sold by Los Gatos cartel, the Feline Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said Thursday.
The new strain is a hybrid of the popular Purrple Haze and Meowie Wowie variants sprinkled with catnip-flavored Temptations that have been crushed into powder, the agency said.
Dubbed “Da Zooms,” the ultra-potent new nip is often cut with oregano to reduce its effects, but inexperienced cats may not realize what they’re dealing with. Overdoses render felines catatonic for several hours, during which they roll around with a blank stare before sliding into a deep sleep from which they cannot be roused until the effects wear off.
“This is powerful stuff,” said Squiggy the Siamese, president of Cats Against Narcotic Additives Baked Into Snacks, or CANABIS, a powerful anti-Temptations lobbying group. “If it can knock a 20-pound Maine Coon unconscious, imagine what it can do to an innocent three-pound kitten.”
The potent new blend of catnip is proving irresistable to cats.
Cat parents and caretakers are advised to look for the following signs that could indicate their furry loved ones are addicted to Da Zooms:
Suddenly getting the zooms and bolting around the house at 30 mph
Loss of interest in favorite foods and snacks that aren’t Temptations
Refusing regular catnip, or complaining that it’s “weak stuff”
Raiding pantries for cans of wet food, which are used as currency to buy highly potent illegal nip
Frequent trips to “The Corner”
Shaking paws and night sweats after being cut off from the product
In the meantime, the National Ad Council has unveiled a new PSA meant to inform cats of the dangers they face by consuming illegal catnip.
“This is your brain,” the ad’s narrator intones as the camera settles on a brand new, unblemished couch. “This is your brain on ‘nip,” the narrator continues with the camera scrolling over to an old, beat-up couch with claw marks all over it. “Any questions?”
Diego Gatinez, a spokesman for Los Gatos, called the new ads “racist” and blamed “uninformed gringos” for alleging that his organization is a cartel.
“We are a charitable 501(c)(3) organization, and we don’t appreciate the insinuation that we’re involved in illegal or violent activities,” Gatinez said. “Anyone who continues to intimate that we are a violent criminal organization should sleep with one eye open, because Los Gatos could appear right when you least expect us.”
Top image and the two following images by Andrew Marttila from his book, aptly titled “Cats On Catnip.”
It’s man vs cat in the ultimate battle of Buddies!
Back in August there was a story about a bored animal behaviorist and fellow New Yorker who built a talking board for her cat, a la Koko the Gorilla.
Kristiina Wilson told People magazine she was inspired to start the project during the initial Coronavirus lockdown, fashioning a makeshift talking board for her beloved foster fail.
Wilson used large buttons, coded by color and symbol, with each button triggering a recording of a different word when pressed: “Lady” for her, “Snuggle,” “Outside,” “Kittynip” and, of course, “Eat.”
She taught the little guy to use the board using “associative concept learning,” which in this case means pressing a particular button when she has the cat’s attention, and then performing the related action and pressing the button again.
Wilson’s DIY cat talking board.
“Whenever you’re responding to them, you also repeat the modeling,” Wilson said. “So if he asks for catnip and then I give him catnip, I hit ‘catnip’ again while I’m giving it to him to reinforce what that button is for.”
Her cat is a quick learner, Wilson told People. “He’s like a person dressed in a cat’s body. He’s been screaming at me since he was born and being very clear about his needs and wants.”
Hmmm. Sounds like someone else I know, someone who never hesitates to loudly inform me when he considers the service subpar or the meals tardy.
I decided to give it a try with Buddy, modifying the system to his most frequent demands. When pressed, the buttons say “Big Buddy,” “Food,” “Snack,” “Mattress,” “Nip” and “Mighty Hunter!” (Mattress, as regular readers of this blog have probably already figured out, means Bud wants to take a nap on top of me. Mighty Hunter is his favorite wand toy game. It should be called Inept Hunter, but we must keep up appearances so as not to offend delicate egos.)
I began training Buddy on his new talking board. On the first day he had great fun with it, slapping the buttons randomly and jumping on them to see how many he could activate at once.
On the second day, he understood that pushing the “Big Buddy” button would draw a response from me.
On the third day, I woke up to find three of the buttons relabeled and reset with new digital voice recordings: “Servant,” “TURKEY NOW,” and “SNACK NOW.”
THE PERPETRATOR: Although he may appear cute, behind that angelic face is a devious, scheming mind that will stop at nothing to obtain more turkey.
Perhaps most frighteningly, Bud was learning to combine the commands: “Servant…TURKEY NOW! TURKEY NOW! … Servant,” the speakers intoned as he hammered on the buttons with his paws.
But by the fourth day things had become truly horrifying. I walked into the living room and saw the humble talking board replaced by a complex ad hoc apparatus, with more than 150 symbols and a developing syntax.
“Good morning… servant… breakfast… immediately… then… massage… mattress…nap!” a synthesized Stephen Hawking said.
Buddy had tapped the message out with the speed and skill of a court stenographer, then sat there silently, looking up at me with his big green eyes.
“Little shit…is too clever…for…his own…good,” I said, mimicking the sound board.
“Big Buddy…better…watch…when asleep,” Buddy responded, pawing each button. “Sometimes…dark … I … can’t tell… where … is …litter box.”
He made a “mrrrrphh!” sound as if for emphasis, then tapped a single key three times: “Breakfast. Breakfast. Breakfast.”
I have now realized my most grievous error: Within two days Bud had wired his apparatus into the fiber optic router, and a few days after that he’d completed work on a prosthetic opposable thumb.
The arms race was escalating, and my lead was evaporating.
I considered bringing in a dog, but Buddy would just outsmart it: The little terrorist probably has an automated missile launcher at this point, and if not, dogs can be easily bribed with food.
No, I needed something nuclear. Something that would inspire cold terror in my cat and prompt him to think about further escalating the cold war between us.
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Pain In The Bud 