Feline Overlords – Page 55

Broken-Hearted After Losing His Cat, Man Goes To Shelter And Finds His Lost Feline

A Maine man reunited with his lost cat when he went to the animal shelter to adopt a new feline friend.

Theron wasn’t exuberant like most people who walk through the door of the Bangor Humane Society looking to adopt a new pet.

The Maine man told shelter staff he’d resigned himself to adopting a new cat after his Cutie Pie, a gray-and-white medium hair kitty, went missing. He told the staff he hoped bringing home a new feline friend would help “heal his heart.”

Staffers showed him to the section where they housed the adoptable cats so he could browse at his leisure.

“As he perused the kennels, he stopped to examine one of our friends a little more closely and when the cat turned to face him, Theron erupted with joy. THIS WAS HIS CUTIE PIE!!” the shelter’s staff wrote in a Facebook post on Friday.

The staff had no reason to doubt him, but even if they did, Theron had ample proof: Like any human who loves his or her cat, Theron’s smartphone was a virtual gallery of photos of the little guy.

“Theron’s camera roll was full of pictures of Cutie Pie,” shelter staff wrote, “leaving no question that this reunion was the real deal!”

For his part, Cutie Pie must have had quite the ordeal and couldn’t wait to go back to his real home with his human.

“Let me just say I’ve honestly never seen a cat so eager to be in a cat carrier!” shelter staff wrote on Facebook. “He was SO ready to go home!”

I really don’t like to think of the possibility of Bud going missing, but if he did and we found ourselves in a situation similar to the one Theron and Cutie Pie found themselves in, the reunion wouldn’t be nearly as happy or tear-inducing.

“Oh my God! It’s Buddy! Buddy, it’s really you! I’m so glad I found you!”

“Get me out of this cage this very instant! These people are crazy! Do you realize they have not fed me turkey once since I’ve been here?!? Not once! And these accommodations! A bathroom and a food bowl within five feet of each other. Unthinkable! They’ve put me in with the riff-raff, as if I’m a common cat and not a king! I demand to speak with the manager! Actually, nevermind…I demand you take me home this very instant, feed me turkey, give me a massage, and then summon the manager so I can give her a piece of my mind! You’re going to have to make this up to me, you know. I expect the treat cabinet to be restocked with all manner of yums, including Temptations. I had to sleep on a pad. A pad! I tried to tell them, I said ‘I only sleep on top of my Big Buddy!’ And they wouldn’t listen. These people are torturous! I swear, when I get home…”

Cats Are The Monks At This Japanese Temple

Nyan Nyan Ji translates to “meow meow shrine.”

One of the highlights of my trip to Japan last summer was Gotokuji Temple, the famous “cat shrine” in Tokyo’s Setagaya suburb.

Gotokuji is home to thousands of statues of maneki-neko, or “beckoning cat,” an important and ubiquitous image in Japan: Statues of maneki-neko adorn shops and virtually every public place in Tokyo, but Gotokuji is where the legend of the beckoning cat was born. Visitors write prayers on the statues and ask for good luck for a variety of venture, from opening new businesses to getting married.

There is, however, only one current feline resident at Gotokuji, while Kyoto’s Nyan Nyan Ji — literally “meow meow shrine” — is populated exclusively by feline “monks,” who wear monkly garb and take their duties — especially napping, er, meditating — very seriously.

The most recognizable of them is Koyuki, the chief cat priestess at Nyan Nyan Ji.

Here are some photos, all courtesy of the temple’s Instagram, showing what life is like for Koyuki and her fellow priests:

Screenshot_2020-08-12 ねこ地蔵とおる ( nekojizo) is on Instagram(2) — “This is how it’s supposed to be, humans: You kneeling before us. Those ancient Egyptians had it right.”

Screenshot_2020-08-12 ねこ地蔵とおる ( nekojizo) is on Instagram(5) — “I can call upon powerful minions to smite you whenever I please.”

Screenshot_2020-08-12 ねこ地蔵とおる ( nekojizo) is on Instagram(9) — “Tiny humans are permitted to touch my holy personage.”

Screenshot_2020-08-12 ねこ地蔵とおる ( nekojizo) is on Instagram(4) — “And here is the nursery, where it’s currently reading time for our kittens…”

Screenshot_2020-08-12 ねこ地蔵とおる ( nekojizo) is on Instagram(3) — “Walk with me on the path to deliciousness…”

Screenshot_2020-08-12 ねこ地蔵とおる ( nekojizo) is on Instagram(8) — “Read the sign! We’re not open until I says so. Now if you please, I have napping to do.”

Time Capsule Reveals 120-Year-Old Photos Of A Little Girl’s Beloved Cats

Captured by antique cameras using a process almost 200 years old, the photographs prove people have always loved taking photos of cats.

The young French girl placed her most precious items in an elaborately decorated antique box — among them a personal letter, old coins, a sea shell, a compass and two glass negatives.

French photographer Matheiu Stern, who discovered the accidental time capsule earlier this year, used a vintage technique to develop the plates and reveal the images they contained: A photo of a small tabby cat posing on a door step, and another of the same tabby with a kitten and a gentle-looking dog.

The process Matheiu used is called cyanotype, and as its name implies, it renders everything in a blueish scale rather than grayscale or color. The process was popular for most of the 19th century before it gave way to newer and more accurate photography methods, but it was used long after that as a cheap method of reproducing architectural schematics, thus the name “blueprints.”

The photographs have the unmistakable hue of the process used to develop them, and show the people of the 19th century bonded with their cats just as we do.

They also prove that people have always loved taking photos of cats, and the ubiquity of cat images on the Internet was inevitable. Resistance always was futile:

Maybe He’s Born With It. Maybe It’s Meowbelline.

“Buddy. So hot right now. Buddy.”

NEW YORK — Buddy the Cat will be the new face and official spokesmodel of designer Fursace’s new Covidian Collection, the Italian fashion house announced Wednesday.

In addition, Buddy unveiled brand new photos of his four signature looks in his Buddy: 2020 Look Book.

The rakishly handsome tabby’s famous quartet of looks includes icy Blue Steel, Ferrari (a softer look for catalogues and footwear), fiery Le Tigre and the venerated Magnum, which took years to perfect.

“Buddy. So hot right now. Buddy.” – Jacobim Mugatu, designer

Fans got an intimate look at le Tigre at last year’s Feline Fashion Week in Milan, where Bud modeled Dolce and Gabbana’s Meowgnificent collection. The “really, really ridiculously good-looking” cat has been a fixture on the haute couture scene since 2014 when he was a kitten.

Buddy on the Runway — Buddy the Cat walks the runway ahead of German model Leon Dame during last year’s Fashion Week in Paris.

This year the fabulous felid is expected to take the runway for Fursace’s Covidian Collection, a show that draws inspiration from Victorian-era plague doctor masks, gloves and overcoats to create what designer Gianni Fursace calls “pandemic chic.”

“Fashion cuts to the heart of life’s most essential questions, and this season it’s all about one question in particular: What good is protection from the virus if you don’t look fabulous in the first place?” Fursace asked. “What’s the point of surviving if you’re wearing something you wouldn’t be caught dead in?”

buddy_plaguedoctor — Buddy models a $6,250 mask, part of Fursace’s Covidian Collection.

Jacobim Mugatu — the world-famous fashion designer best known for his Derelicte line of homeless-inspired fashionwear and inventing the piano neck tie — praised Fursace for making Buddy the face of his new campaign.

“Buddy has long been my muse as I strive to create clothes that redefine what it means to be fabulous,” Mugatu said. “Buddy. So hot right now. Buddy.”

ferrariletigrebluesteelmagnum — Clockwise from top left: Le Tigre, Blue Steel, Ferrari and Magnum. Credit: Versace Covidian Fall Collection

Istanbul’s Favorite Cat Isn’t Getting Kicked Out Of Her Home

The Hagia Sophia’s famous cats can stay as the building is transformed from museum to mosque.

Instabul’s Hagia Sophia has been an Eastern orthodox church, a Catholic cathedral, a mosque, a museum and a home for cats.

Now, after a court in Turkey ruled it was illegal to convert the building into a museum, it will once again become a mosque — and the cats who call it home can stay, Turkey’s government says.

The most famous of those cats is Gli, a European shorthair with striking eyes who has become the building’s most famous resident and perhaps the most famous cat in Turkey, a country knownfor its love of cats.

Tourists come to the ancient house of worship hope to get a glimpse of Gli — or even better, a selfie with her — and she has more than 50,000 followers on Instagram. She was also famously petted by US President Barack Obama when he visited the monument in 2009.

Ibrahim Kalin, spokesman for President Tayyip Erdogan, assured the public that Gli and her feline companions will stay right where they’ve always been.

“That cat has become very famous, and there are others who haven’t become that famous yet,” Kalin told Reuters. “That cat will be there, and all cats are welcome to our mosques.”

Gli the Cat of Hagia Sophia — Gli the Cat in her famous home, the Hagia Sophia. Photo credit: https://www.instagram.com/hagiasophiacat/

The Hagia Sophia has perhaps the most interesting history of any place of worship — it was built as a church of the Eastern rite in the Byzantine empire in 537 when the city was called Constantinople, and remained that way for almost a thousand years, with a 57-year interregnum in which it became a Catholic cathedral in the 13th century.

In 1453, the fall of Constantinople marked an end to the Roman empire and Christian rule in the city. It was renamed Istanbul, and the Hagia Sophia became a mosque. The building is unique for blending elements of Christian and Islamic architecture.

The court decision to return it to use as a mosque after it was a museum for most of the 20th century came earlier in July. Prayers are expected to resume in the building today, July 24.

Top image credit Flickr.