kitties – Page 2 – Pain In The Bud

The Cat Distribution System Giveth Kitties, Plus: President Buddy’s Face Graces New Cat Dollars!

Twix and Gollum are in the process of converting my brother’s family into their dedicated servants.

My nieces have wanted a cat for a long time, but my brother and his wife had a few good reasons to hold off.

First and foremost, they were moving to a new country, and adding pets to a complex move that includes furniture, belongings and a long flight — plus adjusting to an entirely new country, new jobs and new schools — was a hassle they didn’t want.

In addition, I know they all deeply miss their dog, Cosmo, who passed away in the summer of 2023. Heck, I miss the little dude dearly. If he hadn’t burrowed his way into my heart, I wouldn’t have even thought of adopting a little buddy of my own.

But the Cat Distribution System cares little for the plans of mere mortals, and when my brother and his family arrived at their new home in coastal Italy, they soon discovered it came with a cat: Twix, a fixed calico who lives on the property.

It wasn’t long before the friendly Twix established that these new humans could be trusted, which is when she introduced an orange tabby who is either her brother or companion. No one’s quite sure.

Now my nieces have two cats to play with, and they’re making Bud look bad. As cats who have lived outdoors on the property, they’re much more accustomed to noise and change, and they adjust more quickly. Buddy, by contrast, is used to a quiet apartment with me, and while he is friendly to guests, he’s also a bit wary of kids.

Here are Twix and Gollum:

In the meantime, Buddy’s second term as President of the Americats is chugging along. After recognizing the need for a new denomination, President Buddy has introduced the new $11 cat dollar bill featuring his presidential likeness:

We’re not sure a powdered wig is a particularly good look for the little fellow, but I know better than to raise that concern.

Why would anyone need an $11 bill, you ask? Because cats don’t have pockets, so they don’t do change!

Cat dollars are legal feline tender and entitle the bearer to the equivalent value in cat food cans or snacks, when presented at any accredited feline bank.

Buddy, pleased with his new currency, has ordered his treasury to get started on a new $7 cat bill, which will also feature his likeness.

Muahahaha! The Cat Distribution System Has Bestowed A Kitty On My Brother’s Family

Twix the cat is a beautiful Calico living in sunny coastal Italy.

Wary as he may be of them sometimes, Bud is the “family cat” to my nieces.

Now 12 and 8, they’ve wanted a cat for a long time but were vetoed by their parents, since the family was moving to Italy and it appeared my younger niece had allergies.

Well, now they’re finally settled in Italy, tests have confirmed my niece is not allergic to cats, and it turns out their new home comes with a feline.

A beautiful, super-friendly and affectionate Calico named Twix, who was fed, spayed and given veterinary care by the home’s previous family.

“She is super affectionate and lets us pet her a lot,” my brother texted me along with photos of Twix on a window sill and on the grass outside, enjoying scritches from the kids. “Even rolls on her back and has her stomach scratched.”

“Shiiit,” I responded. “Touching the stomach would get you killed with Bud … Well, you got a cat, whether you like it or not.”

It also looks like Bud will have a potential lady friend. I plan to visit for an extended amount of time and use my brother’s house as a base from which to explore Europe, and there’s just no way I’m going to leave Bud for months, especially when he’ll be 12.

He can handle a long weekend and even a couple of weeks, but months? I don’t think that would be good for either of us, and I worry that he may think I’m not coming back. We have never been separated for that long. He’s coming to Italy with me.

As for Twix, it looks like she’s been living on the property for quite a while. The kids have set up a little shelter for her with blankets. I advised my brother to make sure she has a water bowl that’s refilled regularly with fresh water, they’re feeding her wet food, and I’ll work on getting little Twix inside permanently if she isn’t already a house cat by the time I get there. I can be persistent! It looks like she can come and go as she pleases, so it may not be long before she decides it’s better to be inside and safe.

A friend once taught me that you can “speak Italian” by adding -are (“RA”) onto anything. “Grazie! La felinare!”

A Surfing Cat? Toby Likes The Water And The Waves!

Most cats wouldn’t go near water if you promised them a barrel of Temptations, but a handful of special felines love to swim and play in the ocean.

Someone over at Hearst Television was digging through the company’s video archives and unearthed this gem from 30 years ago.

It’s a short news segment about Toby the cat, who liked to hang out with his human so much that he happily took to playing in the ocean.

“I’d jog on the beach at night, and he’d run into the water with me,” Toby’s human, Teddy Townsend, told Hearst.

A news crew caught up with the human-feline pair at Ormond-By-The-Sea, an oceanside community on Florida’s east coast, about an hour’s drive south of St. Augustine.

“I just started taking him out in the water,” Townsend said as Toby perched happily on his shoulder.

The surf board came later as Townsend looked for a way to make time in the water more fun for his pal.

“He surfs, I don’t surf,” Townsend explained, smiling.

Townsend didn’t have Toby on any harness or other restraint, and it was pretty clear the little guy wasn’t going anywhere without his human. Footage of the tubular tabby showed him skillfully balancing on the board while cresting and riding a series of small waves.

Check out the 1995 segment here:

Surfing cats are pretty rare, but not unheard of. A 2016 story detailed the adventures of Kuli, a one-eyed rescue cat from Honolulu who loves to surf with his humans. (Kuli is pictured in the header image, above, and in the image below.)

Kuli lost an eye at just four months old due to an infection, and endured lots of baths during his formative months to prevent another infection from taking hold. Alexandra, one of his humans, said she believes that’s why Kuli is so calm in the water.

“For a while I took Kuli out on my long boards, but it wasn’t until I was playing around with a boogie board one day that I realised he really loved to get his claws into the foamy material,” she said. “So we bought a board that Kuli would be able to get out on the surf with.”

Kuli on his board. Credit: Caters News Agency

Here at Casa de Buddy, I asked His Grace if he’d like to dip into the ocean and have fun by learning to surf.

His answer? “You must have a death wish, human.”

Ah, well. It’s not for every cat.

Happy Mother’s Day 2025 To All Human And Feline Mothers!

Without our moms, where would we be?

Happy Mother’s Day!

Bud and I wish the best of days to all of our readers who are mothers, as well as sons and daughters spending time with their moms today. And how can we forget all the cat moms out there who put so much care and love into raising their babies?

As the expressions of some of these cat moms make clear, whether human or animal, kiddos and kittens have a way of making sure there’s never a dull moment. But that’s just one awesome thing about moms: no matter how much we might drive them crazy sometimes, they still love us!

And to my own mom, thank you for being there for me no matter what I’ve stressed over or how stupid I’ve been, and thank you for teaching me to strive to be a decent person.

The Meowdulator Is A Guitar Pedal That Makes Your Guitar Meow

Guitarists, synth players and other musicians can get their meow on with this unique FX pedal.

As a guitarist I’m partial to pedals, FX and other gear that can imbue the instrument with the funkiness of the wah or the satisfying crunch of harmonic distortion.

But this? This is something I never expected.

Meet The Meowdulator, an FX pedal that does precisely what it sounds like it does.

Created by B’s Music Shop and pedal-maker Cusack Music, the Meowdulator is a monophonic guitar synth, meaning it plays single “notes” similar to a Moog. That means you can’t strike a chord and get a chorus of discordant meows, but you can for example play a solo that sounds like a cat in heat — if you want to. (The “Little Mew” setting sounds like an octaver in meow, generating multiple voices, but still triggered by plucking single strings.)

Brian of B’s Music Shop called the pedal “maybe the craziest thing I’ve ever collabed on.”

“It’s glitchy sometimes, it’s its own animal,” he said in a video demonstrating the new pedal. “But it’s a little kitty cat and we hope it makes you happy and you have some fun with it.”

My favorite of the seven presets demoed in a Youtube video is “Acid Kitty Synth,” which generates a funky, wah-like meow. In the right hands, something awesome can be done with it. I can imagine Acid Kitty Synth breathing life into an Earth, Wind and Fire style or Televisor-esque track, compelling the listener to hit the rewind button while asking “Did I just hear what I think I heard?”

Finally, there’s a “hidden feature” — if you hold down the bottom-most button, the pedal will purr. Perhaps it’s something to work into the rhythm of a track or give the audience a relaxing vibe between songs while playing live?

The Meowdulator retails for $199 and is expected to ship in mid-July. Those of you who fall into the cat lover/guitarist venn diagram overlap can pre-order now.

Now can someone make a puma scream pedal? Ratatat, a New York duo and one of my favorites, has a thing for working the screams of the iconic cat into their tracks, and it makes me love them even more.