kitties – Page 3 – Pain In The Bud

I Made A Custom Cat T-Shirt For My Niece

It’s a one-off with the possibility of more for my niece who “loves kitties!”

My niece is six years old and she “loves kitties!”

Unfortunately she’s allergic to cats. Hopefully her allergies become less severe with time as mine did and she can adopt a cat at some point, but until then she has to settle for admiring felines at a distance and occasionally petting Buddy.

Even though my niece can’t have a cat of her own I can still encourage her love of cats, so I made a cat t-shirt for her as one of her Christmas gifts this year:

I’m using the same image for February in Buddy’s Meownificent 2024 Catlendar, which should be available soon. I’ll post the link when it’s live on Redbubble.

This is now the second t-shirt with my custom artwork featuring cats. I have a t-shirt of the photoshop image I created of Bud playing basketball:

The print came out surprisingly well, but in the future I’m going to stick with artwork rather than composites of photographs/photoshops like this one, for the simple fact that the simpler color schemes and cleaner lines work better on t-shirts than photographs.

Kitty Climbs On Imam, Demands Pets During Ramadan Prayer

The cute calico joined an Algerian imam for evening prayers, climbing up to his shoulder as he led his mosque in worship.

A cat in Algeria reminded an imam that members of her species get scritches when they want them — even in the middle of prayers during Islam’s most sacred month.

Cats are allowed to come and go as they please in mosques, and Muslims view cats favorably, in part because the Prophet Mohammad was fond of them. There’s even a famous story about Mohammad cutting his sleeve off instead of disturbing one of his favorite cats, who was sleeping comfortably on the sleeve when the prophet was getting up for prayer time.

On Wednesday, Imam Sheikh Walid Mehsas was leading tarawih — an evening prayer — when a calico rubbed up against his legs, meowed and then climbed up to his shoulder. She continued rubbing affectionately against him as he continued the prayer:

The prayers were broadcast on a live stream and the moment quickly went viral, with many praising the imam for his patience and love for the cat even as he led an important prayer. (Some comments on the live stream indicated the cat may belong to the imam, or the other way around, although that has not been confirmed.)

After leaning into the microphone as if she was going to join in the evening prayer, kitty thought better of it and hopped down off the imam’s shoulder, opting instead to claim a few more humans as her servants by rubbing up against their legs.

Whether by demanding pets during religious ceremonies, invading the diamond and pitch during baseball and soccer matches, or casually strolling on stage during concerts, cats have shown little regard for human activities and, true to their reputations, have made it clear that cat time takes priority over human time.

Despite that, or perhaps in part because of it, we still love the little stinkers. Perhaps that explains why I can never be mad at Bud, even when he plops himself in front of the screen during crucial moments in video games or tugs down at a book I’m reading, to demand I give him his scritches. I am his humble servant.

Happy Thanksgiving From The Buddies At PITB!

Turkey has been part of the tradition since the very first Thanksgiving in 1621.

Happy Thanksgiving 2022!

With war, inflation and even resurgent Coronavirus strains in our stressful world, we’re grateful for this holiday because it reminds us of what really matters — juicy, delicious, slow-roasted turkey.

Our national day of gratitude traces its origins back to 1621, when the cats of the Plymouth colony and the cats of the Wampanoag tribe gathered together for a harvest feast. The Plymouth cats, just a few months removed from their lives in Europe, were intrigued when the Wampanoag cats brought a strange and fascinating new kind of yums to the feast.

They called it turkey.

From that first bite, the kitty settlers knew they’d found the stuff of life, the essence of deliciousness, the thing they’d been missing all those dreary years in Europe. Here was a land of new opportunity, new napping spots and things to scratch, but never in their wildest dreams did they imagine tasting such a delicious bird.

Just when they thought they’d had their fill of wonders for the day, the Plymouth kitties were delighted when the Wampanoag cats told them that aside from being incredibly yummy, turkey also has a magical quality: It induces long, restful naps within an hour of eating it.

The feast was so much fun and the turkey was so delicious, the Plymouth and Wampanoag cats promised they’d do it again the next year, and the next, and the year after that…

And that, my friends, is history.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Your friend,
Buddy the Cat

‘Aww, Your Kitty Is So Cute!’

A very Buddy Halloween!

As much as Bud can be a ~~wimp~~ fearless protector of the apartmental realm, he’s also very friendly when he feels confident, and he loves Halloween.

Every Halloween since kittenhood, little man has answered the door with me, standing right by my side as I hand out candy. He’s just as curious about the kids as they are about him.

“Your kitty is so cute!” one girl of about 10 said tonight as Bud looked up at her.

“Thanks!” I said. “He loves answering the door.”

The little girl, dressed as a witch, was the third trick-or-treater to compliment Bud tonight. That may not seem like much, but we had surprisingly few kids this year. I expected a lot more since the last two Halloweens were muted by the threat of COVID, but for whatever reason the little ghouls and goblins have not returned to pre-COVID levels.

For what it’s worth, when I was a kid we used to love going to apartment buildings, which offered the best time-to-candy ratio. You could knock out an entire floor of 20 apartments in 10 or 15 minutes, then walk up the stairs and do it again. By the end of the night, you were guaranteed to have overflowing bags of candy.

Things have really changed in two decades. My brother, my friends and I would just go out by ourselves in our Batman, ninja and robot costumes. Mom would tell us to be careful, but we weren’t chaperoned. Nowadays every trick-or-treater has a parent in tow. I’m not sure if that’s a smart precaution or a sad reflection on our society.

Alas, Bud didn’t wear a costume this year. Usually I’m able to get him to tolerate a simple bandana or his little tuxedo, at least for the time it takes to answer the door. I couldn’t find either of them this year, so I tried to bribe him into wearing a little penguin hat from an old costume.

Despite the payoff in snacks, Bud tugged the hat off three times. It was a bit too small, and he’s too smart. The hat didn’t have a chance.

Happy Halloween! I hope all PITB readers and their feline masters are having a great night. Have fun polishing off the leftover candy!

Sunday Cats: A Cat Fluent In Sign Language?

Plus a Japanese artist’s stunningly real-looking bespoke cat backpacks.

A Reddit post with almost 30,000 upvotes claims a cat took it upon himself to learn sign language after realizing his human is deaf.

You don’t need me to tell you it’s nonsense, do you? It’s interesting how we’re willing to believe a cat can endeavor to learn sign language, but we — the supposedly more intelligent species — can’t be bothered to watch for emotions conveyed by the curl of a tail or a twitch of the whiskers.

When this deaf man’s cat realized that meowing was useless, he learned to communicate with him through signs from Damnthatsinteresting

Cats are incredibly smart little furballs, but just like the people who claim their cats are meaningfully communicating via talking boards with 100 buttons, this is just social media fodder for the credulous.

Unfortunately the credulous are numerous, although a few Redditors had a good time at their expense. One user complimented the addition of a VHS-like filter over the video clip, giving it a vintage quality.

“Not a filter. It’s been around for a while,” another Redditor responded. “The cat now knows ASL, English, French, Spanish, and is working on its doctoral thesis.”

A cat in a backpack? No, a cat backpack

In a reminder that the Japanese have an endless appetite for all things cat-related, the newest hot item among the Land of the Rising Sun’s neko-infatuated is a bespoke cat backpack hand-sewn by a housewife in Fukui prefecture.

The bags don’t come cheap. It takes Miho Katsumi between one and three months to make each one, and they’ll set you back about $1,000 each via Katsumi’s site. Check out her Instagram for more images.

How quickly do you think Bud would murder me if I came home with one of these in his image one day? 🙂