news – Page 52 – Pain In The Bud

Family’s Cat Follows Kids To School, Gets His Class Picture Taken

Ziggy’s an “honorary student,” and faculty say he’s got an attendance record other students should aspire to.

Ziggy the cat must figure school is an interesting place if his two young human siblings walk there every day, so he’s taken it upon himself to go too.

The four-year-old cat is such a common sight at Drury Primary School in Wales, about 30 miles south of Liverpool, that faculty there consider him an “honorary student.” Ziggy makes himself comfortable for naps on the headmaster’s desk, attends school assemblies and likes to run around the playground.

Ziggy, who pops in and out of classrooms as he sees fit, walks 10 minutes to the school every day with his humans, Megan Roberts, 10, and Chloe Roberts, 7.

Mark Bitcliffe, Drury’s head teacher, told local daily The Leader that it’s “impossible” to keep Ziggy out, so the school has accepted him as a “student.” The cat shows up so reliably that Bitcliffe said he’s “an example to other pupils.”

But Ziggy really “took the biscuit” during school picture day during the last week of September, mom Emma Roberts said. The orange and white feline waited until he felt it was his turn to pose for a school photo, then hopped up onto the chair in front of the photographer as if it was the most natural thing in the world. The school sent his photos home along with school portraits of Chloe and Megan.

“Chloe handed the letter to me [after school] and I expected it to be her photos. But then when I looked I was just in floods of laughter and so were the other mums standing by me,” Emma said. “I asked her what had gone on and she said he just jumped on the chair. He didn’t need any encouragement, he just got up there for a photo.”

A preview of Ziggy’s school photos, which was sent home to his humans like every other student’s portraits.

Ziggy’s an honorary student.

Ziggy walks to school with Chloe and Megan.

Bitcliffe, the faculty and the students at Drury love Ziggy’s antics, and they say he’s been educational too, as he’s given kids without pets the opportunity to learn how to interact with animals.

“It’s difficult to keep a cat off the school grounds, even if you wanted to, but thankfully he’s one of the nicest cats I’ve ever come across,” Bitcliffe said. “He thinks he’s a pupil so it’s fitting he’s had his own photo. I think it’ll be put up on the staff noticeboard. One time he was on the top ledge of the shelves in the secretary’s office and he’s been known to sneak into mine, sit on the chair and fall asleep. It’s his second home I think. His attendance is not an issue and he’s actually setting a good example to the other children.”

“We’ve not been looking to have a school cat or dog really, but he chose us.”

Cat On The Street: What Do You Think About The New Discovery In Egypt?

The intact sarcophagus, which is covered in etchings and hieroglyphs, occupied a hidden room buried beneath the sand for more than 3,000 years. What do cats think of this important discovery?

In what archaeologists are calling a “dream discovery,” a team digging in the sands of the Saqqara necropolis south of Cairo found a tomb with a hidden room containing an intact, 3,200-year-old sarcophagus covered in hieroglyphs. The tomb was the burial site of a high-ranking official, the kingdom’s treasurer, who served the celebrated and long-ruling Pharaoh Ramesses II.

What do you think about this important discovery?

“Did you know Ramesses II not only conquered part of Syria and annexed territory from the Hittite empire, but he also defeated an army of pirates? I dabble in archaeology when I get bored watching birds outside the window.” – Hester, 8, house panther

“That rogue Carter thinks he can outdo me with this sarcophagus nonsense? Everyone knows I am the superior archaeologist!” – Mortimer Augustus Furfellow, 13, professor emeritus

“Wow, this Egypt place is a HUGE litterbox! Litter as far as the eye can see!” – Sammy, 5, box enthusiast

“Put it back! Seal it up! What’s wrong with you people, haven’t you seen The Mummy?!” – Nervous Norman, 10, overgroomer

“CHECK IT OUT, MY TONGUE HAS LITTLE SWORDS ON IT! EN GARDE!” – Gingerbread, 10 months, biologist kitten

“That was more than 2,700 years before the discovery of the New World and its most valuable resource, turkey. Pity the ancient Egyptians, for they never tasted the glorious bird.” – Angel, 3, foodie

Keep The Cat, Ditch The Boyfriend

A boyfriend or girlfriend who wants you to ditch your cat is asking you to do a lot more than that. It’s about control and manipulation.

If subreddits, advice columns and social media are any indication, a disturbing number of people ask or demand their would-be significant others to ditch their cats before their relationships can progress.

But even by the standards of the demanding, heartless boyfriends and girlfriends who insist the cat has to go in a relationship, this one’s a doozy. A woman writes to the Washington Post’s Carolyn Hax for advice on what to do with her boyfriend, who has some very strange ideas about cats:

Hi Carolyn: I’ve had my cat since college (almost 10 years). I’ve been dating my boyfriend for two years, I love him more than I’ve ever loved anyone, and we’d like to move in together.

My boyfriend hates cats. Hates them. He isn’t allergic (though he used to say he was, until I insisted on a test). He does have a strong aversion to them, probably from his family, who have some kind of belief that they’re evil or unclean. I’ve sought to understand it but could never get a coherent explanation out of any of them.

He jumps when the cat is in the room. And my cat is extremely affectionate, so doesn’t understand why he can’t come sit with us and be friends.

My boyfriend is offended I won’t give up the cat so he can move in. I’ve suggested compromises such as keeping the cat to just one part of the apartment, but he insists he needs the cat out.

I feel the cat was here first so this is an unreasonable ask. My boyfriend feels if I really love him then nothing should take precedence over his moving in, and he now says my hesitance is causing him to question the foundation of the entire relationship.

I cannot imagine rehoming my cat. I also can’t imagine ending my relationship. Am I being unreasonable or is he?

Hax goes beyond the usual “demanding significant others are major red flags” advice and points out that the boyfriend isn’t just placing his own emotional wellbeing above the letter-writer’s, he’s also trying to prune her life of things he doesn’t like or want as a precondition for moving forward in a relationship.

The cat, she points out, “is a hairy decoy, distracting you from the serious mistake you’re poised to make: thinking about your relationship in terms of what you owe the other person. All you owe anyone is to be yourself. … It’s on him to ask his own questions about living with that real you. It’s on him to assume the work of living with his own answers.”

That’s good advice for anyone who finds themselves in that sort of situation, but I do think the red flag aspect reinforces Hax’s good counsel. If the guy lied about being allergic to get his girlfriend to ditch her cat, he’s more manipulative than she may be willing to admit and he’s calculating about it, trying to disguise something he wants as a medical necessity.

But he goes even further than that with the “if you really love me, you’ll do this” emotional ploy, and by claiming his girlfriend’s loyalty to her cat is causing him to “question the foundation of the entire relationship.”

The foundation’s rotten, pal. You’re the reason.

Of course, all the human drama obscures the third individual involved in this mess: the cat. The letter writer has had the little guy for 10 years, which means they’ve long since bonded, he loves her, and he literally can’t imagine living in another place with another person.

Surrendering him to a shelter would be incredibly cruel. It would be a life-shattering betrayal of trust and cause incredible anguish to the poor cat in addition to putting him in real danger of being euthanized. And all for a jerk who fakes an allergy to get his girlfriend to dump the kitty she’s loved for a decade? Hell no.

I hope she finds a guy who loves cats. He’ll most definitely make a better boyfriend than this weirdo.

Frankie Sad Eyes Has Been Adopted!

The little guy lost it all when he was surrendered at 11 years old, but now he’s got a new home and a new human to dote on him.

Every once in a while a cat’s story will tug at the heartstrings, and while Bud and I are mostly impervious to that sort of thing (being so manly that we dominate our emotions, obviously), we couldn’t help but become invested in the story of Frankie Sad Eyes.

The handsome 11-year-old was surrendered by his human at an age when he should have been kicking back and telling kittens what it was like Back In His Day, and his hooded blue peepers seemed to reflect his sadness at losing everything he’d known.

In my head, I imagined Frankie and Buddy teaming up, kind of a bad cop/bad cop duo who would keep the neighborhood cats on their toes and extort treats from them.

“We don’t like it when cats don’t pay their protection yums, do we, Buddy?”

“No we don’t, Frankie.”

“It would be a shame if anything were to happen to this spiffy cat condo, wouldn’t it, Buddy?”

“That’s right, Frankie. A real shame indeed.”

Alas, Frankie doesn’t get along with other cats and Bud is a bit of a jerk when he wants to be, so it could never happen. There can be only one king here.

Instead we were content to follow Frankie’s progress from afar, with the staff at Tabby’s Place in Ringoes, NJ, providing regular updates on his health and his interactions with other cats. The latter usually involved Frankie having to “educate” his peers with a stiff paw, but also some positive exchanges as well.

Still, it was clear that Frankie needed to be the only cat in his own kingdom, and staff at Tabby’s Place were able to match the mercurial moggie with a human who will dutifully attend to his needs, make sure his new realm isn’t sullied by the presence of other cats, and provide a chill environment suited to a senior cat. At heart there’s no doubt Frankie’s a good boy. He just needs his space.

Tabby’s Place said farewell to Frankie with this video of his pre-departure “victory lap,” and it was clear from the send-off he received that he’d touched a lot of hearts during his stay, even if he did smack a lot of cats too.

Good luck, dear Frankie, and take it easy on your new human, will ya? We have no doubt she’ll dote on you like the king you are.

NASA Photo Shows ‘Cats’ Got To Mars Before Humans Did

A rock on Mars resembles a crouching cat ready to pounce.

Cats are sneaky, quiet as a ghost when they want to be and have a habit of seemingly teleporting between spots, but could they somehow use their feline superpowers to beat us to Mars?

As the Perseverance rover continues to chug along and take photos as well as samples of rock and soil, people following the rover’s progress can vote for “image of the week,” and this time around they picked an image that, when seen from a distance, appears to show a crouched cat with its behind raised, in mid butt-wiggle as it prepares to pounce on some unfortunate Martian.

marscatloaf — A Martian Desert Cat spots a rich vein of Temptatiums in a natural deposit and is ready to pounce.

This isn’t the first time Mars enthusiasts have spotted a “cat” in an image from the red planet. In 2015, some people said a group of rocks resembled a “giant cat statue” poking out from the Martian soil in a photo taken by the Curiosity rover.

I don’t really see it. YMMV:

An “enhanced” image of the same formation.

The “cat statue” on Mars as encountered by the Curiosity rover in 2015.

Perseverance is exploring the site of a former crater lake and an adjoining former river delta. The Bad Astronomy blog says it was “very clearly a lake of standing water at some point in the past.”

The blog provides a breakdown of the geography of the crater and what it can tell us about the Mars of the past. Knowing there was water on Mars makes the idea of life elsewhere in the solar system seem possible. Astronomers believe Jupiter’s moon Europa, for example, potentially hosts life. The satellite exists so far from the sun it’s in a permanent deep freeze and would normally be inhospitable to life, but the evidence strongly suggests there are oceans beneath Europa’s icy surface, and those oceans are heated by massive vents on the ocean floor.

Water, warmth, energy. The conditions for life are there. If Mars was covered with lakes at one point, what’s swimming in the oceans of Europa?

mars_jezerocrater_landingsite — Credit: NASA

So Mars had water and the entire planet was pristine litter box. If it had some prey to hunt and an atmosphere, the red planet could have been the perfect homeworld for felis sapiens, who would rival humanity in technology if not for the tragic fact that their species is only awake eight hours a day.

Now that’s a scary thought!