I’m traveling to St. Louis for a meeting (if you’re in the area, come to our blogger meetup!). But, in the tradition of the web, today is Caturday, a day when you can legitimately blog about your cat.
So why not take the chance to welcome everyone to my newest — sorta — family member, Dinger?
The reason I say "sorta" is because my wife and I got her when she was a kitten quite some time ago, before The Little Astronomer was even born (I have a picture of Dinger peering curiously into my daughter bassinet). We had her for several years, but when we moved to California we decided she might enjoy life on my in-laws farm more, so we gave her to them. She stayed with them for about four years, but now they are moving to Colorado (just a couple of towns over, in fact), so we took her back.
She’s 14. Fourteen. So she’s the newest member of the fam, but in subjective years she’s like 128. She mostly sits around and sleeps, purrs, and growls when Canis Major or Canis Minor get too close (C. Minor is terrified of her, actually). She still hasn’t gotten tooth and claw with our other cat, whom I will simply call Lynx, keeping with the astronomical pseudonyms (though getting her real name isn’t all that hard to do).
Which reminds me: Dinger is in fact the new cat’s real name. It’s short for Schrödinger.
Feel free to LOL her.
May 31st, 2008 at 11:10 am
Awwwww!! And wow, props to Dinger for living that long. My family’s two cats (the ones I grew up with) passed away at ages 15 and 16, respectively.
I *was* wondering how Dinger was astronomical. I LOLed when I read that it was short for Schrödinger.
May 31st, 2008 at 11:20 am
We have a 14-yo and 15-yo who’re doing pretty well, along with two younger cats. My sister’s cat died last year at 17+ (exact age unknown).
May 31st, 2008 at 11:21 am
I see the face of Jesus in her markings.
May 31st, 2008 at 11:31 am
Cats rule! They will surely replace us once they figure out that opposable thumb thing. Until then, they get us to do everything for them – which we’re happy to do.
Our cat Buster, who is now 11, is very sharp for a cat. Seeing a bird fly into its nest at the top corner of the garage at our former house, he went instead to the front door and wanted in. Once inside he went to the inside door to the garage and then up on the car to the inside upper corner to have a look. The bird wasn’t there but Buster has reasoning ability, maybe a sense of inverted geometry as well.
All his life an indoor/outdoor cat, Buster also likes to get in laps, naps, patrols around the house late night and is embarrassed if caught playing with toys. He quits immediately as if to say “I wasn’t doing that.”
May 31st, 2008 at 11:53 am
I love cats. My cat Taliesin will be 16 in a couple months. He sleeps a lot and demands food a couple times a day. He’s starting to feel his age, unfortunately, with a bad case of arthritis in both hind legs. But does that keep him from jumping on the furniture? Not so far. He’s a trooper.
May 31st, 2008 at 11:58 am
My cat Rocky Rumblebox (named Rumblebox because he purrs loud enough to be heard over the TV) is 16, pushing 17. Aside from a bit of arthritis in one shoulder and he snores rather loudly, he’s a pretty active cat, and the most vocal cat I’ve evern seen. It’s definitely opinionated and he lets you know it. I’ll actually hold conversations with him. He’ll meow at me and I’ll say something in response and he’ll meow back and this will go on for as long as I care to keep it up. I wouldn’t be surprised if he lived to be 20.
May 31st, 2008 at 12:11 pm
14 is a youngster, my cat is 18 and is still as feisty as hell, although it has to be noted she is showing signs of early kidney disease.
However, she’s a tortie too (like Dinger there). I think they have special grumpy genes.
May 31st, 2008 at 12:22 pm
They can live amazingly long lives if they’re well cared for. I used to have a neighbor who claimed her Siamese was 26. Miss Kitty was skinny even for a Siamese, slow-moving, completely deaf, and half-blind, but the vet said she was in excellent health and by far the oldest cat he’d ever seen.
I’d love to have 2 (or maybe 3) cats, but my landlord would have a litter of kittens if I tried it.
May 31st, 2008 at 12:32 pm
Schrödinger iz alreadys LOL’d:
http://icanhascheezburger.com/2008/05/02/funny-pictures-schrodinger-xperimint/
May 31st, 2008 at 12:44 pm
my cat i grew up with lived until she was 17. she was an outside cat that lived with us at night and as it turns out the rest of the neighborhood during the day. several houses had special beds for her when she stayed with them. currently i have a 4 year old and my neighbor’s 1 year old is now staying with me. they keep me entertained and so they are worth the food bills. what is funny with those two is that they are afraid of my two rabbits.. the rabbits chase them. preditor prey is a little confused in this house.
May 31st, 2008 at 1:06 pm
I had a cat that lived to be 24, and even at the end, he was still out chasing, catching, and sorta-eating squirrels and birds.
May 31st, 2008 at 1:23 pm
Tom is 13 (estimated) and seems to be growing younger since I took him in about a year ago. I dunno if it’s what I’ve been feeding him (of course he demands the best, most expensive food available) or what, but nearly all the grey has disappeared from his fur. The neighbor who asked if I would take him in because she had gotten so busy she was seldom home to spend time with him is surprised by how much better he looks, too . . .
May 31st, 2008 at 1:28 pm
I wondered if there was some scientific backstory to the name of your kitty, Phil.
I wonder; am I offical science geek material for understanding the meaning of Schrödinger’s cat?
Anyway, my cat* is part Siamese, which presents itself in voice and eye color; her eyes are blue. Her name is Precious. I think I’m the only one that makes LOTR references toward her.
Her fur coloration would allow her to blend into a snowy enviroment; she’s mostly white, but has various black and brownish areas, particularly on her head.
She was an indoor cat that eventually got out once. She was injured somehow where she lost her front right tooth (fang?), which resulted in a tendency to drool when sleeping on an owner. Since then, she’s remained an indoor cat.
She tolerates our newest member, a mini-pin, but tended to swat at our larger dog, who now resides outdoors for the purpose of keeping out his quantity of hair.
Amongst the kitty’s favorite sleeping spots (she seems to have adapted the sleep schedule of her owners, though she’ll also snooze most of the day hours as well) are in front of our computer monitor (humorous especially when my dad must do computer work) and the chair nearest the front door.
She is jumpy at times, especially when looking outside (she loves watching birds).
When we still owned a guniae pig (and I bet I screwed up that spelling), she would sleep in the pen where we kept it. Very odd.
We had several cats in the past. Weirdest ones were these male cats that took a liking to our larger dog; they would rub against him when I took him outside, and would watch him when he relieved himself. And they would follow him back as we let him in the house. The dog either loved it, or didn’t know what to make of it.
May 31st, 2008 at 1:40 pm
My boys are both 20 (they’re brothers), on a number of drugs from the vet, but otherwise going strong.
Is there one of those new sayings now for kitties: “20 is the new 15″, or something like that?
May 31st, 2008 at 1:56 pm
My Maine Coone / Tabby crossbreed Oscar Telos just turned 20, and apart from a little arthritis in his hindlegs and having just lost his right incisor is in better shape than any other member of my family, myself included! He’s only seen a vet three times his entire life, once for neutering, once to remove a chicken bone I couldn’t get to myself and once for a mysterious swelling on his neck (which turned out to be a fatball and benign.) He’s half asleep and purring next to me as I type.
May 31st, 2008 at 1:56 pm
I’ve always been rather amused by the whole 1 human year equals 7 cat years thing. When I was a kid and first heard it I thought time went faster for cats and thats why they always took such sort naps since every day would have to be 7 cat days. I guess all that needed to be done to discover the laws of Relativity was ask a cat, but the communication barrier was to high a barrier to overcome.
I still don’t understand our need to convert cat years to human years, there the same length of time. A quick google search reveals several different metrics so it doesn’t seem to be a very scientific relation. But I guess it doesn’t have to be, since it use is more to help human caretakers understand the aging of their pets.
http://www.imaramusic.com/Oreo/lifespan.htm
May 31st, 2008 at 2:02 pm
You can has cheezeburger, Josh. Lolcats transcend the ageist ‘glass ceiling’.
May 31st, 2008 at 2:26 pm
I am currently “between cats”. ( Expecting new one(s) in July, when they’re weaned.) My last two were Kody (Kodachrome), a tortiseshell and Mona (Monochrome), black and white. Kodie died in my arms. She went, literally, from “live and doin’ fine to “dead in my arms” in less than half an hour! Her sister Mona is still alive, but I left her with my brother (from
whom I had gotten them) when I was in the hospital last year. Seems that she got tired of sharing food with all her relatives (about a half dozen) and moved next door where she now has a couple of dogs to protect her (!!!).
The most amazing cat I’ve had was a HUGE (20+lbs) solid gray cat named Spaughtte (Spot) – Dad had a weird strange sense of humor! This cat got run over by a two ton car. right over his head. Except for a cracked jaw, he was uninjured! The only noticeable effect was that he purred louder, since he couldn’t quite close his mouth completely.
May 31st, 2008 at 3:04 pm
I thought Gizmo was a cool name. More interesting than my cat named Monkey, though he is Curious George Redux. Two of my cats climb a ladder to a loft and then jump down from it landing on me in bed. It’s a pleasant feeling.
May 31st, 2008 at 3:13 pm
Cute cat… but I’m not a cat person.
…Mostly cuz I hate them and they hate me. It’s really a war. Seriously.
May 31st, 2008 at 3:25 pm
Our last pair of cats were two sisters from the same litter of barn cats. We called them Briggs and Stratton. Stratton lived to 16, dying of intestinal cancer. Briggs lived to 20. She was deaf for the last three years, but what did her in was what appeared to be a massive stroke. Heartbreaking.
We now have a new pair. Also sisters and barn cats. We called them Grace and Ada. I’ll leave it to you to figure out the theme. They’ve just had their first birthday. The biggest adjustment I had to having cats again was realizing that they could hear us – I had gotten more used to having a deaf cat than I realized. I’m looking forward to having them around for a long time as well.
May 31st, 2008 at 3:35 pm
Maybe two mediocre ’shops equals one good one!
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h222/Ibeechu/whuddyoolookinat.png
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h222/Ibeechu/floors.png
May 31st, 2008 at 3:38 pm
Another quick one
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h222/Ibeechu/dinger.png
May 31st, 2008 at 4:00 pm
Hmmm…I have a 20 year old and a 16 year old. What are they in human years?
May 31st, 2008 at 4:16 pm
My cats Mizar and Alcor approve of your cat’s name
May 31st, 2008 at 4:38 pm
Phil,
You are not the only one who names their cats after astronomical things. My last two were Mir (short for Miranda) and Cordelia. Both are moons of Uranus and that was not an accident. Sadly, our latest addition was nine months old and already named when we got her. I didn’t want to farther upset her by changing her name to a “real” one. As far as the age thing, I’ve heard a much better way of calculating “cat years” is to use 21 for the first year and four for each year after that. It would make sense in a way. Allowing seven per year, how many cats listed even here would have improbable to impossible ages??? Using the above method, we calculated Mir was 89 when she died. She acted like it too! LOL!!
May 31st, 2008 at 5:10 pm
Meh. Older guys like me are, of course, unaffected by such silly- ZOMG! KITTY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Here’s a kitten that is so cute it might make your head explode.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geF2wwPH7eY&eurl=http://mfrost.typepad.com/cute_overload/
May 31st, 2008 at 5:27 pm
Hope she’ll be with you for quite a while, Phil. We just had our first cat pass away two weeks ago.. little fella had been with us for over 13 years. Name was Whiskey.. so I am honoring him with every swig
My experience with cats of that colorscheme is that they tend to ’speak’ a lot, more than other cats. Does yours?
Anyhoo, I refuse to LOL a lady of her age
May 31st, 2008 at 6:52 pm
I love cats but I’m allergic to them.
And they all seem to know it too! Never fails – they always want to rub up against me or sit in my lap.
May 31st, 2008 at 6:59 pm
PS That must be the Fifth Basic Force of the Universe: the Meow Force. It is an attractive force between allergy suffers and cats. Its force carrier is of course the Felitron, which I’m sure the LHC at CERN will soon discover this elusive particle!
May 31st, 2008 at 7:00 pm
My graduate adviser’s cats were Regulus and Denebola (yes, for stars in Leo).
Dinger looks like a sweetie! Congrats on bringing her back into your life.
May 31st, 2008 at 7:06 pm
You may have heard the saying “If you want the best seat in the house you’ll have to move the cat.” Well if you want ANY seat in our house you have to move a cat! See here:
http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc94/bassmanpedro/P0001833.jpg
May 31st, 2008 at 8:17 pm
In other news, a textbook launch of Discovery from the Cape today.
The cat ran when the sound rolled over us.
May 31st, 2008 at 9:34 pm
I’ve got a 17 year old orange tabby named–appropriately enough–Orange Crate. Outside of some relatively minor health issues, he’s doing okay. I had another one who made it to 17 before his age caught up with him. I got T.C. when he was still a kitten back in ‘88, so losing him wasn’t easy.
May 31st, 2008 at 10:26 pm
She doesn’t look a day over 105.
June 1st, 2008 at 12:12 am
Hey, Heather, Dinger’s a calico.
Calicos have black and red and white patches, tortoiseshells have only black and red patches and any white is mixed in randomly. Cat-geek nitpickery aside, I think I have to agree with the grumpy gene. My torties are 21 and 22 and too mean to die.
June 1st, 2008 at 1:01 am
I just observed Phil’s cat…I hope its still ok.
Hey Phil did you ever see “Sunshine” ? I was watching and it wondering whether they actually got something right (I wouldnt know stuff like travel time to the sun..). What they got wrong would be obvious to my 7yo niece.
It did get me wondering though, how close could we get to the sun and still be able to communicate with a probe with our current tech? Is it a problem of noise from the sun or the probe melting first?
If you haven’t seen it..don’t. Seriously. This movie clearly saw your reviews of those B grade space movies and decided to take the title. (Actually I think its an “Event Horizon” clone but so dull you’d think the maker watched 2001, got bored and decided to make Hal nice and add a monster)
June 1st, 2008 at 2:17 am
Time for a catfession: I’m a cat person.
Unfortunately our current life-style does not allow us to have a pet, but when we settle down, a cat it will be.
June 1st, 2008 at 2:18 am
“im in ur astronomy, making false klaims”
June 1st, 2008 at 9:34 am
I wuz up all night looking thru your telescope
June 1st, 2008 at 10:00 am
Nice info.
I lol’d your cat.
First, here’s a Schrödinger joke.
http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/2848/schrdingerjx9.png
Here’s the lolcat I made.
)
http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/7409/dingerpi3.jpg
(The last three letters/digits in the file names have nothing to do with the image. Imageshack just adds them randomly. So don’t get excited about the filename ending in “pi3″.
June 1st, 2008 at 11:43 am
Rule 34 on cat.
Nice blog btw, read it everyday at work! Thanks.
June 1st, 2008 at 6:33 pm
My sister and niece have a black-and-white short haired cat named Sylvester, so named because his colouring is identical to the cat in the Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies cartoons. He showed up on my sister’s doorstep one day back in 1991, I think; one of our neighbours claimed she had seen him being “dumped” out of a car. My sister had kept cats before, and they all felt it was time for another one. So they took him in, fed him, looked after him and relieved him of his manhood when the time came. He repaid the favour by sticking around, and developing a strong bond with my niece. He occasionally got into territorial/heirarchical fights with the other cats in the street, and would often follow the humans in his house up to the local shopping centre, possibly for fear of being left behind again.
That was nearly eighteen years ago, and he is still going strong, living with my niece who moved out of home last year (just to the other side of the same suburb). Sylvester is a bit stiff in the joints, and you can count each little vertebra when you stroke his back, but his eyesight and hearing still seem to be good, and he’s pretty healthy given his age. Considering how bleak his prospects looked when he appeared at the door, one would have to say he has done pretty well for himself.
June 1st, 2008 at 8:51 pm
Copernicus is my black and white cat. He’s just turned 9 and unfortunately he has had a bad year. On a rare trip outside in January he sat on a nest of ticks and became infested with hundreds of nymph ticks. Some generous care from the vet saved him that time. A couple of months ago a urinary blockage, a common problem for de-sexed males, caused problems – they can die within days if untreated. That has caused a change of diet that has to last a lifetime. And in the last couple of weeks a large lump has appeared on a bone in the foot. X-rays and biopsies have shown it to be benign tumour that will have to be intensively monitored but at this time last week we thought he was going to lose his leg – he still might eventually unfortunately. Poor little bugger.
Some photos on Flickr of the big doofus here (Including a couple of the big fella all bandaged up after the biopsy).
June 1st, 2008 at 10:38 pm
QD – Arghhh! Insulin shock! You’re paying my hospital bills.
June 1st, 2008 at 10:39 pm
D: As someone who frequents 4chan, where Caturday began, this fills me with amazing chagrin. But, at least the picture doesn’t say something about bad astronomy in catspeak.
Please, BA, don’t ever use catspeak. I’ll cry. Forever.
June 2nd, 2008 at 8:08 am
(Not original, of course)
“The universew came to a junction
when Schrodinger collapsed his wave function.
He lifted the lid
and fouind that it hid
a kitty in need of last unction.”
June 11th, 2008 at 6:19 am
Being from the developing world and having been with cats all my life, I find it very strange to see that cats in the US manage to live so long and lead completely indoor lives. Its unnatural. In my house cats were always wild. They would spend majority of their time outside hunting rats etc and come home only to rest and get pampered. When we used to go out on holidays we would just put the cat out and travel. When we got back it would just come back in as though we had never left.
Since there are a number of stray street dogs (as is common in most “3rd” world countries) cats i know would live to 7 or max 8 years and then get eaten by a dog usually. So it is very strange to see cats that have lived for 18 years.
June 17th, 2008 at 3:49 pm
Dinger – that’s so cool! I like the way you name your pets.
Our family cat lived to the age of 19, and even moved house when he was fairly old without too much visible stress. His name was Midge (he came from a litter of three: Mary, Mungo and Midge – any Brits my age will probably understand that…)
July 30th, 2008 at 7:25 am
Sport, who passed away about a year and a half ago, was healthy right up to the end when he started having kidney problems. One day, after some trips to the vet, he walked across my wife’s open lap top. Several hours later she saw what he had typed. The screen said only this: “19ok”. Sport passed a few months later at the age of 19. He was letting us know that even with his health problems, he was “OK”.
True story.
Sport was a male, black and white, tuxedo cat. His name came from the Laurie Anderson song, “Sharky’s Night”. All our girl cats loved him. He belonged to our neighbors who just threw him out the back door. We took him in and it was months before the college girls even missed him. He was just a frightened little kitten.
August 31st, 2009 at 8:29 pm
[...] 29, 2008 by Georgia WARNING–THIS POST CONTAINS SARCASM!As many of you may know, today is Caturday. As many more of you undoubtably know, several shining things have been inching their way closer [...]