Got the Jimmy Legs

June 26, 2007 – 11:35 am

Can't you see what that kitten is doing to me

More kitten developmental milestones: Two of the kittens have their eyes sorta open. The gray kitten is furthest along in that regard, and seems to be the best walker of the group so far. But these skills come at a terrible price: he's really annoying.

He whines more often and louder than any of the others. He doesn't seem to be in distress, he just seems impatient with this phase of kittenhood. He cries when he's hungry and can't immediately start nursing, he cries when the other kittens step on his head (but not when he steps on them!), he cries when he crawls away from Lucy, he cries when he's nursing, which is quite a feat. The other kittens are pretty quiet, although this morning they were literally swarming all over Lucy, squealing the whole time. Here's some video of Lucy's daily routine, feeding the kittens and try to groom them while they run roughshod all over her. UPDATE: I have uploaded a lighter version to better reveal the antics of the black kitten.

The calico cat also has her eyes open, but she's relatively silent. She's really cute but all the photos I've taken of her come out looking like the crate monster from Creepshow. Perhaps she's photograph better in another week or so.

The ginger cats haven't opened their eyes yet, but it looks like the corners are giving way, so they should be open soon. They're significantly larger than the non-ginger kittens, I'm not sure why that is. They're all getting enough to eat, although they still haven't learned how to share nipples yet. Luckily, the first-served will drift off to sleep after a while, allowing the next team to move in.

Here's another video in which one of the ginger cats leaves the safety of the box to seek his fortune on the outside. I kept waiting for him to turn around and go back in the box, but instead he chose to just to spin in circles ad nauseum. Meanwhile, Lucy, who normally would come out and pick him up, was dealing with all the other kittens, so I had to put him back in, where he promptly burrowed under his mom.

By Jimmy Legs | Posted in Cats, kittens, Pets | Comments Off

June 22, 2007 – 11:14 am

I couldn't care less about the dues you say I got

If I may step away from kittens for a moment (okay I forgot to bring in the newest pictures), I want to do something actually blog-related for once, namely link to a couple sites that merit attention.

First up is Vice Magazine's blog. Vice's main site is blocked when I'm at work and generally I'm pretty sick of the magazine and the way its record label automatically ruins any band it touches. But its blog, which is just on a Typepad subdomain, often has good stuff. Case in point, brief interviews with Indians representing each caste of its society. The Indian Caste system is something that's always fascinated me, especially since in the US, we're not supposed to have such delineations. But of course, we totally do but we're not supposed to speak of it. Capitalism is supposed to smooth all of it over, but all it does is build resentment in my estimation. But India, with its rigidly defined classes (and many subclasses), whenever you ask somebody there how they feel about it, they're always like "Oh, it's great! Everybody loves it!"

Secondly is Cracked Magazine. You may know this magazine from your youth as mostly-lame ripoff of Mad Magazine (which was itself a lame ripoff of the Kurtzman-era Mad Magazine). But the web version (I dunno if there is a print version anymore) is replete with mildly amusing articles that appeal to the Baby-Bust generation. At least males from this generation. Some hit that pointless ranking gene that seems to be present in guys, ie, "The 7 Most Underrated Movie Henchmen" (including that "Kill Frogs" guy from The Muppet Movie). Some are actually pretty astute, despite their sophomoric inspiration, such as "The 5 Biggest Pricks in Congress."

"…kill frogs…"

For sheer day-wasting, Cracked is doing its darnedest to please (see Hateful Stereotypes Behind 5 Lovable Cereal Mascots). I prefer this to the reading-the-headline-only Onion. The content on Cracked is much more in line with my type of mind-wandering, where I'll be doing some vaguely work-related, say, editing PDF file names to match my arcane filing techniques and it'll occur to me, "I wonder how many other famous people are Scientologists that I don't even know about." Voila! The Top 10 Secret Celebrity Scientologists to the rescue!

By Jimmy Legs | Posted in Funny to Me, Good Stuff, Web | Comments Off

June 21, 2007 – 11:10 am

Papa was a rolling stone

The kittens seem to be doing well, from preliminary examination I believe we have 3 boys and one girl (the black-orange one). I could be wrong of course, I don't like holding them for very long cuz they keep wriggling so much I fear I will drop them on their exceedingly large heads. They are getting bigger, but still haven't opened their eyes or learned to walk properly. They get around mostly by slinking around and rolling on top of one another.

It's way too early probably, but some personality seems to be coming to the fore; one of the beige kittens seems to be pretty mouthy, and the black-orange one seems more independent. This is probably all projection, it will literally be weeks before they are ambulatory enough to display actual personality. What I keep wondering now is, who's your daddy?

The beige cats resemble Mugsy, who although not exactly the George Clooney of the feline set has a decided drive to procreate. There's also a beige cat who lives down the street, not a homeless cat for once, but who has free reign over Eldert Street. But what of the gray kitten? This guy has nothing in common with his mom besides the white undercarriage. Apparently, it is possible for a female cat to have a single litter by more than one father, due to the timing of egg release or something. And given the randy nature of the cats around here, I wouldn't be surprised if this rare feat was achieved here.

It's maddening to think that not only can a cat get pregnant when her last litter is barely out the door (as Stumpy may be!), but after she successfully mates with one male, she could theoretically mate with another dude and still get pregnant! Sheesh.

I'll put up more pictures when the kittens start doing something more interesting.

By Jimmy Legs | Posted in Cats, kittens, Pets | Comments Off

June 19, 2007 – 9:33 am

Comfortably Numb

Color Coded, originally uploaded by Jimmy Legs.

I don't actually have any update, just wanted an excuse to post another photo. I'm trying to shovel as much food into Lucy as possible, it just doesn't seem like she could produce enough milk for all these kittens, but they seem to be doing fine so far. I guess they don't become really interesting for a couple of weeks, when they can move around and actually exhibit some kind of personality.

I swear I'm trying to think of something non cat-related to post; old habits die hard!

By Jimmy Legs | Posted in Cats, kittens, Pets | Comments Off

June 18, 2007 – 8:39 am

Is you is or is you ain't my baby

Ironically, the same weekend that Jen succeeded in getting most of her kittens adopted out, Lucy dropped a litter of her own in the closet. I suspected something was up when she was sitting next to me on the couch, acting a little weird. Then I noticed something spilled on the cushion; I assumed I spilled coffee (I pathologically spill coffee all the time). But in retrospect I'm pretty sure her water broke. Cuz right after this, she started staking out a birthing spot. I had set up a box with a towel in the living room, and she did try to go inside it. Sadly, Hubcap was already in it and he didn't want to leave. So she went into our bedroom, which features 4 closet doors to hide behind. She managed to wedge herself behind a box in the far left closet, giving her a space the size of a shoebox to give birth.

By this time I was already in Manhattan, spending the day with my parents, in town for work. We went to the Met, and while we were resting at the museum cafeteria, Jeannie called me up to inform me of kitten birth. She end up having to remove the box just to give Lucy enough room as the kittens kept coming. She eventually replaced it with a smaller box (after ejecting Hubcap from it) which Lucy readily accepted.

So I didn't get to witness this beautiful and gross miracle of life, but from the sound of it, I can't say I mind too terribly. She had 3 kittens in rapid succession, and then after a delay of several hours, had one more. I still can't believe all those cats were inside her! I thought she had another week or two from the look of her, but apparently she had other plans.

So did you know that there's a placenta for each kitten? It's kind of disgusting! Luckily the Moms cut the cords and disposed of everything that wasn't cute and fuzzy. None of the kittens look like her, there are orange tabbies, a gray and white tabby, and a black-orange mottled kitten. It seems odd that none came out in that standard calico-on-white pattern. We were hoping we would be able to tell who the father was by the kittens' markings, but they came out looking like several of the local Casanovas. I did read that it is possible for a female cat to get pregnant by more than one father at a time, but that's pretty rare. I'll have to research more about calico cats; I know about how there are almost no male calicos, but is it a recessive gene or something?

Anyway, now that the furor over Jen's cats is beginning to die down, we can begin taking orders for this batch. So who wants kittens? We're pretty sure that by the time they're ready to ship they will be very social and will be able to do tricks and say 'I love you' in several languages. Be the first kid on your block to own one (or more) of these amazing creatures.