Got the Jimmy Legs

September 13, 2007 – 11:22 am

On the street where you live

Kitten #4, originally uploaded by Jimmy Legs.

After the debacle of trying to capture kittens the other night, I have been afraid we spooked them so much that they wouldn't come back. Well, we still might have over-spooked those two kittens, but the original kitten returned last night, along with a totally new kitten (pictured above).

I haven't seen this little orange guy at all among Gladys' kittens, but unless he's a tag-along, he's just lat to the party. He ate some, then lurked in the shadows for the rest of the night.

His brother (I think) turned up and basically ate an entire can of cat food himself. Jeannie was able to even touch him briefly; he's not easily scared and usually comes right back if something makes him run off.

We gave him a catnip mouse and he grabbed it and ran outside with it. I saw it out on the areaway later in the night but this morning it was nowhere to be found.

Before I went to bed I shined a flashlight into the storage space under the stoop. I could see that Gladys had climbed back there (she's still small enough to squeeze through the gate door), I assume the kittens were with her. When we left this morning we checked and saw only the orange kitten sleeping there. This works out pretty well as we can leave food there and the bigger cats won't be able to get at it.

We're going out of town next week, which means Matt and Sylvia get to feed all these cats. It's one thing to do it yourself but you really do see how ridiculous it is when you have to train others to keep up your insane antics. But still, we gotta feed these kittens! I hate to lose a week of possible socialization time with them, but there should still be time when we get back to give 'em the My Fair Lady treatment and dole 'em out on an unsuspecting public.

By Jimmy Legs | Posted in Bushwick, Cats, Feral, kittens, Strays | Comments Off

September 11, 2007 – 11:00 am

Sucker for a pretty face

If you read The New Yorker, you may have seen this full-page ad with a cute kitten, drawing your attention to the hypocrisy of The Humane Society of the United States. It discusses how HSUS puts none of its money into animal shelters, nor does it run any kind of spay/neuter program or pet adoption programs. At first, I admit I was all like, "Son of a bitch, those thievin' bastards! " Then it occurred to me, the Humane Society has NEVER been an animal-shelter level organization. They focus mostly on industrial animal welfare, like cows going to slaughter or chinchillas being raised for fur. They work for broad, sweeping changes to animal cruelty laws in general; other groups handle things like shelters and adoptions. So why would the posters of this no-doubt expensive ad be trying to rile us up over a non-existent issue?

Turns out the people behind the ad, ActivistCash.com, is the "Center for Consumer Freedom," itself a front of the restaurant, tobacco and alcohol industries. Their web site is full of lurid allegations about other "anti-consumer" groups (like the fairly unimpeachable Center for Science in the Public Interest), very little of which is actually damning. ActivistCash divides its time making pointless accusations, such as those against the Humane Society's lack of animal shelters (which is sort of like attacking the American Lung Association for not combating skin cancer). The rest of the time they try to draw connections between these groups and their supposedly 'radical' ties, such as people who at one time were members of PETA who now work at HSUS. Oh, the conspiracy!

But they probably know that very few people will bother reading the fine print on their site. The majority of people will see the ad in a magazine, note it briefly and move on. The only message they will walk away with is "The Humane Society is bad." Maybe the HSUS isn't a perfect organization, but they're decidedly not the evil, two-faced liars they're made out to be by this site. This kind of thing really pisses me off, probably because I'm ready to believe anything that has a fuzzy kitten attached to it.

To be sure, I have nothing against, restaurants, tobacco or alcohol itself. But these lobbyists whose paycheck depends on the profits of these industries are pretty scummy for trying to build up their clients through specious attacks. Whatever the failings of the Humane Society, at least they're doing something to make the world a better place. The Center for Consumer Freedom (what a shitty name) is just hoping to continue this country's long tradition of political obfuscation, since people are too stupid to make up their own minds about pretty much anything. Don't believe the kitten, folks.

By Jimmy Legs | Posted in Advertising, Animals, Bad Stuff, Politics | Comments (1)

September 10, 2007 – 1:24 pm

Shaking all over

The kitten-snaring is proving to be more difficult than I originally thought. The kittens keep coming back every night but they won't stay inside. Yesterday I came closer but even this instance was anticlimactic.

First of all, my girlfriend was set to return in the early evening, so I had been cleaning up the bachelor-pad aesthetic around the house, going to the store, etc. She came home just as Gladys was wandering around in the are way. Our reunion was punctured by the sounds of a cat howling like a stuck pig. Gladys was antsy but not the source of the noise. Then Jeannie noticed tiny cat feet poking out under the door inside the stoop stairs.

Most townhouses that have a stoop have a small storage space under the stairs. I had been noticing that a lot of moisture had been collecting inside it, so the day before I had opened the door to facilitate evaporation. Well, it seems Gladys moved at least one of her kittens inside! The problem here was that earlier in the day I had closed the door again, unknowingly trapping the kitten. It turns out that Gladys is small enough to fit through the holes in our gate door, so I never even realized what she had done.

The trapped kitten was the female, white with orange spots. She scrambled out from under the stoop and joined her mother. Gladys convinced her to hop onto the windowsill where some food was waiting. The kitten went in, and I came from outside and shut the screen behind her. The kitten did not like this one bit.

She jumped into the other window and repeatedly tried to push through the screen. When she realized she was stuck, she whined and hissed a lot. We brought her food, which she ate voraciously, in between hissing and spitting at us. Oddly, she did not once try to scratch or bite.

So, we had one kitten on the premises. As though she understood the drill, Gladys went out and lured another kitten over (I think the other two kittens were back at their original site from down the street). The kitten approached the open window and I again tried to shut the screen behind him. However, this kitten was ready to throw down. He dashed through window and I just caught him as he ran past. I picked him up, whereupon I received two really deep scratches to my hands. I opened the back door and threw the kitten in (where he was met by Lucy and Jefe). I thought we had him, but instead of immediately closing the screen I stupidly went inside. The kitten saw his chance and zipped out the open window.

So now we had one kitten in hand, who although eating well, was shooting us daggers from her windowsill. The second kitten was gone and probably super freaked by the experience. Gladys was outside again, freaking the female kitten out because she was looking at her from the other side of the screen. Eventually she came in and comforted the kitten, before heading back out again. We waited in vain for her to return with more kittens. she came back several times to eat and check on the other kitten. But they were either too scared or too smart to attempt another breach.

The captured kitten slept a little bit but was otherwise a real chore to have around, as she wouldn't stop whining in a particularly grating, frog-like tone. At one point we thought she was calming down as she seemed to be purring. But then it was determined she was actually trembling. At some point Gladys came back and when she left we opened the window and the kitten went out with her. The kitten actually went back under the stoop, so we're hoping that space has not been tainted in her mind by us well-meaning humans. I later put a towel and some food in there. Nobody was there this morning but the food had been largely consumed (though there are any number of cats that could have eaten it).

So goes the life of the amateur cat rescuer. Talk about armchair quarterbacking, the cats are literally coming to us here! It's pretty cute that Gladys has been bringing us the kittens, but it's harder to convince the kittens it's a good idea. They still appear fairly young so there is hope they can be unferalized and turned into pet cats, but we'd have to get them socialized fairly soon. Otherwise, they'll be the next generation of garbage-eatin', baby-makin', dogfight-batin' alley cats.

By Jimmy Legs | Posted in Cats, Feral, kittens, Strays | Comments Off

September 7, 2007 – 2:50 pm

Each one seeking happiness

Three Pennies, originally uploaded by Jimmy Legs.

These are some pennies I had in my pocket. Fascinating! The one on the left is a wheat penny, which if this site is to be believed, is worth about 3 cents currently. Apparently 1909 was the year to save them, not 1957 as in this case.

More than the wheat penny issue, notice how Honest Abe changed over years. Is it just me or does the modern incarnation of The Great Empancipator look like he's sourly smirking?

By Jimmy Legs | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off

September 7, 2007 – 9:49 am

It's another hungry mouth to feed

Gladys' kitten!, originally uploaded by Jimmy Legs.

As you know, there are several mother cats who come to us for food on a daily basis. They don't live in the house (although sometimes they do overstay their welcome) but know this is the food spot. We had been hoping that when their kittens are old enough, they would bring them over as well. But these cats live on the street side of the house, and their nests are across the street. So we didn't know if we'd ever see their offspring. Well last night they made the trek.

Gladys came over as usual and was eating when I noticed a little face in the window. There was a 10/11 week old kitten there, checking out the food bowl. Slowly, the kitten stuck its head in and started going to town on the cat food. I got the above photos at this point from across the room. The kitten eventually got spooked because I moved in too close. But it came back, and brought with it another kitten. Both were gray tabbies with white undercarriage, and both have the googly eyes like their mother.

They kept eating while Gladys stood around looking nervous. They hopped down to the floor briefly but when I looked over the couch to see them, they bolted out to the stoop. They came back and ate some more but eventually left. I thought that would be it for the evening, but then Gladys came back with yet another kitten!

This one was all white with orange spots and was the shyest of the 3. It would run if I just looked straight at it. Meanwhile, the first kitten was getting braver and actually came into the living room. It roamed around until it found a catnip mouse, which it started playing with. At this inopportune time, Jefe decided to notice the kittens and started going after it. As usual, I think he just wanted to play, but kittens rarely have the necessary insight to understand this. So I locked him in the bedroom for a while.

The kittens had their fill, but hung around the stoop. By the time I went to bed they were huddled in the steps leading down to the ground floor door, which kept them out of sight pretty well. Tonight I'm gonna make a more concerted effort to get them all inside. They're skittish but they're still so young I don't think they're all that afraid of me. My goal this time around will be to adopt them out, as well as their mother. Gladys is pretty darn cute in her own right: