Midafternoon Maddie

Halooooooo!!

What kind of spider is this? is it delicious?

Stop working and take a nap with me.

The evil alien carrot!

Not a great photo, but you can see that she's already hard at work defending us all from the evil alien carrot hordes.

Playing with all these toys is exhausting.

Lion kitty Maxx

Yes, we have a new baby, but that doesn't mean we're not thinking of (and missing) the best boy evah.

More Maddie

At the risk of completely spoiling you guys.

She has a nice spotted tummy. Does this qualify as kitten pRon?

She'd like to know if I've got something else for her to eat up there.

Lamb and chicken pate is delicious!!

The unbearable cuteness of kittenz

There's not much to add to these pictures. She's with her Valentine teddy bear on my desk in the bottom photo.

As watertiger would say, "EEEEEEEEEEEEP!!"

Sunday kitten

Maddie prepares to kill the feather monster on a stick. She likes to carry it around in her mouth.

Physics are fun!!

"What are you doing with that laptop and why can't I walk on the keyboard?"

She woke up around 10:00 am, had some breakfast and then proceeded to run around like a little crazy kitty. Even with a flash and a quick shutter she's tough to photograph. She zooms off out of the frame before I can get a shot off. She's so sweet, when she bats at me with her paws, she doesn't even put her claws out. She runs around chirping and trilling to herself. She's almost unbearably cute.

More kittenz

Maddie and one of her brothers play with the feather monster, one of her favorite toys.

Action kitty!!

Whenever she stops moving she always has that "D'oh!" expression.

This is Cody, one of the "kings" at the cattery. He was very freindly, crawling all over me, begging to be scritched and loved on. I love his chocolate milk mustache. I kept trying to get a good photograph of him, but he kept rubbing on the camera. So you're missing a glimpse of his truly spectacular tail.

All these photos were taken in Ft. Worth. Maddie is so comfortable now that she's running about like a little maniac. Oh, great, and she just climbed my leg for the first time.

Let Kitten Palooza commence!!

This is mom. She spent most of my visit hanging out on the sofa in an adjacent room where it was a little dark to get her photo. This is the best one I got- she's what they call a calico-patch.

This is Maddie (in front) with one of her little boy cousins. He's only 7 weeks old and cute as a bug. He didn't realize he was smaller than the other kittens, so he was right in the middle of things.

This is Max, Maddie's daddy. As you can see he's a great big, classic tabby.

Here's Maddie with two of her brothers. She's on the right, the kitten on the left is a little boy with almost identical markings. The little red one is a boy as well. The tail in front is the little 7 week old boy.

The breeder has several breeding pairs, so it seems like she always has a litter of kittenz around. How delightful!!

Meet Madeleine

The kitten has landed! Sorry for the wait, but today was a really long day- seven hours in the car for me, and over 3 for her. She didn't like being confined to the carrier in the car, but there were so many huge trucks on the road, I felt like having a kitten run about the car while I was trying to drive wouldn't be very safe.

She's hilarious- funny and playful and curious. Just a busy little thing. She's got quite a little motor, and she's already 'trilling,' something maine coons do. Now I think it's time for both of us to go back to bed- she's sleeping on my desk, close by, but I think she'd prefer to sleep on me.

She has a funny little face, no? I loves me her outrageous whiskers and eyebrows. So funny. I have pics of her litter mates and Mom and Dad. I'll post some of those tomorrow.

Updated to correct the spelling of her name. (thanks Plum P.!)

Mr. Plushy

I'm feeling a little sad this evening. My sweet, sweet Mr. Plushy.

T minus 22 hours

Hey, did you guys know that I'm getting a kitten?

Plush buddies

Al snoozing
Cooper, AKA "International Winner, Supreme Grand Champion, Lunarcoons' Copernicus"
Cooper and Al, who are related (Cooper is Al's nephew)



New reader Sherwood kindly sent me photos of his two giantic plushy buddies, Cooper and Al. They live with Sherwood and his wife in California. Cooper is a retired showcat, which accounts for his hilarious long name. Sherwood reports that, "Cooper is actually something of a celebrity; he was TICA International Longhaired Cat of the Year in the 2003-2004 season." The cattery that showed him went out of the cat breeding business and wanted to keep Cooper as a pet, but he didn't get along with the other male cat in the house.

Now he's living a life of ease and luxury, lording over the household and the three dogs in the home.

Teh plushy!!

Random kitten

See what I have to look forward to?

Only about 36 hours left until kittenz.

Daily Memorial Plush

I really loved it when he got all playful. This was taken a year ago, before he got ill. Life was good for both kitty and centaur.

Eternal Romance

Reuters/Enrico Paiello

Just in time for Valentine's day! a story of the eternal love among the skeletor tribe. Eternal embrace? Couple still hugging 5,000 years on

ROME (Reuters) - Call it the eternal embrace.

Archaeologists in Italy have discovered a couple buried 5,000 to 6,000 years ago, hugging each other.

"It's an extraordinary case," said Elena Menotti, who led the team on their dig near the northern city of Mantova.

"There has not been a double burial found in the Neolithic period, much less two people hugging -- and they really are hugging."

Menotti said she believed the two, almost certainly a man and a woman although that needs to be confirmed, died young because their teeth were mostly intact and not worn down.

Well, okay. They're not actually skeletors- but it would make a nice Sci-Fi channel movie.

Here's another pic- admit it, don't you wish you knew their story?

Maxx!!!!!!

Photograph by Dan Macmillan over Lake Karapiro in New Zealand. Makes ya want to move to the southern hemisphere, no?

Petcasso!!

Okay, this is something I learned about today. Visit Petcasso.com to see some of the most amazing pet portraits ever. Holy moly!!

While at lunch today a colleague told me about a mutual friend who had commissioned a portrait of his kitties from the artist- so I had to go visit. Now I know there are is a small cottage industry out there of pet portraiture, but this is in a whole 'nuther league. How perfectly delightful!! Check out the portrait of the chinese crested.

Petcasso is the business of Manhattan based artist Luis Ramos. He takes photos of your furry friend and captures him/her in the style of the old masters, in oil on canvas. Take a look at the gallery, all the portraits are wonderful.

Sigh. I'll bet Arthur J. would look delightful in oil, eh?

Where the wingnuts go....

...courtesy of a trip on my rocket fleet.

Of course they'll be going at night, so no worries!

Comet Maxx some more

This stunning image was captured by photographer Karim Sahai, over Houghton Bay, Wellington, NZ. Shot with a Canon 1DsII, using a 28mm lens at f5/6 for 25 seconds.

Gorgeous. Via Spaceweather.com.

Update: this is another photo that you really should click on and view the larger size image to get the full effect of the photograph (and to see Maxx more clearly).

Budding physicist

Just spoke to the breeder and it turns out that the babies have a particle accelerator in their nursery! and that they play with it for hours!!

Oh. My.

Look out Stephen Hawking

Morning angelic Plush

Handsome boy.

Remains

From Space.com: Image of the Day, the remnants of a supernova, IC443:

Glowing clouds of gas and dust are all that remain of the immense supernova that signaled a distant star’s end.

This supernova remnant, known as IC443, sits about 5,000 light-years from Earth in the direction of the Gemini constellation. The object is a well-studied target for astronomers, who believe the supernova explosion should have left a stellar corpse in the form of a neutron star at the heart of the remnant.

Astronomers used the MegaCam wide-field camera and the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope to capture this view of IC 426 from the summit of Hawaii’s dormant volcano Mauna Kea.

This image was provided by Jean-Charles Cuillandre of the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope and Giovanni Anselmi of Coelum Astronomia.

It looks like a giant sea creature is streaming out to menace the galaxy. Wait, how do we know that's not a giant sea creature?

Ooooo-OOO-ooooo.

Daily Memorial Plush

Since I've gotten so many requests to keep posting pictures of our favorite furry angel.

FoxSkeeters

Via Froomkin, we get the best description of official Washington and its enablers yet:

Nicholas Kristof asked readers to offer literary or historical parallels to the Bush administration and Iraq. He writes in his New York Times opinion column (subscription required): "A reader named Melissa S. e-mailed to say that she explains Iraq policy to her 8-year-old son in terms of Harry Potter characters: 'Dick Cheney is Lord Voldemort. George W. Bush is Peter Pettigrew.' Don Rumsfeld is Lucius Malfoy, while Cornelius Fudge represents administration supporters who deny that anything is wrong. And, she concludes, 'Daily Prophet reporter Rita Skeeter is Fox News.'"

Works for me.

Meanwhile, have you reserved your advance copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows yet? Yes, I am a complete and total Harry Potter geek. So sue me.

Goodbye Molly

Rodolfo Gonzalez/Austin American Statesman

Mostly I'm posting this because the photo shows Molly Ivins as a young woman. Damn, she was hot, eh? Like a lot of people, I only knew her in the past 10 years or so, and always think of her as a 50 plus year old.

Her memorial service was held in Austin on Sunday, and predictably, it was a party, not a wake.

Details here: One Last Party for Molly

Kittenz

I stole this off of a pet food website because it was so damned cute.

What's cuter than a sleeping baby kitty?

Edwards

NYTimes/Erik Jacobs

I haven't chosen which horse to back yet, but Edwards said something important recently, something that I liked quite a bit.

When asked what he'll do differently this time around, he said (I'm paraphrasing) that he'll be less concerned with being a "good candidate" and more concerned with how he'll govern if elected.

IMHO, that's what this country needs, less 'candidating' and more governing. Article about Edwards in today's NYTimes, here: Familiar Face, but a New Tone to the Message

Comet Maxx

Photo: Antti Kemppainen


This is so lovely you must click on the photo and look at the full size version. Really, I insist.

Photo caption:

On January 26, people from Perth, Australia gathered on a local beach to watch a sky light up with delights near and far. Nearby, fireworks exploded as part of Australia Day celebrations. On the far right, lightning from a thunderstorm flashed in the distance. Near the image center, though, seen through clouds, was the most unusual sight of all: Comet Maxx. The photogenic comet was so bright that it even remained visible though the din of Earthly flashes. Comet Maxx continues to move out from the Sun and dim, but should remain visible in southern skies with binoculars through the end of this month. The above image is actually a three photograph panorama digitally processed to reduce red reflections from the exploding firework.

Hat tip to Plum P.

The Moon!!!!!

This photo by Rune Christiansen catches both the moon halo and the aurora. Photographed near Nuuk, Greenland, with a Canon 5D.

Via Spaceweather.com.