The Lion Cut

Jim Hates Cats

So, funny thing-- both my parents got remarried within two months of each other, 5 years ago. Dalila, my dad's wife is cool, and Jim, my mom's new husband is pretty chill too-- only... there's kind of a BIG problem that my mom seemed to have overlooked before she tied the knot for all of eternity... Jim hates animals. Well, cats to be specific. I find it odd that this wasn't a larger factor, or didn't create issues before they wed, but they got engaged after six months, so how well can you really know a person, RIGHT?!?! Just kidding. Kind of. Anyway, though he denies it (sometimes), Jim doesn't like animals.

Exhibit 1: When Jim was a child, he had a big, let's just say a big friendly lab puppy, since the breed of the dog seems to have slipped my mind at the moment. So, Jim's large friendly lab pup, liked to play and jump around, like any normal puppy would. Here's where shit gets weird... So, this one day, the lab puppy was really riled up, jumping and playing and he wouldn't settle down. How does Jim solve the problem? He punches the dog in the stomach.... the pup then proceeds to wobble around in a circle a few times, until it ultimately throws up on his kitchen floor. Somehow, when Jim tells it, he's laughing throughout the whole story, while my mother and I are objecting and gasping through the whole thing. Fortunately, Jim says about 30 seconds after the lab upchucked, he was back jumping around Jim and trying to play with him. So he says....

So, naturally, Jim doesn't like our favorite little furry felines. Yet, this hasn't stopped our family tradition of always having more than one cat at a time (thank god). Unfortunately though, the only other man in the house, Moo (our cat of seven years), decided one day, that he was going to move out. This is another tale for another time, but long story short-- Moo moved in two houses down our street into our foreign  neighbor's home... SICK MOO. REALLY COOL.

Moving on (no pun intended), this left our other cat, Bella, all alone. And because my sister and I have both left the nest, and my mother and Jim are at work all day long, Bella's been pretty lonely and depressed. This is where I offer a solution!

So, before I got my summer internship in Washington DC, my plan was to go home for the summer and bring Linky along with me to meet the fam, and get a feel for where he would eventually be living with me for the next three years, while I'm in law school. But because I won't be going home for the summer, and I don't feel leaving comfortable leaving Lincoln alone for three months with people he doesn't know, in a strange place he's never been before-- plans changed. We decided Lincoln would stay up here, with Nickolas and Danielle.

This actually worked out, because now I have a replacement cat to take home instead-- toothless/the black cat/senora fluffel bottom(/and now, according to my mother---Precious)! While everyone is just so excited to meet the new addition, Jim, on the other hand, is not.

Since he's heard the news that the black cat is moving in this summer, strange things have been happening. For instance, sometimes, I'll receive texts from Bella off of  Jim's cell phone, stating that she will be hostile towards the new cat, and that it can not come to stay permanently, or even for a short period.

Since then he's gotten a little more creative, sending me various pictures and emails:

Ah, what really takes the cake though, is this last email he sent me:

This is me circa 2009, when my best friend Asha and I went to Cancun after our high school graduation.......don't know how he found this picture....lololol....like sick joke. The captions really add such a nice touch...

Anyway, like I've told Jim, sorry, the decision has been made. Resistance is futile. Accept defeat. The cat is coming. 

Pardon our french. Danielle and I just wanted to capture the essence that is toothless/the black cat/senora fluffel bottom. You can clearly see here, that toothless/the black cat/senora fluffel bottom is the one causing all of the problems here. For a month we've been trying to slowly assimilate them with one another, and while Lincoln follows her around timidly attempting to play with her, as you can see in the video, she's just not havin it.

Word Vomit

CATS. Meow. Meow. Meow. I currently have two cats living in my (their) apartment. While you may not know this about me, I’m a bit of a stress case sometimes. Especially since I stopped smoking pot for my internship this summer... i’ve been kind of a cray. I mean, I know they say the ganjjj makes you paranoid, but I think I’m experiencing the exact opposite. I have been paranoid as fuck lately. And just to say this as well, WEB MD IS NOT CHILL. 

Now, that i’ve gotten that preface out of the way, let me tell you why i’ve been chipping away at the $35 dollar manicure I got last week (sooo not worth it either), I’m pretty sure, after doing much careful consideration and research on the internet, that the black stray cat that just happened to randomly walk into our house, and then never leave, has an upper respiratory infection. 

Everyone thinks I’m bat shit crazy when it comes to medical conditions I think I or my roommate or boyfriend might have, but just think how crazy I get when you throw cats in the mix... one word: PSYCHO. 

So, pretty sure the black cat is slowly dying and infecting everyone in the house. She has all the signs and symptoms, and sometimes she goes into these wheezing spells, which at first i assumed these little episodes were just her trying to cough up hairballs, since she has a fuck load of fur. She’s literally all fur. All matted, tangled (but clean), black dull fur. Well, actually, she has a lot of missing chunks of fur now because Nickolas and I went to town two on her with the scissors two days ago in preparation for my mom coming this weekend. I want the black cat to make a good impression on my mother because the plan is that i’m going to take the black cat home to live with my mom for the summer and my precious Lincoln is going to stay up here with (what many people refer to as) my girlfriend Danielle and my (actual) boyfriend Nickolas. 

Anyway, so I’ve been reading a lot of shit online about the upper respiratory infections cats can get. They can be either viral or caused by a certain bacteria. I know she has it. I just know it. And while I’m stressed about coming home to see a lifeless cat body on my apartment floor, i’m more stressed that Lincoln 

might get it now too, which to be honest, since the black cat has been living here for over a month, he def has it. I’m so sad! and scared! i don’t want anything bad to happen to him! I also, don’t want to give this black cat to my mom and then have it infect Bella and Moo, our cats at home! STRESSED. I DON’T  KNOW WHAT TO DO. BUT I CAN’T BRING MYSELF TO TAKE THE BLACK TO THE SHELTER. FACK. 

What Im trying to avoid ^^^^

CATS I'VE TRIED TO STEAL

Don't ask me why, but I'm a firm believer that I can make a friend out of any cat. ESPECIALLY the ones I meet by chance!

Met this little gem my freshman year at UC Davis on picnic day. By this time, I was extremely intoxicated, and my friends told me I attempted to take the cat with us. Literally. I picked it up and was trying to force it into my drawstring backpack. Sadly, this must have startled my feline friend, because she  dodged my backpack, and flew out of my arms, and basically booked it. Along the way, she managed to puncture my skin, in which my friend proceeded to pour vodka all over my flesh wound to cleanse it. Smart...

NOT A CAT, BUT I DONT CARE

Trying to steal kitties at parties!

After I fed this cat tuna the first time I saw him, he kept frequently coming back to Nick's house for about a month! My neighbors convinced me it was morally wrong to be trying to coax a cat with a collar (and presumably a home) to come live with us. So, I eventually stopped :(

Tried to convince Nickolas to let me stuff this little baby in my purse, so we could have two cats, while I was at the shelter picking out Lincoln.... sadly, he objected for some reason...

Again, at parties, would rather stay in the garage trying to coax this cat to come hang out with us...

I didn't try to steal Nemo, but when my little Natasha left the room, don't think I didn't consider it. 

TELL ME HOW I COULD NOT WANT TO TAKE THESE BABIES WHEN MY FRIEND MICHAEL WAS LOOKING FOR HOMES FOR THEM!!! GAHHHH, my mom's husband Jim would not allow it! He said, "absolutely NO MORE CATS."

Met this beauty at some hippie shop on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. She was so sweet, and was following me around the store. Tried to see if she would follow me OUT of the shop... but she didn't :(

Yet another fierce feline that would show up at our doorstep from time to time meowing and expecting tuna!

Though I didn't actually try to steal this cat myself, on his walk home from school, my neighbor saw these little cuties playing. I was actively calling and texting, trying to convince him to either try and get them himself or at least give me his location so I could help him! He refused. 

          Last night, the most amazing thing happened to me. It was about 8:45 pm when my roommate Danielle and I decided to get off the couch, and start making some moves. She was off to go get some dinner, and I was going to go see a late night showing of the Hunger Games with my boyfriend Nickolas. Much to our surprise, our planned courses of action were thwarted when we opened our front door.

          I gasped, and we both froze. Sitting on our doorstep was a huge, ball of black fluff. A little dazed and confused, we watched the ball of fluff confidently saunter into our apartment as if it had lived there it’s whole life. 

          After the first few initial seconds of staring at it in awe, trying to figure out what it was, we realized it was a PERSIAN CAT. 

          Immediately, I ran into the kitchen and opened up a can of cat food and poured some water into a bowl. WE COULD NOT CONTAIN OUR EXCITEMENT. 

Luckily, Lincoln was at Nick's house at the time, so we didn't have to worry about 

Telling Time in Meow

So, this is going to be a basic tutorial in how to tell time when speaking meow. 

It's quite simple actually. Notice how there are four letters in the word "meow." To convey the hour, you utilize each letter in the word meow, for each letter signifies an hour.

BEHOLD:

M- 1:00

ME- 2:00

MEO- 3:00

MEOW- 4:00

From here on is where it might get tricky for some of you, but it's still fairly easy since you basically apply the fundamental rules of addition...

MEOW M- 5:00

MEOW ME- 6:00

MEOW MEO- 7:00

MEOW MEOW- 8:00

And so on....

MEOW MEOW M- 9:00

MEOW MEOW ME- 10:00

MEOW MEOW MEO- 11:00

MEOW MEOW MEOW- 12:00

So, that's how you would go about telling the time if it's on the hour. Things get a little more complicated if it's not exactly [insert number here] 'o clock, buuuuut not really. Still fairly simple.

So, to refer to the minutes, you first have to establish exactly which increment of ten you are on by making meow plural, and adding. 

BEHOLD:

3:10- MEO MEOWS

3:20- MEO MEOWS MEOWS

3:30- MEO MEOWS MEOWS MEOWS

3:40- MEO MEOWS MEOWS MEOWS MEOWS

3:50- MEO MEOWS MEOWS MEOWS MEOWS MEOWS

Easy enough, right?

Now, for the minutes. Probably the easiest part in telling time in Meow. You literally just say the word mew for however many minutes you're trying to convey.

BEHOLD:

3:05- MEO MEW MEW MEW MEW MEW

3:15- MEO MEOWS MEW MEW MEW MEW MEW 

3:25- MEO MEOWS MEOWS MEW MEW MEW MEW MEW

3:35- MEO MEOWS MEOWS MEOWS MEW MEW MEW MEW MEW

3:45- MEO MEOWS MEOWS MEOWS MEOWS MEW MEW MEW MEW MEW