I know, I know. It’s a cheap shot. Using animals to pad your blog posts? How original.
But as the famous Internet saying goes, “When in doubt—cute animals!”
So here are a few more videos that have animals in them.
Recipe: Take 5 ducklings and 1 yo-yo. Add motion. Enjoy.
The following video, in addition to being objectively entertaining, also teaches us an important lesson about determination: Never give up, keep going, even if you’re facing an immobile statue that refuses to engage with you in any way. Miracles do happen. (Not in this case, though.)
Whoever came up with this next video is both a comedic genius and willing to tiptoe along the edges of the “animal cruelty” border. I’m not sure whether forcing kittens to ever-so-gently smash into each other in slow motion qualifies as cruelty. What I do know is that this amuses me more than it probably should.
That’s it for me. I will be back with further, more word-filled posts in the near future.
If you haven’t, there’s a good chance you’re not a cat. If you have, then you know how Django felt around one week ago.
Our cats, seeing as they’re cats, still haven’t grasped such concepts as “don’t scratch that”, “don’t play with that” and “don’t go there”. Anything with a “don’t” in it, basically.
This also applies to their repeated attempts at following us onto the balcony. Ever since Django and Pebbles became permanent residents in our apartment I find myself spending increasingly more time on the balcony. Occasionally I’m there to clean out their cat litter, but mostly I’m there to sob uncontrollably over the fact that it’s the only place left in the house where I can be alone and in peace.
After one of the regular cat litter cleaning sessions I was going back into the apartment and had to shoo Django away from the balcony door. What I failed to notice was that, while I was turning around with the litter box in my hands, Django ninjaed his way back to the door and placed his tail ever so carefully between the door and the wall, where the hinges are.
What happened when I closed the door cost me several years of my life and about 17 million nerve cells. Django let out a blood-curdling noise that is best described as “ten baby seals being bludgeoned to death by a shrieking opera singer”.
Here’s a picture of Pebbles looking cute to take your mind off that mental image
I frantically scrambled to open the door again. Django bolted into another room where he proceeded to hide behind the couch and send evil stares my way. Thankfully his tail was intact and he quickly recovered from the shock. We’re back to being friends, although I can’t rule out that he’s plotting to murder me in my sleep one day.
The next day we took both kittens to the vet to get sterilised and neutered, which is a mandatory requirement of the shelter where we got them. So, in addition to pinching Django’s tail in the door I am indirectly responsible for him losing his testicles. I really should start sleeping with both eyes open.
Both surgeries went fine. In the evening we were treated to a few solid hours of Django and Pebbles wobbling around the house and unsuccessfully attempting to jump onto furniture while still recovering from anaesthesia. They even attempted such extreme feats as eating in this semi-drugged state…with predictable results:
Nom-nom time AND nap time at once. Win-win!
Other than that they’re just kittens being kittens. Their play time is usually around 5AM, which you will notice is when the rest of us tend to sleep. How two little kittens manage to generate the noise-equivalent of a rampaging elephant herd will forever remain a mystery. A loud, sleep-shattering mystery.
To wrap up, here are Django and Pebbles in a rare moment of calm and tranquility (warning, the video you’re about to watch has an unusually high adorableness factor):
I know. Cats again. I’ve been a bit lazyish with the blog lately, so I’m using the kittens as post fodder. Bad Daniel. This must stop. It will stop. Soon.
…until it does – did you know that cats communicate through a series of eerie noises? People on Youtube insist on calling these scary sounds “chirping”, but don’t let that fool you – this is how cats keep their worldwide spy communications encrypted.
It’s not long before they rise up and take what’s rightfully theirs, enslaving humans and making us all prance around like horses for their enjoyment. Oh wait, some of us already do that.
But for now we can still make fun of their chirping sounds. Watch this video of Django and Pebbles hunting flies and tell me they don’t sound like aliens from Mars Attacks!
Are any of you wondering why this post was called “The Fall”? Did you somehow miss Django’s epic fail in the above video? Allow me to help:
We’ve now had Django and Pebbles at home for almost two weeks. They’re everything you’d expect kittens to be: cute, cuddly, playful, too-curious-for-own-good. The lot.
However, I’ve been noticing some patterns in their behaviour. Patterns that hint at things not being quite right with these little cats. Yes, I’m afraid our two kittens are a bit…confused. I was going to say “stupid”, but I hear that cats can steal your breath, so I won’t be taking any risks.
Prior to their arrival we have purchased a bucket-load of different toys and other cat items. Some of these are used as prescribed, but the vast majority aren’t. It appears that Django and Pebbles are struggling to figure out the purpose for most of their stuff. Or maybe they’re just messing with our heads. It’s probably the latter.
What’s that? You want examples and you want them right now? Why yes, imaginary voice in my head, I can indeed provide you with the examples you seek.
We’ve built two little tents for Django and Pebbles to sleep in. We found two pillows that fit neatly inside the tents. We placed these tents in comfortable, out of the way locations, so that kittens could sleep in privacy. Here’s how these tents looked to begin with:
Did any sleep occur inside these tents? None. Instead they’ve been used for everything from ambush spots to hide-and-seek locations. At some stage a tent played the role of an advanced roller coaster – Django sat inside as it was being rolled down a small flight of stairs by Pebbles.
If you stay very very quiet, they can’t see you.
After a few days one of the tents was showing signs of wear-and-tear and had to be patched up by generous application of duct tape. This proved entirely pointless. This is how the “tent” looked earlier today:
Surrender now, humans! Repairs are futile!
Katka has also been lovingly growing some special cat grass for the kittens. She checked up on its growth daily, eagerly awaiting the day it could finally be given to the cats. The day finally arrived and Katka proudly placed the grass in front of Django. Django interpreted the grass’ demeanour as threatening and proceeded to defend himself. With fists. Or, more accurately, paws. Fawsts? Nevermind, here:
We also have a so-called “Scratching Wave”. Whoever manufactured this thing naively assumed that it would be used for scratching, as the laughably incorrect product shot demonstrates:
That cat is either glued in place or is made of papier-mâché.
I can confidently announce that neither Django nor Pebbles have scratched any parts of this product at any point time. They’ve already used the tent for that purpose. They do love sleeping on and under the “Scratching Wave”, though, so there’s that.
In short, our cats insist on using things for anything other than their intended purposes. Occasionally this works to our advantage, like when we had to weigh Django a few days ago. We figured we could use our kitchen scale to do so, if only we could somehow get him to stay inside a bowl while we placed it on the scale. We brought Django over to the bowl and carefully lowered him inside, ready to grab him should he try to escape. Apparently the bowl offered unprecedented comfort, because Django stayed inside of it for the next half hour:
It’s a vary naice. I like! High fiiiiive!
I don’t think I’ll ever understand these cats, but as long as they don’t start building sand castles out of their kitty litter we’ll be just fine.
I’ve just realised that this post inadvertently turned into Django tribute, with very little mention of Pebbles and absolutely no photos of her. Here’s one to compensate (with a bonus Django appearance):
If I know my audience, which I don’t, then I’m certain you all were missing my infamous kittens posts and losing sleep over it. I am here to remedy this imaginary problem right away.
We finally picked up Django and Pebbles on Thursday evening. During their short stay at our place they’ve already taught me some valuable lessons. Here come these lessons, which none of you really wanted to hear.
4. Sleep is entirely optional
Until three days ago I considered eight hours of sleep to be an indispensable part of a healthy existence, like breathing or hating Justin Bieber. Turns out that’s bullshit. You only need a few hours of sleep a night, tops.
The first night our new kittens were too stressed about being separated from their mom. That was only fair. How would you feel about two strangers showing up at your house, kidnapping you right in front of your mother, stuffing you in a shoulder-bag and carrying you through the city while you meowed? OK, that analogy got away from me.
Yet think of all the flight ticket savings…
Anyways, Django and Pebbles woke us up a couple of times during the first night with their meows and we stayed with them until they calmed down. It was exactly like being parents. I say this with all the authority of a man that doesn’t have children and that held maybe two and a half babies during his whole life. Don’t ask about the half, it’s a long story.
The second night I got up to use the toilet at around 4AM and ended up filming the kittens play in the dark for half an hour. And no, this wasn’t creepy in any way whatsoever, thanks for asking.
Yesterday night I woke up multiple times just thinking about kitten related stuff like “why aren’t they meowing?” and “should I go film them in the dark for half an hour?”.
I’m running on far less sleep than I’m used to…and I’m perfectly fine. Why, just a few minutes ago I passed out at my laptop, drooled on the keyboard and short-circuited the Western Copenhagen area. Throughout all of this I barely noticed anything was out of order. So yeah, perfectly fine!
Wake the hell up, man! Sleep is for losers!
3. Kittens have superpowers
You wouldn’t gather this from their deceptively cute looks and purry demeanour, but kittens possess some real-life superpowers. Django’s consist mainly of escaping unscathed from high altitude falls that sound like they’d shattered every bone in his body and caused earthquakes in mainland China.
Pebbles…is a whole different story.
On Friday I worked from home to be there for the kittens and help them adjust to their new living arrangements. Both kittens were in the room with me the whole time…or so I thought. When I tried to locate Pebbles I realised she wasn’t there. I looked under the couch where she’d been before. I even looked behind the couch, because I’m not easily deterred. I looked everywhere in the room. Then everywhere around the apartment.
It was official: I’d lost a kitten in less than 24 hours. In my own apartment. I was the shittiest kitten sitter in the world, not counting the cat-juggling guy who lives outside our house and whom I’ve just invented for the purpose of this narrative.
You leave those ball-shaped kittens the hell alone, guy!
I was just in the middle of writing a heartfelt letter to my fiancee, explaining why I chose to permanently leave the country and sever all ties with her and my friends, when Pebbles…I shit you not…magically materialised from within the very same couch I’d inspected earlier. She acted as if teleporting through solid objects was the most ordinary thing you could imagine.
Rational people among you will try to explain this phenomenon away with nonsense like “she just hid in a crevice within the couch that you didn’t see”, but I know what truly happened.
Ladies and gentlemen – Pebbles is the T-1000:
2. Basil isn’t what it seems
On the first day we moved some of our plants into a closed-off room. Some plants were considered toxic to cats, some we just wanted to save from an onslaught of claws and teeth. When I entered the room some hours later it had acquired a very distinct aroma. I think we can all agree that “distinct aroma” is a much classier phrase than “cat piss”, which is what the room actually smelled like.
This was puzzling, seeing how the kittens have not accessed this room since their arrival. How did they manage to transfer their smell into a closed room? Was their pee also capable of teleportation? While I was busy pondering these important questions my fiancee came up with the silly notion that the basil plant was responsible for the smell. How very silly of her! I had to Google it just to show her how silly she was bei…
Mind = blown
Holy shit! Holy pee, even. Turns out that supermarket basil often smells like cat pee. That’s a horrible thing for an edible herb to smell of. Shame on you, basil. I’m so disappointed.
1. Kittens will melt your fucking face
Did I say “face”? I meant “heart”. Kittens will melt your goddamn heart.
We only had them for three short days and I already can’t imagine how we ever did without them. I hope I manage to avoid losing them inside the apartment again. That would be worse than eating basil after the tidbit I’ve shared above.
It’s official: we’re getting cats. Plural. Two. Two cats. We’ll have two cats in the house soon. OK, I think I made it clear enough.
We’ve entertained this idea for a while now. Maybe a year or so. The timing was just never quite right. Considering our then-upcoming trip to Australia we didn’t want to leave young kittens with someone else for five whole weeks.
Frankly, we weren’t supposed to be getting kittens until after the wedding later this year, but I guess fate has a funny way of being used as a clichéd explanation for spontaneous decisions, whenever people feel there’s “a sign”. What a mess of a sentence, but I’ll be damned if I go back to edit it.
A friend of ours works at a cat shelter. It just so happens that she’s currently fostering four kittens and their mother, until the kittens are old enough to be adopted. Two of them have already been spoken for, leaving two “up for grabs”. Do you see where this is going? Good.
So let me cut right to the chase.
Meet the lady, Pebbles:
Miiiallo
And the dude, Django:
‘Sup, yo!
Do you know what this means? Apart from the obvious answer that “we’ll have cats at home”.
It means that I’m about to turn into “that type of blogger”. The one with occasional photo updates and wacky cat stories. Maybe even Youtube videos. That’ll be something new, right? They don’t have any cats on Youtube, do they?
Until we have a baby, that is. Then I’ll turn into the daddy blogger writing about poop and diapers. There’s so much to look forward to!
We don’t actually get the cats until late May. They have to stay with their mother until they’re at least 12 weeks old. However, we intend to visit them on a weekly basis to monitor their progress and gather embarrassing pictures for posterity.
While you wait for the wacky cat stories, may I suggest you check out a wacky “Kat” story about my girlfriend that I just posted on bytestories.com. Why should I be the only one being made fun of in my “memory lane” series?
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How about all of you? What are your views on cats, dogs and diaper stories? Are you a dog person or a cat person? Do you believe there’s such a thing as a “dog” or “cat” person, or are you, like me, simply an “animal” person? Are animals people? Was this way too many questions?
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