Category Archives: super furry animals

Tongue Bath

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I really love the idea of dogs. I usually find something cute about even the mangiest of them, and the thought of having this constant companion who cares about everything you say, wants to go wherever you want to go, appreciates your cooking so much he jumps onto the table to get it, and makes strangers baby-talk to him out of nowhere is pretty attractive to me.

When I’m actually around dogs, though, I’m reminded that they poop with abandon without ever offering to help clean up, force their pointy little heads into every available just-washed palm for petting, are so difficult to bathe that their owners rarely do it, and have no concept of the difference between Thanksgiving turkey and bird crap.

So watching this bit of face-licking go down through the lens of my camera on Christmas at my parents’ house gave me palpitations:

beagle dog licking face

beagle dog licking face

My sister’s beagle. My stepbrother’s baby. Endless nightmares.

Crazy Cat Lady

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Like I told Cassie today, I took 238 pictures while I was home in Ohio for Thanksgiving last week, and 237 of them were of Tracey‘s cats. (The other one was of myself, naturally.)

I can’t quite tell if cats are like kids in that they’re only cute if you actually know them (or have read extensive blog posts showcasing their darling personalities), so these pictures might make your day or cause your hand to cramp from all of the lord-just-get-me-through-this mouse-scrolling.

Tracey's Cats

Tracey's Cats

Tracey's Cats

Rupert is the loving one. He’ll slink around the kitchen when he knows you’re in the living room and just meow his fool head off, waiting for you to pay attention to him. He’s always the first to play with any toy and the last to cut your thigh open while you’re just trying to trim his nails, though he will politely box your face.

Tracey's Cats

Tracey's Cats

Graham has been the shy one ever since Tracey and her husband, Dan, bought a house and moved him from the apartment they had when they first adopted him. When he was a kitten, he was the frolickiest thing I’d ever seen; one of my fondest/scariest memories of spending the night in Tracey and Dan’s old apartment is sleeping on the couch and waking up to see Graham jumping from the armrest to the back of the couch, claws splayed out as he flew over my head.

Tracey's Cats

But Graham is also the most easily-entertained. Tracey keeps scraps of paper from her scrapbooking and taunts Graham by pushing strips of it in between DVDs on their bookcase so that it hangs out over the shelf, way too high for him to ever reach. He and Rupert will sit staring at these things for minutes at a time, making this little noise that they taught each other to do by clicking their jaws up and down.

Tracey's Cats

Tracey's Cats

Tracey's Cats

Tracey's Cats

WHAT ARE THEY LOOKING AT?

Tracey's Cats

Tracey's Cats

Tracey's Cats

Tracey's Cats

Tracey's Cats

Tracey claimed that Rupert likes it when she does this. And then he immediately bit her.

Tracey's Cats

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand I think I can officially be called a crazy cat lady now.

The Practice Thanksgiving

Filed under all of my friends are prettier than i am, holidays don't suck for me, living in new york is neat, par-tay, super furry animals
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One of the things about living in NYC that I’ve found hardest to adjust to is not hanging out at people’s apartments. We all either live in places too small to hold more than two people at a time or places too out of the way for anyone to want to travel to. If it’s not one, it’s the other.

But this year, my friend Ash was determined to have a practice Thanksgiving at her apartment and went all-out with impressive invitations, a massive menu, and promises that she would hunt us down and stuff us if we didn’t make it worth her while to take up her entire refrigerator with a brining turkey for two days. So we took cabs or spent three hours navigating weekend subway construction to make it to her and her husband, Michael’s, Queens apartment last Saturday night for a pre-Thanksgiving feast our families will have a hard time topping tomorrow.

Pre-Thanksgiving at Ash and Michael's

Michael and Ash got rid of about half of the furniture in their place to make room for this new dining table they bought especially for the occasion. Well worth it, I say.

Pre-Thanksgiving at Ash and Michael's

Ash carved a turkey for the first time and looked smokin’ doing it.

Pre-Thanksgiving at Ash and Michael's

The turkey was about the moistest meat I’ve ever had in my life. The stuffing was fruity, the sweet potatoes spicy, the twice-baked potatoes bacony, the cauliflower casserole creamy, the green beans smoky, the apple pie belly-warming, the lemon cheesecake rich.

There was gravy, too, but I never eat gravy. Am I the only one who thinks it’s tooooooootally weird stuff?

Michael was in high spirits,

Pre-Thanksgiving at Ash and Michael's

Ash was being Betty Sue Homemaker,

Pre-Thanksgiving at Ash and Michael's

Jack was his usual pleasant self,

Pre-Thanksgiving at Ash and Michael's

Jeff was complaining that the ice cream was regular vanilla and not vanilla bean,

Pre-Thanksgiving at Ash and Michael's

Gizmo was pretending to innocently play with a ball under the table while secretly waiting for dropped turkey,

Pre-Thanksgiving at Ash and Michael's

Pre-Thanksgiving at Ash and Michael's

and Penny, the cat we found in the Hamptons, was acting like all of us would be about two minutes after dinner:

Pre-Thanksgiving at Ash and Michael's

Success!

Pre-Thanksgiving at Ash and Michael's

Avian Holocaust

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This morning, my co-worker Anthony sent me this photo and asked, “Is this too gross to put on Facebook?”:

Dead Cardinal

I wrote back and said, “Um, NO. It’s beautiful! And it’s the state bird of Ohio.”

He said, “I knew you would appreciate it, and I agree, but I got some very strange looks while I was shooting it.”

I said, “I’ve taken more than one photo of a dead bird in my time, so I know those looks well.” I didn’t mention that I’m also the girl who takes pictures of stray food and URINE, FOR GOD’S SAKE.

Dead Bird in Revolving Doors

This one was stuck in the revolving doors of my office building. I wanted to get a really down-and-dirty picture of it, but all of my co-workers were waiting for me outside for our monthly dinner club, and the security guards were staring me down like I was some sort of freak for wanting a lasting memory of a crushed bird.

Dead Pigeon

This one was on the stairs leading up to Tudor City from the United Nations headquarters, and I appreciated that someone had . . . I don’t know . . . scooped it onto a pile of cardboard and given it something to eat but still left it there in the middle of the stairs to get stepped on in the dark? Now that I look back, I’m slightly worried that the thing was clinging to its last breath, and there I was, repeatedly flashing a bright light in its eyes for my blogging whims.

Dog Debris

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Even though I would never even consider stealing snotty, germy, needy little kids, I’ll admit that the temptation to untie this little guy from the trashcan and run away with him this morning was pretty intense:

As much as I love that dogs are allowed into so many places here, I almost like it more when they have to wait outside.

I wonder how many of them get stolen every day by girls with allergic boyfriends who just want a couple hours of slobbery fun. I’ll bet the Bramble in Central Park has been colonized by kidnapped puppies released back into the wild.