Tag Archives: Guest Cat

It should be mentioned that not all Guest Cats are those belonging to friends and cohorts. For instance, a couple of guys at the office building where the Day Job is located found a really pretty kitty out along the side. They even named this little guy, but what exactly does “Lepew” mean?

“Me, try to murder you with a cat perch? Do you really believe a jury would believe THAT tale?”

Incidentally, no run of Guest Cat appearances would be complete without the notorious Alfred hogging the camera. Incidentally, this was right after he engaged in one of his favorite hobbies: looking straight at me, walking to a bookshelf, and flipping a few books onto the floor. While I was trying to pick them up, he jumped onto his cat perch, nearly dislodging it and killing me in the process. As with Chloe, don’t trust the expression: he’s apparently decided that his perfect breakfast meal is human flesh, and he’s also decided that the state of affairs between leopards and hominins two million years ago is a tradition that needs to be reinstated.

And another Guest Cat appearance, this time from the famed Chloe In The Wall. Don’t let the thoughtful expression fool you. She’s already figured out 28 ways to kill you, and that’s before you can wake up in the morning.

And with the ending of summer comes time for Guest Cat Monday, featuring the photogenic beasts of my friend Madelyn’s acquaintance. She and the Czarina take off to Houston for a show and Galveston for a good soak in the ocean, and catsitting becomes an adventure in posing.

Those who care for ginger cats already know that most gingers have no fear of man, beast, or god, and when they appear to flee a bad situation, they’re generally only plotting a strategic retreat. Well, that applies to most ginger cats. The neighborhood has a new top feline, nicknamed by the Czarina “F*ckYouCat”. Not that she’d dare say it to his face, but that’s his default expression. Find him basking in the alley when you’re driving in? His expression practically screams “Don’t make me break my foot off in your ass”. Catch him digging in the garden? Watch out, because he’s probably armed. Don’t get me going about his habit of camping on the car hood while I’m using the garage for various projects, because he just dares you to say something about it. He has all of the neighborhood dogs and cats terrorized and pacified, and I fully expect he’ll have the neighborhood armadillos beaten soft by the end of next weekend.

Surprisingly, F*ckYouCat is amenable to photography, so long as you don’t expect him to do much of anything but glare. However, when he’s done, he’s really good about showing what he considers to be his best side.

Finally, running through the end of Guest Cat Monday, this is Chloe, better known to all and sundry as “Chloe in the Wall”. This was because when Madelyn first rescued her as a kitten, she somehow found a hole in her apartment wall and lived in the walls for years, only coming out to eat and use the litterbox. She doesn’t have quite so exotic a hiding space today, but she’s still very rarely seen, which is why this photograph was so surprising. The story among friends was that Chloe didn’t really exist, but apparently she thrives in the Heisenberg Continuum.

Additionally, take a look at the photo to see something particularly odd about Chloe in the Wall. When it comes to eyeshine, most cats have yellow or orange shine when their photos are taken with a flash. Alfred, as shown earlier in the series, has brilliant red eyeshine, as do many Siamese and cats of Siamese descent. Most cats have a yellow eyeshine. Leiber’s are the green of Coke bottle glass, and Cadigan’s eyeshine is as orange as her fur. When was the last time, though, that you saw a cat’s eyeshine that was bright sky blue?

Seeing as how this is Cat Monday, you’d be excused if you thought you were viewing a photo of Leiber the FreakBeast. This is completely reasonable, and totally wrong. Our subject today is my friend Madelyn’s cat Bela, generally referred to by us as “the fake Leiber.” That’s only fair, as Madelyn calls Leiber “the fake Bela”. Aside from superficial looks, there’s nothing in common with them: even Bela has more full white in his fur instead of the peach undercoat Leiber sheds all over the house. It’s still surprising to walk into a friend’s home, see the cat on the bed, and ask yourself how your cat got into this house on the other side of town.

And because there’s no such thing as “too much Alfred in the universe,” time for another shot of the only cat I’ve ever met who was Doppler-shifted blue the first time I met him.

While assisting with the care of my friend Madelyn’s cats, one and only one didn’t have issues with photos. Linda here is an absolute rarity: a calico that isn’t completely mad. Sweet, loving, and very comfortable with her place in the universe…at one point, she very nearly needed a new home due to various complications, and I came VERY close to giving her that. I’d never take her away from Madelyn now, so I settle for visiting whenever I can.

In order to shake things up a bit, it’s time for a few guest appearances. A few weeks ago, the Czarina and I were asked by the lovely Madelyn (creator of the famed Triffid Ranch logo) to check on her cats while she was out of town. If I thought that my cats were memorable, well, her cats disabused me of that notion.

Starting off, we can start with Alfred, Madelyn’s newest addition. Ten kilos of incredibly dynamic, impossibly hyperactive part-Siamese, with a voice to match his energy levels, and out about three dozen attempted photos of him, I only managed to capture one or two that weren’t blurred messes. I suspect that it may be possible to photograph Fred properly, with the sort of camera rig used to photograph dynamite as it’s exploding, but I’m not expecting miracles.