my dumplings are done in the air fryer however. kitty is purring on my lap

update she did a headstand and ran away. now i have dumplings

The biting will continue until morale improves. The biting will also continue after morale improves. The biting will continue, regardless of the state of morale. [biting noises]

it's fucking

FINISHED

now i just have to wear it all the time forever to make sure that i die in it so when my ghost meets Freddie's ghost he'll be like "cool vest"

CATS VEST IS DEAD

Unfortunately, the above vest was murdered by the dry cleaner. It's dry clean only, and I was using dryel, but putting it in the dryer was making it pill so I thought I'd try something else. They made me sign a waiver first and I spent a few minutes going "okay you painted it once you can do it again if it gets fucked up" before I handed it over. In the future, I will use dryel and just shave it occasionally.

I have now redone it and it came out so much better this time! The camera doesn't really capture the difference in quality as much as I'd like but I still have to show it off. At the very least, Punky's eyes are in the right place this time.

LONG LIVE CATS VEST

and maybe Freddie's ghost will be wearing his vest with all his cats painted on it and I'll be like "hey we should be vesties!" and he'll be like "what." and I'll be like "you know, like besties, but vests!" and he'll be like "...no." and I'll start singing "you're my vest friend" and he'll be like "I never wanna see you again." will the puns have been worth ruining my chance at a post-death friendship with Freddie Mercury? I'll never know but I can't stop myself

genuinely cant stop thinking about whatever early human first looked a literal wolf full in the face and thought domestication would be fun but ALSO cant stop thinking about the ENTIRE early human tribe that absolutely did NOT think to stop them

HOLD THE PHONE

Slightly related: I read a book by Rick McIntyre, who was official Wolf Guy at Yellowstone Park for 25 years (and studied wolves for 40 yrs total). He describes how, when they’re alone, wolves—both adults and pups—will pick up sticks or bones or bits of animal skin and toss them around to entertain themselves, the way you might toss a ball up and down. They essentially play catch by themselves.

So if wolves do this by themselves, in nature, that means that we saw them playing this game and thought “huh, that wolf enjoys fetching the stick it’s throwing for itself, maybe I could throw it further and it would like that more?” And thus began our two species’ mutual favourite game to play together

But the point is that they invented fetch

they made fetch happen

as someone with a cat who plays fetch, this doesn't surprise me at all. people assume we taught her to. no. we tossed a mouse to her and she brought it back over and screamed until we threw it again. she has even invented a game we call "double fetch" where there's a person in each of two adjacent rooms and she brings the mouse to one of us and screams until we throw it into the next room, chases it, and brings it to the person in there to scream at them. back and forth, over and over.

and she is always trying to make fetch happen.

we're all so lucky that a cat can be orange. that's such an incredible color for a cat to be

super quick doodle of Ghostie Ghost Who Meows the Most to motivate myself to work on the painting i'm in the middle of so i can get to my next project

(she really is this cute)

ZOOMBINI

(if she looks cranky it's because she's an old lady used to being alone and we went and adopted three babies out of nowhere)

BATFACE

PUNKY

the light where i'm sitting seems ideal for photographing pencil sketches! yay! unfortunately Punky came out slightly smaller than the others, which will make the next step slightly more complicated. but only slightly. in theory.

i can tell from looking at them that i spent progressively more time on each one. mostly because the expressions got harder to capture. Ghostie was so simple!

i love to learn about my cat i love to google “should you trim cat last claw? trim all cat claws? cat last claw called? cat fifth claw? cat claws labelled. trim cat dew claw?” and then say hi graham i learned something about you! your weird claw is called a dew claw and it will not be worn down by regular walking so it is extra important to be diligent about trimming to prevent it growing into your paw pad! and he bites me and bites me

i wish graham could google. maybe he’d google “human skin thickness? humans skin cut bite? humans red line arm leg? how hard bite humans? human pain tolerance? human vs kittens safe play” and then he would say mads im so sorry i didnt realize that humans are prone to injury from skin punctures. we should engage in remote play through means of toys as you were suggesting

punky plays fetch which is very nice remote play through means of toys exactly as suggested above except when she decides to play no take only throw she does so by putting the mouse down next to us and staring at us in anticipation and then as soon as we go to pick up the mouse she gently rakes her claws down our hand then goes back to staring like come on throw it so we're like yeah okay and go to grab it again and again she rakes us and she is gentle yes she knows not to rake too hard not to bite too hard when she turns us into a chew toy but she does not understand dry skin and that even the gentlest raking of claws will bring the telltale red beading of the bleeding she's inflicting she tries so hard to be gentle with us fragile beasts that we are but she does not understand how. i too wish she could