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You are here: Home / Pet Blogging / Cat Blogging / Let’s Hear It For The Birthday Boy

Let’s Hear It For The Birthday Boy

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A very special cat turned four today. 8/8/18 is an auspicious date, at least according to Chinese numerology, so maybe this means that Samwise’s upcoming year will be his best one yet.

We got him before he was one, from some lovely people who nevertheless should not have adopted a kitten. This was what he looked like when they got him:

As far as I know that is the oldest picture of Samwise. By contrast, here he is last fall, on the top of the same structure:

He spent most of his day lazing around the house and trying to get up on my lap while I worked. At first I thought it was because he loved me, but it turned out he’d just detected a twist-tie hiding on the desk, and wanted to play with it. Although he then spent some time lying in front of my monitor, pawing at the HDMI cable, so maybe he wanted toys and attention.

Every year, my husband jokes that we should get Samwise a live mouse for his birthday, so he can unlock his true potential. I settled for a special can of duck pâté from the pet food store across the street. There’s no knowing what Sam might do once he developed a taste for fresh mammal blood, after all.

One last picture, from this afternoon, below the fold.

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

50Comments

  5. 5.

    Ninedragonspot

    Since 1945, the 雙八 , or double-eights, on the Western calendar has been considered “Father’s Day” in China. Since you stand in loco parentis to Samwise, treat yourself as well (he would want it that way).

  6. 6.

    Platonailedit

    An Australian state has instructed train stations to stop broadcasting Sky News Australia, amid a widening backlash over a recent TV interview.

    On Sunday, Sky News Australia hosted Blair Cottrell – a far-right figure with court convictions – in its studio.

    It drew much public anger. Many pointed out that he had once called for schools to display images of Adolf Hitler.

    On Thursday, Victoria said that the channel would no longer be played at train stations in central Melbourne.

    “Hatred and racism have no place on our screens or in our community,” tweeted Transport Minister Jacinta Allen.

    Cottrell used his interview to call on Australia to reduce immigration, protect itself from “foreign ideologies” and to “reclaim our traditional identity”.

    Sky News Australia has said it was “wrong” to interview Cottrell on The Adam Giles Show. It has since suspended the programme.

    So, fybj login will go on?

  7. 7.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Ninedragonspot: Neat!

    @Platonailedit: I don’t know how much I’ll be able to help fix the checkbox, without spending a silly amount of time learning the ins and outs of the baroque plugin ecosystem here. Surely one can set one’s browser to remember one’s information? The way this keeps coming up suggests some WordPress-level issues, anyway.

  8. 8.

    Mnemosyne

    Samwise! He is a very handsome kitteh. And, yes, they’re usually looking for fun and attention at the same time when there’s a toy in the offing.

    We don’t know any of our cats’ actual birthdays since they were all foundlings, but based on their approximate ages at the time of adoption, we declared Keaton’s birthday to be April 1, Annie’s to be May 1, and Charlotte’s to be June 1. It’s been working out so far.

  9. 9.

    Ruckus

    @Major Major Major Major:
    My WP blog remembers commenters. There are settings on the dashboard that affect settings. Now as the blog is being hosted by someone other than WP that may be totally different. And that the theme first is way old and second has been kludged a zillion times may make things a lot more fucked up. Was going to be a bit politer but then remembered where I am.

  11. 11.

    Platonailedit

    One suggestion. Can bj have a login page, instead of having it at the end of each thread? That’s what other sites I visit do. That could save us from all these login issues.

  12. 12.

    Platonailedit

    After video of a grocery clerk allowing an autistic customer help him stock shelves went viral, the autistic customer's family started a GoFundMe for clerk, Jordan Taylor, so that he could afford college. https://t.co/6K4MbDR1Gu— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) August 9, 2018

  13. 13.

    CaseyL

    Happy birthday, Samwise!

    He looks like he was quite a handful as a kitten… and it sounds like he’s still quite a handful as a grownup cat.

  14. 14.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Ruckus:

    There are settings on the dashboard that affect settings.

    Shocking!

    The site is not well–see last week’s magically-disappearing plugins. It makes more sense to put energy towards a rebuild, rather than hunting with tweezers and a magnifying glass for a checkbox’s malfunction. If the issue isn’t apparent to Alain it’s definitely not going to be easy for me to find.

    @Platonailedit: Cole has historically been dead-set against having logins. You’re not wrong that this would fix a number of problems.

  17. 17.

    Comrade Colette Collaboratrice

    I went to a meeting at San Francisco’s City Hall today and it was crazy over-the-top Weddingsville, far more than usual. Brides and grooms were EVERYWHERE, even spilling over onto the top floor where there are no justices of the peace and no restrooms big enough for a dress with a train. I wondered why until I remembered that it’s 8/8/18 – double lucky day to get married.

    Thanks for the pix of Samwise, who reminds me so much of my late, lovely Peter Kitty. That last photo really puts the “blue” in Russian Blue!

  22. 22.

    Platonaileit

    On the same day we learned Chris Collin’s insider tradin’ indictment could take down another half-dozen Republicans, @DevinNunes confesses the Republican party’s role is to obstruct the Mueller probe.

    The Trump GOP is treasonously corrupt.https://t.co/8XxkQ37Fxr— Tea Pain (@TeaPainUSA) August 9, 2018

    The site won’t recognize standard html codes of line breaks, paragraph breaks etc. #fubar.

  25. 25.

    Ruckus

    @Major Major Major Major:
    I agree that starting over is best. Hence my point about the age and kludges. Just adding another bit of possibilities. And exercising my shitty hand by typing. The repetitive typing of my name/email seems to help it’s shitty operational condition. Til the next time it attacks me.
    To those asking why not have logins, it brings on an entire new level of issues for a blog. And depending on the system one choses can make posting a pain
    in the ass. Plus it’s one more place that your info resides without any control.
    I have done a teeny tiny amount of programing in HTML and believe me getting a website to be friendly, usable, stable, and understandable on the operating side is not easy. Even if you know the language the program is written in there are several ways to make something work and often the easy way is the farthest from the optimal way. Add on a lot of changes over time by a number of different people and it get exponentially more difficult. Starting over is in all our best interests, even if it makes changes that not everyone likes or even if we have to put up with a bit of less than optimal commenting.

  27. 27.

    piratedan

    @Mike J: one more database to be hacked and relevant information sold to the highest bidder or to folks who are paid trolls to harass others… I mean it can be done, for example LGF seems to do okay with logins but CJ is on his site everyday tweaking and making improvements to his code to keep it all up to date and he still has to boot spammers off in large numbers that register and then attempt to create spam pages to bring his site down on a daily if not weekly basis. It’s a fair piece of work to keep the site free of trolls.

  28. 28.

    Ruckus

    @piratedan:
    Boy has LGF changed a lot. For some reason I can’t remember I stopped going there a while ago and now have even less desire.

  31. 31.

    TS (the original)

    Fabulous kitty. I love the bow & tag – put anything around my cat’s neck and he fights it not stop until he gets it off or I can’t cope with what he is doing to himself.

  34. 34.

    hervevillechaizelounge

    Just chiming in to pay homage to your glorious feline: long may he reign;)

  36. 36.

    glaukopis

    So I arrived in Glasgow this morning, not Edinburgh, because American Airlines thinks Glasgow is close enough. Wending my way to Edinburgh by the nice rail system here.

  40. 40.

    A Ghost To Most

    Happy Birthday, Samwise.

    At the moment, I am getting major stinkeye from our smart cat, Winnie. She is having dental work today, and can’t have food or go outside. If Winnie had opposable thumbs, we’d all be in trouble.

    Maple, our big ground cat, is having her usual August wheezies, and is on Prednisone after a trip to the vet yesterday.

  41. 41.

    Cheryl Rofer

    And it’s International Cat Day, too! No doubt in honor of Samwise.

    My guys turned four last week on their (somewhat arbitrarily selected) birthday. I brought them home from the shelter on February 2, 2017, and the shelter vet’s guess was that they were about two and a half years old then. So August 2 is six months from then, hence their birthday.

  44. 44.

    kindness

    Happy birthday Samwise. Sorry I’m late. I didn’t know. Now as far as the unlocking thing goes, I’d really like to go the other way with my cats. You see we border farm fields on two sides of our house. The cats are indoor/outdoor cats with a critter door built into the (attached) garage door leading to the back yard. Those kids come in displaying their catches far too often and half the time the prize is still alive. When that happens we grab it and toss it back over the fence to live another day.

  46. 46.

    Manyakitty

    Happy birthday, handsome boy! Samwise is SO dapper in his tie. Is that the one your husband bought him in Japan?

    My jokers are all 10. When I adopted Heisenberg and Schrodinger, the rescue said they were born in August (got them at ~ four months old.) Mme. Curie’s (Manya) rescue papers said was born in May of the same year, so she was around 11 months old when I brought her home. I decided to kinda split the difference and arbitrarily set their birthday at July 31, which is only funny to me–it was my grandma’s birthday, but she HATED cats.

    Yikes. Rambling a bit today.

  49. 49.

    J R in WV

    Happy Samwise!

    What a beautiful kitty!

    So stern looking, but I bet he lies on your lap purring so hard when you scritch his chin! We all love our cats… I’m even very fond of your cat!

  50. 50.

    No One You Know

    Samwise looks a lot like my latest rescue, Earl Gray. She washes a paw in his general direction and is stalking moths in his honor.

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