Cats

Black Cat Appreciation Day

August 17th is Black Cat Appreciation Day. Many websites are celebrating with photos and stories, including House Panthers, as well as The Cheezburger Network (home of LolCats), and even Daily Kos. The Cheezburger Network site has information on how this tradition got started, and a musical tribute. We join in the celebration with photos of Luna.

Black cats have a particularly elegant and sophisticated appearance, there is something inherently “modern” about them. And many of the black cats of met have had the sweetest personalities. I knew that I wanted a black cat, and was very fortunate to find Luna.

Sadly, many black cats continue to have a hard time finding adoptive homes, and seem to be particularly vulnerable in some municipal shelters. And while cases of abuse of black cats because of superstition are fortunately rare, the superstitions do continue. This is my favorite counter-statement ever!

Yes, we at CatSynth are Marx Brothers’ fans 🙂

This post will also serve as our Weekend Cat Blogging contribution. Weekend Cat Blogging #375 will be hosted at iMeowza.

The Carnival of the Cats will be hosted this Sunday by Samantha, Clementine and Maverick.

And the Friday Ark is at the modulator

Weekend Cat Blogging #374

We at CatSynth are happy to be hosting Weekend Cat Blogging #374. If you would like to participate with your feline-related blog post, you can so so by leaving your name and link in the “linky widget” below. This is the first time we are actually trying this process for leaving links, so if it doesn’t work, please leave a comment instead.

This is going to be a another busy musical weekend, so we will likely not get to producing the detailed round-up until later…and that time has come, so let us continue.

Samantha, Clementine and Maverick are having some early morning fun. It looks dark, so it must be very early. But they are ready for the brighter part of the morning and invite everyone to come join them in play.

Wow, that is a lot of white kittens. All of home look quite a bit like Truffle and Brulee. And this is not an accident, as they welcome a special visitor this weekend. Follow the link to find out who it is.

The Cats of Wildcat Woods had a fun weekend. In addition to a brand new computer (which is usually fun unless it doesn’t work), they got to visit with Marg of Marg’s Animals. Marg is a regular supporter of our Wordless Wednesday photography here at CatSynth.

At Animal Shelter Volunteer, Maggie and Milo are enjoying a relaxing Sunday together. They are among the many wonderful cats at PAWS looking for their forever homes.

The inline “linky widget” was an interesting experiment this week. It seems like participants did not immediately see their links show up, though they are there now for me – and thus we have an actual WCB round-up. Please do let us know if you see them or have any other feedback, as we evaluate this feature for further use.


Carnival of the Cats #435

We at CatSynth happy to be hosting Carnival of the Cats #435. For those who aren’t familiar with the carnival, it is a weekly round-up of cat blog posts from around the Internet, submitted by authors. If you would like to participate, leave us a comment – the usual “handy BlogCarnival submission form” is (yet again) not working today. But we still hope that we’ll get some people joining in today.

First up, we have Luna’s fellow house panther Diamond of Diamond’s Lair explaining the impressive feline olfactory system. This is of course an important part of cats’ world in ways that humans cannot understand.

Elivra celebrated her 2nd Gotcha Day this past week! You can visit Meowsings of an Opinionated Pussycat to wish her well.

Also from Meowsings of an Opinionated Pussycat this week, we have a survey of cat-themed art from Laguna Beach.

Next, we have a tale of two men, two lounger rooms and two cats, courtesy of the site Mrs. Banks has kittens. You can visit and judge for yourself (and check out the kitten pictures while you are there).

From strangerranger, we have photos of Maddie encountering her new collar. They also have photos of a mysterious feline visitor to their yard.

Animal Shelter Volunteer shares photos of cats Kosmo and Kramer from PAWS. We at CatSynth are fans of Seinfeld, we love the names! Animal Shelter Volunteer is also a finalist for a Pettie Award (awards for the best of pet/animal blogging). You can help them out with the voting by following this link.

At iInfidel, Ritzi likes to pull the curtains open to look out the window. She occasionally likes to stretch her claws on the curtains as well, but this is frowned upon.

If you would like to participate, we will leave the Carnival open through the end of Sunday. Please leave a comment below with your link.

Weekend Cat Blogging #366: Morning Rituals

it’s another busy weekend ahead of us, so just have a quick post featuring our common morning rituals here at CatSynth HQ.

There is coffee (in a cat-themed mug), newspaper on the iPad, and of course Luna.

A big thank you to everyone who wrote in last weekend to wish Luna a happy Gotcha Day.

This weekend marks the 7th Anniversary of Weekend Cat Blogging. This special edition will be hosted by Kashim, Othello and Salome at PaulChens FoodBlog?!.

The Carnival of the Cats will be up this Sunday at iInfidel.

And the Friday Ark is at the modulator.

Weekend Cat Blogging #364

We at CatSynth are happy to host Weekend Cat Blogging #364 this week. It is a self-selected round-up of cat-related posts from around the blogosphere. If you would like to participate, leave a link in a comment below, on our Facebook page, or tweet us @catsynth with hashtag #WCB.

And without “further ado” as they say, let us continue with the round-up.

First up, we have good news from our friends at Animal Shelter Volunteer, with several recent adult-cat adoptees. Among them is the black cat Hunny pictured above. We are happy for the her and the other cats who found their new homes.

Truffle turns 1 year old today and there is a celebration on at Sweet Purrfections. In true Southern style, they are holding a debutante ball with quite a list of illustrious attendees.

Speaking of parties, Cokie the Cat explains the upcoming BlogPaws conference. It is an annual event for pet-bloggers (or blogging pets), and cats, dogs, birds, humans and other animals of all sorts are welcome. It will be taking place about three weeks in Salt Lake City.

We will continue to add posts throughout the weekend, so please continue to send us your submissions. And thanks to those who participated!

The Presidio Pet Cemetery

Presidio Pet Cemetery sign with Hipstamatic

On this Memorial Day we pay a visit to Presidio Pet Cemetery. It is the final resting place of many beloved animal companions of the military families that lived in the San Francisco Presidio.

Presidio Pet Cemetery GI Pet

Most of the grave markers in the site date back to the 1950s when “the Presidio was home to over 2,000 military families.” It was surrounded by a white picket fence (which still exists today) and shaded by Monterey pines (which do not still exist). The site fell into disrepair in the 1970s and continued to deteriorate, but has been preserved. Today, it sits underneath the reconstructed Doyle Drive / Presidio Parkway that leads up to the Golden Gate Bridge.

Presidio Pet Cemetery and Doyle Drive

The construction on the Presidio Parkway is continuing around the site, indeed one large concrete beam sits inside the area of the cemetery. It is currently closed to visitors while the construction progresses, but it is quite visible from the nearby pathway. Indeed, it seems like it may in better shape now than it was preceding the construction, even if the vegetation is a bit overgrown in places.

Presidio Pet Cemetery GI Pet

Many of the markers are still clearly visible, and speak to the love and warmth these animals brought to their human companions on the base.   Some are very specific, some are more generic like “A G.I. Pet.  He did his time.”  but are touching nonetheless.  There are dogs, birds, hamsters, reptiles, and of course cats.

Presidio Pet cemetery cats

Presidio Pet Cemetery black cat

Thinking about the pets buried here and the bonds they had with their human companions helps one to feel empathy for both human and animal alike.  

I hope the site continues to be preserved and re-opens after the highway is completed.  I am sure I will be back here again.

 

Weekend Cat Blogging and Photo Hunt: Texture

We at CatSynth have been absent for a few days. Most of my time that wasn’t spent at the day job was devoted to preparations for last night’s Night Light Multimedia Garden Party at SOMArts here in San Francisco. All the work paid off and the show went quite well, and I will be talking about that in a later article. But the combined silent-video-and-live-improvised-music piece featured several clips of Luna, including this one that is perfect for a combined Weekend Cat Blogging and Photo Hunt with theme texture.

This is a fun clip that combines cats, abstract digital imagery, and even highways with our I-80 sign in the background. You can see the short segment that appeared in the video below:

Luna black cat I-80 texture from CatSynth on Vimeo.

A sad note this week, our friend Meowza passed away suddenly last week. It was unexpected when we read of his passing in the comments for our Carnival of the Cats last week, he was so full of life. We remember him through the many images of him rolling around in the dry Arizona dirt:

We send our thoughts to Mog and all of Meowza’s family on their loss.

Weekend Cat Blogging is hosted by…no one this week. In fact, it looks like this week was completely left off the schedule, which resumes with edition 360 next weekend. But Elivra has stepped in to combine WCB 359 1/2 with Carnival of the Cats.

The Weekly Photo Hunt is up with the theme of Texture.

The Carnival of the Cats will be up tomorrow at Meowsings of an Opinionated Pussycat.

And the Friday Ark is at the modulator.