Hello Interblags, This Is Your Cat

Hey you lot. Things have been hectic the past week or so! On Sunday, Growlithe and I went to Sydney, where we spent the afternoon in Luna Park, and then on Monday, we caught the train back to Melbourne! My Illamasqua and Morgana Minerals mix powder foundation lasted my two-hour nap on Growlithe's lap using Shaun as a pillow.

The train ride was great! Really quiet, beautiful countryside and all!

However, Tuesday sort of really sucked. Because I hadn't eaten for days, pretty much, I managed to get extremely ill that day. That day was also the day we had to go to Ikea to buy a bed. So Growlithe went upstairs to make a purchase, and I laid on the couch in the foyer (they have those for your convenience. I love ikea!). After about fifty minutes, I lumbered to the bathroom to violently throw up. But my makeup was still in place - I tweeted this about an hour later, touting it to be a christmas miracle. I felt a lot better, and went to find Growlithe.


And there, between the bedsheets and the flat-packed bathrooms were....some goths! I wish I had gotten a picture, these girls were gorgeous! I turned quite red when one of them complimented me. I also found a small fluffy white rat toy, which I brought home.

We came home, where we slept in the lounge, since our bed wasn't delivered til the next day. One of our housemates, Mini, was really worried about me, because I wasn't hungry! What a sweetheart.

We put our bed together yesterday, and I outfitted it in some awesome candystripe sheets, which I did think to photo before we laid down and trashed it by being wiggly. Unfortunately I can't upload it right now. </3 Soons, my pets, with all my photos of the baby kittens~! (Speaking of which, my babies need homes. Anyone want to share their homes with my awesome cats?)

Today we lazed around and did household chores. Not much happened - mostly Minecraft and we watched some more of hour Hatventures: Skylands urtoob series we're into. Growlithe went out and bought a kettle, too, and a powerboard so we can play our wii - or as we call it, our Woo. Along with a "goff woo remote with a nunchuck, because you're so goff".

Anyway, I have had a very persistant headache the last few days. Hopefully it will clear up pretty soon and I'll feel a bit better, and the fresh vegetables I have been eating have helped a lot. 

I am desperately trying to get ready for the Filthy Victorians, without much luck - with the sewing machine so far away, my eyesight getting worse and funds running low, I am fearing I might have to push back the start date a month.

Would you guys hate me if I had to? Life is getting really hectic and I haven't had the opportunity to blog much at all, which I hate, and I need to go out and do a good load of skirt-shopping!

Missing you all desperately, hoping to get some good, interesting blogging done soon!


On a final note, blog lurker and commenter Miss Gothy Girl and I met up a few weeks ago for shopping at Gallery Serpentine. We should never be put together again - we are TERRIBLE for each other! She has started a blog at my insistance - called Clockwork Bats ! Go and follow her, and hopefully she can get this seamstress business underway! I have to say, Nikki is awesome and so much fun! Hoping to stage a get-together when she is down after Christmas.


Much love, and missing you all!


<3

Still Damn Hiatus (+new poll)

I AM STILL ALIVE. I am sorry for all my bad-bloggerness. As it turns out, my computer commited suicide. Between Mr. Growlithe and new kittens, I haven't had much of a chance to blog. I should get back to schedule soon enough, but for now, new poll time.

Old poll results:

Where are you from?
UK: 14
West Europe: 12
East Europe: 6
USA: 29
Canada: 1
Australasia: 8
Gallifrey: 11.


Clearly not everyone voted, but thanks to those who did and good to know there are other Time Lords out there!


New poll is this: What's your favourite cosmetics brand? Feel free to comment on this post letting me know why, or what brand isn't listed that you love. Shaun's computer doesn't have bluetooth, so this post cannot be ended with a picture of kittuns.


However, they all have names now: Beetlejuice, Sybil, Cheery, and Visit-the-Ungodly-With-Explanatory-Pamphlets (Washpot, for short). Pictures soon, much love!

Cat Pictures From Home

So, I'm kind of back! Hooray!

My sister sent me photos of the cats in the last few days, which is the best kind of care package. She got the kittens out from where they were stashed under my bed, and here are the little puddingtrolls.

AW

And also extra pics of Cullycats.

"We are not amused."

Hopefully this complies with Xanthy's Successful Blogging Tips.

I will get photos of house and housemates up soon. Am heading home on Friday for the boycats and my stuff before Growlithe and I shuffle on in here to our home. Heading out to a friend's gig tonight in Fitzroy, if anyone wants to come.

Bit Of A Hiatus

I'm alive, don't worry. If you're wondering what the fuck I've been up to this last week, I've been with the Green Fairy. We have been endlessly amusing one another, don't you worry about that! I am sort of stranded in melbourne, and should be moving into a new house quite soon, will update you all soon!


Just a quick post after catching up on blogs, stalking the Ultimate Goth Guide (and leaving painfully long comments) and before a good ol' sleep. I probably have a lot of typos in my comments tonight, since Fairy and I went and bought some awesomely tacky horror movies and somehow made it through a bottle of sprite and a bottle of fanta (and half a bottle of vodka) in two days. 8>


Much love. If you need me or have any questions, email me with the contact form over ~~~> yonder. I will receive it nearly immediately and will respond. Facebook ( facebook.com/suddenly.cats ) and twitter (@19thCKitty) are also a good way to get in contact with me quick.


Photos of my time here in Melbourne coming soon.


Hiatus:on
Cat:out!

(I'm doing Science and) I'm Still Alive (an apology, and some science)

Heroo everyone. I have been pretty much lacking in posts lately. Everything has been dicks - i've been in a huge funk because of the constant rain, and the rain has been messing with my webnets, and that's just made things dicks, you know?

Just assuring everyone that I am still alive, and shopping. Yeah, I know. >> But...but...pratchett books! :3

Been busy talking to my family about the Big Move, and when not being in a funk, I've been such a mire of emotions - excited, scared, sad to go - and thats been affecting my already-messed thought processes.

SPEAKING of thought, while being still alive, I've been doing science! This occured yesterday; in a conversation about a lady on a news programme asking the government to "move on" bats (because of a hendra virus outbreak, flying foxes carry the hendra virus) near their town. Because, lady, these are bats. They're not gypsies or drunk teenagers. If they want to be somewhere, they will be, because they're hundreds of thousands of bats.

Also, they're fuckin' adorable.

Just as a side note, where I used to live, we had a LOT of flying foxes on account of all the mangoes. Once, one of them flew into a power line and exploded, cutting off power to half of Mullumbimby. It was rather funny, at the time. Because it was obviously a suicidal bat with a grudge against mankind. Or a werebat?

Anyway, a friend of mine made a point about how she doesn't understand about how people seem to think they can control nature. She said people on her side of Canada decided wolves were a no-go and put a bounty on them, and the people on the other side did the same with coyotes. This made them meet in the middle and interbreed.

Now, interbreeding species is going to happen. It's caused larger and somewhat more dangerous hybrids - or, you know, evolution.

She then said that foxes have gotten larger since she was little (from the size of a cat to the size of a medium-sized cattle dog, which is how big they are here in Australia, although ours are pretty and dainty), because they had interbred with dogs, to whom - according to her - they are closely related.

"We have had some problems with our wild canines here and it is our own fault. [...] The foxes, being close to domesticated dogs have bred with them and are much larger than they should be. The thing is the wolves kept the deer population in check and got rid of any of them that were sick or had diseases, the coyotes don't even belong here but we have them here in packs (coyotes traditionally are a lone animal but the wolf in them have made them pack animals)."

Woah, woah. Hold up. Coyotes aren't pack animals, but they're not lone animals, either. They aren't always in a group, but will often form a group to hunt and scavenge.

Now, here's the thing. Dogs and foxes? nowhere near related.

Dogs are wolves. They are genetically wolves. Canis lupus familiaris is the domestic dog (wikipedia also lists canis lupus dingo as a domestic dog. I want to point out that this is extremely untrue. They decend from Indian wolves, not domestic animals, and as such share very few of the traits of familiaris. they can't bark, for one), decending from canis lupus - the gray wolf.

Foxes, on the other hand, are vulpes. The largest and most biologically spread fox (and in fact, the most spread of carnivora) is the red fox. In Australia, our foxes are pretty frigging huge and anything but wussy. Foxes are evolutionarily successful because they have balls of steel.

Anyone versed in biology would know that animals that are not in the same genus cannot interbreed. Canis and vulpes are both canidae - but not at all closely related. Behaviour-wise, foxes are closer to cats - their hunting, breeding and social characteristics are very similar. Taxanomically, they are related to canines, but - and i reiterate - they are not canines. They are unique in their genus (vulpes is in the "tribe" of vulpini, in which is the one family of the foxes. There is no other family in that branch), whereas dogs and wolves share their sub-family (caninae, not tribe because that page doesn't exist, thank you wikipedia) with all canines, including the racoon dog. Go google a picture of them. They're adorable.

So what could be causing this, if not interbreeding?

The increase in the size of the foxes is explainable in one, beautiful word: evolution.

"But," I don't hear you cry, "doesn't evolution take hundreds and thousands of years?"

No. That's a misconception. Evolution takes hundreds and thousands of generations. 

These. Thousands of them.

Thirty years' worth of generations. With a population of red foxes - and these populations are high, by which I mean that there are millions of breeding pairs (foxes are generally monogamous, although lower-ranking individuals have been known to have multiple-father litters and be kind of whores) - with the kits reaching sexual maturity between nine and twelve months (depending on when spring falls), and the father of the kits and barren vixens feeding and caring for the nursing mother, there are more than enough animals to kick evolution into gear. Litters of kits consist usually of four to six babies, with litters above ten in higher-mortality areas. Foxes are the perfect example of evolution.

With more wolves and coyotes (and bigger and more agressive hybrids) in their territory, the foxes need to grow in order to survive. And that's what foxes do, and have always done.

Long story short, we as a species are screwed. I for one welcome our foxy overlords.

PS: going to start giving labels to my posts. For fun. And pony. FOR PONY