Shanks

Fore

One of the greatest gifts you can give a small non-profit is a modest monthly donation. If you can afford just $5/month that makes a HUGE difference to a place like Merrymac!

A calico cat curls up with her paw on her tail and her head resting near a novelty pillow printed with a photo of a tabby cuddling a plush mouse. She is glaring at the camera with upraised eyes.

(Like, I can't really fault TJ for avoiding her trips to the vet, but Lolo straight up wants to murder me for taking her picture.)

Oaghe, Shakes, telling yuor hoom notte to be drinkings asse coffey.

😹😹😹

Yez, cleerly hers folt!

Wear am yours McQ??

(This Shanks is in THIRD place now if you want to help me be a queen and I guess stop my human from adopting more kittens off the street.)

Dis Shanks am in TURD plays now if yours wonton to halp me be an Queen and I'm guess stop mine hoom from awopting more babbey type cates off an strit.

www.givegab.com/p2p/2026-pur...

(She's so friendly. TeenyJean and Dolores don't even like me that much, and they've known me since the day they were born. 😭)

(Oh, also in her defense, this was cool but not especially cold coffee, so while it still wasn't a pleasant sensation - and I'll have to carefully treat my stupid white shirt - it wasn't painful or anything.)

@ribblyscarn.bsky.social in agree mints ??

(In my defense: I was talking to my mom, whose brother died this morning, so I thought multitasking wasn't unreasonable.

Video description: A juvenile grey-brown tabby plays on her person's lap while "You've Got a Friend In Me" plays over the original audio.)

(Who knocked a whole ass mug of coffee over on me during socialization time tonight?

In her defense, I set it on "her" little perch AND I was talking on the phone when I was supposed to be paying attention to her.)

(I guess Manchaca offended me slightly less - even though it's possibly the most egregious since A isn't a silent letter in English like an ending E might be, but at least it's 'just' a person's name that people might not know where the others are both religious and geographic/historic references.)

(Yes, the erasure is SO pernicious right now when Mexican [and other] immigrants are being scapegoated for so many problems.

My mother is an immigrant [Cuban] and my father's ancestors [in New Mexico] were colonized in the Mexican-American war, so this hits really close to home for me!)

(Oh, fuck me, white folks, that one isn't hard.)

(I feel like with that one there was maybe an attempt to pronounce it correctly and then it was like a game of Telephone over multiple generations before they landed on that? Unlike the way people pronounce "Guadalupe" in Austin which just feels like the most, "Fuck you, we're not doing this.")

A small grey-brown tabby is curled up on their side on a patchwork quilt on a blue plastic storage tote. One of her front paws is very blurry as she reaches out to the photographer.

(She says, "Hi!")

Hers lift, but wott of efurrybody else??

Wott am Comrade Gene thimking, @jortsthecat.bsky.social ??

(Forgot the link! )

bsky.app/profile/lady...

(And he seemed fine with my plan to gradually and cautiously introduce her to the others, not leave her with them unsupervised until I had a feel for their dynamics, etc. 🤷)

(Looks like I have another ambassador on my hands. She seems to be in perfect health otherwise and the vet said there's a fair chance of a false positive, but he also said at this point the only reason to run the other test was if it would affect which cats I was going to expose her to.)

(That one still makes my skin crawl.)

(Well, and I don't know about Louisiana, but from what I've seen of Haitian Creole - and my VERY limited French - it's not French. Like it's closer to French than Spanish and French are to Latin probably, but it's a noticeably different language.)

(I mean, if anybody knows anybody in the central Texas area that would be interested, I've been trying REALLY hard to not get too attached, but given my track record of being able to place even TINY adorable kittens, I'm not holding my breath.)

I'm thimk ours am stuck with she. 😤

(Refugio, if memory serves, was something like, "Re-furry-oh.")

(Oh, man, when I got my job working the high school sports desk and one of our [Hispanic] editors had to give me the rundown on all the towns with Spanish names that the locals do NOT pronounce correctly, it was painful. "Rye-o [Rio] Vista and Refugio are the ones that still haunt me.)

😹😹😹