Comments | lagizma: Ophelia "the gray one"

lagizma

Ophelia "the gray one"

Jul 20, 2007 06:48

We got a sister for Agrippina last week. We picked up Ophelia, a 4 month old Calico, from a lady who had 17 kittens. Kat, who I found on craigslist and then discovered knows my co-worker, had a cat with kittens. Then her neighbor's cat had kittens and keeled over, so they brought that litter over in hopes the orphans would feed off the other mom ( Read more... )

ophelia, photopost, kitties, agrippina

Comments 21

antarcticlust July 20 2007, 13:59:32 UTC

Wait, isn't Agrippina a boy? You could call her/him/it Agrippa!

Ophelia is a darling! And I'm so glad they get along. Our cats are also very fond of baskets, boxes, and bags. Grocery paper bags are key.

I have a sewing project in mind that is sort of like your tunnel, but it doesn't crinkle, and it's lined with a sort of faux sheepskin.

I love that Jeff is looking at your lj page in that photo!

lagizma July 20 2007, 16:55:29 UTC

Yeah, I have resigned myself to a litter of paper bags and scraps of paper around the house as kitty toys.

superjen July 20 2007, 15:00:59 UTC

that gray cat is really interesting looking and cute! of course, the other was already cute and i figured it could go without saying, except not, since i just said it.

i have two cats; muffin and frankenstein. muffin was the perfect cat-- very quiet, didn't try to get on you too much, etc. she's still pretty quiet, but now she likes to sit right next to me, and i'm cool with that. the bad thing is, she's learned some awful habits from frankenstein (the monster of all cats). he meows all the time (and attacks her constantly) and so she has picked up the practice of meowing insistently when she wants something. she used to just wait.

lagizma July 20 2007, 17:03:22 UTC

Was Frankenstein named for his monster personality? Or appearance?

superjen July 20 2007, 17:23:21 UTC

really, because we'd watched big daddy the day we named him, and because he was constantly chewing on electrical wires (and was thus thought to be powered by electricity).

the name just turned out to really fit.

eh_notsomuch July 20 2007, 16:20:57 UTC

Oh, I'm so glad you got another kitten! They will have so much fun together. They're ADORABLE.

Yeah, typical cats and their toys. The box is always more interesting. Whenever I get a shipment from Amazon, I leave the box out for them to poke and sniff at for a few days.

Keep the pics coming!!!

lagizma July 20 2007, 16:53:51 UTC

My house gets littered with paper bags and scraps of paper. If I am scrapbooking, they love long ribbons of extra paper. Yay, I am a slave to the whims of the cats.

zenithblue July 20 2007, 16:49:39 UTC

Ophelia doesn't look very calico in the pictures---does she have some strains of orange and black that aren't picked up by the camera here? Just curious.

Not that it matters. They're both frickin' adorable.

lagizma July 20 2007, 16:54:42 UTC

She does have rust-color on her, and it doesn't show up well. She has black as well. Let me see if the other pictures show it better...

lagizma July 20 2007, 16:56:23 UTC

This shows her colors a little better. Maybe I don't have my definition of calico right, either: http://jessicabat.smugmug.com/gallery/3159402#173600444

lagizma July 20 2007, 16:59:13 UTC

I've decided she's a "dilute tortie."

Thread 6

scarredbyitall July 20 2007, 18:42:59 UTC

Cuuuuuuute!
I love how their paws and ears are too big for their heads when they're kittens :) The woman who took in all those kittens deserves a medal, by the way. I am glad you adopted one from her. I agree with zentihblue Ophelia doesn't look like a calico. I have noticed that lots of people think tortoise shell kitties are calicoes. Ophelia is not traditional tortoise shell either (black and orange.) You have found yourself some rare type of kitty there! And she is soooooo cuuuuuuute! (Both of 'em.)

gina227 July 21 2007, 18:37:12 UTC

The difference (IIRC from genetics classes) is that torties have only black and orange while calicos have black, orange, and white. Either way, only females can have black and orange at the same time cause the genes that code for them are on the X chromosome (white is a different gene altogether) and only females have 2 Xs.

scarredbyitall July 21 2007, 19:48:37 UTC

Cool! I didn't know that only females could have black and orange. Interesting. Do you know anything about orange tabby cats? I once heard that female orange tabbies are exceedingly rare. Now I wonder if there are any female orange tabby cats at all.

gina227 July 22 2007, 01:05:37 UTC

Yeah, calico cats are the major example used in every genetics class to illustrate something called X-inactivation females. Since they have 2 X's, one randomly deactivates in every cell of the embryo. So some code for orange hair and some code for black hair and that determines the patterns of the fur. It happens in humans, too, only there's nothing as obvious as this to show it.

I wasn't sure about orange tabby females so I found this link that kind of explains it: http://www.fanciers.com/cat-faqs/misc.shtml
It's a ways down the page under Cat Genetics and Coloring . It also explains the whole calico/tortie thing in more detail.