So I, uh…I found this gif today…
…It’s got an Aby face and Singa feet.
Tag: abys are everywhere
Abys are Everywhere: There’s a puma in the kitchen!
Today I discovered that there was an entire television episode devoted to an Abyssinian!
Not sure how I didn’t know about this, but there is an episode of Mad About You from 1998 titled “There’s a Puma in the Kitchen” that features an Aby. I used to watch that show, and I have no memory of this episode! Unfortunately, Cinema Cats has little information on the Aby(s) who acted in this episode.
The best bits are at 6:34 and then from 9:01 on. Also be sure to watch the end credits, where the director argues with the Aby.
The mask crusader
Imma just leave this here…
Happy International Cat Day! (Abys are Everywhere)
Today, 8 August, is International Cat Day. In honour of this important day, my friend Robin sent me this video created by e-on, a Swedish electric company.
Of course I checked it for Abys.
This guy kind of looks like an Abyssinian…but then, that might just be the spacesuit.
However, THIS video, made by target=#>Whiskas UK (who, I discovered whilst in London, make a LOT of awesome commercials that are so good you almost forget they’re trying to sell you something) definitely features some Abyssinians.
Like this handsome chap, as well as the lad at the top of the page.
Happy International Cat Day!
Aby-a-Day – 9 October: Crossword Cats (Cartoon Tuesday)
Crossword puzzles are very popular in Sweden. There are dozens of different crossword magazines available, and all the daily newspapers also publish them. A friend sent me this one from https://www.dn.se/kultur-noje/kulturdebatt/sveriges-korsordsmakare-var-korsordstradition-ligger-snart-i-spillror/Dagens Nyheter a year ago, and I recently found it whilst I was looking for something else.
I love it, of course, because it really illustrates a FIFe show’s layout. And the breed depictions are really nicely done. I couldn’t find much out this illustration at all, sadly, but I did find the artist, Ann-Charlotte Odén, on DeviantArt, so I may send her a message asking about it.
As for the translations: The top running pair are saying, “I suggest we start a sports club for cats instead!” (He’s probably a Turkish Angora) The other cat is saying “Okay!”
“Ouch! He only had 10 points to go to 100!” says the Abyssinian.
The black silver classic tabby British Shorthair says, “That’s not the right way to hold (a cat)!” and the Cornish Rex agrees, saying, “Oj! What’s happening!?”
And the human is saying, “Ow! I pulled (a muscle) between my heel and calf!” I have no idea what that means…I suspect all of the comments are clues to the crossword puzzle itself.
Which means the answer to that last one is probably “Achilles.”
Aby-a-Day – 17 July: Cats of the World (Cartoon Tuesday)
Okay, technically not a cartoon, but you may remember when I took Alfred to Anicura to say goodbye to Logan, I mentioned the “Cats of the World” poster hanging in the cat waiting room.
Here’s the Abyssinian…he looks grumpy, like Jacoby. The ears seem a bit small, though.
They illustrated the red Abyssinian separately. Again, the eyes and ears seem small. They didn’t include the other Aby colours.
The Somalis were included on the poster together. Again, they don’t look quite like Somalis, do they?
Last but not least, we have the mighty Singapura! Of all the drawings, I think they caught the Singa best of all.
Happy Ticked Tabby Day!
Today is National Ticked Tabby Day ! A day to celebrate all the Abys, Somalis and Singas in the world!
…and that’s different from every other day, how, exactly?
Abys are Everywhere – Player’s Cigarettes cat cards
My friend Marsha posted a photo of a reproduction cigarette card featuring an Abyssinian the other day on Facebook. I actually managed to find an image of it in the digital collection of the New York Public Library!
Cigarette cards were the precursor to collectible cards in bubble gum packets, and date back the 1890s, when cigarettes were wrapped in paper packets instead of boxes. Manufacturers began inserting pieces of card to protect the contents, quickly realising that these would be useful for advertising their products. Soon this evolved into sets of cards featuring various things of interest, in the hopes that smokers would want to “collect them all” and continue to buy that brand rather than another.
Usually, they were marketed to men, and so featured sports players, pretty actresses, trains and ships…but there were some animal-themed sets as well, including a 24-card set of different British breeds of cats printed in 1936 by Player’s Cigarettes.
The originals are not dated, but these were reproduced in both 1986 (with blue ink and the Imperial Tobacco Ltd. logo on the corners)…
…and in 1997 (this time with red ink). Therefore they are not hard at all to find, especially from UK sellers on eBay. I got this one for about 80kr (less than $10 USD) including shipping.
Abys are Everywhere and Singas are Super: Cat breed zodiac
Aby-friend Rachel posted this on Facebook, and I had to share it. Not only does it feature an Abyssinian for Aries…but my sign, Gemini, is a Singapura! I actually did laugh out loud when I saw it.
Abys are Everywhere: A Quite Interesting Aby
Since moving to Sweden, I have been watching a lot of BBC Brit. I have fallen in love with the comedic panel shows, especially
Aby-a-Day – 4 May: Wordless Wednesday (2 down, 2 to go…and an amusing ad CFA sent me)
Aby-a-Day – 24 April: Tattoo you (Selfie Sunday)
I have several tattoos, but I wanted to get one to symbolise and commemorate my marriage to Björn. Many years ago, he gave me a silver necklace based on Bronze Age rock art from Sweden with a design of a man and woman kissing. The couple is known as “the Lovers,” “the Bridal Couple” or “the Holy Wedding.” It’s become something of a talisman of ours.
So on 1 April, I went and got myself another tattoo of it!
I added a cat-like creature from other rock carvings to the pair…if you look closely, you’ll see that the cat has a darker stripe along its back and a darker tipped tail! Just like an Abyssinian!
While Björn was here for our wedding and honeymoon, he got a matching tattoo by the same artist, Deirdre at Redemption Tattoo in Cambridge – and she is awesome, by the way. If you need a tattoo and happen to be near Porter Square, look her up.
Here are both of our tattoos together. Björn’s is about 2/3 the size of mine (I needed to balance out with the octopus on my other shoulder) and is feline-free. We are already planning on a trip to see the original rock carvings, which are conveniently located in Western Sweden, not far from where we will live. If we can, we want to get a photo of our tattoos and the original art…we’ll see how that goes.
Abys are Everywhere: Today’s Mental Floss
Today’s Mental Floss gives us “7 Agile Facts About Abyssinians.”
Leaving out the parts about how they eat everything and how the males tend to be wrecking balls…
Aby-a-Day – 29 January: When Irish Abys are Smiling (Fashion Friday)
My friend Leza posted this to an Aby group on Facebook with the comment “Of course the Aby is sitting like a tease. smh! lol. Never cease to amaze us do they?”
So of course I had to buy it.
It’s a vintage, circa 1970, Irish tea towel.
And yes, the Aby is the only cat on it that’s posing like a porn star.
Jacoby has no comment.
Aby-a-Day – 14 January: Swedish cat food
Since I’m planning on living there for the rest of my life, while I was in Sweden I spent a good bit of time looking at the cat food that is available in my new homeland.
Which…yeah, I was looking for packaging featuring Abys, for the most part. Like this brand. I’m not 100% certain this one’s an Aby, because of all the desaturation going on…but this cat looks like an Aby to me!
This one is definitely an Aby. Kind of an embarrassingly overweight Aby…but an Aby nonetheless.
Then we have good old reliable Royal Canin, featuring a Somali on (of all things) a low-cal dry food.
Funny thing about that Royal Canin dry food…it’s also featured on the back of the January issue of Kattliv magazine! I actually started a subscription while I was there, and and as you can see, this is my first issue.
In non-Aby related food news…I thought this was interesting. They have Temptations treats in Sweden, but they’re called “Dreamies” instead.
And I also found a line of treats that features a happy Burmilla on its packaging. I bought a couple of different treats with the Burmilla on them…after all, Tessie is a Burmilla variant, since she’s smoke instead of shaded or tipped.
The “big” present I brought back for the cats, though, was Moose (even though it says “Elk” on the box) and Reindeer cat food.
I think Jacoby is considering the advantages to cat food packaged in paper boxes vs cat food packaged in metal cans…you don’t necessarily need thumbs to open a paperboard box…
Aby-a-Day – 12 January: Today’s Google Doodle (Cartoon Tuesday)
Okay, I know I’ve been lapsing. I’m sorry…I don’t even have a cartoon of my own today! But have you seen today’s Google Doodle?
Puss in Boots looks suspiciously Abyssinian, don’t you think?
Abys are Everywhere: “See this trophy? I won it. It’s mine”
Abyfriend Emilie shared this awesome photo with me that was posted on I Can Has Cheezburger via
I can’t read all of the trophy, but I can see that it was awarded by the Canadian Cat Association to the Best Abyssinian. Now, when I did a Google search, I found Jacoby’s brother Dillin showing as the best Abyssinian for the 2014-15 season! Holy cow! I had no idea. Now, I don’t think that the Aby in this photo is Dillin (mainly because the Reddit user says it’s their aunt’s Aby)…but does anyone know who it is?
Abys are Everywhere – Dr. Elsey’s Sneezing Kitten
How cute is this little guy? I found him at the top of the Catshows.US website when I went to enter the Seacoast Cat Show the other day.
I mean, how can you not follow that link to Dr. Elsey’s litter?
Abys are everywhere – Pitbulls & Parolees and insurance Abys in the airport
Sometimes, you see Abyssinians where you least expect to. After last week’s post about Abys in television and movies, Abyfriend Ellen Fair wrote to tell me she had been watching Animal Planet’s “Pitbulls and Parolees” when she saw a striking brown cat just hanging out in the yard.
She sent me a screenshot – oh, yeah, that’s definitely an Aby all right! Why is he just sitting outside? Ellen wrote: “It’s just a snap I took with my iPhone of a scene paused on TV. I took it because I thought I might be hallucinating until I rewound the DVR.
Don’t know if you’re familiar with the show, but this is an episode in which Tania Torres (daughter of Tia Maria, the awesomely formidable woman who runs both the show and the New Orleans shelter at its center) and her husband, Perry, decide to get another pit bull after Tania’s beloved Bluie has died. There they are, sitting in their backyard talking it over, while this gorgeous Abyssinian looks on.
‘Pssssst! All the companionship you will ever need is right in front of you!’ my brain hissed as I watched. But–sigh–they are dog people, obviously. I do wonder if the Aby is theirs, or was just hanging around the neighborhood, though I’d find the latter hard to believe–the cat was clearly in excellent shape, and looked quite comfortable.”
I did my due Google diligence and I could find nothing about the Torres family owning any cats…so I don’t know who that Aby is. But still, who’d ever think they’d see an Aby on a program about Pitbulls and Parolees?
A couple of days later, Sherry sent me this advertisement for The Insurance Brokers Association of Canada that she spotted in the Ottawa airport.
She actually saw two versions: French and English. But in either language, that’s still an Aby about to knock over that antique vase! This one struck me as particularly amusing because, well…I work for a property insurance company! The only time I’ve ever had insurance and Abys combine before this was when I brought one to work with me.
Abys are Everywhere: Television and Film
We all know that The Cat From Outer Space was an Aby (I’ve posted about that movie many times, and Jacoby is partially named for the titular Jake)…but did you know there were other Abys (and Somalis) in space?
The first time Data’s cat, Spot, appeared on Star Trek: The New Generation, he was a male Somali cat. In later appearances, he became a female shorthaired tabby…
Then, in the 1994 film Stargate (which I haven’t actually seen yet), there’s time travel to ancient Egypt, and you know what that means…Ra’s cat makes an appearance. I don’t know anything about the Aby who acted in this movie…I wonder where he’s from?
Finally, my favourite Abyssinian cameo is in the CSI episode “Jackpot” (Season 4, Episode 6). In this episode, Grissom is working solo in a little town called Jackpot (which actually exists), and while working the case discovers a banded, tri-colour hair.
Here’s an exerpt from the script:
GRISSOM: Hey, Doc, take a look at the scope, will you?
(DALE STERLING moves around GRISSOM to take a seat at the table to look through the scope.)
GRISSOM: I found some hair in Ross Jenson’s shirts.
DALE STERLING: That is cat hair.
[SCOPE VIEW: HAIR]
DALE STERLING: Tricolored. Probably … Abyssinian.
GRISSOM: You wouldn’t happen to have any Abyssinian patients?
DALE STERLING: One.
(DALE STERLING walks over to his wall where he has pictures of his patients. He takes a particular framed photo down.)
DALE STERLING: Uh … ah. Here she is. Isis.
(He shows the picture to GRISSOM.)
DALE STERLING: Her owner has allergies. He needed an aggressive, shorthair mouser.
(The picture is of LELAND BROOKS and his cat.)
Later that night, Grissom goes to Leland Brooks’ house, and, lo and behold, sitting on a chair on the porch is Isis, a blue Aby.
Oddly, while the cat they used is clearly a blue Aby, it seems to have a stumpy tail…When Grissom gets too close, she jumps off her chair and you can see her short tail. I don’t know anything about this Aby, either. But it’s always cool to see a random Aby while watching a favourite TV show. If you remember, I also found an Abyssinian in an episode of The Office!
The Daily Abyssinian...and Singapura 