Kabhi Kabhi Mere Dil Mein, Yeh Khayal Aata Hai...

Because I am being drowned in the flood of 'OMG Iron Man 3 is SO cleverly unracist!!11!!' squee posts, I am going to link to (obviously spoiler-filled) crossedwires post here and wistfuljane's post here. Neither are quite the comprehensive critique post that I'd like to see someone write but they are nonetheless pointed reminders that perhaps white people shouldn't cheer quite so smugly when they are setting their bars so very low.

It's so much easier to ignore white people media (and the people who talk about it) when it isn't trying to Deal With Racism.

ETA: Go ahead and be as detailed as you want about spoilers in the comments, I certainly don't care, and am spoiled anyway.

Hi internet.
Things have been pretty shitty for various reasons, but ActuallyAisha asked for more kitty pics, and I said, "Self, no one's day is ever made worse by someone posting cat pictures to the internet." (Behind a cut, obviously, so that the people whose day would be made worse by the irritation of having to scroll past boring cat pictures are not bothered.)
So here, a few more pictures and a gratuitous update post.

( Day 25: Still Alive... )

Yesterday I offered to take in an orphaned kitten. It will arrive today, sometime, if everything goes according to schedule, and it's eyes are open, which means its at least 10 days old. That's all I know about it so far.

I grew up trying to take care of various animals when they needed help; I've helped bats and sunbirds get out of human buildings, crawled into gutters to fish out puppies, called Friendicoes to rescue injured cows, looked after bulbul chicks till their parents could take over, picked up injured pigeons. I'm used to handling animals, but the thing is, my knowledge, pre-internet, came from common sense, parental memories of their own childhood rescues, and reading James Herriot and Gerald Durrell. I did the best I could, I've had many animals die on me (never pleasant to find shreds of kittens in your closet after a tom cat decided to get his murderous alpha on), I know some things but there is so much that I don't.

In the intervening years, the internet has happened.

And so now I know that kittens can't digest cow's milk. (Adults certainly can; I've handfed a number of sick cats with milk and egg mixed up and smeared on my fingers for them to lick off.)

Except every English kitten care webpage I seem to turn up contain advise like "go to your nearest Walmart and buy a heating pad" and "get a Kitten Replacement milk formula".

People have obviously been taking care of animals in vast and varied conditions; I know a person in Pune who's reared sparrow chicks with mashed watery dal till they were ready to eat solid food. There's a lot to be said about the differences in the ways in which animals are a part of people's environments in different cultures, but for now...

I know there are a lot of cat people reading this blog, so if any of you have tips or suggestions that are feasible for the world I live in, I'd be grateful to get them.

(I don't have a fridge yet. It's getting hot enough that I was hoping to get one soon, but I might need to bump it up on the list, even if it means holding back paying off the loan I needed to take to make rent a few months ago. Aie yai yai.)

Wish me luck so that I can contribute to this newfangled internet pastime of spamming everyone with cat pictures. I shall now attempt to find out if I can procure goat's milk from somewhere. All the goats I know of are destined for Eid biryanis so it seems doubtful that they are being milked.