Breaking Cat News by Georgia Dunn for September 19, 2024

I can spoil a pumpkin by giving it all sorts of toys and candy…

Much like the little pumpkin candies! Rumor has it many of the ones on the shelf this year came over on the Mayflower.

Only true if the cat’s playing with them keep their claws furled.

This is true. The moment tiny pumpkins ripen they dry out completely, retaining their colour and vibrancy, but have hollow, soulless innards.♥

Love the tiny toe beans peeking out on either side of the tiny pumpkin on her paw!

I’ve seen those pumpkins for sale in craft stores. I think they dip those suckers in embalming fluid…

There may be a secret to these pumpkins, dear lady. I’m pretty sure they’re not normal…

Tabitha sounds like she’s doing a PSA commercial to convince her Woman that they should be allowed to play with the pumpkins. Like a kid making a slide show about why they should totally get a puppy.

Pequeñas calabazas que se han echado a perder y han destruido el mundo en venganza.

This may be an odd thing to say but I feel as though Georgia’s handwriting in Spanish is becoming more confident! Kudos!!

It’s finally starting to cool off in my area. The shorter days make it feel like fall is almost here. The local farmers’ market will sell small pumpkins and butternut squash this weekend. I’m going to make a four cheese pumpkin pasta sauce, pair it with rigatoni, and bake it in a dish with more cheese. Very tasty with turkey sage meatballs and a light green salad. If I have enough fresh pumpkin leftover, I’ll make a loaf of pumpkin pound cake, too.

estropeada = spoiled, adjective

estropearse = (to) spoil, reflexive verb

This is an example of why Google Translate doesn’t always work on a word-by-word basis. Tabitha’s original Spanish in panel 4, when translated into English, could end with either “a spoiled pumpkin” or “a pumpkin becoming spoiled.”

I’m fairly sure that Tabitha intends the adjective, which is shown correctly spelled and positioned. Just wanted to point out how little nuances creep in.

¡Excelente!

I decorated my dollhouse with a tiny pumpkin one year and forgot about it. Tabitha is mistaken: they will, in fact, spoil.

I work in a large, retail, garden section. The garden mums, and pumpkins are coming in. We now sell at least 8 different types of Pumpkins, in a rainbow of colors and shapes!

when do we get back to English?

The Mujer has antique calabazas pequenas?

Let’s just bat a tiny pumpkin under the couch, forget about it and see what happens? What is Spanish for stench?

They do, it takes a year or more, I recently found a lost little white one from last year. Obviously batted beneath the sofa, by certain furry miscreants. Even though it only had one spot starting to go bad. It now rests atop the compost heap where it should have been last November.

Seems tiny pumpkins and Yule fruitcake are in the same species family. Maybe we should investigate some secret of anti aging that they hold :)

Tiny pumpkins, gourds, small, ornamental corn…starting to look like fall. In fact, Hamilton and I made our first batch of Pumpkin Muffins last night. Hamilton insisted on putting tiny chocolate chips in the batter, and it turned out really well!

Avast ye scurvy dogs (and cats). It’s talk like a Pirate day. Shiver me timbers, aye not turn my back on my mutinous crew of cats. Or I’ll end up in Davy Jones’s locker!

OT: Thank you

They won’t break up so you can freestyle

If it takes just a little while

She’ll open her eyes and look at you play

She’ll see things in a different way

Don’t stop batting them mañana

Don’t stop, fall will soon be here

They are better than bananas

Best when airborne, play dusk to dawn

/Christine Mcvie /Don’t Stop

Meanwhile, Back on the Nile

In the Royal Kitchen

Thomios: So we’ll create candy jewels from sugar for the Artisans’ interactive tapestry. What could possibly go wrong?

Sue Chef: Lupinium and Ora Z.

Thomios: I have thought of that. How about we arrange the candy jewels to be scattered among the real jewels? Then those with excess energy can work it off while climbing on the tapestry.

Sue Chef: That’s a great idea. Who will be creating the path for the tapestry.

Thomios: I know just the cat. He’s had experience in climbing ropes before we knew him.

Enter Iggy

Iggy: Hello, guys! I understand you want to create a climbing event.

Thomios: That’s right. Help to work off some excess energy.

Iggy: I’d like to enlist the help of our champion climber, Bea.

Thomios: Anything you need.

Ah, so these are famous pumpkins. That is a lovely painting.

I’m glad Tabitha was able to filch a tiny pumpkin or two for her and Sir Figaro Newton’s entertainment.

Pumpkin shaped gourds, yes. Actual pumpkins may eventually become compost in the display, but it can take half a year to make that sort of fruit compote/compost.

OT:

You know Tabitha is a serious reporter when she uses a chart just like Pucky!

I’ve seen quite a few tiny pumpkins spoil in my day, so I don’t buy them anymore. Of course, the typical room temperature in this apartment is around 80 Fahrenheit . . .

I have seen a tiny pumpkin spoil…but she’s still not totally wrong, the things do seem to last notably longer than their larger counterparts.

Las calabazas diminutas son de plástico, todavía gato. A las mujeres les encantan las tontas decoraciones de plástico, como las pequeñas calabazas, y piensan que huelen o saben a especia de calabaza. Acostúmbrate, cambiarán las calabazas por pequeños adornos navideños en unas pocas semanas.

Very professional reporting from Tabitha, plus a chart! Also toebeans and a chyron! As Stefan used to say, this strip has it all! Squeeee!

I wonder if all the various cats’ The Women decorate with lovely artificial small pumpkins, which is why the cats think they are unspoilable.

I have seen a small pumpkin spoil. It is not a pretty sight. I expect small pumpkins are like small fish. IYKWIM

Over at TK, the 4 male Bump kittens are having their tiny pumpkins removed today. Ay Caramba!. : ;-}

OT:renovation etc.

My copy of Good As Goldie arrived yesterday! YAAAAAYYYYY!!!

“Tiny pumpkins are compact, hearty (strong), & resilient. They are virtually indestructible and last forever. No one has ever seen a spoiled tiny pumpkin.”

Pumpkin time, some get spoiled by being cut up into funny faces!

Compact, hardy and resilient describes our neighbours’ dogs. They are Pomeranians. They get along well our big Newfielabs and our cats tolerate them. It is so much fun to watch those little Pom-poms playing in the snow. Especially the white ones with our big black Wegie cat. Floof balls in the snow.

I can’t believe that pumpkin remained fresh since 1637. It’s probably bewitched or something.

OT: AVAST YE LUBBERLY SWABS! SILENCE FORE AN’ AFT! ‘Tis Talk Like a Pirate Day, an’ shiver me timbers if’n it tain’t a good ‘n fer it. The sawbones give me a dab in me neck secun’ ‘our the forenoon watch o’ the day befer. ‘T potion hit me last o’ the firs’ Dog Watch, an I slep’ narry a wink ‘til th’ first bell o’ th’ nex’ day Furenoon Watch. Me senses be fouled f’r lack o’ shutaye. Ahm no fit cumpny fer e’en the foc’sl swabs n’r bilge rats. Me mood be foul’d as a fray’d hawser. ‘Twern’t f’r Death Wish™ coffee, ye’d b’ see’n me deadlights, ‘n’ Davy Jones wud be me mate. Sinse ‘he ain’t, ‘ah’l ‘ear no word ag’in me bes’ mate, Elvis. An’ let the man sez a word ag’in’ lady Georgia, draw cutlass, an’ ahl see th’ color o’ ‘is insides. Arr!Speakin’ oh’ insides, ifn this dab in me neck don’ make all shipshape, ‘tis the sawbones’l see th’ color o’ me insides! Haar!

Tiny pumpkins is sure look bigger and better than tiny narrow letters.

OT – 2nd new member of the family

I left a tiny pumpkin on a shelf and rather than spoil, I now have a tiny pumpkin gourd. The gourd has been part of my Halloween decorations for ten years n

That’s because cats in 1637 destroyed tiny pumpkins too.

I love brushing up on my espanol with this story line.

OT: my strange new avatar

Hmm… They eventually get mushy.

OT: Late-Breaking Broken People News

This is pledge week at WFIU Bloomington (look up Indiana Public Media), and today is Pet Pledge Day. I just pledged $10 for me and Foxy, and got them to do a shout-out to BCN and Georgia Dunn. The announcer was Station Operations Director John Bailey.

Not true. Jack be little’s will rot….it just takes until February!

Great timing: as I was reading today’s BCN, an ad popped up for a ‘batting sale’.

From today’s Gasoline Alley comments: “Will Mee-Meow and her kittens gradually become the dominant characters on Gasoline Alley? Is this a precusor to a merger with Breaking Cat News? Inquiring minds want to know.”

OT

Have you noticed there are only three panels? Georgia said that is the only way to get the translation down without covering up almost all of the action.

Thank you all for your kind and comforting comments. ❤️