Friday Super Cat Blogging – 20 October 2017

For two weeks I’ve seen no cats in London close enough to photograph. Last night it started raining and I figured the jig was up. No cats.

Then, this morning, we decided to go up to Portobello Road and browse the antiques. We got off the bus and Marian suddenly motioned for me to slow down. The proximate cause was this little cutie-pie of a cat who came over and let us scratch her head while she smooched around the gate:

A minute later, I saw a shop across the street that announced itself as a Pet Boutiqué & Cafe Lounge. Was this one of those cafes that has cats roaming around? No, but it did have this magnificent Grumpy Cat wannabe lounging on one of its pink stools:

Two cats this week! But we’re not finished yet. Remember that gray cat from last week who was prowling around Edwardes Square Park but disappeared into the foliage before I could get a picture? On our way home, we saw him again. He clearly didn’t want to make a new friend, but he was kind enough to pose for a glamour shot before he hightailed it away:

Not done yet! We got home, and around dusk the tiger-stripe cat showed up again. He was friendly and came up to me, but then I made the huge mistake of picking him up. That was OK, but then I walked into the house and he went crazy. So this is the best picture I got:

And there’s more! It turns out the white cat was watching the whole thing:

After two weeks of drought, it was suddenly pouring cats. So why not put up one more? Last night, thinking that it was time to give up on London cats, I decided to photoshop a picture of my mother’s cats onto some London scenery. Since I went to all that trouble, I might as well put it up. Here are Luna and Lilly keeping a close eye on the pigeons in Trafalgar Square.

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate