not that kind.  This is a bobcat and two domestic kitties.

Bobcat.

I bought this skinned head from a tanner in Washington, Promise Land Tannery; an amazing place full of wonders!  You should go there and spend all your money right away!  This bobcat was included along with six other skinned heads I processed using maceration techniques I learned from Jana Miller at BoneLust.  Everything you want to know about processing bones can be found there.

Domestic Cat.

This big feral kitty was the unfortunate victim of a speeding car.  Consequently, the skull was broken and many pieces are missing, including the auditory bulla and some teeth.  It looks a lot like the bobcat, only smaller.

Since posting, this skull has found a new home with Buddy America, a talented acquaintance that I’m in the process of converting to a friend.  You should check him out here; it’s worth your time.

Domestic Cat.

This cat was given to me as a gift of appreciation for some volunteerism, but not directly.  My wife volunteers at a wonderful pitbull rescue, SevaDog;  we offered to help build out a space for some little dogs and the owner asked Chaela what I was into, so she could express gratitude for our work.  When Chaela told her I was into skulls (and after some initial disgust), she contacted a friend who had a kitty in her freezer.  The friend was working at a vet clinic when someone brought in a sick and dying cat; when the cat died, the friend kept the carcass for exactly what I wanted it for: processing and display.  The cat was a long-hair tuxedo kitty, not very big, pretty old (as evidenced by it’s teeth).  It’s interesting to me the differences between these two domestic cats; this one is decidedly more “cat” looking than the other.  It’s also interesting to me the times we live in.  There are very bizarre going-ons nowadays.  Sometimes the phrase “what the fuck is happening?” runs incessantly through my head; I wish there were some reprieve, but current events are not normal.  We’re in the midst of the hottest decade on record and we have a comic character buffoon running the country (USA! USA! USA!).  I want this douchebag’s douchebaggery to finally catch up with him, but then we’re even more fucked; Pence et. al are working hard to destroy any kind of infrastructure we might have that’s good for people.  I just watched “Get Me Roger Stone” on Netflix, which sheds some light on “how we got here.”  I’ve always felt that finding out how things work makes them less frightening, but now, exposing the horrible truth of things only makes it scarier!  I once read about Terance McKenna’s Timewave Zero theory about how time functions as a fractal, with a base time period (I think its something like 4000 years initially), which repeats over and over;  the trigger for the repetition is novelty – some, something NEW comes along and the base time period starts all over again.  The only thing is, it works like a fractal and the time period is shrinking at an exponential rate.  So, what took 50 years in my grandparents’ time now takes 5.  And that’s all down from four thousand years or whatever (fair warning:  I may have all of this completely wrong).  The theory states (as I understand it) that eventually the time needed for each cycle to complete will be zero, at which point there will either only be novelty (or newness) or nothing.  Sometimes it feels like the newness is happening at lightning speed, and our president is a prime example; from the fact that Trump is the first US President who’s never held an elected office to the early morning tweets that completely refute the elaborate lie his administration just made up to cover they asses.  And what about the whole Russia connection right in our faces?  The amount of effort going into blocking any kind of investigation negates the possibility that this is just a bizarre series of coincidences.  I think there’s a long history of people thinking that we’re living in the end-times; I think all of them have been wrong so far, but do an experiment: ask the person sitting next to you if they believe the end of the world will come in their lifetime.  Chances are the answer is “yes.”  I don’t know if this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, but I DO think that the way we’ve decided to live travels a path to eventual self-destruction.  The pan-flashing lives of the 27 Clubbers is a microcosm of the phenomena.   So essentially, the long arc of Western Civilization is a talented, self-absorbed artist self-destructing from a deep-seated place of inconsolability in slow motion and over a vast time frame.  Seems pretty hopeless at the moment…  This cat is the most recent skull I’ve processed.  I’m at about 45 skulls, and I think that’s enough.  I will probably give the roadkill kitty to my daughter’s science teacher – he has a skull collection in his classroom, and my shelves are too crowded.  If I ever get around to installing a mantle for our fireplace, I’ll fill that up too.  Also, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, TYLER!!!

edit: I eventually gave the roadkill kitty to Buddy America!