Toys

Anyone who knows us, probably knows our cats are spoiled. Best food, filtered water, all the love they can handle. So, of course, we buy them toys....

Toys that get lost...I've bought bags and bags of catnip mice...and not even a day later it's...

"Where the hell are ALL THE MICE???????"

Sometimes I find a pile of toys under the couch. Still...I'm sure there must be more missing mice out there somewhere...

Fast forward to a few nights ago. Mike dropped a Pringles lid in the kitchen. Immediately, a kitty pounced on it and knocked it under the stove. "Crap!" I thought - that's gone under there forever... then I decided to pull out the broiler thingy and...

BAM!! There were at least 13 little mice were under there...

Story from an eating place

Last Sunday we went out to eat at a cozy, local, tasty restaurant, Thara Thai. This restaurant is special. For one thing, my good friends Ilaiy and Gnightgirl introduced us to it. The owner is a wonderful, friendly woman. There is something about this place that makes you feel calm and friendly and you just know the everything is right with the world.

As we were sitting there, an older couple walked in. They sat at a table adjacent to us. He had a ball cap on with teeny, tiny flags sticking out of it. They were so cute! They started talking to us right away.

"What is that you're having?" The man asked.

My husband replied that he was having Pad Thai.

"That's what I want." The man said.

I asked him if he liked spicy food and he said that he did. As he ordered, I piped up - suggesting that he only order mild - - her food is extra spicy. [Ilaiy and Lori would order "Thai Hot" - I'm sure that would literally kill me.]

Our little man told us that they'd just gotten back from a WWII reunion thing in Tennessee. They live in Michigan and were staying over at the Day's Inn. Wanted to rest a while so they stopped over. Walked over to Thara Thai...he'd had Chinese food once and he liked it. His Captain served for 40 years. Was in WWII and Korea. Mike nods. Mike was in the military (three branches). He's a WWII buff.

Mike asks our guy what he did in WWII...

"I was a duck driver. I was at Normandy. Utah beach...."
My eyes immediately burned and got misty. Wow! He made it out alive! Here's a man who fought for our freedom...

He enjoyed his Pad Thai. We ate in silence for a while. He got up a few times and went to bathroom. Said he was eating to fast...he liked it too much! I felt bad for him. I told Mike he better come outta the bathroom soon or...or...I just might barge in there and give him the Heimlich or something...

I told Mike that when he said he was at Normandy - I started to cry.

He said: "Me too!"

We finished eating. Told them to have a safe trip home. Went up to the counter to pay our bill.

"Do you want to get theirs?" Mike asked.

I nodded. And my eyes filled with tears for the second time that night.

Dad's Flowers

As Fall nears, and since today's my dad's birthday (Happy Birthday, Dad!), I thought I would post some photos of my dad's flowers that I took this summer while visiting my parents.

My dad has always seemed to enjoy yardwork and such and we had a good time looking at all of his flowers before we left. It postponed our leaving for quite a while. Which, I must admit, I kinda liked postponing. :0)

Dad didn't think his impatiens were doing very well this year.

I'd say they are thriving, wouldn't you?

He called these "paper flowers". They really do feel like a stiff piece of paper.

I liked these little daisies (even though some had died).

Purple "things". My favorite color!



The most important plant! And it's dead!

(dead cat grass)

We'll take more pictures next year, Dad!

Mattoon

Mike's brother had a party at his house this weekend. So, we headed down south:



Here are two sets of brothers jumping on the trampoline. Sweaty, silly, slimy, sexy(?) brothas...

Neil, Brian, Mike, John

Check out this video - it's audio only - but entertaining nonetheless:



A good time was had by all. And everyone got a chance to catch up. On old times and new. We got home around 4:00 a.m. So, yeah - I'd say we had a good time.

When's the next one?

Labor Day Trip

My husband's parents recently moved to Tennessee. They've been asking (and asking) us to come down to their new home...so, we finally went this past weekend.

It's obvious that we love cats and I'm always thankful that I have a husband that's as crazy about kitties as I am. Maybe he gets it from his parents...his parents have five indoor cats (hmmm...that number sounds familiar for some reason...) and many more outside kitties.

Here's a sampling of their kitties:

Mike's niece, Haley (the mini-cat whisperer) and Goldie

Pepper

Tommy

And - last, but not least - the incorrigible but ever cute Tiger:

Du na na na na na na na na BATMAN!!

OK. My chance finally arrived. I know everyone's been so excited about this. I'm guessing just about as excited as I am to probably have a friggin' colony of bats in, on, around, up on inside my flippin' house.

The bat pics aren't too house flattering. Believe it or not, we worked our asses of trying to redo this room earlier this year. A friend of mine (thanks, Aimer!) even came to help me paint. Multiple ceiling problems, wall problems, etc. prevent this room from just being painted and looking good. For some reason, some freak-of-nature-genius-type thought it'd be a great idea to wallpaper the whole ceiling and walls and then paint over it. There may be some "structural" purpose to this - but so far I haven't found it. AND despite my husband's hardwork that involved scraping all of the paper off the ceiling and starting fresh - I somehow managed to screw that up while he was out of town in my painting attempts. The paint peeled off the ceiling and now there's a lovely uneven texture up that looks like $hit. It's still an improvement from before:



(notice the lovely, bright, cornea-searing yellow and all of the ceiling scrapings on the ground)


After:





Anyway, the point of all this is - when you see this photo taken of a lovely, captive bat in our spare room (that no one will ever want to stay in) - is "IGNORE THE STATE OF MY OLD A$$, UGLY A$$ HOUSE). Just enjoy the view of the potentially rabid, diseased creature inhabiting our living space. (And as crazy and lousy as a painter that I am - I did NOT drip paint on the vent - it was already there when we moved in. I think.)



If anyone's counting (I know I certainly am) - that is TWO so far this year. Hell, this month!

He (she?) - IT may be still be trapped inside my house somewhere - but by gosh and by golly - it's been photographed. And blogged.

Kitty Haircut

Even though I I didn't get any video of my own cat shearing incident, I was visiting my parents a few weeks ago and my dad needed a haircut. My mom buzzes his hair off with a trimmer. They got out the "haircut chair" and their kitty Archie just hopped right up and got his apron on.

This is the reenactment of that. It didn't go as quickly as the first time (when I didn't even know it was going to happen and didn't have my camera ready) - but it's still priceless.

(For all cat lovers - not sure about the rest of you.)

Gnightgirl's cat story

My friend, Lori a/k/a Gnightgirl, has one cat. ONE cat. A measly amount of cats if you ask me. (You may or may not know that I have five. Yes, we're crazy - she's normal.)

Sylvia is a sweet li'l grey tabby. Why, here she is now:

Hi, Syl-bia!!! Awwww....sooo cute!

Lori has had a weeeeee bit o' trouble with Sylvia recently. Her son's friend, John, has been staying with her temporarily and I'm not sure Sylvia likes that too much. Following is an excerpt from Lori's e-mail to me a week or so ago:

John was laughing his ass off at me last night. 2 a.m...Sylvia kicked down the door, came in my room. Then began yowling. I turned lights on, and she was in an odd posture, I thought she was going to pee. So I was trying to herd her into the litter box, but she ran into Brian's room. So I grabbed her and put her in the litter box, but she jumped and barfed all over the living room floor. There I was in [only] a shirt, 2 a.m., groggy, screaming, and watching the cat puke.

It must have been funny from John's POV.


I know I laughed MY ass off! I can only imagine. Damn, wish I'd been there to YouTube it!

Free House to a Good Home

Note to our bloggerfriend, ChuckieEverDapper, who has been looking for a house - if your other house falls through: I have just the one for you. It's a nice, nearly 100 year old house, close to 2000 sq. ft., that gets an annual visit from oh, say - - one or two bats.

We awoke at 5:00 this morning...wait - I woke up hearing the familiar squeaking/screeching sound of a bat and the cats going apeshit over it. "Oh, no! Oh, no!" My husband stirred and asked what was going on...All I said then was: "Bat! Bat!" and rushed out into the hallway...

where the kitties and the bat were waiting. The kitties were extremely interested in the friggin' thing - especially Ally, our youngest kitty who may not have had the experience of stalking a bat before.

All in all - we handled this one pretty calmly. I put all the kitties in the bedroom and then realized I kinda needed to pee - so that's what I did while Mike planned his attack and suggested that I should probably shut the door. He was going to stir up the bat - he didn't like where it had landed. It's placement wasn't very conducive to trapping. I thought I was brave enough to go out and see what was going on but I really wasn't. Nah - I'd just peek through the door every once in a while and I swear the bat would then try to get in the bathroom with me. I don't think I'm a wimp - I used to catch mice "with my bare hands" in Texas but bats, for whatever reason, scrare the crap outta me.

Anyway, we get the thing trapped in a shoebox and we tape it up in there. It is at that point I realize: I FORGOT TO TAKE A PICTURE OF IT! The blog-a-holic that I am. Reading all of my favorite blogs everyday - constantly thinking when things happen: "Oh, that would be a great blog subject." (Even if I don't get around to blogging on my sites too often.) BUT, I had promised myself if I ever had another bat in the house that I would photograph it and blog it!!!

Here's all the photographic evidence I have to present to you:





In the meantime, if anyone has any ideas that are better than paying the Animal-Creature- Capture-Guy $2,400 to batproof our house and/or "caulking all of the kumquat sized holes" in my house (exact words from the Animal Control lady that I spoke with today. Who really was a lovely person and I'm so thankful for her advice and I think we'll definitely try to heed it. I just love saying that: "caulk the kumquat")....just let us know.

Kitty Update

I'm gonna keep this one short and sweet as the story itself really is not.

We took a road trip down to gather the sick cat up and take it to the vet. We looked and looked and did not find it. We did run into one of our favorite families down there - so that was nice. And we visited with Mike's grandma for a bit. We had good talks in the car on the way there and back. I'm so glad that I'm married to someone who loves animals as much as I do.

And I can have peace knowing that we tried and that the kitty is probably in a better place...

The Other Kitty...

**This is a graphic story - don’t read if you’re squeamish.**

This past Sunday we headed down to Mike’s parents for his niece’s birthday party. Right as we arrived at his parents’ house, Mike’s dad, Harry, told me that they needed my help with a kitty. It seemed as though the “mama cat” that had been hanging around their back porch was back. Skinny as a rail and had had kittens again. Only this time, she had a kitten stuck in her who-ha. Her…you-know…

and they wanted me to remove it.

I’m not squeamish. I’ll do anything to help an animal out. I once helped one of my cats with her first litter of kittens. I don’t know how to do these things – from reading lots and lots of cat care books, I guess.

So, I am a little nervous to go out and pull a kitten from a cat’s who-ha because I’m thinking: “This cat is going to require more medical attention than I can give.” I mean, that’s for sure. REAL medical attention.

I head outside. Mike’s dad had handed me some plastic gloves. Don’t ask me why he has gloves lying around his house…in fact, I guess I can’t really answer that question…

The kitty comes to the back porch after Mike’s mom calls them to come get food. I pick the cat up, flip it over and discover that…

It’s a male cat. The protruding kitten is really it’s “sack”. It’s extremely swollen and protruding sack. It’s IS a very sick cat – but it definitely doesn’t have a kitten coming out of it.

Mike’s dad spends the rest of the afternoon telling everyone: “Donna tried to pull that cat’s balls off! She kept saying: ‘Man, this is really tight!’”

A funny story in parts, I guess. I have, actually, been seriously worrying about this kitty all the while. Hopefully, we can get this kitty some help. I’ll update you when I hear how the kitty’s doing.

A Tale of Two Kitties

This one's not too upbeat - but both kitties have been weighing on my mind.

First of all, there's my kitty, G. G is a long-haired...well, freak. It's not all his fault as he has a "mom" that doesn't brush him frequently enough. So, he develops mats that are impossible to brush out. I shave him once a year and that seems to take care of it. He looks horrible shaved (as you can tell in the pictures below). Something like an old, wrinkly, flabby elephant/tiger creature.

(close-up of the mohawk)

This Sunday I took G outside and shaved him. It started out very calmly. G's the best kitty. He puts up with all sorts of pill giving and ear cleaning and things of that kind. He also doesn't mind being shaved because it feels like being brushed to him (which he loves). All of this changes once you get down to the nitty-gritty - - the mats. Then, it's a different story. He started to get cranky and stabbed me a few times. You know how when kitties get their little claws stuck in a blanket or rug or something? Yeah - same thing. Except this was my hand.

Anyway, we've been outside for maybe 30 minutes tops and I can tell he's done. That's is. Finis. So, we go inside and G lays on the kitchen floor trying to cool off. Lucky comes up to him and I can tell that something's awry. Lucky does not know who G is anymore. This comes as quite a shock to me. Here's me and G: doo, doo, doo - we're coming back inside. I know who G is and he knows who he is and he knows the other kitties - but not one of them knows who the hell he is anymore.

Now, I know kitties aren't the smartest things in the world sometimes - but I'm always shocked to find out that their instinct doesn't prevail. They smell things right? They know "who" G is by his smell and his voice and, again, his smell if it's even his butt smell!!

No, they don't. They don't know him at all. They're scared and they scare G by hissing at him and trying to hit him. And it's turned our world upside down for a few days now. It's frustrating as hell. I'm also sad when I look at poor ol' G and can tell that he's frightened and confused.

So, he's getting a lot more attention from his humans...and that makes him feel better I'm sure.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Odd drinking habits...

No, I'm not talking about me this time.

Our kitties love water. And they have some pretty strange habits.

Here's Lucky a few days ago:



DISCLAIMER: I usually attempt to hide my water glasses. I do NOT mean to allow kitties to drink from my glass. This water was subsequently poured out and the glass has been incinerated.

Another one of our kitties, Tuffy, has an interesting way of drinking his water. It's still entertaining (to us at least) every time we see him do it. He usually soaks the whole area around him, but what I can do?

Mini Vacation Part Deux

The next day we traveled to Purina Farms .

We arrived pretty late in the day (par for the course for us). We wandered around and came across the largest bunny I have ever seen:

I loved this bunny! I couldn't believe the size of it. And, as sick as I am, I couldn't believe how much it acted just like a cat.



I also got a kick out of how much it enjoyed drinking water.



We came across some funky chickens and geese. Here's Mike noticing a strange goose.




Close-up of the goose:



Then, we ventured over to the dog area. I'm not really a dog person but, these dogs were different. First, I just noticed how cute they were:




Imagine my surprise then when I saw that the dogs are trained "professionals"!





At Purina Farms, they adopt stray dogs, train them and enter them in agility competitions.

Here is my absolute favorite, mutt, extremely lovable doggie:

One doggie was a little spastic:





Cat Whisperer in action:



We had a lovely day at the farm and I'd go back in a second. In time to catch those little doggies strut their stuff on the course!