Tastes Better Right off the Floor

As I was filling up cat food bowls this morning I spilled a HUGE amount of dry cat food all over the kitchen floor. Maybe I need to have my coffee before attempting to feed the cats or I'm just extra clumsy this morning. But, anyway, the cats thought it was some kind of manna from Heaven or something-wow, huge piles of cat food all over the floor!! Let's eat!!

So, rather than eating daintily out of their cat food bowls, they just stood there in the middle of all the cat food bounty and had their fill.

Just Warm Blooded Furniture

I remember reading somewhere that to a cat you are just a piece of furniture-albeit with warm blood and the ability to open cat food cans.

I was sitting on the couch watching TV the other night while Buddy was racing around the living room chasing Mimi. Apparently I was in his way because he raced right up and over me in his quest to get Mimi. Didn't even say excuse me.

Derailment

Keith was playing with his new train set on Sunday afternoon, which of course totally fascinated all the kitties. Can you imagine if you were a little tiny person on the little tiny train and saw this huge predatory kitty lurking over the tracks? Aaaaaaaggghhhhh!! It's a monster!!

Lucy was a little leery of the train and was safely up on the nearby shelf where she would delicately stretch out her paw to touch the train as it went by.

Mimi just plopped herself down right in the middle of all the action, blocking the track with her tail.

Great kitty entertainment.

New Kitty House

I got our spoiled kitties a new pop-up kitty house-their old pop up kitty houses have been jumped on and in and smashed up so much that they are looking really lopsided these days. This one has a crinkly pad thing you velcro into the bottom and a silly looking tunnel thing you can velcro onto the side and velcro other pop up kitty houses to it and create a huge tunnelly kitty house playground if you are so inclined. I think we'll skip that.

Mimi was the first one in.
And she decided to chew on the velcro first thing, succeeding in ripping the silly tunnel right off.

But, for 8.00 it's probably worth it for the entertainment value.

Midnight Madness

The other night Keith left the door open when we went to bed, saying, oh, it's okay, the kittens won't bother us.

HAH!

I really didn't enjoy having big almost full grown kittens walking across my face at 2 am thank you very much!

A Box!

Whoo hoo!! An empty box!! Kitty fun-o-rama!!

To The Vet

Mimi went to the vet yesterday for her first annual checkup/vaccinations. Last summer at this time we were making almost weekly visits to the vet with the three kittens for their respiratory infections and their kitten shots.

We have two vets that we use, the nicer more upscale office that the big cats have always gone to and the All Critters Hospital that the little guys go to. Last year we tried to get them into our regular vet but they couldn't see them for almost a week and the kittens would probably have died before then so we called around looking for a vet that could see them right away. The office is just down the road in a funky old building with a pet spa, furniture store and a health food store in it, like a mini strip mall. I don't think the building even has air conditioning (or they just don't want to use it) because it's always hot in there. I feel sorry for the poor girls who have to work in there all day. This vet is an all animal vet, there are pictures on the wall of some of his surgeries like a rat all strapped down on the table and snakes and stuff. I've never seen anyone bring in an odd animal while I've been there, but they do have some kind of parrot in the waiting room that meows like a kitten.

When I got there with Mimi yesterday they said the doctor was running late and I could just leave her and pick her up later. Sounded good to me, not having to sit there in that hot office waiting, so that's what I did. My only worry with Mimi is that she is such a skinny little thing, so they did a stool sample-don't ask me how, I guess they stick a swab or something up inside her little bottom-to make sure she didn't have a tapeworm or something, and checked her out and gave her the shots. I do like that this vet will do stool samples without us having to monitor the litter boxes and try to catch the right cat's poo. With six cats it's really hard to know who's poo is whose. The doctor thinks she is okay on the weight, so I guess she is just a petite kitty, like Harri, who is fluffy but tiny under all that fur. Other than a chipped canine tooth-don't know how that happened unless Buddy slammed into her one too many times-she is in good health and is all set for another year.

Buddy and Lucy are next in line for their annuals, so I made appointments for them for a month apart to kind of lessen the financial part of all this-at $217.00 for this visit, you kind of want to spread it out a little!

Dumpster Diving

Mimi and her trash. She loves trash and loves to dumpster dive for her next piece of trash to play with, my trash can of paper beside the computer being her favorite.
She'll find that special piece of trash, look at you like 'don't you take this away from me!' and then run off with her score.

Just Laying Around

Kitties do have the knack of making laying around an art form, don't they? It's nice that the three little ones still like each other and will hang out together. It's interesting to see how they relate to each other and I wonder how that will change as they get older. They still chase each other around and play fight, tumbling around and batting and biting at each other, but also have more and more times of solitude.
So, it was kind of unusual to see all three in the same space, although poor little Mimi does look a little third wheelish.

Lucy The Water Baby

Lucy has always been fascinated with water. When Keith takes a bath, Lucy is right there on the edge of the bathtub, tail usually hanging down into the water. If you turn on the faucet, she is right there wanting to take a drink and will sometimes sit staring at the faucet like 'why isn't the water coming out?'
Sometimes I will turn on the water for her and then go off to do something else and forget thet I've turned on the water and come back 45 minutes later to find the water still running.

The Thrill of the Hunt

I finally figured out what Mimi is doing when she brings junk in from the garage. She's hunting, and since there are no real creatures out there (at least I HOPE there are no real creatures out there) she brings me her kills in the form of: pieces of scrap wood, a large piece of cellophane off of a filter package, and assorted pieces of paper. (We have a really really junky messy garage) She brings them in with that 'look what I brought you for dinner' meow and drops them by the food dishes in the kitchen.
I praise her for being such a good little huntress.
She's such a little sweetie.

Charge!

We have never let the little cats into our bedroom at night, we always shut the doors and let them run around the rest of the house while we're sleeping. Not that we've never been woken up by crashing sounds coming from somewhere or found strange things in strange places in the morning. We just don't like kitties biting our toes or nuzzling our faces while we are sleeping. We do let some of the big cats in with us since they are not so full of energy anymore and will leave us alone at night. I think the big cats like the break from the constant motion of the little ones.

So, every morning, the little cats are waiting waiting waiting outside the bedroom door, and as soon as we open it, they run into the bedroom like it's the promised land and then look around like 'huh, not so exciting after all'. So, I go out and get their food, which is what they have been waiting waiting waiting for.

It's kind of like when wal-mart opens their doors for the after Thanksgiving sales and the customers squeeze and push through the doors to be the first one in-you just stand back and get out of the way!

This Is What

We woke up to this morning. Apparently the hundreds of kitty toys we buy for the kids are not enough to keep them entertained.

I Love How

Lucy's

little paws

curl up when she's sleeping.

Buddy Loves His Daddy

Just like human kids who think that Dad is just the best thing ever, not like Mom who is always home telling them what to do and making them eat their vegetables, Buddy thinks that Keith is just the greatest. He's got big hands and knows all the right petting spots, he smells all funky and interesting when he comes home from work, his beard is scratchy, and when he lays down he makes a nice soft spot for sleeping on.

Buddy is getting really big now and very muscular and just a solid heavy kitty, but when Keith lays down he still wants to be little baby kitty and get cuddled. He gets on Keith's chest and walks around a little, gets some petting and scratching, then just flops his big body right onto Keith's neck and lays there and purrs.
Best Buds Forever!
I love my Daddy!

Mimi

We'll talk about little Mimi today.

She is the runt of the kitty babies that we hand raised last summer. We've been trying to fatten her up, she's one of those finicky eater nose in the air if it's not the right food cats, and you can see her ribs, but otherwise seems healthy and active.

She is not a lap cat, but a shoulder cat, the only place she wants to be on your body is on your shoulders. No hugging, no sitting on your lap getting petted, no picking me up, just let me jump onto your shoulders, clawing you as I'm trying to get settled here, and I'm happy.
She gets up on your shoulders and just purrs away. Her purring sounds almost like a bird, she kind of chirps. It's really hard to pet her when she is on your back.
It's also hard to do your bathroom business with a kitty on your back.

And any kind of open container is fair game for our girl-boxes, bags, lunchboxes-anything with an opening large enough for her to squeeze into and she's there.Here's your lunch!

The big cats know that the cat carrier=vet visit, but the little cats think it's just another fun place to hide.

Bags are fun, too!
And boxes!

Life is So Hard When You Are a Cat

Let's see, what's on my agenda for the day? Oh, yes, we'll start with a nice breakfast, then play with a toy or two, then race around the house for a little while, and then a nice nap. Then we'll wake up and stretch, go get petted, have a snack, play with a toy mouse, then another nap. And, then, before you know it, it's time to start all over again.
Just too much to do each day! How can I ever get everything done?
Sigh... my work is never ending!
So much to do, so little time!

How Rude!

Okay, this is the second time this has happened and I haven't figured out who the culprit is yet. I left a pair of pants folded on the floor in the closet, planning on wearing them again today, picked them up, and they had a big wet circle on them.

I know I didn't pee my pants, so somebody is using my pants as an extra litter box! What the...?

These cats have two big litter boxes that I clean twice a day, so why pee on my pants? Are you mad at me? Do I not feed you and pet you enough? I don't buy you enough catnip and kitty toys? What's going on here?

Or is someone just an evil kitty?

Lolcat for the day

No, this isn't one of my many many cats, but I thought this was funny.

The Kittens Saga

The continuation of the kitten rescue story.

After many trips to the vet, many many bottle feedings and bottom wipings-with new kittens you have to wipe their little behinds to get them to go pee after feeding them, just like mama cat does-and lots of medicine and tender care, our kittens began to flourish last summer.
Here they are last August, getting fat and sassy.

Since they had been so young when we found them, they still needed that sucking on mama thing, so they would suck on each other's bellies for comfort-and on each others genitals, which we had to put a stop to real quickly since that can damage their little private parts. As they got older, they would nuzzle into each other and get a flap of belly skin to suck on and you'd hear them just slurping away making each other's bellies soaking wet.
Whenever I'd find them sucking I'd make them a little plate of kitty milk mixed with baby rice cereal for them to lap up. These kittens were hard to wean, Buddy figured out food real quick and would (and still will) eat anything. Mimi wouldn't eat any dry food and lived on that kitty milk mixed with wet food for a long time. Lucy wanted nothing to do with the wet kitty food and only liked dry food, and still does. No canned Fancy Feast for her.
I think we finally got them done with kitten milk at about 5 months, they really liked that stuff.

Having three growing very active kittens in the house is something like having a three ring circus in your living room-constant motion and always something to watch. I wouldn't trade all the entertainment value of having three kittens for anything, though. Even the thousands that we spent on vet bills was worth it.

Big Fat Juicy Doves

Mimi was drooling, totally transfixed by these big fat doves at the bird feeder yesterday.
Mimi is sitting on the window bench that 2ndhusband made just for the kitties so that they could look out of the window with ease.
Mmm....dove....fat....juicy...tasty! I want one now!These doves are blissfully unaware of the danger that lurks just inside the window.

Mimi's Favorite Playthings

Mimi loves to play. With trash. She likes to find little pieces of trash or balled up paper either from the trash can or out in the wilds of the garage and she will entertain herself for hours with trash.
Today she found a bar code.
She carried that bar code around, hiding it in the couch cushions and dropping it on the floor to chase.
Oops, watch out, someone else wants to play with my bar code!
And here comes nosy Buddy who always has to get in on the action!
What have you got there? I want to play too!