Hairbrushes and Hairballs

We all know that Pepper is a weird cat and likes weird smells like the seasoning salt that is better than catnip as far as she is concerned. When Keith uses the salt at dinner I usually have to put a little bit of it on one of my cleaning rag washcloths and let her roll around in it in total bliss.

She also likes my hairbrush when I have just brushed my hair after my shower and it smells of lovely shampoo smells. Is it gross to throw the brush on the floor and let her sniff and rub against it? Probably, but I don't care and it makes her feel special. She waits patiently by the bathroom sink each night when I brush my hair and if I forget that she is waiting patiently there and put it back in the drawer before letting her sniff and rub, well...

First she looks around to make sure that nobody else will get her hairbrushy goodness.



Then, hairbrush heaven.


I was trying to get a picture of her snaggletooth. It makes her look like she has a constant sneer on her face. Which she usually does, snaggletooth or not.


I woke up this morning and found a coughed up hairball on the blanket. Fortunately it was on Keith's side of the bed and what he doesn't know won't hurt him. Although I really didn't feel like having to wash the blanket today.

A package of books from BNSF came by UPS for Keith yesterday so I stacked them in his mail pile on the counter and of course they looked really comfortable, so...

Silly Mimi

Why do cats do the silly things that they do? I was at my workbench the other day and just kind of stopped to watch Mimi squeeze herself under my little bookshelf which only has a few inches of space under it. She got under there, laid there for a little while, and then was done and crawled back out. Good thing she is tiny, I can just picture one of the bigger cats doing this, and then walking around with a bookshelf on their back because they got stuck.

Yes, Cats Will Indeed Sleep on Anything

Poor little Mimi. I had shoved Keith's shoes into the corner by his dresser so that I wouldn't trip over them, completely forgetting that Mimi likes to sleep in that corner, so...


This just doesn't look very comfortable to me, but Mimi seems to have had no trouble going to sleep on the shoes.

Mimi

Is practicing for her new tightrope act.


Careful now!

My Little Helper

I was cleaning the bathroom the other day, and yes, it really needed it, and Mimi decided she needed to leap from the floor onto my shoulder to make sure I was doing it right.
Now, if I could just train her to clean the toilet for me!

Mimi

I was cleaning out some of my books and putting them into plastic bags to take to the Goodwill when Mimi decided that this nice big plastic bag looked like a nice place to play.


Yes, I know it is just as dangerous to let your kitties play with plastic bags as it is your kids, but I was watching her the whole time.


A bird or something out the front door caught her attention for a minute.

She got tired and took her nap inside the plastic bag. She was in there for about an hour.

Another Awwww Moment

I came into the living room last night to find Buddy and Lucy squished together in one of the round platforms on the kitty condo, all intertwined, with Buddy licking Lucy's little face. Too cute!!

Buddy always has this very haughty expression on his face.

Yeah, I'm just too cool, but not so cool that I don't still love my sister.

Not So Cute

Mimi is sitting on my shoulder while I am trying to work on the computer. Her tail is going whap whap whap against the side of my head.

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.

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.

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!