Monday Morning Blues/Unhappy Halloween

Kitties, it was quite some weekend here. We were affected by the storm that came up the east coast of the US on Saturday and Saturday night. About 1 pm on Saturday, even though there was not yet a lot of snow, the weight of the snow on the leaves still on the trees started to cause branches on trees to break, and one of the first ones took out the power line on our street. The yard is littered with branches big and small, and it looks more like we had a hurricane than a little bit of snow. In fact, when Irene passed through we had MUCH less damage than this. The power is still not on. Our temperatures are going down into the 30s at night, and the house is about 50F. We are having to do lots of cuddling with Mom in the dark at night.

Mom is posting this from work for us, as we have no internet at home. Posting and visiting will be sparse till we get our electricity back, hopefully about Wednesday.

Hope lots of you are going to have a fun Halloween. Our will be the quietest one ever.

Photo Hunt - Broken

Kitties SOMEBODY has been a bit rough with some of the toys.

Exhibit A - the mouse. On the right is an undamaged mouse. On the left is the wrecked mouse.

Exhibit B: The Kong toy.

No toys ever got broken before Audrey came to live here. Just sayin'.

Thankful Thursday

I am doing Thankful Thursday today, not Thursday in the Garden, because it is rainy outside here today, and also my Dad is away on a trippie and took the camera with him! So Mom has to use older photos.

Today one thing I am very thankful for is that the poor kitty Jack, who was lost for 7 weeks at JFK, was found!!! He was still in the airport building, in the customs section. Although he is in the care of a vet (he has fatty liver disease from not eating so long) and definitely not out of the woods yet, at least he was found now and has a chance. You can read more about it all on the Facebook page here or click on his picture on my sidebar):

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Jack-The-Cat-is-Lost-in-AA-Baggage-at-JFK/143108332445793?sk=wall

If he survives, his human is planning to come and get him from California. She will not ship him in Cargo! However I hope she also realizes that when you take a cat on the plane with you, the cat must be taken out of the carrier to go through security. That was very scary for Audrey and she struggled and almost escaped when the humans brought her to her new home.

On another subject, about my nip picture yesterday, that is what the plant looked like just after Dad has thinned it out by making cuttings. The humans have moved the plant inside the house where we don't pay it much attention, but it is there for us to sniff when passing if we wish. Admiral asked if we would have a Nip Pawty, and I think that is a really excellent idea. We will have to get to discussing details.

Mom wonders what I was thinking, making those airplane ears.

Wordless Wednesday

Not Good Enough

Mom, you are REALLY slacking! No blog post since Saturday! What will we do with you?

Besides, give me some FUDS!

Photo Hunt - High

Yes, just a LITTLE bit "high" on my catnip.

'Tocktober 'Tocks and Happy Birthday Derby

In honor of Derby's birthday and 'Tocktober, kitties all over the globe are posting pictures of their handsome or beautiful 'tocks today. Here are our contributions:

Derby, we hope you have a wonderful 8th birthday!!!

Wordless Wednesday (almost)

(Dad put the nip cuttings in the paper bag).
Yes, Simba DOES spend quite a lot of time looking at what Audrey is doing!

'Tocks Preview on Tuesday

Mom was chasing us around the other day, taking pictures of our rear ends. Here is a little preview of Audrey's 'tocks:

And more leaves so you can tell it is Fall.

ManCat Monday

Kitties, this is me striking a manly pose by the nip plant. Dad thinned it out and is drying the trimmings for us. (this is actually before the trimming!) He brought the plant indoors because, you can see, it is getting quite "fallish" here. Those leaves are quite the challenge on a windy day - they blow all around and Audrey and I try to keep up with them. Fun and games, kitties.

National Feral Cat Day

Kitties, aren't we so fortunate to have nice homes? There are lots of feral cats who do not have homes to live in, but who have always been feral and so would not make good house cats. Today is a day to raise awareness about feral cats and about Trap-Neuter-Return programs. Several of my friends have done such great posts on this subject, and are much much more knowledgeable than we are, so I encourage you to go and read their posts, and also to go to the website of Alley Cat Allies and read their post about Feral Cat Day. They have an education section with lots of literature about feral cats and the best ways to help them.

Here is a link to Sparkle's post

Margs' Post

Beaded Tail's post

Island Cats' Post.

My humans said this morning that they want to find out more about how the officials in our town are managing the feral cat population and become involved in encouraging a TNR policy.

Photo Hunt - Public

One of Mom's favorite PUBLIC places to visit - the Grand Basin in Forest Park, St Louis.

Furry (and Finally) Friday

Mom often brings her pillow and lies on the couch when she watches tv. Here I got to rest on it before she took it away. The exposure is a little funny, but we think it is a sweet picture.

Of course my fur makes her face itchy, so she was not all that pleased that I was resting right on her pillow!

Few Words Wednesday

Me and my nip again ...........

Indian Summer

It has been so amazingly warm here for October. Dad has taken advantage of the warm weather to sealcoat our driveway and paint part of the front of the house, things you would not usually consider doing in October here. We have had wonderful window whiffies and a little time on the deck as well (not too much, because of worries about us escaping and running onto the wet black stuff on the driveway). Soon the deck will not be so inviting, so we hope to get out there some more in the coming week.

PhotoHunt - Waiting

Our catnip plant has really benefited from the recent weather - look at how lush it is! We will sniff at the plant, but really like it if Mom or Dad will break off a piece for us and crush it a little to release the catnip smells. Here each of us show how we are WAITING for somebody to do that.

It took a while, but once Mom had her photos of us by the plant, she finally gave us each a piece. HEAVEN! Thanks, Mom!

MIA Day

We are joining with Samantha and Clementine and Maverick of Life from a Cat's Perspective in honor of both their Mr Tigger who went missing, and our Rusty, who we lost when he did not come home. When Simba first came to live here, Rusty was the other kitty, and they became pretty good buddies, though Rusty was an independent sort, and just could not be happy unless he was able to go outside. He would roam and hunt, and always be back at the end of the day.
One rainy night he stayed out extra late and did not come home. The next day Mom and Dad looked all over the neighborhood for him, and put flyers in mailboxes with his picture, and called the vets offices in the area, thinking he might have been hit by a car. But there was no news of him. Then a couple of days later Mom saw that among the grass in the front yard was some of his ginger and white fur, as if he had struggled with an animal that grabbed him by the throat. They believe he was taken away and killed by a coyote or wild dog. Yes, right here in suburbia, we have such things. They were so very upset, but there was nothing to be done to make the clock go backwards. Now a special stone marks the spot in the front yard where Rusty last was.

So the humans are very protective of us now, and don't let us go out unless under very close supervision (for Simba only, Audrey doesn't go off the deck at all). Yet they do know Rusty would have been a very unhappy boy if he was confined inside. One winter Mom tried to refuse to let him out and he would scratch and scratch at the doors, and yowl frantically. Once he had tasted the outside he could no longer be an inside cat. But he did have 13 wonderful years of life. Here is Rusty one Christmas, by the Christmas tree:

Mr Tigger, we hope you are happy and have a new family somewhere who love you too. We know your first family misses you a lot.

Rusty, we love you and miss you. We hope you are enjoying the infinite outdoors at the Rainbow Bridge.

Not Really Wordless Wednesday

Mom has been "bizzy" between work and home so our posting has been deficient. We won't complain because she still keeps up with the fuds.

At the end of our deck where it is by the stairs, and next to the lower deck, we have this green plastic mesh. Makes us look like we are in jail from the other side, but really we can see through it quite well.

Mancat Monday

Wasn't Livestrong Day something? We found it so inspiring that so many cats blogged about it.

Mom has dug back into older photos for today's mancat picture of me, because our laptop is so full of pictures, she is saving the newer ones on an external drive and it is not connected right now.

Have a wonderful Monday all you mancats and ladycats!

Livestrong Day

In our family we have had quite a few human family members, kitties and friends affected by cancer.    Some of them passed away due to the cancer, and others are surviving.     On Livestrong Day we want to honor them all.      We won't list their names here, but if they read the blog, they know we are honoring them.  

We really like this graphic because we really do wish for a world without any cancer at all.

We are not very adept with Photoshop and stuff, but using Picknik, Mom made us this picture:

There is a wonderful slideshow of pet bloggers' Livestrong pictures that Chandra did here.  Do go and look at it!   And the 2010 slideshow has some very favorite pictures in it of ours so if you would like to view that one on its own, here is the link.   Thank you Chandra, and thank you Milo and Alfie's Mom, Jan, and Ann of Zoolatry for all you have done to help make Livestrong Day so inspirational. (Chandra helped Mom with the code for the 2010 slideshow so she has a small version of it below).



Added: We just want to encourage all who read my blog to SUPPORT organizations that fund SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH into understanding cancer and searching for cures.