Photo Friday: Shutter Cat

I wanted to take more pictures of her Emilyness on the Sun Deck, and Billy wanted to help. Or he thought I opened up a cat carrier, not a camera carrier.



(The camera he was looking for was in my hand, of course.)

Feline Crime <b>does</b> pay

Must be a slow news week.

Lewis the terrorist cat is now a media darling, and driving the neighbors even more nuts in the process.

In the news ... ABSO Feline

From the Register, comes a report of a terrorist cat.

The weekly numbers

Once again, everyone's weight seems pretty stable this week. Emily came in at 7 lbs 2 oz, and Whitey at 13 lbs 4.5 oz, both the same as last week. Billy gained an ounce, at 14 lbs 5.5 oz.

Litter box Wars - Part 3

Our continuing saga ...

Friday, Katherine goes shopping for the cats. Among other things, she gets a Catzilla sized litterbox, which if you put wheels on it you could use it as a trailer for a garden tractor.

All is well when she arrives. She thinks.

However, she gets up stairs and finds someone missed the litterbox. Probably Emily, since it didn't get buried.

Katherine is cleaning this up when Billy shows up, hops in the other litterbox ... and misses.

Litterbox Wars - Part 2

As noted, Katherine cleaned up after Billy's litter box misfire on Thursday night. Per our usual protocol, she left the soiled mat on the back porch for me to clean up.

I'm a good clean up crew (hey, if it keeps me from actually working on the mess on the floor...). When I get home I grab the mat, and take it over to the hose. Before opening up the valve, I tighten the connections between the hose reel and house, which leaked enough to spray water about the last (only) time I used it this spring.

I turn on the hose to wash the mat . . .

. . . and the nozzle fitting starts spraying water. I turn off the water, and go to tighten up that end and discover the nozzle has basically sheared off at the threaded fitting to the hose. Bizarre. Maybe it was a late frost. The hose itself is frost proof, but that doesn't mean the nozzle or hose reel fittings are.

Knowing I had to go the mall the next day anyway, I troop back inside, show Katherine the two pieces of the dead nozzle, and announce I was done for the night.

Well, I tried.

To be continued ...

Litterbox Wars - Part 1

This going to take a couple of entries to document, in part because that's how it originally played out.

Thursday night, I work late, and Katherine (at Aikido) beats me home. All seems well when she arrives.

However, her arrival wakes the cats up. Billy comes downstairs, asks about dinner, goes to use kitchen litterbox ... and misses.

Katherine was not happy. She got it cleaned up before I got home.

To be continued ...

Photo Friday: More Help At Work

We've previously noted how Emily helps out at work. What's amazing is how much a small girl like her can help out so much, or least be the center of attention.



It does help that Katherine uses a wireless keyboard to better clear the decks desk and get work done pet Emily.

Winning Lottery Numbers

Not much change since the last weigh-in. Emily continues to gain, at 7 lbs 2.5 oz. If Billy is a Hoover and Whitey is a Shop-Vac, Emily is a Dust Buster: lots of little snacks throughout the day.

Billy and Whitey were both stable, at respectively 14 lbs 4 oz and 13 lbs 4 oz.

Night Rangers

Some nights the boys practically beat us to bed.

Last night was not one of those nights. Despite giving Billy three rounds of pom pom teaser exercise, they were wide awake after we retired.

We had Cat Fu. We had FRAP cats tearing up and down the stairs and hall condo. We had random meowing.

We have not quite figured how we got all three, normally FRAP cats don't ask for us play with them. But I guess it was all in the night's work.

Catzilla: After the Flood

Billy missed the kitchen litterbox this afternoon just after we got home from a long errand. Even being there as it happened, it was still quite the mess for Katherine to clean up, and we'll leave it at that ...

(As usual, I washed the mat outside after she did the in house dirty work.)

Photo Friday: Shop-Vac

When comes to food, we've decided the boys are vacuum cleaners. However, they are not the same model. Billy is your basic high powered Hoover, whereas Whitey must be a Shop-Vac, because he's the one who handles the wet stuff, milk!

As previously noted, he can be patient for his milk. Most nights at dinner, he waits quietly on the piano bench until his turn comes.



(Excuse the image quality, this was a badly lighted camera phone snapshot.)

Once More, with Feeling!

At 6:30 AM, a loud crash was heard coming from downstairs.

Out of bed, into booties, down the stairs.

Two not very innocent looking tiger cats are in the kitchen. One (Whitey) is looking startled, the other (Billy) has his head in the kitchen wastebasket which had been tipped over (for the second day in a row).

The crash had been caused by the two shake cans on the basket lid flying off as the basket went over.

It's time to buy a new kitchen wastebasket, one which is less tippable.

Status quo

Emily went in for her annual shots and routine blood tests this week. Heard back from the vet today, who says that her results are basically unchanged since last time. She's not getting better--not a surprise since she isn't getting younger, and age is most of her problem--but neither does she seem to be getting worse.

Dietary indiscretions

Now we're in trouble.

Recently, the boys figured out how to tip over the kitchen wastebasket. I think they probably did this by mistake the first time, trying to get behind it to chase a toy or something. However, the kitchen wastebasket often contains yummy people food, so I guess further exploration was inevitable. This morning, their efforts were rewarded when they found a package of deli roast beef. Really old deli roast beef. Blech.

So far, they haven't shown any sign of tummy troubles. Though I'd rather not clean up kitten barf, that's still sort of bad news. They'll probably go looking for more goodies the first chance they get. It may be time to get a heavier kitchen wastebasket. Sigh...

Nothing Like The Sun

One note about Emily and the sun deck. She looks sad when she comes in my office in the morning, hops onto her sun deck, and there is no sun, like today.

*sigh*

Photo Weekend: Emily's Sundeck

This winter I've left the sun deck more directly under the window in my office, and no one has enjoyed it more than Emily. No doubt she likes the extra warmth. She even visits in the morning, when she used to burrow under the covers of the bed.

The not exactly weekly weigh-in

Everyone's weight remains more or less stable since the last time. Emily gained about an ounce, at 6 lbs 15.5 oz. Billy lost a little bit, at 14 lbs 4.5 oz, and Whitey gained a little, at 13 lbs 4.5 oz.

Nice work if you can get it

Billy and Whitey have such a good racket going, we're thinking of renaming them Vinny and Guido. (Although, come to think of it, Whitey is already named after a mobster...) Emily gets several doses of medicine every day. She gets a kitty treat to go with each dose, on the spoonful of sugar (or tuna, as the case may be) principle.

The boys have learned that if they patiently hover in my office while I'm preparing her medicine and getting her treat, they'll get treats too in order to make them go away.

Just who is training whom here, huh?

Happiness is a warm kitten

Billy is a sweet kitten sometimes. I took a nap late yesterday afternoon. He was already asleep on the bed, but after I crawled under the covers, he quietly curled up next to me and went back to sleep. This may be why the nap lasted twice as long as I planned.

Another Wide Load

Billy may be getting blamed for more accidents than he should.

This morning, Whitey missed the edge of the litter box in classic style. Billy was locked out of the room at the time, so we know it wasn't him.

In related news, I've declared it Spring. In order to clean up the dirty litter mat, I hooked up the outside hose and hosed it off outside. No indoor bathoom cleanup afterwards.

(Yes, our hose is frostproof. This is March in New England.)

QOTN (Quote of the Night)

After the great filter delivery adventure:

Katherine: I thought you played with those boys!
Me: I did!

I guess they don't tire easily.

The Forgotten Entry Title

This post has no title because I have forgotten the great one I composed when the indicated event happened. I am to be excused, however, because it was 1 AM and I had been woken out of a sound sleep. I've also forgotten at least one great comment from Katherine which she made at the time.

The event itself was Billy arriving in bed. While normally this may or may not half wake me, it doesn't make me alert and certainly it's not worthy of note here.

However, normally Billy doesn't drop something on the bed when he arrives. He did last night, and It sounded liked a toy foil ball. However, Katherine announced the good news: he had a filter from the dining room water fountain. Actually she didn't announce which fountain, but since we had not heard him disassembling the bedroom fountain, it had to be from downstairs.

She took the filter back down, reassembled the fountain, and duck taped the power cord. Then she came back and crashed.

At least the present wasn't a live mouse, which happened once to a friend of mine many years ago. (An event made more exciting by the mouse taking off under the covers towards the foot of the bed, with the presenting cat in hot pursuit. The humans bailed.)

Weekend Stench Double Feature

Saturday morning gave us Emily throwing up at 2:30 AM. Cleaning it up woke up the boys, who in turn gave 3 AM Cat Fu a try.

Saturday morning dawn led to the discovery of a downstairs litter box miss. I cleaned it up, all by myself. (Which is an event, since Katherine is normally the clean up angel.)

Stench Summary

A quick summary of the stench for last month ...

Billy, while very diligent about using litter boxes, has lousy aim. Even though we have rather large boxes, it he seems to be missing multiple times a week, the last being ~ Wednesday night. We view this problem as him not knowing where his fat butt is relative to the edge of the box.

Our next trip to Pet Co will include getting the biggest deepest box we can find.

Meow, Oink, Meow

I disovered something this week: Whitey is a pig.

I knew that he wolfs down his wet food when served, even faster than Billy.

I thought it was self defense against Billy. I was wrong.

What I didn't realize was that Whitey then makes a beeline for his brother's dish two feet away, where Billy is wolfing down his own wet food. Whitey sort of slides in and steals from his slower brother, and the effect is that they alternate taking bites.

It would be cute if Whitey weren't a thief!