Zenslaw

Wanted: An engineer that is smatter than my kitty...

Match the following questions with their respective answers:

1. Guess who learned how to open doors today??
2. Guess who practiced until she could get the door open in one perfectly executed jump?
3. Guess who thought it was highly amusing when she started trying to open the doors last night?
4. Guess how many doors I have that should NOT be opened by kitties?
5. Guess how long the ginourmous rubber band around the door handles lasted?
6. Guess who made off with it (the rubber band) like a shot?
7. Guess who does NOT have time to come up with an elegant solution today???

1. 752
2. Maya
3. Less than Helpful Beloved
4. Jak
5. Stumped in Stepford
6. Maya
7. .025 seconds

Some help here please??

Even when you miss your mark...

Prima Ballerina, originally uploaded by karenturner.

You can still have glorious lines!

Murder She Wrote (A mystery in 30 seconds...)

Following complaints of a loud crash in the vicinity we entered the scene of the crime:

We attempted to question the available witnesses

But they clearly had been intimidated into silence...

We followed the direction of their nervous glances where we came upon a scene of studied nonchalance

Being professionals, we were not fooled... 'Come along quietly kitties, we have some questions we'd like to ask you.'

'But wait', said kitty #1 (aka Jak Attack)

'Aren't you mesmerized by my cuteness??'

blink

blink

blink

'Um... no.. well... um...'

'Hey!! You're a KITTY!! Yes you are!! You have a soft fuzzy belly! Come here and let me pet you kitty!'

It's like having another baby (make that two babies)!!

I swear the spotted cyclones are getting into EVERYTHING...

It only took Jak a week to figure out how to vault over the baby-kitty gates and once he did, he stood there and encouraged his sister until she figured it out too...

So now we spend our time chasing after them trying to figure out what they're getting into and where to put it so they won't get to it...

Still they make me laugh all day long...

I miss the little brats! (And I've barely left!!)

Happy Mom & Babe Day!!

Every year on April 6th my daughter and I celebrate our very own holiday...  We take the whole day (or sometimes a whole weekend) and just enjoy being together, doing whatever we want to do... This usually involves shopping for shoes...  Or traveling someplace interesting (to shop for shoes we can't get at home)... Or baking in our jammies...

This year we shopped for shoes AND baked blueberry pie AND played with new baby kitties...

This year my baby said Mom & Babe day was her favorite holiday... 

:D

Vegan Cats??

Um last I checked cats are carnivores...

I need to beg borrow or steal their client list and figure out if I need to move...

'Cause there's a full scale kitty revolt coming, I'm sure of it...

Ok to be fair, I read the FAQ and the people running the site seem to have a good attitude:

If all the vegans out there who are worried about feeding their cats a vegan diet would instead strive to feed them a partially vegan diet, the collective benefit to animals would be tremendous. For this reason we believe that advising people to give their cats a mix of vegan and meat food is not only not hypocritical and anti-vegan, it is actually the most moral, ethically consistent, vegan position that we can possibly hold at the present time.

But some of the questions coming in...  DAMN people... cats need meat... 

Motivation, or Where are My Pictures Dammit??

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I have a to-do list as long as my arm LISTING all the things I need TO DO (hence the clever origin of the name) to get ready for this trip, and I spent the greater part of the weekend trying to plough my way through it.  (Status: 15 down, 4 in process, 6 to go)

Meanwhile, I was also waiting for the latest pictures of the spotted jungle guard kitties which had been promised for Friday evening. 

Now I know you will find this hard to believe, but I was distracted by all the things that are much more fun than packing, and also a little obsessed about getting these latest pictures (can you say 'incessant email checking'?).  So to keep myself progressing through my ever-growing list, I set goals for myself.  Now you would think a grown woman would not have to do things like telling herself 'No you cannot check for spotted baby kitty pictures for the 3000th time this afternoon until you do... um... FOUR things (yes FOUR) from the list.'  I even marked them (Anjolie, I know you will get this one).  Must be a throw-back to my childhood or something ('No you can't leave the table and watch The Brady Bunch until you eat THREE BITES of liver' (WHO in God's name would make a kid eat liver?? (My mother that's who (love you Mom!)) But that's a post for another time.)

Regardless of the reason, it worked...  Until the pictures finally arrived of course:

Yemaya - 5 weeks


Jakuta - 5 weeks

Now my to-do list is hanging out there like substitute teacher; the lesson plan is there but I am making up excuses about my sick cousin from Philly... (No offense to any teachers out there, I know what a tough job it is!)

Send help immediately!

photos: Holly Hummel

Spotted Jungle Kitties - Three Weeks Old Edition

Jakuta

Yemaya

Six weeks and counting to the debut of the Spotted Jungle Guard Kitties. 

(Aren't they threatening??)

The semi-stray yard kitties will not know what hit them!

Baby Names...

If you spent more than 30 seconds at my house lately you would figure out that I am currently obsessed with the new spinning, careening furballs bundles of joy that will be arriving at our house in about 8 weeks or so...

It's like when my younger sisters finally decided to start adding to the grandchild population (can you say 'took you long enough!!'?) and I started looking at baby paraphenalia again...  What IS all this stuff and WHEN did they invent it??  And what do you FEED baby kitties now?  And how cool are those toys??

Of course the current obsession is coming up with names for them... I am not one of those people who had to come up with a baby name at the hospital so they would let us take the kid home... No no no... my first-born had a name (ok a choice of 2 names) roughly 3 minutes after it was confirmed that there was indeed a bun in the oven... 

So it's the same with the spotted-jungle-kitties...  They can't be kitten f3-8-2 and  kitten f3-8-4 forever (or even 10 more minutes dammit!)...

We (ok I) spent the weekend researching names, throwing out choices (no we're not calling them Frick and Frack, or Flotsam and Jetsam, we need creativity here people!!) and doing round robin voting (no we are not calling them Electron and Quark)... Since the kitties are part African Serval, I wanted something that would be fitting with their baby-leopard type spots so started researching the names of African Gods & Goddesses... I learned alot... I even forgot I was looking for names and just started surfing... (FOCUS!)  Once I got myself back on track I came across two that were just perfect...

Introducing

Yemaya (Goddess of the Sea (mermaid))

and Jakuta (Sky Father (thunder & lightening))

Of course SOMEbody immediately said, 'Yo-mama & Jacuzzi??' (Sometimes I think he's 12)... But we're not speaking to HIM...

New Babies!!

Yes :D  There are going to be new babies at our house...

New baby kitties that is!! (Yes kitties, as in two (yes I think I HAVE lost my mind))

Baby Girl Kitty:

And Baby Boy Kitty:

Of course being currently catless, we will still be FAR short of the SIX cat limit which would cause us to be known around the 'hood as 'Those crazy cat people'...

I thought I'd never get another cat... 

Tibby, don't be sad... We'll always love you best!!

Spotted Kitty photos courtesy of Holly Hummel