It's "caturday": and I am linking to Amanda's blog

Amanda introduces Hampton today in her caturday post (complete with photo). I couldn't have said it better myself, so I'm linking over there.

Also ... here's a link to my vacation blog for the upcoming cruise. I'm starting it now so I can do some pre-cruise bragging.

Enjoy!
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It's "caturday": and I may have found the dream job

From Yahoo News, the headline from this story:

Lolcat site hiring; spelling skillz optional

not only made me LOL but gave me hope that there could actually be a job out there that could be completely fulfilling all day long. Imagine: viewing LOLcats photos and deciding which ones to post. What a way to make a living!
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It's "caturday": and LOLcats makes me LOL

This one cracks me up. (From LOLCats.)

It's "caturday": bathroom chronicles

I mentioned a while back that our cat Tabby sometimes uses the bathroom in places other than the litter box. We're not sure if she's doing this out of spite or because she sees the dog go on the puddle pad we have in case she needs to go before we walk her. Well, the other day I also saw Milenko go in our bathroom (at least he gets the connection with what the bathroom is for instead of going in the living room or kitchen). So far Jay still goes in the litter box, but I don't know what we're going to do with these two bad kitties. Or maybe we should be punishing the dog for being a bad influence. Here's a photo (courtesy LOLcats) that I wish these guys would pay attention to.
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It's "caturday": and now I know how I got the bug

It's "caturday": and we observe the church calendar

Tomorrow is Palm Sunday, also known as Passion Sunday (or the Sunday of the Passion -- meaning the time when we focus on Jesus' trip into Jerusalem and his acceptance of being the sacrifice in our place). Palm Sunday is also the start of Holy Week, which means Lent is over, and we can breathe a sigh of relief that we made it through another attempt (however strong or feeble) at strict obedience.

It's "caturday": serenity

This is why having cats around lowers your blood pressure. Here's Jay, doing his sphinx act.

It's "caturday": friendship

Jay and Cocoa hang out together a lot. I think it's because Milenko and Tabby told Jay he was a dog. And I think he believed them. It wasn't until recently that Jay started jumping high onto things like the linen cabinet in our bathroom.

But they do look cozy ...

Caturday example of my exercise regimen

Found at LOLcats.

Belated "Kat-urday" post

Holly of Venti Chocolate Mocha had her baby the other day -- on Saturday, February 2, to be exact, and had I known at the time, that would have been my post, as in: "It's 'caturday': introducing Katherine 'Katie-Cat' Fisher."

Here's a link to the official all-things-Katie-Cat site. Seeing as how it was groundhog day, I'm hoping Holly didn't have to go through childbirth hundreds of times -- a la the excellent movie with Bill Murray.

(It also occurred to me today that I'm grateful that there wasn't an Internet back when I had my babies, because I was not at my best, photo-wise, after popping those kids out, and only the family and friends who visited in person, as opposed to the World Wide Web, could see just how not-at-best I was.)

Holly and baby look like they're doing well. And from the look of that little girl's full head of hair, I'm thinking Holly will have to invest heavily in scuncis. Looking forward to seeing tons of photos of Kate on the site.

Congrats, Fisher family! :D

It's "caturday": introducing Lemon Pepper

Ok, just one more cat to introduce and then I think we're done here with the feline intros for a while (I hope).

This is a shot of Blackberry (at right) and Lemon Pepper, another stray who hangs around our house a good bit. He isn't a regular visitor enough for me to catch up with him to get to a vet appointment, so I have no idea what shape he's in. We're also not sure he doesn't belong to another family in the neighborhood. When I find him on the front porch, I give him some food -- and to a cat, that means he can make himself at home. Which he does. You can't tell from this photo, but Lemon Pepper is a little larger than Blackberry, he's not as fluffy and he has yellow and black markings. Hence his name -- which Amanda and Steven pinned on him.

He's very friendly -- never hisses or bares his teeth. He usually just meows politely when I go out the front door. I don't see him in the evening, so I hope he has somewhere warm to go. He and Blackberry seem to get along pretty well, as evidenced by how well they work together to guard my office -- at least the roof of it. (Doesn't Blackberry look like he's taken full ownership of the company? Such a "this is my domain" look he has.)

It's "caturday": introducing VJ

Well, this little guy came from the SPCA, so maybe that explains his strange behavior. He acts like a dog sometimes -- carrying things around the house in his mouth, meowing in a way that sounds almost like a bark and hanging around with Cocoa. He also gets startled at nothing and chases after nothing. We wonder if our house is haunted and he's the only one who sees it.

He's technically Connie's cat, along with Milenko, but as with Milenko, we can't get him to California, so he stays here. I'm guessing that's a permanent arrangement now. She named him V.J., which is short for "Violent Jay," who is, I think, another rocker. I call him Jay or Jay-Bird.

He and the other two inside cats, Milenko and Tabby, don't really associate that much. In fact, it wasn't until just a few days ago that he climbed up on the top of the linen closet like the other two do. (We think he just found out he's a cat. We 're pretty sure the others told him when he came to live with us that he's a dog and isn't able to jump high. Hence his hanging out with Cocoa.) Most of the day, he sleeps on the back of the couch, and he's adorable.

But then, he's also louder and more obnoxious than an alarm clock. Every morning starting at about 5:00, he gets outside our bedroom door and meows -- sometimes getting his face down to the crack in the bottom so it sounds really loud -- and hitting the door knob. I think if we had the type of door that had a long handle stretching out horizontally, he'd be able to open it.

At Christmas, he kept climbing the tree, and when we took it down, he was traumatized for days. This is a video of him having a fit that his tree was gone.

It's "caturday": introducing Milenko

First of all, I didn't name him; Connie did. I think Milenko is the name of someone in a rock band, I'm not sure. Anyway, he was her cat, so she got to name him. I almost never call him Milenko. I call him Links or Link-Link or Linky-poo or some other moniker that he probably hates but is too polite to say to my face.

He still lives with us because Connie is in California and getting a cat moved out there would be a project and a half. Plus, he and Tabby sort of go together and I don't want to split them up. (This is how I ended up living with 5 pets -- 4 cats and a dog -- when all I ever wanted was a poodle.)

Milenko is the most affectionate of all of our cats, at least to me. He does this one thing that seems to be an imitation of what he thinks is my hug. I'll go up to him and put my arm around him and press my head against him for a second. So he'll come up to me later when I'm in the recliner or sitting on the bed watching TV and put his head against my chest, holding it there for about a half minute.

He tries to imitate other things that we do too. For instance, he doesn't lie at the foot of the bed like the other cats. He gets under the covers and manuevers himself around until he ends up with his body under the covers and his head on the pillow. Because that's what he sees us do. (We have to be sure he's out of the room before we go to sleep, otherwise he'll hop in the bed in the middle of the night and get under the covers. It's a little unnerving to wake up with a cat on the pillow next to you.)

I'm not sure if he's a little weird or very intelligent. Whatever the case, this imitating-the-humans stuff would be great if he would take an interest in washing dishes or even loading the dishwasher or hey -- what about cleaning out his own litter box. Now there's a real people task he could take on.

Here's Tabby and Milenko when they were babies, up in their "cat condo." Cute, aren't they?

It's "caturday": introducing Tabby

This is one of our inside cats, Tabitha, or Tabby for short. Also Tabs, Tabster, Tab-Tab, Tabituuuuuh and a number of other nicknames, some of which come to me at the spur of the moment.

Tabby came to live with us with her brother Milenko (whom you'll meet next Caturday). They were two of a trio born to a stray who was being cared for by our former neighbor. The first kitten had been taken, and Connie was going to get Milenko, but I said we couldn't leave that one kitty by herself, so we got both. So technically she's mine, but really she belongs to the whole family. (Or, more accurately, we belong to her.)

She loves getting inside bags, boxes and baskets and loves lying on the paper, especially when you're trying to read it. It's only fitting that the photo shows her with three of the things she loves most.

She also has this way of looking at you and squinting, which makes me wonder if she needs glasses.

The only thing about Tabs that bugs me is a bad habit she has of going potty on the pee-pad we put down for the dog to use (who is STILL confused about the fact that her bathroom is outside ... more on that when I introduce Cocoa, our toy poodle). She also pees on the bathroom mats ... but she scrunches them up like she's "covering" the evidence (as cats do in a litter box). Now, the weird thing is she also uses the litter box. I think she's doing this on-the-mat/on-the-pee-pad thing to either a) identify with the dog or b) point out what a mess the dog is making.

I'm not sure if she's incredibly smart or vindictive as hell.

It's "caturday": introducing Blackberry

This is Blackberry, my office cat. He usually hangs around outside and sleeps in our garage, but I let him stay in my office when it's cold. As you can see, he's taken over the place.

He's a stray who came to our house and adopted us. I took him to the vet to get him checked out and found out he has FIV -- feline immunodeficiency virus (the cat equivalent of HIV), which is highly contageous among the cat population. Which means he can't come inside and live with our other cats. Which is too bad, because he's very affectionate.

The vet said they usually euthanize the FIV-positive cats in the wild (otherwise they'd infect every cat they came in contact with, which could be a huge number), but I don't want him put to sleep just because he has this. He probably got it fighting off a mean cat somewhere, and it just seems unfair to do him in because he was fighting for his life. The vet said he could try to find a home for him with people who keep cats with this disease (which presents no problem since they all have it). I'm still deciding what to do. In the meantime, he's my office assistant, obviously campaigning for a management role.