Secret Paws 2014

We got a wonderful Secret Paws package from Samantha Black!


Look at all these gifts! She really spoiled us this Christmas!


We didn't even know where to start. That Christmas tree toy is a lot of fun, and the snowman too. And we love all the balls!


Maggie didn't even want to wait until the wand toy was out of the package to try it out. She's impulsive like that.


Josie picked out a piece of tissue paper. The tissue had a nice nip smell to it too.


Look at all these treats! We're stocked. We've really enjoyed the Tumblers!


Huggy Bear says "Thanks for all our great stuff, Samantha!" She was even nice enough to send something for Mom and Dad. Merry Christmas! We love doing Secret Paws.

The morning after...


Dad left the box with the tissue in the kitchen so of course we played with it all night. (The laundry basket on the counter was to carry supplies to a friend's house so Mom could cook dinner.)

Secret Paws!

We got our Secret Paws package last week from Samantha Black! She did an amazing job putting together some great gifts for us, and even something for out Mom and Dad. I have a bunch of pictures that I will upload this weekend. Family was in for Christmas so it threw off my posting, but I just wanted to acknowledge the great gifts from Samantha. Thanks again! Merry Christmas to everyone!

And an awesome box...

The truth is in the pupils

I had to go back to the vet again for a check-up -- hopefully the last one for a long time.


There was a talkative Corgi at the vet's right beside me. Let's just say I wasn't liking that dog very much today. Pupils don't lie. I was done. I had to huff at him several times.

And then the vet said he wants me to lose half a pound a month. I'm not sure how that's supposed to happen. Dad said something about putting the food away for part of the day. We'll see. I don't want diabetes either, so I'll do my best.

On the plus side, I'm getting better. But I'm done with these adventures. I'm ready to nap in my box in peace again.

Thumbs help

This is one of my favorite comics...

http://www.gocomics.com/dogeatdoug/2014/12/08

Not on our tree

Mom and Dad were out shopping and saw this ornament. I'm pretty sure it would last about 30 seconds on our tree before we killed it. I mean, just look at that tail. It's asking to be smacked.

Oh the indignity

Well I went back to the vet yesterday for a follow-up visit and it seems like my bottom is healing up well, although they want to check it again next week. But to top things off it seem I have gotten an eye infection from cleaning my bottom. So now I get eye ointment. At least everyone at the vet said I was a very good boy and I didn't fuss at anyone or hiss, so that's got to count for something. And I am getting a bunch of extra treats because of all I'm going through.


Here I am getting some love from Mom. You can see how they shaved my belly too. I had lots of knots in my furs and they were nice enough to clean them up while I was under for my procedure last week. (They had to shave my nether region too, but I'm not showing that off.)

I'm very good at hiding

Jasper: very good at hiding.

Mom and Dad called for me and shook treats but I wouldn't come out so after searching every possible spot they resorted to looking at the storage under the stairs and found me. I was kind of done with Maggie hissing at me and found a nice spot to relax and not be bothered.

A (literal) pain in my butt

Well shucks, it looks like it wasn't an abscess after all, and Maggie is off the hook. What my emergency trip to the vet turned out to be was a ruptured anal gland, and boy did it stink. Even the vet tech who is around stink all day said it smelled bad. I guess if I'm going to do it, I should do it right.

So I had to have a minor procedure to repair it. I had to be put under for them to do what they needed to do, but I'm up and moving around now. I get to come home at 5:30 all patched up and sporting a fancy new haircut for Christmas.


I had to do some investigating of the vet's office once I calmed down some.


After all was inspected and the office was determined to be OK, I settled back in to my carrier. (Mom really had to fight me to get in it at home, but at the vet's I was OK hanging out.)


I think all this had Maggie a little stressed out. She needed to snuggle up in Mom's lap for a little bit. She's a snuggler, but not often a lap cat. (Mom is wearing compression socks because Mom and Dad have been walking to prepare for another 50 mile walk in March.)

Not happy ...

Ugh. I'm at the vet right now and I'm not happy about it. I had another abscess rupture from Maggie biting me on the butt. It had to be Maggie because she's the only one who bites me like that. Fortunately Mom was working from home waiting for a new kitchen table to be delivered so she could get it taken care of right away. I don't have a regular vet I go to so I'm seeing the guys at PetSmart because it was the closest and easiest to get in to. I'll probably get my mats cleaned off that I won't let Mom and Dad can't get off of me while I'm here too. Not how I planned on spending my Thursday...

Happy to have them back

The happiest part of a Happy Thanksgiving for us is when Mom and Dad come back home. Mom and Dad traveled up to Richmond, Va, to visit Dad's grandmother, who is 96 years old. Most of Dad's family converged on Richmond from Cincinnati, Knoxville and London, England so Dad's mother and father, sister and her husband (and dog), brother and his wife and 3/5 of their kids, and his cousin who lives in England now were all there. They had a really nice visit, and got to see Nanny's new place. At 96 she just moved from independent living to assisted living in her retirement community, and even then the people at the retirement community were resistant because "there's nothing wrong with you." She has balance issues when standing, but is otherwise healthy, and there's little more you could ask for than that.


Here's Dad with his grandmother.

Homecomings are wonderful things because we get to put our stink back on Mom and Dad.


Josie wasted no time claiming Dad's lap. Of course, Mom and Dad were also happy to be back in their own space and catching up on TV shows.


My favorite spot is between Mom and Dad's pillows with my head resting on Mom's pillow. They travel with their pillows so it was nice to have these back.


I even let Maggie curl up near me. She was tucked right against Dad in this picture.


Mom and Dad brought back some doughnuts from Dixie Doughnuts in the Carytown district in Richmond. This one was our favorite because it looked like a cat. Unfortunately we didn't get to eat any of them.


Huggy Bear was happy to have Mom and Dad home. He worries a lot about them, so once they were home he could relax in a ray of sun that was hitting the cat bed.


Also, there was a scary clown...

Good box

Mom has been uploading tons of pictures to our Flickr account to clear up space on her phone so she can take more pictures (surely of us, and not of those twins who come to visit). I like Flickr, but I noticed I think I have too many pictures in our Kittens folder because it's hard to sometimes find the new ones.*


Here I am in a picture that Mom too of me in September. I'm pretty sure this is the same box that is in the bedroom. I have declared the box in the bedroom as "mine" and I will run and hop into it whenever another cat comes in to make sure no one else puts their stink on it (I'm talking to you, Maggie). Recently I heard Mom say something about how it will be a sad day when we have to get rid of my box. I'm not sure what she's talking about because that box isn't going anywhere.

*We noticed when Flickr did their upgrade to their site some of the folders of pictures seem disorganized. When you would think there would be some chronological order or some way to sort them other than manually reorganizing hundreds of pictures. Of course the photostream is still in chronological order, but it's challenging to wade through all those pictures. Time to rethink my folders.

Grocery helper

Josie loves helping with the groceries. Making sure the reusable bag stays put is very important.

Peace on Earth

An oldie but one of my favorite pictures because all of us are together and there's no fighting...

Josie's perfect spot

If you ask Josie, she'll say she is a perfect fit for Dad's lap. She likes to stretch out and get comfy whenever he is sitting on the couch. It's to the point that Dad more often than not will sit like this so that Josie can stretch out -- not that he's complaining. She has definitely claimed Dad as hers when he is on the couch. She was so offended the other day when Huggy Bear was on the couch beside Dad. It was actually kind of funny to see her walk by and look at Huggy and Dad.

Investigator Maggie

"Whatcha doing up there, Huggy Bear?" Maggie is always checking things out and has to know what's up.

My mom -- officially a "crazy cat lady"

So Mom knows a news anchor who does the more casual news broadcast -- Friends at Five. Mom had shared a collage of all four of us yesterday as part of National Cat Day, and the news was showing different cat pictures during the piece. Even though our picture wasn't shown, Mom's friend Darci called her by name and referred to her as a Crazy Cat Lady. So it's official -- the news lady said it. But she also said it was a compliment -- "She's crazy, she has cats, and she's a lady."

Happy National Cat Day

It's National Cat Day and I can't think of a better way to celebrate the day than us hanging out in boxes. Josie likes this box downstairs. I have one in Mom and Dad's room that is a perfect fit for me. Mom said something silly recently about getting rid of it, which we all know is crazy talk. Once you find a perfect box you need to hang on to it. Have a happy National Cat Day!

Happy 10 Year Blogoversary to Me!

10 Years! 10 Years! My 10 year blogoversary was on October 25!

I can't believe it has been 10 years since I started blogging. I felt like such a big cat at the time, and now looking back I was just a little kitten, really. I enjoy looking back at those early posts and seeing what was happening back then -- Josie and Huggy Bear joining the family as rescue kittens, meeting my first few other blogging cats (this was pre Cat Blogosphere, so it was much more difficult back then). I still remember some of my first visitors were Max, and Ginger, and Timothy Dickens, and Scooby, Shaggy & Scout's Mom even before they had a blog (or Scout, for that matter). It seems I have to try a little harder to blog and visit than I used to. Mom and Dad stay very busy doing Very Important Things (like work), but even though I don't blog as much as I used to I don't have any plans of going anywhere soon. It may only be a weekly post, but I'm going to keep posting.


Speaking of doing Very Important Things -- here is a picture of me doing a very important job. The godchildren Elliott and Eliza were visiting, and they were locked in their rooms sleeping, and I was guarding the doors, just in case. They are good little 2 1/2-year-olds, who we tolerate pretty well, mostly because they are very good at giving treats.

Thanks for all the visits throughout the years. I look forward to many more years of blogging. Here are some interesting stats... I keep my old stat tracker on the blog even though it is technically out of date because it still counts my visits.

Over the last 3645 days, I have had 99208 visitors, my highest day was 136 visits on 10-8-08, and most of my visits are on Wednesday. I'll have to watch to see when I hit visit number 100000.

One mad cat

Mom and Dad are on the road heading up to watch Tennessee play Alabama (Go Vols!) and they just passed this car with a cat in the back window giving everybody heck. I'm a Big Orange Cat and I love my college football but I'll pass on the trip to Knoxville, thank you very much. That cat is better than me. I would have shedded all my fur by this point of the trip.

It's been a busy week for Mom and Dad. Last weekend they biked 100 miles for the Bike MS fundraiser (50 miles a day). We had two days to hang out with them before they hit the road again. Once they get back I think we will have to pin them down for a while.

Rocky's "adventure"

Our Aunt Tiff had a little scare last night. She had workers in the house and she thought she had wrangled all the cats (she has four now). Rocky likes to hide in the kitchen cabinet and can get behind the dishwasher, and Aunt Tiff figured that was where he was. Well one of the workers left a window cracked, and when Aunt Tiff couldn't find Rocky she figured he wasn't where she thought he was and that he had slipped out of the window.

Mom and Dad went over around 11:30 pm and hunted around the house inside and out trying to find that boy. He is rather skittish, very fast, and an excellent hider. Mom thought she saw him in a neighbor's fenced-in backyard, and they looked as close as they were comfortable at midnight (after all, they didn't want to get shot).

Eventually they all decided to call it a night, left an outside utility closet door open with some food in it so Rocky could get shelter and safety and Aunt Tiff was going to hit the streets today. Dad was thinking that Rocky may still be in the house because the window Rocky would have made it out of was about seven or eight feet up and the pine straw under the window wasn't disturbed (Dad's no Aragorn, but he figured an inside cat would have kicked up some dirt jumping and running off).

Well, at 4 am Aunt Tiff was awoken by Rocky meowing from inside the closed up guest room. Somehow he had slipped in there and found a place to hide. Now this room is pretty empty, so Rocky must be a Very Good Hider to have stayed away from Aunt Tiff and Dad when they searched the room. He was probably very unhappy with strangers in the house and decided he needed some alone time, and a little excited to be in a new room.

Thankfully he is all safe and with him Mom, sisters, and brother.

Happy belated birthday to Josie and Huggy Bear

Josie and Huggy Bear turned 10 on September 15 and it was such a crazy busy week at our house that I somehow missed posting about it. It's not a lack of love for my siblings but more of Mom and Dad leaving the computer off so I couldn't post. They will get a proper post later but I wanted to get this up. I just can't believe it has been 10 years since they showed up outside our apartment and stole Mom and Dad's heart.

Meow Like a Pirate!

This picture is an oldie but a fun one...


Here's Maggie ready for Meow Like a Pirate Day from 2008. She is the pirate cat in the family. Since she has just the one eye people are always suggesting that Mom and Dad get her an eye patch. I'm not sure how well that would go over.

So to celebrate Meow Like a Pirate I suggest waiting until really late at night to do the meowing. I think that's what a real pirate cat would do.

One of those days

Mom and Dad are both having one of those days where they probably should just go back home and not be around people and just pet cats all day. We're all OK with that, except that they both have "very important things to do" today.


So I'm posting this picture of Maggie sitting on a stool in the middle of the kitchen to help remind Mom and Dad that we are here, looking cute, and ready to de-stress them whenever they get a chance to escape the real world and come back home.

Doody Calls

Dad was behind this truck today. If you can't see it real well, it says Got Poop? We Scoop! It's a business named Doody Calls, mobile pet waste removal starting at $15 a week. I know scooping poop for four cats quite literally stinks, but I'm not sure they will be coming to our house. We don't make THAT much poop. I'd be a little embarrassed if we needed a service like this.

New favorite zoo exhibit

Mom and Dad went to the zoo this weekend. Mom doesn't like birds but Dad loves the exhibit where you can feed the birds. Looks pretty tasty, I mean fun, to me.

Veggies to eat

Maggie likes to chew on celery when Mom is cooking but Mom was worried that celery might be bad for us so we did a little searching. Dad found this interesting article, that says celery is ok: http://catsnco.wordpress.com/2012/05/09/which-vegetables-to-feed-and-not-to-feed/

We aren't going vegetarian, but I'm glad to know I can chew on some celery leaves.

Black Cat Appreciation Day

Today is Black Cat Appreciation Day. I know I am appreciated every day, but I expect a little extra love from Mom and Dad tonight. Black cats are pretty awesome and deserve appreciation.

Watching TV with Mom and Dad

Every now and then Mom and Dad will break their routine and hang out in a different room. They got on a kick of watching Motive and were catching up on old episodes in the bonus room, which was great because that room has one of my favorite couches to hang out on.


Here I am on the back of the couch. I kind of blend in to this couch, so I can disappear and just chill out. It is a super comfortable old leather couch, and definitely one of my favorites. This room is also where the laundry is, so it's cool when I get to lay on sorted piles of clothes. (This is also probably why Mom and Dad don't use this room as much -- they feel they should be doing laundry if they are back there. But it has the best AC in the house, too.)

(Also, I can't believe it's been 11 days since my last post. I know I get out of the routine some, but I didn't mean for it to be this long...)

Mom and Dad's vacation

Mom and Dad took a little beach vacation last Thursday to Monday. They went down to Fripp Island, SC with a few friends. The island is really pretty and is also a nature preserve, so there are a bunch of vishus deer (and alligators too). Mom and Dad saw a bunch of deer, but only one young alligator, but they didn't get a picture of him.


Mom and Dad both noticed this little cluster of trees as they drove in. This isn't the best angle to get the look, especially from a moving car, but Mom and Dad both thought these trees looked like a cat. They wanted to try to get a better picture, but there never was a good opportunity.


This is Aunt Tiff feeding one of the vishus deer by hand. She was very brave. This deer also helped himself to some of the carrots in the bag.


The deer are everywhere at Fripp Island (well, except on the beach). Mom and Dad enjoyed seeing them and said they were very pretty, but I'm still keeping my distance, just in case.

Cheating on us...

Mom had a visitor at work yesterday... a little kitten named Ruby.


Look at Mom here, cheating on us with little Ruby, their friend Samantha's new kitten.


Ruby got to play on Mom's desk. We've never even been to Mom's office (of course, that would involve the car, and we don't want anything to do with that, but still...)


The window frame is very big, but Ruby is also very tiny. She liked this spot. I'm sure I would fit perfectly there (if not for the whole getting in the car thing...).


Well she is pretty cute though. I guess I'm OK with her visiting Mom, but only at work. I'm not too sure about her visiting us at the house.

That's about all she can take

Some days you just can't go any longer and you just need to find your favorite cat bed and sleep.


Here's Maggie in her favorite bed. (I would have sworn this was bought for me to replace a really ragged box that I had to give up -- but now it's pretty much Maggie's). You can see she's covering her eyes from the light so she can sleep a little longer. It's not easy being a little sister some days.

Belated Stinky Goodness Cat

Well, it took them long enough, but Maggie finally got her Stinky Goodness Birthday Cake!


Maggie turned nine back on June 17, but it was almost exactly a month later before she got her cake. Maggie got her taste first, but then she shared with the rest of us. We don't do a lot of wet food, so we usually just have a few licks, then come back later for a nibble. But either way, it was good.

Also, our wall climbing shelves arrived the other day. We still need to order brackets and figure out where they need to go, but at least the shelves are here, and that is very exciting!

We are winners!

Yes, you heard that right -- we are winners! Well, we're always winners because we're cats, but we're extra winners today because we got a confirmation e-mail telling us we were one of the lucky 500 who won a four-pack of wall climbing shelves from Contempocat in the Hauspanther "Cats Climbing High Challenge" yesterday. Mom and Dad will still need to order some shelf brackets, but the shelves themselves are on the way! Now we need to scout out a good place for our shelves. Special thanks to The Island Cats and Chey for putting the link up.

Finally July...

June was just a stupid crazy month for Mom and Dad. They just realized last night that Maggie never even got her birthday cake, so that's happening this weekend. They do have a good excuse, with Mom's work having to move before the wrecking ball shows up. Mom has worked pretty much every day for three months.


Sometimes we just have to pin Mom down and force her to stop moving. Huggy Bear and I are very good at making Mom stay in bed. It really is a team effort.

Mom's move continues

Mom and Dad have been working like crazy to get Mom's theatre all packed up and moved into the warehouse, and for some reason they thought it would be a good idea to have a show this weekend, too (at a different location). So most of the heavy lifting of the move is done and now Mom and Dad are helping with tech week to get The Little Mermaid up and going (this weekend only, thankfully). But what all this means is that Mom and Dad get home around midnight, crash about 10 minutes into a TV show, then are out and going again the next day to work and work again. We are looking forward to a calmer July, and hopefully visiting more cat blogs again.

Calendar girl Josie

This weekend is all Josie in the Cat's of the Cat Blogosphere calendar -- two wonderful days of Josie!


This is one of our favorite Josie pictures. I'm lucky to have such a good sister.

Thanks again to Paula for getting this organized. It is always so much fun seeing everyone each day, and seeing who is next.

Happy birthday Maggie!

Today is Maggie's 9th birthday. This picture from a few weeks ago shows Maggie's true personality -- nine years old and still a kitten. Sure, she may squeeze between the brush and me when I'm getting brushed, and she noses in and "shares" treats with Josie and Huggy Bear, but even if she can be a stinker we are glad she is our sister. We love you Maggie. Happy birthday little sis.

A busy week

The last week has been very busy. We still have a Mom and Dad although we don't see them much lately. Mom's work is on a deadline with bulldozers waiting to tear the building down, so she has been very busy packing and moving stuff. She runs a community theatre but the university owns the land where the theatre sits and they want to build their new law school on the property so 47 years worth of stuff has to be packed and moved to storage. Last weekend consisted of disassembling 200 chairs and moving them. Thank goodness for volunteers. The lighting came down yesterday, and they were setting up internet and phones yesterday and today in her new space. Lots of moving parts right now for Mom. Oh, and there's the summer play at the end of the month (Little Mermaid -- sounds tasty!). Mom was even so tired last night she fell asleep on the couch and wanted to have the four of us drag her to bed so she didn't have to get up.

Josie's lip wound has cleared up completely. She's such a good girl, but we pick on her anyway.

It looks like I'm going to have to get a lion cut. I have some pretty bad mats that Mom and Dad have been trying to brush out, pull out, and cut out. Unfortunately, when I ma getting brushed Maggie has to come and get between me and the brush because she is a brat. I get frustrated when Dad tried to pull the knots apart (even though it eventually works them out). And I got snipped again by the scissors, even though Mom and Dad didn't realize until later, and it is healing slowly so they are gun shy to use scissors again. So once things settle down with Mom's work I think I'll be getting a lion cut. At least I already look like a lion, so that should be OK. And this summer is hot hot hot here already, and it's not even technically summer yet.


See, it's so hot I'm having to lay on the air vent.

Poor Josie

Josie got in a little tussle, most likely with Maggie, because that's what Maggie does, and Josie has two little scratches on her lip. It makes us very sad for her, because it shouldn't happen, but she is healing up OK. She is a trooper.

Better with cats...

Sure we all know everything is better with cats, but a Russian artist has gone on to prove that classic paintings are better with cats too. The article is here, with pictures!

Huggy Bear's calendar day

Thanks to Derby and Ducky we were reminded about Huggy Bear's calendar page. We got behind on our page flips and totally missed it. Ironically this is the pose he is in right now.