Happy Thanksgiving!

I just wanted to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving! We are so completely thankful for the amazing friendships we have gained over the years through the cat blogosphere. Y'all are the best -- and I truly mean that. (You know it's true because I broke out the y'all, and I don't do that loosely.) I hope there's plenty of turkey and ham to share at your houses, and that your beans are nice enough to share. If they don't, I say go ahead and help yourself. It is Thanksgiving after all, and you know they'll get tired of the leftovers anyway.

Today is also Mom and Dad's 15th wedding anniversary! So a big purr to Mom and Dad!

One of those weeks...

Wow! I can't believe I went a full week without an update or anything. It was one of those weeks. Mom's play finally wrapped up this weekend. They had a lot of fun at the closing night party (got home so late that it was early the next day). Mom and Dad were running on fumes all last week, so they've been enjoying some more relaxing time now. And we've been enjoying that they are home relaxing. We've made sure one of us is pressed up against them no matter what they are doing -- just to make sure they remember why they want to stay home.

Thanksgiving is coming up, and we'll be doing some serious relaxing. Mom and Dad will be visiting with Dad's grandmother. She is 91 and they are overdue for a visit, so we're OK letting them spend Thanksgiving with her. It helps knowing that we'll be getting a lot more Mom and Dad time starting next week. Hopefully that means a lot more visiting our cat friends' blogs, too.


In the meantime, I'm going to find a comfortable stack of magazine to nap against. I recommend Food and Wine or ReadyMade.

Waiting, wishing

Some days you just have to wait by the door and wish that Mom and Dad were home sooner. They've had some late nights with Mom's play. Dad is making the sounds happen (he pushes play and pause 15 times during the play for the scene transitions) so they have to be at the show until it is over every night. But it ends this weekend. Then hopefully we'll get our Mom and Dad back. Until then, we'll keep watching out the windows, making sure the squirrels behave and looking for Mom and Dad to pull into the driveway.

Home, but not home

Mom and Dad were supposed to go out of town this weekend. They were heading up to Rocky Top Tennessee to see Dad's parents and an old college friend (and hopefully a football win). But the girl who is running the sound board for Mom's play is sick, which means Mom and Dad are staying home -- but have to run sound for the show. So we'll get some time with them, but have to share them with the theatre. But some is better than none.

Hanging with Mom and Dad

Sunday was so nice ... apparently Mom and Dad got an extra hour in their day. To us, it still seemed the same. But on the bright side, Mom and Dad didn't have to go to the theatre all day, which is the first time in what seems like weeks. The play Mom is producing is up and going, but they didn't have a show Sunday, so Mom and Dad relaxed, watched some tv and cleaned out their closet. And most importantly, they spent some quality time with us!


This is our neighbor's visitor cat -- Zoey. I've been meaning to introduce you to her properly for a while now. Remember a while back she was putting her stink on when he would take the morning litter scoopings out? And she was playing with Maggie through the front window. Well this picture was taken a few weekends ago when the neighbor was over checking on the HVAC before the weather cooled down. Zoey tagged along and played in the mulch. Zoey's family has three indoor cats that Mom and Dad cat-sat a while back, but unfortunately Zoey is Feline Leukemia Positive so she has to stay outside. But she is very sweet, even if she puts her stink on Dad in the mornings. I guess we can let her visit.

Dona Nobis Pacem

The outrage!

It's bad enough Mom and Dad have been having late nights again. Mom is producing another play -- A Few Good Men. It's her last for a while. But it's tech week, which means crunch time. And last night they got home around midnight. Now it's bad enough that they got home late, but Dad forgot to go and pick up out cat food. So he obediently rushed out to Wal-Mart and bought us some food. Mom and Dad felt bad, but that's no excuse.

Happy Halloween!

Happy early Halloween! It's going to be spooky and ghouls time soon, so all you kittens out there be careful! It's not always the best time of year to be a black cat, so Huggy Bear's going to be spending trick-or-treat time hanging out on his hammock. Have fun, and only eat kitten-approved candy. And be patient with your beans if they try to dress you up in a costume -- they really can't help themselves.

Happy 6th Blogoversary!

Today is my 6th Blogoversary! I can't believe it, really. I started this blog on a whim a long time ago, back when I was in a one-cat apartment. Josie and Huggy Bear were two of four kittens who had recently been born to a neighbor's momma cat, and they were being awful cute around the apartment building, sleeping on the handrails, and playing around Mom and Dad's pumpkins they had carved. Honestly, I never expected the blog to last. It was a way for Dad to see pictures of me when he was at work, and to keep a little journal of the kittens as Mom and Dad fostered the litter of Josie and Huggy Bear (and Curly and Frisky) until they were adopted out. But then I started meeting other cat bloggers. When I started, I had no idea there were even other cats out there with blogs. Now look at how many there are. I remember visiting every cat blog in less than 30 minutes -- it was so easy back then. I know I've slowed with my posts a little over the past year -- it's been a bit of a challenging year -- but I'm still proud to be a member of the Cat Blogosphere and try to visit when I get a chance. I'm very thankful for all of you. And I'm looking forward to the adventures of the coming year!

Tocktober!

Happy Birthday Derby! In honor of your birthday, here's my Tocktober picture (well, Huggy Bear's).


Mom loves his floofy tocks, especially the way they show up when we're in the window.

Two for Tuesday

Part of having windows open is that you have to sometimes share a window.


I was in the window first when Maggie decided to come and join me. We had to discuss if this was OK.


I'm a good big brother, so it should come as no surprise that I shared the window with Maggie with little fuss.

Mom and Dad had a friend who was in the hospital, so Friday and Sunday nights Mom stayed with her at the hospital. We missed having Mom home, so when Dad was in bed those nights we all slept in Mom's spot and on her pillow. Then Monday Mom stayed home because she was exhausted and needed the day to recover, and Maggie was Mom's shadow. Maggie didn't like not having Mom home at night, so she was determined to make sure Mom stayed put. Unfortunately it's back to work for Mom today.

Huggy Bear's hammock

We got this awesome hammock from Forty Paws during Secret Paws two years ago (wow, time flies...). Well, Huggy Bear has pretty much claimed it as his -- hair and stink and all. He sleeps in it almost every night. We all checked it out when we first got it, but I think it's stretched out just right for Huggy Bear's shape. If he keeps stretching it out I think he'll be on the floor soon. I'm not saying Huggy Bear is heavy for it, I'm just saying he's broken it in well.

Tabby Tuesday

We've had such wonderful weather here lately, it's meant extra open window time.


Maggie loves having the windows open. She'll snoopervise everything going on, and there's been a lot going on. Our neighbor does heating and air work, and Mom asked him to come and look at our units to make sure they were OK before the cooler weather came. He was in and out of the house, and even in the attic (Josie looked up the steps to the hatch, but didn't want to climb them). It's a good thing he came, too, because he found mold (yuck!) but was able to get it all cleaned up.

Speaking of cleaning up, on Thursday and Friday, Mom and Dad were in serious clean-up mode. Mom's brother and father came last weekend for the Alabama-South Carolina football game, but Mom's brother is allergic to cats so she had to get all our furs up (and there was a lot of fur!). We had a nice visit, even if his Alabama team lost. We got to put our stink on them when they weren't paying attention, and that's fun too.

You could tell Mom's brother isn't a cat guy because he saw Maggie in the sink and asked, "What's the cat doing in the sink?" Well, duh, why wouldn't a cat be in the sink? It's the best spot in the whole house!

Mancat Monday

Even a Mancat can be sad when an old favorite toy has seen it's last day. Pink mouse was hunted a lot, and provided hours and hours of entertainment for Huggy Bear, as well as the rest of us. But it was Huggy Bear's mouse. Unfortunately, it was losing it's stitches, and started to be more of a hazard, so pink mouse had to go.


Huggy Bear said his final farewell. But fear not, I think a trip to Target may net a new pink mouse soon.


Pink mouse about to lose it's insides.


The eye came off pretty early in the play, but the loss of the ear was the final blow.

Wordless Wednesday

Up close and personal

This is one of my favorite old pictures -- and very meaningful because it was the new camera Mom and Dad got for Christmas in 2007. I can't believe that was 2007, but Flickr says it is, so it must be. So now Mom has her early Christmas camera, and the next pictures will be from the new camera. I'll try to get something up tomorrow, but I'm not promising because -- surprise surprise -- Mom and Dad will be over at the theatre tonight. There's a magic show Friday and Saturday, so this is the tech week where they get the sound and lighting and lobby decorations up (Mom and Dad are doing lobby decorations). But with all that going on, I still think they can upload one picture!

Also this week Mom's dad and brother are coming for a visit. They want to watch the Alabama-South Carolina football game. Mom's brother is allergic to cats, so there's going to be a lot of evening cleaning going on Wednesday and Thursday. Really no point in doing it over the weekend because you know we'd just put all the hair back anyway.

So that's why you get an old picture today -- with the promise of new and exciting coming soon!

New camera but no pictures?

Yes, Mom got a new camera -- a Canon Rebel. She's been having lots of fun with it, too, especially taking lots of pictures of us. But even though she got a new camera, it appears she hasn't gotten more time yet. So there are a bunch of cool pictures of us -- still on the memory card in the camera. Hopefully by Wordless Wednesday I'll have something to post!

Lazy Sunday

We enjoyed a nice lazy Sunday with Mom and Dad, taking turns snuggling with them as they got caught up on their TV shows they've been missing with the play and everything going on. And the weather has cooled down so we even had some windows open. Let's hope this is a new trend!

Visitor cat

On Tuesday morning, when Dad stepped out to take out the trash, our neighbor's gray and white girl cat Zoey was by the car and ran over to visit and get some loves from Dad. He gave her a few pets and headed back to the house. She ran ahead to the porch and was putting her stink on the porch when Dad went in. Maggie had noticed this little interloper trying to steal our Dad's affection and was giving her the stare-down through the window when we heard a ::thump:: and little girl was all sprawled out on the screen and window. She may have been saying to Maggie, "bring it" or "come and play" ... I'm not quite sure as it was early and I was still a little sleepy. Either way, we all agreed she would stay outside and we would stay inside -- and that we got to keep Dad.

Later that morning, after Dad left for work, Josie got to stalk and huff at a squirrel on the deck out back. So overall, it was quite an exciting morning from all the windows. (I'm pretty sure the squirrels didn't want to steal Mom or Dad -- but you can never be too careful.)

Wordless Wednesday