I Bet There's a Perfectly Fine Bowl of Water on the Floor Nearby

I think the best part comes at about 2 minutes in. Thanks to Kristie at Simply Shiny where I saw this first.

Yes, it's another cat video...and another grandkittie picture, too

First seen at Linkmeister's blog:



Our cats prefer to just sleep in our desk chairs...

Pudding

The DH captured a closeup of grandkitty Pudding that I thought was rather special.

Saying Good-bye to Our Dear Cat, Yogurt

Yogurt, 1991 (?) - 2009

Yogurt came to our home, when we lived down in Bakersfield, back in 1992 and hung around outside (my husband put food out for him, so that may have been why). He had a collar, so we thought he'd eventually go home. But he just kept hanging around and nobody seemed to be looking for him.

So we posted an ad in the "found cat" section of the local paper for quite a while and let him into the house while we waited, and introduced him to the two other cats we already had (Oatmeal and Pumpkin). No calls. Eventually we adopted him, named him Yogurt and trained him to be an indoor cat - something he didn't really appreciate but eventually became resigned to.

He got out a time or two in Bakersfield before we had him neutered, but was content to be inside after that. - except for one night here in Silicon Valley a couple years back, when he was out almost all night. The DH didn't sleep a wink, wandered around the neighborhood calling for him, looking behind bushes. Finally, so tired he had to try to get some rest, he went out front one more time and there was Yogurt in the front yard. He looked like he got into a small tussle with another cat, but was otherwise fine.

Yogurt was always a very talkative cat. You could get him to vocalize pretty easily and we'd have long 'conversations' with him. He loved to sit at the back door and chat with the birds that landed out back. I'm sure he'd have loved to have them for dinner, too. He was a patient, kind cat as well in these last years, who'd come sit on your lap and let you scratch him as long as you wanted, purring up a storm the whole time.

Last week all the cats went in for shots and check-ups and the vet was worried about how much weight Yogurt had lost. He had been a bit sick that week but otherwise seemed ok. Unfortunately, when the blood work came back yesterday, the diagnosis was total kidney failure. While we could possibly have kept him going for a while, he'd be in a lot of pain because it appeared he'd also suffered some nerve damage - which hadn't been a problem, it seems, before the vet visit, but he was definitely having trouble now with his back legs and tail - he's fallen over a couple times in the last day. So the decision to let him go was made.

He was the last of the 'elder' cats, we lost Pumpkin first and then Oatmeal not that long after. We became the people of two 'grandkitties' not that long ago, when my son joined the Army and moved to the East coast. We love them dearly, but we have a lot of great memories with Yogurt and he leaves us with a huge empty place in our hearts.

Edited to add: I'm bringing this comment from my husband up to the main page:

I have several distinct memories of Yogurt. Dawno already mentioned one: when he showed up at our door. He was a gangly pre-teen. 17 years later I still remember he had a light blue collar on.

A month or so after that, I was piddling around doing something in the bedroom. Yogurt jumped onto my lap, turned around, and sprayed me. He got fixed the very next day. We had him de-clawed as well... a decision I'd later regret. The two cats we have now have their claws and they don't destroy our furniture.

Not too long after we moved up to the bay area (maybe a month, maybe a year... it's all starting to run together), Yogurt and I were rough-housing a little and he got freaked out. He felt cornered and chewed his way through my hand to get out. I spent 3 days in the hospital with a bad infection.

Dawno also mentioned the time he escaped the house. This was just three or four years ago. She didn't mention she was the one who left the back door open, though :). I spent hours wandering up and down the street, between houses, along the driveways, etc. I was so worried. It eventually got too late and I had to stop. For some reason, people didn't really appreciate me wandering around their yards at 1:00 am with a flashlight. I was ready to crawl into bed and I decided to poke my head out the door one more time. I opened the door, called his name and he literally stepped onto the patio and meowed at me. He had a few scrapes above his eye and was missing a small notch or two from his ear... another reason I regretted declawing him. I slept pretty well that night with him back in the house.

Ever since Pumpkin and Oatmeal died, Yogurt very much became my cat, and I became his person. He slept with me every night, either within arm's reach or actually physically on me. He even went through a phase where he slept on my head. Thankfully that was a short phase.

Last night he was so miserable that he found his own quiet corner to sleep. It was the first night in years (that I can remember) in which I was home and he didn't sleep with me. I'll have to get used to that, I suppose.

Good-bye Yogurt. I love you.

This Post Needs No Title

This is Pudding (sister: Jello, Uncle: Yoghurt) one of my grandkitties - I've shown other pictures of him and his sister on this blog so you may remember him.

Anyway, he just had his haircut. He was not happy at all when he got home, growling and hissing at us and the other cats. He went to every food bowl and ate something then went upstairs and put himself on the little half-wall that overlooks the stairwell. It proved to be a great place for some pictures.

The hair around his face is much shorter and more rounded than normal.

show that cleavage kitten!

That looks like a glamor shot!

A very dramatic pose

And another one! I have no idea what he was looking at, shadows maybe?

New Engineer Guys Cat Video - Worth Waiting for the Concert at the End...

I Still Prefer My News From The Daily Show...

The Daily Show has provided me much enjoyment lately. Well, always, but I'm catching up right now, online, with episodes I've missed. Just watched this episode and in his interview with Daniel Craig, it was charming how bashful Craig was at times.

Then, in the Jan. 20 or 21st episode there was a picture of former VP Cheney in his wheelchair at the inauguration. Of course, they did this (I'm rather proud of myself that I was able to capture a screenshot and actually save it as a picture I could paste here):

I Want a Uniform Suitable to My Position

There should be a uniform, it needs gold braid, big brass buttons and a whistle on a gold chain that hangs from a fancy loop through the button hole at the collar. A nice hat, gloves, shiny shoes to go with it, too. Needs to be a color that won't show cat hair, though.

Uniform for what, you ask? Cat Doorman. That's what I am. All day they're, yowling or scratching to get in or out of my office/workroom. I'm the doorman for 3 cats who can't decide half the time if they actually want in or out. And, before you ask, no, I can't leave the door open. I won't go into the reasons why, so you or random droppers-by won't feel compelled to lecture me about my reason. We want to stay friendly, right?

Yogurt, the senior statesman of the cats sits about 2 feet from the door and stares up at the knob. If I don't leap up to open it, he comes over to my chair and bats at my arm until I do.

Pudding, the young ne'er do well, who normally just lies around on his back looking like a long-haired cat fur rug, claws the underside of my chair as his signal that "I'm all done in here, you will be letting me out now, right?" and then he goes up to the door so close, that when I do open it, he always has to move out of the way and often in his haste to leave bumps his nose.

Jello, the diva, scratches at the door. She scratches furiously. I'm surprised she hasn't clawed straight through the wood yet.

So, yeah, I want a uniform. And a whistle.

Lazy Saturday Posting

Found a new web comic today Marry Me. It has only been around for a few months so it didn't take long to catch up. Clever writing and good art.

Tomorrow and Monday I need to do some housework - my son will be here on leave next weekend! I'll also be putting up another small press book review on Drive by Booking tomorrow. My Brontë books arrived, but I have a couple things to finish before I can get to them, so they aren't on the list of things to do this weekend.

I nearly had a crisis today - due to a completely my fault miscommunication my ohdawno.org hosting company agreement was not renewed and the site was down. A few years ago the husband and I read about this hosting company, 1&1, that was giving away hosting. We took them up on it and it was only recently that our free hosting agreement came to an end. My husband quickly got things turned back on, the monthly rate is very reasonable, and nothing was lost. I, coincidentally, discovered reading Whatever today, that site is hosted there too.

No hamster news. How about a cat picture? These are the grandkitties Pudding (l) and Jello (r)


dawno

Random Tid Bits from Dawno's Life (Isn't that what this blog is mostly about, anyway?)

POD People just posted a review I wrote of a fine little mystery.

Earlier today, I posted a little update on my Live Journal. I may do a brief x-post or something over on MySpace as well. I now officially have what the psychiatric community likes to call "way too many blogs".

All day the hubby has been IM'ing me links to cat pictures from a site called I Can Has Cheeseburger ? The latest link he sent I found quite amusing. Would ironic be the right word?

I'm really, really happy that I have Google Reader - my list there is growing daily. I've tried a number of ways I thought would help me keep track of all the blogs and sites I want to read - this one works best for me.

I signed up with BlogHer - not really sure what prompted me to do it.

I've been enjoying a number of older Making Light posts and comment threads, spurred on by a post put up today with more of Mike Ford's Occasional Works. Reading the original post and the context around his comments, which are the content of the 'occasional works', has been educational and fun.

One of the things I learned from my perusal of those threads was there is a regular commenter who is a partner in a SF & Fantasy bookstore in Berkeley called The Other Change of Hobbit. Hubby and I are going to get on BART one of these weekends (soon!) and go visit. Mebby we'll wander around Berkeley, too. You'd think after 11 years up here I'd have gone there by now.

I haven't gone and done a complete count, but the Blogging Forum on Absolute Write (yours truly, moderator) has over 600 posts in the introduction thread. That means that there are close to 600 blogs listed - I say close because there are my "welcome" posts and other conversational ones - but still, it's got to be getting close to 600.

That said, my sidebar list of AW Bloggers will be tough to bring up to date. I'm pondering what to do about it. I'm pondering about a bunch of tweaks and changes. If you show up some day and things look different, that's just me re-arranging the furniture.

It has taken me over two hours to get from start to finish on this post. I keep wandering off to read things in other tabs, let cats in and out of the room, check the laundry...I think I'll put this to bed now and myself, soon, as well. Good Night!