It runs in the family

This is my younger cousin with a video about her cat Bo. Notice that her video production skills are far superior to my own. She's gone for lively and entertaining whereas my video smacks of poorly impersonated "This American Life" radio interviewing techniques.

Cats have no sense of personal space

That is, unless we're talking about their personal space. The hazards of doing yoga with cats.

My biggest fear doing yoga with cats around is that when I not so gracefully fall out of a position I'm going to land on one of them and squish them. I wish my yoga skills were as awesome as this woman's.

Kitten Canoodle

A shaky aerial view:

The Kitten Covers

Behold!

Get a Bucket

For all the brainz that just slid out of your left ear.

Petunia is growing up so fast! She doesn't seem like she's growing particularly large, but all I have to compare her to is Pete and Roscoe who were, respectively, 7.5 and 6.5 pounds when they were 4 months old (they estimate about a pound a month for the first few months of a cat's life, which is to say: Pete and Roscoe were giants). I think Muffin Pants here, who is about 4 1/2 months old now, weighs about 5 pounds, maybe a touch more.

This particular photo was expertly taken by Matt just a few weeks after we first got her. She still rules the house and she is getting prettier everyday. Her adult front left fang grew in of its own accord (phew! no need for x-rays or dental surgery) and on Tuesday Missy Nutters is going to the vet to get spayed. I will post some current photos soon.

Chewing out the Paparazzi

"Woman, stop with the photos already!"

I take photos of her so often, that she's started to quack at the camera whenever I point it at her. Regardless, I love that she is using the kitten castle. I bought two of these (overpriced) cat scratchers at Ikea for Pete and Roscoe, not realizing that they're too small for them to use as beds, and they're not interested in scratching on curved surfaces.

If you look closely, you'll notice that her bottom left fang is missing. That was the one that was knocked out (or broken, we're not sure) when she was dumped. :(

Happy Birthday Pete & Roscoe!

Roscoe (right) and his sister Roxanne

Pete (right) and Roxanne

Pete and Roscoe, August 2011

Today is Pete and Roscoe's birthday. They are nine years old and still the same sweethearts they were when they were just baby kitties. Happy Birthday!

When Kittens Attack

No one is safe.


Actually, they're perfectly safe, but at the very least no one is left unannoyed.

i was trying to get a photo of Pete, who for whatever reason had crammed
himself into the smallest carrier we have, but someone interrupted.

slowly...

slowly...

rebuffed!

i took these pictures because they started out cuddling. by the time i got the camera,
it had devolved into lazy fighting.

this may seem violent to non-cat owners, but honestly, they do this all the time

they also do this all the time-- that is, attempt to save face after a spat when
no one is willing to forfeit the couch by doing some impromptu bathing

"for why is he not wholly intimidated by my attack?"

You may have noticed some trends. For one, most of these pictures involve Pete and Petunia, and that is not a coincidence. Roscoe has been much firmer about establishing the boundaries of his personal hula-hoop, and woe to those who violate it! I don't think in the first set of pictures that Petunia actually had the balls to make the final plunge and attack Roscoe. Pete is much more forgiving of her constant attacks, and often he even seems to enjoy them. Petunia, consequently, adores Pete. It's all the benefits of attacking a pillow, given his girth, with more interaction and the slight possibility of a good chase thrown in.

If you can believe it given the length of this post, we actually have more pictures of Petunia snuggling than of her attacking everyone and everything. This is purely a documentary representation error, though; it's much easier in this dark house to get some good shots of cats snuggling than of a flying whiz of gray fur making constant surprise offensives. The guys are slowly figuring out how to handle these blitzes. At first they were completely befuddled. Roscoe despises anything that resembles roughhousing, and furthermore, fighting back only seemed to encourage her. Pete likes a good fight as much as anyone, but seemed wary of hitting the 3 pound fluff ball. It seemed, no doubt, like behavior he might get scolded for. For a while he was so confused about the new house rules regarding fights that he started to beat up Roscoe, attempting to play with him, which infuriated Roscoe to no end, as he thought he'd established his feelings about this sort of thing a long time ago. But now Petunia only ambushes Roscoe cautiously and infrequently, and she and Pete have a play routine mostly worked out. Pete's working on getting Petunia to understand that sometimes when one cuddles, it's preferable to give each other baths than bite your co-cuddler's head. One of these days...

Coincidence?

Notice the dates-- I posted my pics the day before this one showed up on Writers and Kitties. Perhaps I'm channeling Hemingway? Did Hemingway write in a completely inefficient manner marked by long periods of procrastination during which he sewed and made jam? Maybe this is a sign that I need to read some Hemingway* before I continue writing my thesis. That's obviously the most logical thing to do.


*I might have read a Hemingway short story once, in high school, but! I've also read a few telegrams he wrote during the Spanish Civil War in the archives at the Harry Ransom Center. So that must count for something.

Summer Eats

No one can resist fresh sweet corn from the farmer's market.

teaching young kittens bad habits

I haven't posted a real update about Petunia and the guys recently, but rest assured everyone is doing well and I will write more soon!

Correlation or causation?

Sometimes, when I feel that writing for school is slowly sucking out my life force, I scroll through this blog and think, "I have cats! Therefore, I must be able to write, too."

Writers and Kitties

Petunia and Her People

Matt and I with our new honey. I think she likes us.

Petunia and Shannon
<3 <3 <3

Petunia and Matt
<3 <3 <3

Coincidentally, the mascot of the North Allegheny football team is a tiger. There is kitten love everywhere you look.

Petunia the Prizefighter

You're never too young to begin a regular routine of endurance, strength and agility training. Just ask Teddy Roosevelt. We put Petunia right to work-- she's mastered climbing to the top of the cat scratcher, the kitty castle, the window sill and most of the bookcases, interspersing these amazing feats with sprints from one obstacle to another, attacking anything that comes between her and her target. Yesterday's mountain is today's molehill, and she'll soon outgrow the small room that is her current universe.

Petunia's training hard because there are many foes that need vanquishing. Petunia's top foes include: pillows, buttons, toy mice, toes, fingertips, and, inexplicably, my stomach. They shall be conquered! Bully!*

see that glow? that's the mark of a champion.

*Disclaimer: my knowledge of Teddy Roosevelt's speech idiosyncrasies comes from Arsenic and Old Lace and consequently may not be accurate.

Meet Pete and Roscoe

This is Roscoe. He is my sweetheart. He enjoys being fawned over, going outside, sitting in the sun and bitching to be let outside. He might enjoy the bitching more than the going outside bit. His favorite time of day is bedtime, because bedtime is when the night-long snorgle called "sleeping" commences. When someone leaves the house, he walks around and screams for a while to let everyone know how displeased he is. His capacity for love is only rivaled by his vindictiveness. But if everyone's home and he's not jonesing to go out or otherwise irritated (by, for instance, a new cat), you might mistake him for an extremely loveable, well-adjusted cat who's very attached to his mom.


This is Pete. He is my other sweetheart (I have lots of them, last count, I had 4, in fact). He's our "good" cat, that is, he's doesn't go out of his way to spite us when he's upset. Sure, he'll step on your throat when you're sleeping if he's hungry, because he's found this to be a surprisingly effective way to wake someone up, but he's starving and we sleep so late into the morning. Sometimes it's 7 am before we get up and feed him. Pete's favorite time of day is the morning, because all of his favorite things happen then. Those things are:

1) Eating breakfast
2) Going outside after breakfast
3) Getting treats for coming inside
4) Getting a rubdown

Pete could do those four things on repeat all day, but then he'd get very fat, fatter than he already is. He needs annoyingly little sleep for a cat.

Pete and Roscoe are almost nine years old, and they sit a lot. Lots and lots of sitting and sleeping, as cats are wont to do. Hopefully once Petunia is integrated into the family, she'll get them up and moving. Pete needs to lose about 2 pounds, which is, coincidentally, about how much Petunia weighs right now.

Announcing...

The newest member of the family: Petunia!

in the kitty castle

Petunia was found when she was just a few weeks old on the side of the road by two lovely ladies who rescued her. She had abrasions on her face and was missing a tooth-- they believe she was dumped. We heard about her via an email Matt received at work. Since her Godmommies were already at pet capacity in their home, we were fortunate enough to be able to adopt her.

She came home with us yesterday evening. She wouldn't have anything to do with us last night, and we didn't force the issue, but by this morning she was ready to play and even snuggle on our laps for a quick nap. She's been using her litter box, ate a ton of food and has been playing with her toys. For the time being she's separated from her new brothers Pete and Roscoe so they can all slowly adjust to the idea of having a new family member. There has been much sniffing and sticking of paws under doorways.

She's a total sweetheart, and we're lucky to have her!

heard a noise in the kitchen- hiding until it's safe

she fell off the sill while trying to turn around (not far,
the windows aren't very high) and into her water bowl,
but shrugged it off and ran to attack her scratching post

precious!