Heart attack at a glance...

I looked out the window and for a moment, I thought Boris had been injured. Nope, Timothy colored him pink with sidewalk chalk! Crisis averted!

If my cats don't hate me yet...

It's probably a miracle.

I truly don't know what possesses me sometimes. Poor Meanie.

Bliss...

He really has a hard life, doesn't he?

Poor Miney!

We did some serious house cleaning and reorganizing today. Part of what needed to be done was vacuuming the entire house. I should first point out that the cats hate it when we vacuum. They're terrified of it, and usually hide in the garage from the moment they hear the vacuum cleaner come out till several hours after it's been put back. I should also point out that Miney, although (or perhaps because) he weights nearly 20 pounds, is the biggest scaredy cat of them all.

Somehow, Miney failed to hear Chris getting the vacuum out, and wound up trapped. Chris was vacuuming the kitchen, so Miney's escape route to the garage was cut off. I should now point out that Chris had the big door open in the garage earlier in the day. When he does this, he locks the cat door so they can't escape to the outdoors. You see this coming, don't you? If not, here it is: Chris forgot to unlock the cat door.

So Miney finally worked up his courage and made a run for it. At top speed, all 18 pounds of him slammed into the door, which didn't give. He backed up and made another run. Again, his head hit the door with full force and it didn't move. By this time, Chris had the vacuum off and was trying to help, but it was too late. Yes, Miney, in his panic, made for the kitchen door, changed his mind when he got there, turned, darted between Chris' legs, and ran head-long into the cat door AGAIN. I'm not sure if he had weakened it with his earlier attempts or if he had just reached warp speed at this point, but he broke the lock and made it out to the garage. It has taken me the rest of the day to talk him into coming back in. He still flinches when anyone walks too close to the hall closet, where the vacuum cleaner is stored.

Fabulous yarn!!!

Those of you with amazing memories may recall that long, long ago, I posted a link to the Knit Witch's blog when she held her blog contest. Well, guess what? I WON! I've been meaning to post these pictures for weeks and weeks now, it just took a while to make it happen. Anyway, I won the grand prize, which was five skeins of the most lovely alpaca yarn! She included a bonus, too! She sent me deliciously yummy jelly that she made in her own cauldron! I really need to take pictures of the kids eating it. But if I do that, I would have to clean them up. Or I could just let the dog in...

She also sent me some gorgeous stitch markers. I love them!

The cats were really interested in the entire package. I'm not sure if it smelled like alpaca, or just other cats. Elinor was the first to come explore.

Unfortunately, Moses was a little too interested. I was able to snap this picture quickly, before I chased him away from my precious yarn and threatened him with death if he nommed it ever again. I also put it away, as I don't trust his self control. It's safely stored in a plastic bin, as I search for just the right sweater pattern. I'll keep you posted on my progress. This will be my first grown up sweater, and I'm a little frightened! And if there are any yarn addicts reading this, you really need to check out the Knit Witch's blog and her website! She dyes gorgeous yarn. You need some. Go! NOW! What are you waiting for???

The complete dictionary of our cats

People are always a little shocked at the number of cats who call this house home. Most days, I'm one of those shocked people. I don't honestly know how I came to be the crazy cat lady on the block, but those who know me well could have predicted it for some time before it actually happened. My parents, for instance, have probably know it was coming since I was a very small child.

In order to clear up some of the confusion over who's who, I've decided to put together a comprehensive list. These pictures are not all fantastic. Today I don't have the patience to go through years of pictures and find the best ones. But here they are, good pictures or not!

First, we have Eenie. She's known around here as Miss Mouse. She is our only permanent female cat, and she is spoiled rotten. One of our original litter of bottle babies, she is my favorite kitty, and she knows it. She reserves the right to kick any other cat off my lap, and to finish up anything I leave in my milk glass or ice cream bowl. She is very, very sweet, and just a little neurotic. In this picture, you can see her bald tummy. When she's feeling off, she pulls out her fur. I made her watch a special on tv about the disorder, and it seems to have helped her sort things out. Her fur is growing back nicely. Another month or so and she'll be back to her normal, lovely self.

Next, there's Meanie. He's also one of the original litter, and resident Chatty Cathy. He holds the notoriety of being the only kitten to have been mislabeled gender-wise, early on. (Well, up until the wild litter we caught a couple summers back! Sorry, Beth! I promise I didn't know Fred was female!) Meanie spent his early days as Chris' favorite, and was known as "Princess". One day, when he was about a month old, he was rolling around and I noted that "Princess" had some very unladylike parts. Chris has never forgiven Meanie. Meanie is a sweetheart. He loves to talk on the phone. Anytime it rings, he comes running and insists upon saying a few words. No, I'm not that crazy person who makes you talk to my cat when you call me. He just tends to speak over me.

This is Miney, also known as Lard. He's our Big Boy. He topped out at 19 pounds, but is now down a little from that. He's so tall, he can stand with his hind feet on the ground and his front feet on the counter. Despite being the biggest of our original litter (well, any litter, really) he is the resident Fraidy Cat. Everything terrifies him. Strangers, thunder, bugs, a baby mouse that Jack once caught...you name it, he will cower in fear over it. For those Monty Python fans out there, he's our Brave Sir Robin.

Moses is our most recent interloper on the permanent residents list. He is the reincarnation of my dear Mo, who died three years ago. The other cats can't stand him. He's an obnoxious whippersnapper. He has too much energy. He's never met a bit of people food he didn't love, and wouldn't steal right off your fork. I adore him. Well, except that he loves to nom expensive yarn. He gets his comeuppance for eating my yarn by being forced to model my knit and crochet projects.

Somewhere out there is a better picture of Jack. I'm sure of it. I just couldn't locate one. Jack is our oldest cat. At six, he's our Top Cat, and he doesn't tolerate any jumping ranks among the others. He is our escape artist, managing to con the kids into letting him escape at least once a day, it seems. He doesn't ever go far, mostly he just likes to make me chase him. He has huge quantities of dignity, and will only purr for me if there are no other cats in the room to see it happen.

Meet Elinor. She's one of our fosters. She's a total snuggle bum, and loves to have her belly rubbed. She mostly stays in Gabe's room, but likes to venture out in the evenings for a visit before bedtime. She's not a big fan of the other cats, excepting her sister, but she's learned to tolerate them. Mostly. Moses is enough to send her into a hissing, spitting fit. Then again, he has that affect on us all sometimes. You should have seen me the last time he ate my sock yarn.

Makinsie, Elinor's sister, is our Grumpy Old Lady. She's 12 years old, and would like a little peace and quiet. She'd also like the kids to stay off her lawn. She's very sweet with people, except for Timothy, but she doesn't care for any other cats but Elinor. She's hoping to find a quiet home where she can be an adored lap cat. She is one of the prettiest cats I've ever seen, and she reminds me of Giselle, my dearly departed childhood pet.

Now, for the outside crew. First we have Boris. We didn't much care for Boris at first. He was a bully. Then we gave him a little operation, and half a chance, and now he's our #1 porch kitty. Boris will let the kids do anything with him. This picture was taken shortly before they decided to decorate him with chalk. He has been offered a spot in the house several times when the weather was bad, but he and Jack can't agree on terms so he's never stayed long. He's Scrawny Cat's best buddy, although he refuses to admit it. They sleep in the same basket, paws wrapped around one another, and groom one another's faces, but if he thinks anyone's looking, all Scrawny will get from him is the back of his paw. He would love to find an indoor home where there is no alpha male to get on his nerves, and preferably one where Scrawny is welcome, too.

Horace is Boris' evil twin. He's far more of a bully than Boris ever was, but he's been much better since his operation. In this picture, he is very dirty from several rainy days in a row, and he had just had his little operation so he wasn't feeling his best. He's actually very pretty, when he's brushed and clean. He LOVES people. He's just not much of a fan of other cats. He'd also love it if someone took him home and spoiled him rotten. He's tired of life on the streets.

This is one of only a few pictures of Scrawny Cat. She's very shy. We started feeding her when she was a very frightened adolescent. We think she was born into the wild, although we have no idea who her mama might be, since all of the mama cats around here have been captured and spayed. We managed to capture her and spay her before she ever had kittens, and although she's still shy, she loves to be petted. You just have to be patient and let her come to you. She would make a great house cat for someone who wants a quiet, low maintenance kitty. We'd love to see her find a home with Boris, whom she clearly adores in a hero-worship kind of way. She isn't very fond of Timothy, since he insists on chasing her, but Gabe is her favorite person in the world. He was the first of any of us to be allowed to pet her.

There you have it! The complete guide to cats in our house! The last five are up for adoption, if anyone is interested. They are all spayed or neutered and have rabies shots, and Elinor and Makinsie are declawed and up to date on all shots. Please let me know if you're interested or know some one who might be! We really have far more than we would like to have, and I'd love to place the fosters in wonderful homes before the end of the year!

My cats are strange

The following pictures are NOT an example of excellent photography. They ARE, however, an example of trying to catch something on film without startling the subject of the picture into...dropping his ear of corn. It was Father's Day. We had played on the slip 'n slide (and by "we", I mean NOT me), we had cooked on the grill. We were sitting in the living room relaxing. Then we noticed that Moses was behaving in a peculiar manner. He was slinking around the coffee table, looking suspiciously like a cat about to steal someone's dinner. Since dinner was over and done, we waited to see what would happen. He circled the coffee table for several minutes. Then, when he was fairly sure no one was paying any attention to him, he stood up on his hind feet and began gnawing on the corn cob on my plate. There was no corn left, mind you, but he didn't let a little thing like that stop him.

Eventually, he decided it would be best to pull the whole thing off the table, so as to get a better grip on the cob.

Meanie was feeling left out, so he decided to try some corn, too. If he had started the whole thing, it would've been less surprising, since Meanie appears to think he is a cow. Every time the front door opens, he darts out and sits on the front steps to eat some grass. He won't go any further than the steps, but he doesn't feel his day is complete unless he's grazed.

It's rather irritating if you happen to be in a hurry, because you have to stop and retrieve a cat every single time the front door opens. But let's get back to the question at hand: Why are my cats eating corn on the cob???

Here's some video of it. Because I finally figured out how to put video on a blog!

Chris has a new hobby...

And Moses has a new tormentor. He doesn't seem to mind all that much, but then again, we are pretty sure Moses is from outer space. I think this was Chris' way of exacting revenge upon a cat who WILL NOT leave my yarn alone. Not the synthetic stuff, no, he never gives that a second glance. It's only when I have really yummy kid mohair or silk and Romney wool that this part of his personality surfaces. Hiding it from him is not an option, since he knows how to open doors and unzip zippers. Chris has this theory that if we wear him out enough, he'll just sleep and night and not destroy stuff. So here you go. Cowboy Moses.

Next, we have Corporate Climber Moses. He's tired from a hard day at the office.

Chris, I would watch my back, if I were you. I think Moses has figured out how to use the camera. You know that picture of you asleep in Timothy's bed? Yeah, that was ALL him!

Undignified...

So many of the others that share my house have no dignity. None, whatsoever. For instance, Moses doesn't seem to mind at all when Timothy makes him wear sunglasses. Cats should have more dignity than that.

Then there's Timothy. He got new shoes and he's very proud of them. So proud, in fact, that he likes to wear them all the time. Even if he's not wearing anything else. To be honest, you can't really expect him to have much dignity. He's only three, after all.

Sometimes, however, I can't help but think he's doing it on purpose. Like last week, when he showed up wearing my shoes and socks. The socks kind of look like lederhosen, don't they? Or possibly furry legs.

This is Moses lying on my bed. I don't want to know how he ended up like this. But I'm sure however it happened, it was undignified.

Here's another undignified tummy. This is Miss Mouse. She's experiencing some psychological problems and is pulling out her hair. I saw a special on this disorder on 20/20 and made her watch it, hoping to help her realize that she has a problem. It didn't work. Our vet suggested kitty prozac. He also suggested that might be more trouble than it's worth, since she doesn't seem to mind being bald. Oh, and if you're wondering, she's on top of my pattern book and yarn on my lap. This is why I'm so slow at crochet and knit projects.

Finally, as undignified tummies go, this one takes the cake. Chris was supposed to be overseeing Timothy's attempts to pick up his room before bed. It seemed like it was taking a REALLY long time, so I went to investigate. This is what I found. Remarkably, the room was clean and Timothy was playing happily.

If Chris sees this picture of himself on my blog, he's not going to be very happy with me. Please don't tell him it's here!

This one's for MorningMedusa!

Because I don't even know what the heck a URL address is, much less how to find my picture's address, I'm going to post Elinor's picture here!

As you might have guessed, she really loves to have her tummy rubbed. She will flop over at a moment's notice if she thinks there's a chance someone will give it a scratch.

I don't think she appreciated my attempts at photography.

Wherein Gabe asks questions I don't want to answer and Moses nearly has to be shaved...

It has finally happened. My baby is growing up. I have been informed by Gabe's martial arts instructor, Mr. Jensen, that Gabe should probably think about purchasing a cup. It started like this:

Mr. Jensen (while sparring with Gabe): Are you wearing a cup?

Gabe (looking confused and dropping his guard so that he gets bopped squarely in the face): A cup?

Mr. Jensen (looking awkward): Um, never mind, I'll explain after class.

He never did get around to that explaining thing. So on the way home, I had the task of explaining to Gabe what a cup could do for him. I thought I did a pretty good job. As always, I was wrong. Because as soon as I finished my fabulous explanation, Gabe came off with this:

"It's not like those parts have any bones in them or anything, so it doesn't really matter if something hits them. They can't break!"

I gave up and assigned the rest of the explaining to Chris. I do that a lot.

In further news, Moses and Jack got out last night and spent an evening prowling the back yard of the abandoned house next door. They both came in with their fur full of burrs. Jack has short hair, so a quick brushing took care of him. Moses most decidedly does NOT have short hair, and therefore, we spent the better part of an hour picking 10,000 burrs out of his fur with a fine-tooth comb while Moses screamed and wailed his rage and horror. At one point, I was in despair and considered just shaving him bald. It would serve him right for frolicking among the burrs. In the end, humans prevailed and Moses was deburred, with his fur more or less intact. He exacted his revenge by throwing up on the surround sound speakers. Such is life.

Timothy: Always Good For A Laugh!

Timothy has decided he's a superhero. In case you wonder how I know, he runs through the house with his Bear blanket around his neck and announces loudly that he's a superhero. It's a dead give-away. Since he isn't the first son I've had that's gone through the superhero phase, it didn't surprise me much. He has a bit of a different take on a superhero's duties, though. In his version, he chases the cats through the house, roaring loudly at them. They don't care much for it, and with seven of them inside, it tends to lead to dangerous stampedes.

Today I sat him down and had a talk with him (because I haven't yet learned, after 8 years as a parent, not to try to reason with preschoolers). "Timothy, superheros don't scare," I told him. "They help!" He took it well. Or so I thought. Then, a few minutes later, I heard a stampede coming down the hall. Sure enough, he was behind a herd of cats, roaring for all he was worth.

"Timothy, what are you doing?" I asked.

"I'm being a superhero!" he replied.

"But superheros don't scare, they help," I reminded.

Timothy thought for a brief moment. Then he answered, "I'm helping the kitties run away!"

One of these days I'm going to give up on matching wits with my children. Obviously, they are smarter than I am.

The Catbird Seat

But not in a literary sense. I recently refilled the bird feeder that hangs outside my kitchen window. Then I opened all the windows. This is the result. The cats all make this funny chattering noise with their teeth as they stare at the birds outside the screen. It's highly entertaining. To me, that is. To them, it's highly frustrating.

Not the best photos, I know. Something about all the sticky fingerprints on the lens of the camera (see previous post) caused them to be a little foggy. Plus, I couldn't get an angle that showed the bird feeder along with Moses and Meanie.

Also, this is where I found Moses when I went into the bathroom this morning to take my shower. I think he believed he was being inconspicuous. I always fling him out of the bathroom before I shower because he likes to sneak up and attack me as I'm washing my hair. Please note the one evil eye shining through the shower curtain. "You can't see me! I can see you, but you can't see me!"

"Darn it! Foiled again, and by my own tail!"

Signs of Spring

Spring is arriving slowly this year. Nevertheless, the flowers are blooming and we're beginning to see signs that we might eventually get to put away our winter coats. Our neighbor, who doesn't actually live next door to us and is, now that I think about it, not a neighbor on those grounds, has lovely tulips. He's not using them, so we like to borrow them to take pictures of the boys. His house is the most interesting color of mint green with black trim. Kind of like mint chocolate chip ice cream, if mint chocolate chip ice cream were overgrown and had a toilet in its backyard. Now I'm hungry for ice cream and I want to move to a better neighborhood. As usual, I digress.

My children are cute, even if I do say so myself, and I do. Timothy likes to dissect the flowers that he picks. Gabe likes to have his picture taken.

Jack has spring fever, and it makes him dart outside every time the door opens. Someone forgot to tell him he's a house cat. Maybe to him, "house cat" means "a cat who guards the house". He does that a lot. We think if anyone tried to break in, he might attack. Just ask my sister. She swears when she house-sat for us, he made her show some id at the door. And once, he dragged her out and told her to quit bothering the ladies, after MaKinsie hissed at her. True story. Dorothy Gish. (If anyone gets that other than my family, please let me know so I'll know you're as strange as we are!)

Some of you may be freaked out by this, but we were all highly gratified when Trevor, our tree frog, came out of hibernation and resumed his quiet life in my kitchen window. We were slightly less gratified when we realized that he hibernated in the potted herbs, which I brought in for the winter. Oh, well, the cats didn't eat him and he probably enjoyed the warmest winter he's ever had.

We've been out working in the back yard, and Boris is dying to join us. Unfortunately, he really loathes our dog. So he chooses to hide between our neighbor's shed and the fence, and stare through the honeysuckle vines at us. Stalker. Peeping Tom. Hahahahaha! Oh, wait, we had him neutered.

Here's a shot of Timothy smelling the tulips. Cute, huh? In truth, though, he smells everything, so this is less cute than it seems. He smells hedges, cars, the dog...pretty much everything. I guess what I'm saying is I enjoy spring because smelling flowers is far more normal than smelling cars.

Last but not least, my favorite picture of the series. They've gotten so big. How'd that happen?

Wherein Moses Got His Comeuppance and Timothy Ate His Weight In Pop-Tarts

Can you tell by the title I've been reading too much Dickens? No? Well, I haven't read any lately, but I'm in an odd mood so thus, the title.

The boys are enjoying the spring weather. We had a lovely weekend and they spent a lot of time playing outside. Timothy especially enjoyed creating a mud lake with the hose, then taking off his shoes and wading around in it in his socks. As he explained to me, "He didn't want to get his shoes dirty." Perhaps, in retrospect, there should've been a little more supervision. This resulted, on Sunday night, in a pair of boys so filthy that it required a LOOONG soak in the tub to loosen the grime. And this is how Moses came by his comeuppance. While Timothy was soaking in the suds, I took advantage of the time by cleaning the bathroom. Moses was fascinated by the entire process. As I scrubbed the toilet, he kept batting at the brush. It's a wonder he didn't bleach himself. Eventually, he got bored with toilet cleaning and decided to sit on the edge of the tub and try to figure out what Timothy was up to. It should be noted that none of my other cats are that dumb. Sure, they'll all line up to watch me take a bath, but they're all far too smart to come anywhere near Timothy when there's water involved. Moses had just settled into a comfy spot on the tub's edge when Timothy noticed him and yanked him in. I consider my sock yarn to be avenged. Of course, I had to clean up the water everywhere, but it was worth it. On a side note, I was a little amazed that the water in the tub was a lovely shade of brown when Timothy was done soaking. He was THAT dirty! I had to run clean water to rinse him.

The second part of this blog is unrelated to the first, but a little funny. Since yesterday was Monday (OK, that was dumb. I'm sure none of you live in a cave and therefore, you already know it was Monday!), I was up at 3 am to drive to Wichita for work. I get very little sleep on Sunday night, usually about 3 hours, so I'm exhausted when I get home Monday night. This was compounded by a giant storm system that was rolling through yesterday evening. I raced it home, and then we spent the night listening to tornado sirens and wondering if we were going to wake up in Oz. This morning found me dead to the world. While I was snoozing, unaware, Timothy decided to help himself to some Pop Tarts that Mom bought yesterday as a treat for Gabe. When I woke up this morning I found shredded foil packets all over the house. A quick call to Mom revealed that Gabe had only had one of the Pop Tarts. And they were gone, all gone. Which means Timothy ate an entire box of Pop Tarts, minus one, his cereal, a banana, and still greeted me this morning with "Can Timofee have a snack?". I should've given him a stern lecture but I was too tired. And hey, if you can't eat your weight in Pop Tarts when you're in preschool, when can you?

Posts I've been meaning to get around to and haven't...

Here are some pictures of Spring Break in Hico with Halcyon and her family! There are many more adorable pictures that I would like to post, but when I try to flip them the right way, my computer keeps making veiled threats about "permanently destroying images". Either my computer is evil or I don't know how to use it. Could be either. So, above you see my boys at the Texas border. This was Timothy's first trip to Texas.

As you can clearly see by this picture, Halcyon and I have a lot of kids between us. Ok, ok, she gets most of the credit for this, but in my defense, mine tend to be far noisier and more rambunctious than all of hers combined. There are no pictures of Deet, so you'll have to imagine him off to the left of the above photo. I have the picture, but it's sideways.

The kids enjoyed the playground a lot. It was one of those great, old-fashioned playgrounds that still has a merry-go-round! Why the fuddy-duddies these days think it's not ok for kids to spin in circles until they are sick, and occasionally fly off and/or get dragged by the toy, I'll never know! My kids thought it was the most fun they'd had in a long time!

Here is a picture of my boys plus Miss Sophie. She is so very adorable, I had an evil plan to hide her in my duffel bag and sneak her out of the house when I left. Unfortunately, Halcyon knows me very well and kept all girl children small enough to fit in my duffel hidden until I was all loaded up and ready to go.

Here are Gabby and Timothy in the recliner. Timothy liked Gabby a lot. Since she is a very experienced big sister, she didn't seem to mind.

Last, but not least, here is Turkish the cat. He enjoyed Gabe's sleeping bag a lot. He also enjoyed a certain sock monkey, even more than he enjoyed Gabe's sleeping bag. However, since I haven't figured out how to post video yet, that's one incriminating video that won't be seen today.

So, these pictures show the kid section of the trip. What they do not show is the fun Halcyon and I had after the kids went to bed, watching silly movies, talking about old times, knitting up a storm and cooking yummy things. Again, she gets the credit for the cooking. When I cook, things tend to explode. Anyway, a good time was had by all. I miss you, Halcy! Should we make this Spring Break thing an annual event?

The Day the Sock Yarn Died...

Moses the Cat did a BAD, BAD thing today. While I was away, he crawled into my tote of knitting stuff and grabbed a skein of sock yarn. Then he mopped the floor with it, flung it about, generally annihilated it, and to add insult to injury, ate some of it. The worst part is that I have a sock started with this particular yarn. Which means that, should I ever manage to finish a complete pair of socks, I will have one normal one (well, as normal as I can knit anything!) and one fuzzed up, cat-gnawed one. Darn him. I'd beat him severely but he's asleep on my feet, purring his furry head off, and I hate to wake him. He's keeping my toes warm. He'd better glad he's so cute!