Happy Birthday to Crystal's Kittens!

These babies are Crystal's kittens, born 7 years ago today - China Cat Sunflower, Reese, Opal, and Hayley. China now lives with my daughter and son-in-law, but the rest of the gang are still with me.

The next picture is of Hayley, Opal, and Reese sleeping on my bed with mama Crystal in the background.

Happy 7th Birthday to my beautiful babies!

Timmy's New Chair

I recently acquired this awesome antique chair, which Timmy has already claimed for his own. But he's such a good boy, I don't mind.

Cat Blog of the Week!

We are honored and humbled to have been chosen by Franny Syufy as the About Cats Cat Blog of the Week! Franny is the quintessential Cat Lady (even more so than me, if you can believe that). She loves all kitties to death, is an expert on all things cats, and her life revolves around them. The woman is an angel!! If you haven't already done so, go to http://cats.about.com/ and sign up for her weekly About Cats newsletter, read her Cats Blog, and find out all kinds of cool things about cats!

Lots of love and purrs to Franny and her kitty family!

Karuna

Karuna is the Buddhist term for compassion, which is what I felt when I saw this gorgeous kitten who had been heartlessly dropped in the yard of my neighbor's daughter. Knowing that the Crazy Cat Lady lived next door to her mom, Carol found my number and called me. I agreed to let her bring the kitten to my house so I could check her out and try to find a home for her.

When I saw this face, my heart melted. This photo was taken the day she arrived at my house. Try to find a home for her? Fuggetaboudit, she already found a home!

Karuna is a sweet, gorgeous long-haired dilute calico with the cutest facial markings I have seen. She's a bit plump, according to Dr. Duel, but not fat. Her big plume of a tail is carried straight up, with the top half flopping from side to side in a constant wave.



Just like Maria in West Side Story, Karuna immediately fell in love with Reese, the bad boy of my brood. She follows him everywhere and constantly head-butts him for attention and kisses. This is amazing to see, because Reese pretty much terrorizes all of the other cats, and they all hate him, but Karuna gets kisses on the top of her head. He has even taught her to scratch on the dining room chairs, just like he does. They can usually be found together, as they are in this picture.



Karuna will be two years old this summer and is still the youngest in the family. She is an amazing, sweet, beautiful girl.

Timmy

Here is my 14-year-old thyroid patient, Timmy, in his favorite place - the kitchen. He almost never leaves the kitchen anymore. I wish he would come to bed with the rest of us and sleep in a nice, warm bed - but he prefers the floor beside the refrigerator or the wooden kitchen table. Sometimes he will sleep in that nice cuddly blue bed I bought him, but Sweet Pea seems to have taken that over.



Timmy has never in his life, to my knowledge, drank water from a bowl. Instead, he stands on the sink and stares at me until I turn the water on for his "dinky." I have probably let hundreds of dollars worth of water go down the drain because I forgot Timmy was having a dinky and walked away - sometimes for hours or even overnight before I come back and hear the water trickling. Ugh! I try to leave the light on over the sink as a reminder that the water's on, but it doesn't always work. Timmy doesn't even let the other cats drink out of the bowl - as soon as I fill the bowls up, he goes over and splashes all of the water out with his paws. This is such a huge problem that I keep water bowls in several places in the house so the other cats can have some water, poor things.

Timmy still takes 2 thyroid pills a day and is doing really well. He now wants to eat everything in sight, including pizza, cinnamon rolls, bread, cheese, etc. He is on a carb craze apparently. But that's okay because he was so skinny and now he's filling out again and his fur is shiny. Tonight he snorfed down the end of a piece of pizza I gave him. Every Saturday (don't ask me how he knows, maybe because I sleep late and make tea), he begs for milk until I give him some in a bowl. That he will drink from a bowl.

Friends Awards

I am honored! The beautiful Texas lass Suburbia Steph has given me the coveted "Friends Award"!


This award is given for the following reasons: “These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers. Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award.”

I would like to share this award with some old friends and some new friends I have made through blogging: First of all, right back atcha to Steph! Also my friends from the Observer-Reporter in Washington, PA - Miss Bess, who always finds the coolest things and is the best shopper I know; Celeste Van Kirk, whose beautiful photographs can be found at Behind the Lens; editor Brant Newman, whose View on the News is always good for a laugh; Grumpy Old Editor Park Burroughs and his great stories (buy his book!); and Scott Beveridge, who always has an interesting story about the Mon Valley. Of course, I can't leave out a couple kitty blogs - we like Derby the Sassy Cat and China Cat's Blog.

Of course there are so many others; I wish I could mention them all here! Thanks to all of you for brightening my days with your stories!

Now ya'll go on and bestow 8 other of your bloggy friends!

Watch Out for the Quiet Ones

Hayley is a beautiful long-haired tortie. She has black spots in one eye and gorgeous long ear tufts. She is the sister of Opal and Reese, and the daughter of Crystal. Crystal and her kittens were dropped off on the doorstep of the Washington Area Humane Society the night before I decided to foster a litter of kittens and their mom. Of course, I ended up keeping them, all except for China Cat Sunflower, who now lives with my daughter and her husband.

Hayley is extremely shy, totally unlike her gregarious sister and bully brother. She spends most of her time on the rocking chair in my library, or cuddled up on my bed with my teddy bear. She is huge and walks like a raccoon, with her back arched and kind of waddling from side to side. She doesn't purr (neither does Opal). All four of them - Crystal, Opal, Hayley and Reese - will carry toys around in their mouths and caterwaul at night in the dark. None of my other cats do this, so it must be genetic.

She doesn't mind being petted or brushed, but try to pick her up and she totally freaks out - legs flying in all directions. She won't bite or scratch, but you sure aren't going to get a hold on her.

Hayley has very long hair, and for a couple weeks now I've seen large mats hanging off of her "britches" on her back legs. They had to be painful for her, but every time I would try to get near her to work on them, she freaked. Then I realized the the mats were actually large globs of poop - yes, poop - that had gotten stuck in her britches. Ugh. So last Sunday I said, "We're going to do this or you're going to have to go to a groomer and get your butt shaved." Hayley just looked at me sullenly from her rocking chair.

I got my hair scissors and closed the library door behind me. It' a small room, so she didn't have many places to go. When she jumped up on the table, I pounced on her, turned her around so her head was butted into my stomach, held her down with one hand, and lifted her huge tail with the other. Oh crap - now I need a third hand to hold the glob and a fourth to work the scissors. FAIL.

Determined not to have to spend fifty precious dollars on a groomer, I went upstairs and got the biggest bath towel I could find. I have one of those nifty kitty straitjackets, but it's the small size and only fits Peek-A-Boo, who weighs only five pounds. I guess I need to get a large one.

Back with the bath towel, I locked us in the library again. When Hayley jumped up on the table, I threw the towel on top of her and wrapped her up like a giant burrito, turned her around and laid my upper body on top of her. Now I was able to lift the tail with one hand and work on the globs with the other. With her screaming the whole time, I managed to get the dang things out. What a mess!

As soon as I let her go, she waddled away like nothing happened.