I petted Ariel this morning!!! Almost, sorta, kinda. She was lying on a cat bed when I walked up to her. She didn't run off, so I held out my fingers for her to sniff, as I often do. Then I casually stroked her along the side a couple of times before she leapt to her feet and darted off.

I finally got around to adding Simon to the main index page for the Moggy Horde, as well as creating an individual page for him. I updated a few of the other photos on the main page. That led to a mad rush of creativity and I redesigned the entire page. It really needs to be redone with more updated html, but I didn't quite have the energy for that. Let me know if you hate it.

Last time I went pet food shopping, I wasn't able to buy the type of cat treats I always get, moist salmon-flavored treats. I bought a different brand of moist tuna flavored treats instead. My spoiled moggies are turning up their delicate little noses. Well, some of them. Tosca, Diva, Puck and Theseus eat pretty much anything you give them. But Zoe, Saffy and Simon are disgusted. "These treats suck!"

Puck gave me the Big Eyes treatment this morning, so I caved and let him go outside for a few minutes. The first thing he did when I brought inside was to jump Simon. Puck is incorrigible.

And here he is with his ear folded back giving me the Evil Slitty Eyes of Disdain.

I had a pleasant surprise when I got up from my desk after a long afternoon work session. I pushed my office chair into place, glanced down and realized that Ariel was sleeping on a cushion no more than a foot from where my feet had been. It's possibly that she actually likes to be near me. It's just the whole touching business she can't deal with.

The Ant Wars continue! Gaarrrr!

Ariel is prowling around the outskirts of my desk, on top of a table that butts up to my desk. I try not to look at her directly, so that she won't be discouraged from staying there. Wonder what she's up to?

Just three photos this time: Simon and Saffy, Puck, Pippin.

Poor Puck! He was asleep along the top edge of my keyboard, where he often sleeps, when I had to break for lunch. This means I need to put the cover over my keyboard before I leave the office. It's not unusual for me to lift Puck from his sleeping spot to I can put on the cover, then deposit him back on the desk. But today when I lightly touched him on the shoulder, he totally freaked. He nearly turned himself inside out and came very close to biting my finger off. Luckily, he must have realized it was my finger before completing the attack and I escaped unscatched. My guess is that he was deeply asleep and must have been having a frightening dream, or the kind of dream that would make him react that violently, whatever it was.

I held him in my lap and soothed him to make sure he was all right. He seemed fine once he was awake. I'm not sure which one of us was the more startled.

Tom and Bowie showed up for food at the same time. Randy had to run an intervention. He put out a second bowl of food and the cats settled down, though Tom seemed to mainly want attention. Poor guy, he asks for attention a lot. We do our best to give it to him. I've taken to calling him Tom-Tom. He has an interesting method of "herding" humans by hissing at us when we don't do what he wants, but most of the time he's a sweet boy.

One of my demented moggies insists on peeing in a spare catbox that I have stored on a low shelf. The box has litter in it, so that's somewhat understandable. However, there is clearance of only four inches from the top rim of the catbox to the top of the shelf above it. It has to be one of the smaller cats, but I doubt the cat could do more than crouch at best. I can only shake my head and wonder.

Photos: Opal, Pippin, Ariel, Simon.

The summer ant invasions have begun. Every day I find ants on the cat bowls and have to track them down to their entry point. Their many entry points. Yesterday I zapped one point, but a few hours later they were back from another point. And so it goes.

It's been very hot, so the cats have been grateful for the A/C. Or would be grateful, if they knew how lucky they were. Naturally they take it for granted that I will provide them with a home that is neither too hot nor too cold, and so I do.

Saffy is no longer hissing at Simon, but I'm still waiting for some actual playing to go on between Simon and one of the girls. I get the sense he'd like to play with them, but he holds back. I guess it will take longer than I thought.

Simon is showing more of his feisty side. He gets bitey sometimes, as in I go to pet him and he acts like he wants to bite me. He never does, of course, because he's such a sweetie. His favorite new sleeping place is a folding canvas chair that long ago became a cat bed.

We had fun with Pippin and Opal last night. While we were at Petsmart buying food yesterday, we also brought home some catnip-laced bubble lotion. Randy blew bubbles for them. After a couple popped, Opal freaked and kept her distance. She watched the bubbles, but wouldn't come near them! Pippin popped many bubbles with his nose, then learned to pounce on them instead. He was a brave bubble-slayer.

There was mayhem in my office last night. I found my keyboard cover on the floor, the keyboard tottering on the edge, my mouse on the floor with the batteries knocked out of it, and scattered papers.

I used human logic and left the two brand-new bags of cat food out after we got home from our shopping trip instead of transferring the contents to the big plastic food bin. I reasoned that the moggies had all the food they could want in their bowls, so they didn't need to bother the bags. Right?

Silly me. Both bags were ripped open by this morning. Why? Because they're there! Sigh...

Puck barrelled out the door, shooting past my feet. He ran straight over to the lawn and chowed down on grass. I let him do the lawnmower bit for a few minutes. Naturally, the grass soon came back up (in my office), so I have that mess to clean up.

Remind me again why I want so many cats?

Oh joy. I had cat vomit to clean up when I came into the office. Then Saffy threw up another bunch of times. She behaves perfectly fine otherwise, so I'm hoping it's one of those passing mysterious upsets that cats get.

Simon may have been in an altercation the other night because I found tufts of black fur and gray fur in one spot of my office a couple of mornings back. No one has any scars to show for it, as near as I can tell.

Pippin and Opal get soft treats at noon. Today Pippin had to make an effort to chew and chew at the treat, then coughed it back up a couple of times. I couldn't see anything obviously wrong in his mouth, and he certainly hasn't lost any weight and seems to be doing all right when he eats his dry and wet food. Randy remembered that Pippin ate a smal bug right before getting the treats, so now we're speculating that the bug affected Pippy's sense of taste, or might even have bitten him. We watched him for the rest of the day and he seems all right.

Pippin is especially fascinated when Randy pours water from the pitcher into the water bowl. He lurks over to the bowl, watches the stream of water intently, then attacks the splashing droplets. It cracks us up.

A couple of people asked for clarification about Tom's paw. According to Tom's previous person (not the most trustworthy source) when I asked a couple of years ago, it's a birth defect, not the result of an injury. It looks like a birth defect to me. He's compensated quite well for it, as far as I can tell.

Poor Simon was minding his own business, taking a dump in the catbox, and Saffy took advantage of his vulnerable position to walk up and whack him. I happened to be right there, so I gave her a piece of my mind. She's being such a snot to Simon.

He had great fun with a string on the spiral steps this morning, though he insisted on looking princely at the moment I snapped this shot.

I suspect that Kate is having trouble drinking water. I don't know whether her tongue doesn't scoop well anymore or she's having depth perception problems. She's taken to dipping her paw into the bowl and licking the water off her paw. I hope she's getting enough water that way.

Here's a humongous batch of photos. You'll notice one section that has a theme: Puck snuggling with other cats. Considering how much trouble he gives the other cats when he's awake, it's amazing how much time he spends cuddling with them when he's asleep. Come see pictures of: Simon, Ariel, Saffy, Jetta, Puck, Kate, Zoe, Theseus and Tom.

Simon got very playful this morning. I pulled out the laser pointer and had Simon, the three crazed girls, Puck and Theseus chasing it around. Much fun was had by all. Simon pulls back rather than come into too much contact with the other cats, so I had to work it out to give him his own private moments to chase the glowing red dot.

Tom the Limping Tabby was around for his usual meals today and I noticed that the smaller, split-off part of his deformed foot had a long, thick claw that was unlike a normal claw. It looked like it was adding to his problems. Armed with the nail-clippers, I set about to trim it. Holding his paw was out of the question. I could quickly tell he wouldn't tolerate that. I let him get involved with eating while I petted him with one hand and casually reached down with the clippers in the other hand. He tends to hold that paw up rather than stand on it for more than a few seconds, but in about three successive snips, I was able to trim it way back without bothering him at all. I watched him walk around a bit afterwards and I think it helped. I took photos of Tom and his paw which I'll post along with a bunch of other photos, but not tonight. I ran out of time for that tonight.

Thanks to Alex Burr for this link. A cat chases a bear up a tree.

Simon is nicely settled in now. He hardly yowled at all today. Saffy continues to give him the cold shoulder with an occasional hiss, but nothing serious. I expected some playing to occur by now, but he's somewhat reserved about that. Lolette estimated him at about 11 months, not quite full grown. I'm curious to see how much more he grows. At the moment, he's the smallest cat I have, slightly smaller than Zoe.

Gray Guy has finally given me a name to use. It's rather an odd name, not one that would normally occur to me, but it seems right for the moment. SIMON. And when he's going on and on about something, I respond with, "Simon says..." Simon has a lot to say. Meet Simon the Silver-Tongued Devil.

PART 2
I picked up Gray Guy this afternoon. He was pretty unhappy about the whole situation, poor little fella. The first thing he did upon getting home was to eat, then he napped for the rest of the day and into the evening. He's complained a few times, but otherwise seems glad to be back. I'll post pictures soon, I promise.

I've put new Paypal links on the Cause4Cats pages temporarily so that the donations will come to me and I can forward them to Lolette, until she gets things straightened out on her end.

Tom the Limping Tabby has been coming around regularly for food. He wants petting and attention as much as he wants food. In fact, he wants petting and attention while he eats food. We give him as much petting as we can. I wish I had the kind of money it would take to get surgery on his deformed paw and see if it could be improved for him, but frankly, if I had the money, I'd be taking care of Theseus first. He's had a large, benign cyst in the corner of his mouth for years and I haven't been able to afford the surgery to have it removed. We do what we can.

Bowie is coming around every day and usually two or three times a day for his meals. Smokey the beautiful feral Siamese is showing up regularly now, as is the tabby we TNR'd last year. I looked out the kitchen window this morning in time to see Smokey perched stone-still on the edge of the birdbath where he had been getting a drink. He was entirely fixated on something. I followed his line of sight and realized it was a butterfly on the ground. Before I could do anything, Smokey pounced and the butterfly became a snack.

We made a new acquaintance, an affectionate young black cat that isn't feral. We think it lives up a side street not too far from us. It has no collar and hasn't been fixed. If he keeps coming around, we may take it upon ourselves to have him fixed.

PART 1
Oy, it turns out Lolette is having a problem with Paypal right now that she is working to fix. If you attempted to donate money to Cause4Cats and received an error message, you may send the donation to me with a note earmarking it as a donation to C4C, and I'll see that she gets it. Thanks.

I'll be running over there this afternoon to pick up Gray Guy, but this time I can't stay and play with kittens for hours. {g}

Opal has been a total piece of mischief lately. She's been doing everything she's knows she should't do, like jumping onto kitchen counters and onto the top of the bookshelf lined with plants. When we scold her, she gives us the Huge Eyes and Cute Meeps, two lethal moggy defenses against scolding.

I had to get up much earlier than usual to take Gray Guy to Lolette's. I'd locked him in the cave overnight without food and water, as you're supposed to do. The little bugger managed to get out! I had a heavy container up against the gate, but to my amazement, he'd budged it enough to squeeze out.

When I arrived, poor Lolette was exhausted. One of her volunteers failed to show up, so she had been up all night taking care of cats. No sleep, but she was heading off to the vet's with a van full of moggies. I offered to spend an hour there on whatever task she needed. She set me to work on one small room that is stacked floor to ceiling with kittens. When I arrived, she had 83 kittens!!!

While I was there, that went up to 88 when a woman showed up with a box of five kittens whose feral mother had apparently disappeared. I set up a cage for them with box, food, water and towel. The tiniest one was a little gray and white girl. Every time Russ and I turned around, she was out of the cage! I kept having to find and catch her, then she'd get out again. We started calling her Harriet Houdini. It was hysterical. We realized she was simply squeezing her tiny self through the bars of the cage. In the end, we had to put her inside a large carrier. She was so pissed off! What a character she's going to be.

I ended up working there for three hours to get the one room done, which was only about a third of the total kitten population. This isn't counting the 150 cats. I dumped out and replaced catbox litter, played with kittens, replaced water bowls, played with kittens, replenished food, played with kitten, petted momma cat (the one tame one), etc. This totally adorable, tiny Siamese kitten kept climbing up my leg.

When I got home, I had to immediately dump my clothes in the laundry and take a shower, before Randy's allergies took a serious hit.

So once again, if anyone can spare a donation for Cause4Cats, that would be great. Please use the Cause4Cats link further down the page on the left. It's easier to have the donations go straight to her. Thanks much.

Okay, forget the opera part. Gray Guy is not a singer, he's a complainer. "But WHY can't I got out? WHY can't I go out? WHY can't I go out? WHY is the rum gone?" On and on. And I caught him spraying a wall last night. Who knows how much spraying he's doing that I don't catch.

Therefore early tomorrow morning, he goes to Lolette at Cause4Cats and pays a visit to her vet to have his gonads removed. By the way, Lolette's having a tough time right now. Her husband broke his ankle, so she's had to take time off work to care for both him and all the cats. If anyone can spare a donation in her direction, it would be a great kindness. There's a link down the page on the left. Thanks.

Someone finally called today looking for a lost cat. And she was looking for a lost gray cat. Sadly, it was not this one. I hope her cat shows up. Meanwhile, Gray Guy is getting along fine, but continues to wander the office periodically wailing and crying about his state of affairs. "But WHY can't I go out?" seems to be the gist of it.

I saw a couple of ants on my desk tonight. The spring/summer ant invasions have begun. I went over to check and sure enough, they'd invaded one of the cat bowls. I tracked them to where they were getting in and zapped them with ant spray.

I'm not sure, but I think Kate may have lost more weight. I must haul out the lovely weight scale that was so kindly donated and start tracking her weight.

I was holding Opal in my arms last night when she decided to launch herself away from me so she walk on Randy's back. He was bending over to put Pippin onto the floor and his back was too great an allure. However, the act of launching herself left a two inch scratch down my left boob. Yowtch.

Darling Diva choose the single most inconvenient place she could possibly find to throw up -- down the front of the wire mesh of the folded-up cat cage. You can imagine how much fun that was to clean up.

Gray Guy tried to get out the door. He wants out. No such luck.

One of the cats must have danced on just the right combo of keys this afternoon to change a setting in Word that had me baffled for quite some time. I finally tracked down a tech site that had the fix. I've lost count of how many times I've had to figure out how to undo some random thing a moggy has done to my programs.

I guess it's time to start thinking of a name for Gray Guy. No one has called and I have a hunch no one will. I haven't locked him in the Cave for the past couple of nights and his integration into the Horde is going just fine. I haven't seen actual play break out with the younger cats, but I'm betting it will happen.

By Bast, he is a talker. He talks and talks and wails and wails. He hasn't told me his name so far, but I'm almost tempted to name him Pavarotti. Almost.

Gray Guy is definitely settling in. Things are calmer today. He likes to give head butts and he'll present his head to Puck or other cats, seeking acceptance. So far, Theseus and Saffy are being the nastiest.

But I think he mainly has hopeless lust for Jetta. He keeps wailing and wandering around after her. He also came and visited my lap while I was playing an on-line game. Lying down on my mouse when I'm in the middle of battle is not helpful. {g}

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