Evacuation

Karen Jo: There is a large fire threatening Los Alamos and we have had to evacuate.  Herman, Emma and I are at my nephew's.  We are all safe.  I will keep you updated as things change.

Update:  I would like to let you know that the fire is approaching town on the opposite side to where we live.  Our house will probably be fine.  The fire still has to burn down a mountainside, cross a canyon floor and climb the opposite canyon wall to get into town.  There are lots of fire crews fighting very hard to keep that from happening.  Herman and Emma aren't very happy with all the changes in their lives, but we are all safe and that is what matters most.

Hiding on Sunday

 This is where I hide from the Fuminator.  It is also really handy for chowing down on the kitten food.

Emma:  I am playing with Da Bird by myself.  Mom doesn't give me nearly enough play time with it.  Mom has been a bad blogger again.

Karen Jo:  Sorry about that.  I had a really hard week at work.  I had to work overtime almost every day.

We haven't been getting any good food.  Mom has been eating chicken out of the freezer that we don't really like and she is cooking a pot roast in the crock pot.  We don't like pot roast at all.

Karen Jo:  That's just too bad.  I like pot roast.  It's not like the two of you are starving.  You aren't even eating all of your Stinky Goodness these days.

It's too hot to eat a lot.  Mom popped me into the PTU on wheels and took me down to the vet to get weighed.  I lost half a pound.

Karen Jo:  It's called a stroller and lots of kitties like to go for rides in them.  You meow and meow the whole time you are in it.

I hate being confined. Besides, the only place we ever go is the vet.

Karen Jo:  I bet you would complain just as much if I just took you for a walk.

Emma:  I want to go for a walk in the stroller.  I enjoyed the ride when I went to the vet.

Karen Jo:  I have to go get more medicine for Herman next week.  I will take you along and weigh you.  I am glad that Herman lost half a pound, but I want to make sure that you aren't losing.

Emma:  I am looking forward to it.  Herman isn't much fun these days.  Mostly he just lies around.

It's too hot to do much.  I move around at night.  I am not even snuggling up to Mom at night any more.  It's too hot to snuggle.

Karen Jo:  Would you like a lion cut for the summer?

No way!  I find going nekkid embarrassing.  I think you should set up the fan like you did last summer.

Karen Jo:  I got out the fan, but I can't remember where I put the extension cord.  Once I find it, I will set up the fan and run it for you.

That sounds good to me.  Hurry up and find that cord.

Relaxing on Sunday

 I am just relaxing on the floor.  This camera angle makes me look really fat.  Just remember that a great deal of it is floof.

Karen Jo:  And a bunch of it is fat.  You are my pudgy Herman boy.  You have been eating your weight control formula dry food.  I hope it works for you and you become not quite so pudgy.  I think you might have lost a little weight, but the last time I thought that you had actually gained.  No worries, I can tell that you are feeling really good these days.  You play ball with me in the evenings sometimes and for a longer time than you used to.  Last night you even played with your fevver-butt birdie and fished mousies out of the toybox with holes and played with them, too.  You chase Emma around and jump up on the table to check out what I am eating.  I expect to see you jumping up on the sink for a drink of water out of the faucet again any day now.

Emma: I am up on the end of the couch.  Under that table is one of my hidey-holes.  I drag Da Bird under there and tangle up the string around the table legs.  I haven't been up to any more mischief lately, for which Mom is grateful. I have actually been starting the chase game with Herman.  I will run up to him and tag him with my paw, than take off down the hall.  The game usually ends when I run into Mom's room.  Herman turns into my room then back out into the hall, expecting me to chase him back, but I usually don't.  Sometimes I do.  Mom says our record is four times up and down the hall with Herman chasing me twice and me chasing Herman twice.  It's a fun game, but it is getting too hot to play it except early in the morning and in the evenings. We are usually both crashed out for nap time when Mom goes to work.  I have been teaching Herman how to groom himself.

I already knew how to groom myself; I just didn't do it much.

Emma:  I think watching me do it has inspired you to do more grooming.

Maybe and maybe I just feel really good and want to groom myself now.

Karen Jo:  I don't know which it is, but watching you do so much more grooming makes me very happy.  When you first moved in, you were very depressed and hardly groomed yourself at all.  When you were so sick, you only groomed your backside.  Now you are grooming yourself all over and at least once a day.  I take it as a sign that you are happy and healthy.

Caturday

 I'm just taking it easy in the living room.  Mom calls this my classic Herman position.

Emma: I am taking a nap on Mom's bed.  Mom has been a bad blogger again.  I even missed
Femme Friday again.

Karen Jo:  I am sorry, but things just haven't been going well for blogging.  I could have made a Thursday post, if a certain tuxie girl hadn't stolen my glasses.

Emma:  I don't know what you are talking about.

Karen Jo:  I was very sleepy and all tucked up in bed when I took off my glasses Tuesday night.  I reached up to put them on top of the bedstead bookcase, but I fumbled them and they fell down.  I thought I would just pick them up off the floor in the morning.  Come Wednesday morning, I couldn't find my glasses anywhere.  They weren't beside the bed, where I expected them to be.  They weren't under the bed.  They weren't behind the rocking chair.  I nearly went crazy trying to find them, but finally had to go to work wearing my old glasses.  When I got home, I started all over again trying to find them, with no luck.  I was thinking about stripping the bed and taking the mattress and box springs off the frame, thinking that they had gotten into some crevice under the bed that I couldn't see from the side.  I decided to lie across the bed and look under the bed from the opposite side with the flashlight to see if a different perspective would help.  When I looked down, there were my glasses, in your hidey-hole.

Emma:  I found them on the floor.  Anything on the floor is a toy.

Karen Jo:  That's a good excuse.  After I finally found them, it was too late to blog and I was too tired, anyway.  I have been too tired to water the lawn after work, too.  The poor grass is in terrible shape. At least the roses have gotten enough water to bloom.  If you are wondering why I don't just water the grass on my days off, it's because we are in severe drought conditions and the county has imposed watering restrictions. The days I am allowed to water don't coincide with my time off.

Emma:  Mom says that I should reassure my friends that I get in my whaps at Herman, too.  I love to lie in my chair and wait for Herman to go by.  I give him a whap in the middle of his back before he suspects that anything is up. Tonight he was playing ball with Mom and I pounced his tail.  He whipped around, but I was out of reach.

Karen Jo:  Herman and Emma have both gotten used to the new dry foods.  I have seen both of them eating all three of their choices. Emma barfed a bit of the duck and pea the other day.  It is those little round disks that cause the problem.  They are small enough to swallow without getting chewed up, then they absorb moisture and expand, then come up again. The Now food is in tiny round pieces that can also be swallowed without being chewed up, but they are small enough not to cause a problem when they absorb moisture.

Emma:  I have stopped running to see what Mom is putting in the dry food dishes.  I know that it's just going to be the same boring stuff day after day.

Karen Jo:  If Herman loses the weight he needs to, I can get you different flavors of Now.  At present, it's just going to be the weight control formula and the kitten food.  Unfortunately, they are both the same flavor.

Mom froze the rest of the turkey, so no more turkey bites for me.  I don't know what she's going to cook next.

Karen Jo:  I don't know, either.  I think I will eat out of the freezer for a while. There's still chicken in there.

You haven't cooked lamb in a long time.

Karen Jo:  I won't be cooking it again, unless there is a good sale.  The price has gone up out of my range.  I am afraid there is going to be a lot more pot roast around here.

Herman and Emma:  YUCK!

Mancat Monday

I am just relaxing.  Mom likes to take pictures of my profile sometimes.  I got more turkey today.  I didn't want as much as I did yesterday, but I still ate quite a bit.  Silly Emma didn't want any at all.  She doesn't know what she's missing.  I pestered Mom for my Interferon this morning, but she wouldn't give it to me.

Karen Jo:  You only get Interferon every other week.  You have to wait until next Sunday to get it again.

We really need to have the litter boxes changed.

Karen Jo:  I know.  I will do it on Tuesday, when I can pick up enough litter to do the job.

I had to give Emma another lesson in who is in charge around here.  Mom came when she yelled at me.

Karen Jo:  I wish I knew what started these "lessons".  I hear Emma yell, well, snarl is a better word, and invariably find both of them in the bathroom.  Herman is sitting there like an Egyptian statue and Emma is cowering against the bathtub or the litter box in a defensive position.  I have to persuade Herman to back off and Emma makes a run for it.  I stand in Herman's way to keep him from chasing her.  Then it's all over and they are friends again.

It was really windy inside the house again today.  The door to Emma's room slammed shut.  I bet Emma was glad that she wasn't inside at the time.

Karen Jo:  I need to buy some more door stops and make sure that they are under all the doors in the house.  Today you lost access to some food, water and the second litter box.

I loved watching Emma be a klutz tonight while she was playing.  I laughed myself silly when she fell off the couch while playing with Da Bird.

Karen Jo:  She just gets excited and forgets how close to the edge of the couch she is.  She plays up on the couch because you pounce her sometimes when she is playing on the floor.

I just pounce her every once in a while.  It's fun.

Sunday Musings

 I am watching Emma, ready to pounce if she does anything,

Emma:  I am watching Herman, ready to run if he tries to pounce me.

Karen Jo:  Herman and Emma were both playing with the toy box with holes and they decided that they both wanted the same toy that Herman fished out.  They backed off from each other and lay down and stared at each other, tails twitching for a while.  Nobody got pounced.

I got lots of turkey today.

Karen Jo:  You really wanted turkey today.  You ate all I offered you and wanted more, so I even cut a little more off the turkey for you after I was finished eating. Emma, on the other hand, didn't want any at all.

Emma:  I prefer cat food to people food.  I will take a bite or two of something really good, but I would really rather eat cat food.

I tried to get Emma to chase me today, but she didn't really cooperate.

Emma:  I saw you run after you pretended you were going to pounce me in the kitchen and started out after you, but I thought you went down the hall when you ran into the living room.  I looked down the hall and didn't see you, so I stopped running.  When I saw you in the living room, I jumped up on the furniture and started to run again, but you didn't chase me the way you usually do.

I didn't want to play that game.  I started fishing around in the toy box with holes and that developed into the staring match.

Karen Jo:  I am very glad that you both like the toy box with holes.  I knew that Emma would like it when I bought it, but I wasn't sure about Herman.

Mom is using that furminator thing on me all the time now.

Karen Jo:  Your fur is trying to mat again and I have to get the extra fur out before that happens.  You are shedding up a storm and your undercoat fur is getting caught in the guard hairs.  At least that's the way the vet explained it to me.  You need a very thorough furminating all over, but I don't think you are going to put up with having it all done at one time.

You can bet on that.  I little every day is more than enough.  Why isn't Emma getting furminated?

Karen Jo:  Her fur is not nearly as thick or long as yours is.  Her shed fur comes right off with light brushing or even just petting.

Emma:  I am not minding the brushing as much as I used to.  I even let Mom brush my tummy a few times today before I started biting the brush so much that she had to stop.

Karen Jo:  I appreciate that.  You need some brushing, but not much.  It is mostly to get the fur off into my hand instead of all over the furniture and floor.

Emma:  I found out that I can stand in Mom's chair at the table and look out the kitchen window.  There are all kinds of birdies out there.

Karen Jo:  You do love your bird watching.  You are so talkative with me that I find it strange that you don't chitter at the birds.

Emma:  I don't want to scare them away.  Herman doesn't talk to the birds, either.

Karen Jo:  He doesn't any more.  He did a couple of times when he first came to live with me.

There isn't much point in talking to birds.  We don't speak the same language.

Caturday

 It's been hot lately, so I do a lot of relaxing on the carpet with my tummy turned toward the breeze.

Emma:  My head is all blurry because I started grooming my chest fur just as Mom snapped the picture.

Mom has been a really bad blogger. She hasn't posted in a week.

Karen Jo:  My apologies.  We get more customers later in the day in the summer, so I have been getting home later and several days I needed to go to bed earlier because I had to get up early.  It's going to get worse, because I am going to have to start watering the yard after I get home from work some days.  I will do as much as I can.  Things should get a lot better in September.

I guess that will have to do. At least you finally cooked something good again.

Karen Jo:  Yes, I roasted a turkey Wednesday night.  I don't get you two, though.  Thursday, you couldn't get enough turkey.  Today, you hardly wanted any at all.  I would offer you turkey and you would sniff it, then just look at me.  You kept staring at me all the time I was eating, though. Each of you took one little bite, then didn't want any more.

Sometimes we want it, sometimes we don't.  I jumped up on the table to see if the stuff on your plate was better than what you were offering me.  It wasn't.

Karen Jo:  Herman has shown some interest in the toy box with the holes in it.  I showed him that I was dropping a few treats into the box and he made a half-hearted attempt to get them out, but soon gave up.

Why should I work that hard for treats, when I know you will give me one for scratching?

Karen Jo:  I have seen you fishing little mousies out of it.

Now that is fun, at least for a little while.

Emma:  I like to whack one of the balls in the box and run to the other side to see if it comes out.

Emma has started tearing up the new bird already.

Karen Jo:  She is just playing with it.  She has ripped off all the smaller feathers, leaving just the two big ones, just like she did with the old bird.

Emma:  I just played with the bird and the feathers came off.  I wasn't trying to wreck it.

Karen Jo:  I know.  I think the smaller feathers aren't fastened as well as the big ones, or, being smaller, the quills aren't as strong and they break.

We have open windows all the time now and we love it.  There was one really strong gust of wind this afternoon and it slammed the hall door shut.  We didn't love that.

Karen Jo:  Neither did I.  I put something heavy in front of that door so it doesn't happen again.  I am glad that it happened before I went to work.  If that door had slammed shut while I was at work, you poor kitties would have been cut off from both litter boxes.  It hadn't occurred to me that that door would slam shut.  I have never felt such a strong gust of wind through the house before.

Emma:  It scared me.  I went and hid for a minute, until I realized that Herman wasn't scared, so everything was all right.

It made me jump, but I have heard doors slam before.  Mom's bedroom door and the kitchen door did it last summer, until Mom got doorstops for them.

Birthday Presents

Finally, here are my birthday presents, with my handsome self checking them out.  Mom really blew it yesterday.  She was supposed to give updates on the party, but she didn't.

Karen Jo:  I tried to, Herman.  I was updating the birthday party and the power failed.  Then I had a lot of things to do and I never got back to it.  I apologize.

The only birthday present I am really interested in is the nip rainbow.  I sniffed at the new bird for Da Bird and totally ignored the Peek-a-Prize.

Emma:  I like all your presents a lot, Herman. The Peek-a-Prize is really fun.  You should try it out.  The new bird is awesome.  I played and played with it.

Great.  Emma likes my birthday presents better than I do.  I want to thank everyone for coming to my party.  Emma and I had a great time with all of you here.  The only time the Peek-a-Prize got really interesting was when the churchyard meeses tried to hide in it.  That was a lot of fun.

Birthday Party

Sammy, Andy and Shelly's Mom, Judi, sent me this great birthday card.  Thank you so much.  As you can see, my birthday is actually on Friday, but we are going to celebrate today, as Mom has to work on Friday.  The party starts right now and will go on all day, right up to midnight on Friday.  Mom has been stocking up on cat food, so we have plenty of Stinky Goodness and Elegant Medley for everyone. We also have lots of  healthy grain-free dry food, if you like that sort of thing.  There will be lots of chicken and roast beef and salmon, too.  Mom also stocked up on treats, so we have Temptations, nip treats, Greenies and Party Mix. Mom will be mixing up niptinis and meowgaritas for the adult cats and serving tuna juice and milk for the kittens. We have a good supply of nip and tons of toys to play with. We have lots of places to sleep for the kitties who want to start partying tonight and sleep over. Since Mom doesn't have to go to work tomorrow, she says that we can play THoE all night if we want to.  Mom has a full-sized bed with lots of room for kitties to crash on.

Tomorrow, I get to open my presents and the party will really get into high gear. The weather looks like it is going to stay warm, so we will have lots of open windows  Mom will feed and put new water in the bird bath, so the Bird Channel will be pretty interesting.  Mom promised to post updates on the party tomorrow and I intend to see to it that she does.  Come on over and let's celebrate my fourth birthday.