Thursday in the Garden

 Karen Jo:  I won't be doing this as a regular thing, but I do have a few flowers to share once in a while.  These are snapdragons.  They didn't come up last year and I thought they were gone, victims of the gophers, but here they are again.

Karen Jo:  These are some of my peonies.  Luckily, gophers don't like peonies.

 Karen Jo:  Kitty rasslin'.  And below is something I thought I would never see.

 I turned my head just as Mom snapped the picture.  I was looking into the cube.  Can you guess why?

Spyro:  It's because I am in here.  We had ourselves a nice little Cube War and knocked the cube over on its side.  You know what else I like?  I like toys with fevvers on them.  Do you know what is the fevveriest thing around here?  Herman's tail!

You keep messing with my tail and I am going to whap you a good one.

Spyro:  Oh, yeah?  I've seen you threaten, but you don't carry through.

Karen Jo:  If there is room, Spyro's tail-batting usually starts another bout of kitty rasslin'.  If there isn't room, there are threats made and one or the other of them (usually Herman) leaves the area.  I thought I had made a good choice when I selected Wellness as a healthy brand for the boys.  After reading the recall notices, I am switching to something else.  I am going to try Tiki Cat and see if they like that.  If not, I'll go with Merrick.

Mancat Monday

I'm just grabbing some sun rays while I can. The weather is turning really nasty with high winds.  I don't like the wind.  It makes me jumpy.  I was in the kitchen, thinking about jumping up on the sink to ask for a drink from the faucet and Mom's footstep on the kitchen floor startled me.  I have never reacted that way before.

I still don't trust my new cube.  Mom put a nip treat inside and I stuck my front half in to grab the treat, then exited through the closest hole immediately.  At no time was all of me inside the cube.  I have really been hitting up Mom for treats lately.  The nip ones make me frisky.  I got six treats out of her before she left for work today. She gives me different kinds each time I ask, so I get a variety.

I finished my week off Interferon yesterday.  I saw Mom get the bottle out of the refrigerator today and I meowed and meowed for it.  I love my Interferon and not because I get cheese afterward.  Mom kept on giving me the cheese, but it didn't seem the same without the Interferon first.  I even ignored it yesterday until Mom got home from work and even then I didn't eat all of it.  I ate most of it today after my Interferon.

Karen Jo:  I am so glad that you love your Interferon.  I love it, too, because it is helping to keep you healthy. I just wish you felt the same way about your pills.

Ugh!  I don't like pills.  Sometimes I threaten to poke Mom with my mighty claws when she gives me one.

Karen Jo:  Sometimes you do poke me with your mighty claws, although I have gotten better at seeing it coming and letting you go before it happens.  I can always pick up the pill after you spit it out and give it to you again.  With all this talk of Herman sticking me with his claws, I should probably explain it better.  Herman normally just pricks me lightly with his claws to wake me up or get my attention.  It is extremely rare for him to leave any kind of mark.  The exception is when he objects to taking a pill.  Then he means business and draws blood if he connects.  However, this hardly ever happens.  Just lifting his paw is enough for me to get the message and leave him alone for a bit about the pill. Usually he just tries to twist his head away or chews lightly on my finger.

Mom and I played some today both before and after work, though I didn't really seem in the mood. The wind made noises and that distracted me.  I did manage to get some sun, though, both on the floor and on my platform.

More Goodies

 Just look at all this cool stuff!  My prize package from the Halloween contest arrived today from Samantha and Clementine of Life from a Cat's Perspective on behalf of the New Tuxedo Gang.  There was even a kitten calendar for Mom.

I started to play with this one as soon as Mom got it off the card.  What's really cool about this cat is that you can stuff his swimming trunks with catnip.  Now Mom has to get me some new nip. We ran out and I feel deprived.

Karen Jo:  Oh, poor you!  You haven't used up all the nip I put on your cardboard scratcher and your Turbo scratcher yet.

I was interested in the cube until it scared me.  Mom had taken it out of the package and was unfolding it when it made a loud noise and popped out of her hands.  I went and hid behind my platform and wouldn't come out for a long time.

Karen Jo:  They aren't kidding when they call it a pop-up cube. It popped half-open.  I finished opening it, but I don't think Herman has gone near it yet.  I tried scratching on the back of it to interest him tonight, but he knows that trick.  I'll put some treats in it tomorrow to see if he can get over his distrust of it.

There were some new treats in the package.  I haven't had Pounce before.  Mom opened up the bag and gave me one when I came out from behind my platform.  I like them.  I played with my mousie and my doggie toys with Mom after she got home from work tonight. Thank you so much, Samantha and Clementine and everyone who voted for me.

Mom was hard to get up this morning.  I really had to work at it.

Karen Jo:  It was pretty strange.  Herman knows that I have to get up when the alarm goes off.  It seldom does go off because I usually wake up a half-hour to an hour early and turn on the radio, then just doze until the alarm is ready to go off, then get up.  This morning I woke up an hour early and turned on the radio, after I made sure that Herman's food was OK after his early morning feeding.  Then I zonked out completely.  I was deeply asleep when the alarm went off.  I turned it off and threw off the covers, then zonked out again and started dreaming.  I dreamed that I was in my underwear, sitting on the side of the bed and putting on my socks. Herman kept sticking his claws in my butt and I kept turning around to tell him to knock it off, I was up already.  I finally got really irritated with him and gave him a sharp rap on the head with my knuckles (which I would never do) and he began to cry.  I woke up then and sure enough, Herman was sitting right by my butt, looking totally innocent.  I don't know if he really cried out or not, but since he is so vocal, he probably did, out of frustration.  I usually get up at the first hint of claws.  He did a good job, as I got up only 15 minutes late.