Tails

S&J’s photo of the day, number three (and yeppers – it’s a cat) (call me crazy, but a trend may be forming…)

Posted by Joy on Oct 19, 2012 in Tails | 0 comments

What’s that you say?  Oh!  You’re right!  I HAVEN’T posted any pics of the cats lately.  Shame.  On.  Me.  Let’s rectify that right now, k?

Eric ADORES the windows.  He props himself up with his little kitty bum on the back of our living room sofa, plants his two front paws on the windowsill and stares out at the outside world.  Like, for hours.  He sits there looking out for so long some days that he actually sometimes dozes off in that position.  Yup.  He’s our narcoleptic kitten.  It’s odd, but – meh – it keeps him out of trouble, so I just go with it.

And, well, he’s a kitten.  And he’s cute.  So I really just let him do whatever he wants anyway.

(Except climb the drapes.  Erik has already decided that drapery-ascent is super fun.  We disagree.)

So there you go!  Cat photo quota filled for yet another week.  :)

Happy Friday!

S&J’s photo of the day, photo number two (and surprise, it’s a cat! Good guess!)

Posted by Joy on Aug 27, 2012 in Tails | 0 comments

So right after my last post (my epic “resolutions” post) where I vowed to blog at least twice per week (since that’s been my goal all along) I dropped off the blogosphere (bloggosphere?  bloggingsphere?  Whatever…) for a good 10-ish days.  Why?  We went camping the following weekend (post on that to follow, hopefully later this week!) thus rendering me laptop-free for a few days (since no one likes a sandy keyboard), and then most of last week was lovingly devoted to planning a very special baby shower for Tiff (one of my besties) who is due any minute now (but held out long enough for us to squeeze in a 39th-week baby shower yesterday!)

And while I’m recovering from this weekend’s baby shower still, I thought I’d quickly post my newest favourite “photo of the day…”

I call it: Irwin – Ferocious conqueror of small green fuzzy mice :)

That’s all.  Hope you had a lovely weekend and a successful baby shower (if that happens, coincidentally, to be what you were doing too!)  And I hope you conquer whatever you need to on this Monday (regardless of whether it’s a mouse, a house, or your 9-5.)  Happy Monday!

The well dressed cat (yes, I’m one of THOSE people)

Posted by Joy on Jul 30, 2012 in Tails | 0 comments

Today’s truth: I like to dress my cats up.  Yep.  I’m THAT crazy cat lady.  There are the tiny antlers purchased last year for a wee bit of kitty Christmas cheer.  There have been fancy collars and the threat of cute little sweaters (to which Sweetie says NO.)  So imagine my delight when I saw THIS in my email inbox this morning, via my daily Etsy emails (you get those right?  If you don’t, you really really should!)…

Yep.  That’s right.  A swanky little hat for my sexy little cats.  (Rhyming quite deliberate, albeit awful, btw.)  Courtesy of CatAtelier.  I actually squealed just a little when I saw it.  The little poorboy cap is absolutely perfect in every way.  And the model has a certain je-ne-sais-quoi about him (a look that says, “oui, c’est vrai – je rock ce chapeau.  Tu donne moi un poisson?”)

(PS – for anyone who is actually fluent in French, please pardon any grammatical errors above – grade 12 French class was a looong time ago.)

Also available through CatAtelier is this sweet little white beret…

It’s fully-lined for those extra chilly winter mornings at the front window.  The matching scarf is also avail.  Of course.  :)

And to satisfy your cat’s inner James Bond, there’s always this untied tuxedo collar…

Kitty.  James Kitty.  Catnip; shaken, not stirred.

So will I be purchasing a fancy little herringbone cap (or a lovely white beret, or a super cool tuxedo collar) for my kitty crew?  Likely not.  Given that I haven’t yet played dress-up with the new kittens, I’m not sure if they’d really be into it (although don’t doubt that I really do plan to try!)  And at $68 for the sweet little cap, that’s a bit more than I’d spend on an accessory that will likely get shaken off within about 30 seconds (cats are a bit houdini-like when it comes to quickly removing a hat/fancy collar/pair of miniature antlers…)

But I can dream of cats in herringbone caps, can’t I?  Just think of how adorable dear Irwin would look in a little poorboy cap…

Yep.  That’s his “please don’t dress me up mom” look, I’m pretty sure.  Little does he know, there’s only four more months to go until the antlers come out.  He’d make the cute little reindeer methinks.  :)

Introducing a new segment called “S&J’s photo of the day” (probably the first and only photo of the day, but noteworthy nonetheless)

Posted by Joy on Jun 28, 2012 in Tails | 0 comments

It’s my desktop image at work.  It’s on my laptop too.  If we weren’t now in the digital age, I’d probably even have a tiny 1.5×2″ print in my wallet.  And now I’m sharing this with you!  (Rhyming completely unintentional btw – I’m not a poet, and I know it.)

The Coles Notes version of my story?

This picture makes me smile.  :)

Pink nose, white face, chubby cheeks.  Yup.  It’s undeniable: Irwin may very well be the cutest cat ever.  Ev-ver.

That’s all.  Just being a proud kitty momma.  :)  Hope you’re having a great week!

The newbies (introducing Irwin and Erik)

Posted by Joy on May 28, 2012 in Tails | 2 comments

After we unexpectedly lost Loki (the most affectionate and amazing and special black cat ever) a few weeks back, Jacob started acting a little…  needy.  Jacob and Loki weren’t necessarily friends (at least they didn’t seem to be), but with Loki gone, Jacob suddenly started clinging to us.  And while it was really quite sweet in some ways (afterall, it’s really nice to be needed!), he would follow us around the house and meow at us for HOURS at a time.  It became a little much.  We decided we maybe needed to find a friend for our favourite orange cat.  :)

We’ve never been run-out-to-the-pet-store-and-buy-a-cute-kitten type of folk.  Our cats have always been strays and cats from rescue agencies (there are so SO many cats out there who desperately need good homes – loving and amazing cats who’ve just had back luck or bad owners.)  We adopted Loki from a rescue agency called Animal Alert in London (where we lived prior moving to Cambridge.)  After a short chat with our good friends at Google, we discovered Pet Patrol, a local all-cat rescue organization that finds homes for over 350 rescued kitties per year (which is pretty darn impressive since it’s all run out of one very cat-filled house and staffed by volunteers.)

When we visited Pet Patrol last week, we saw what must have been about 40 cats living in the house, all waiting for adoption.  The lady who runs the organization, Jan, seems to know all the cats very well, and seems to care about each and every one of them.  Knowing that we wanted people-cats, both Sweetie and I sat down on the floor and waited.  Whipple (a beautiful grey and white boy) came to me, and Velarian (a long-furred black adolescent boy) came to Phil.  And despite the gazillion other cats milling about, both Whipple and Velarian stayed with us while we were there at the Pet Patrol house.  It was love at first pet.

We weren’t necessarily looking to find Jacob TWO friends, but two friends for Jacob found us.  After talking it over (since adopting new fur babies is indeed a big decision) we went back to Pet Patrol on Saturday to make everything official, and Irwin (formerly Whipple) and Erik (who was the ill-named Velarian) are now acclimatising to our house in our back room until kitty Introductions Day.

Shall I introduce you? :)

Here’s Irwin.  He’s a little nervous still, but I think he’ll adapt – he’s super sweet and affectionate and rather adorable too (I think he might have a wee bit of British shorthair in him – he’s got the thickest fur ever and the gray parts are a lovely silvery colour.)

And here’s Mr Erik.  Erik isn’t yet a year old and he’s still clumsy and curious and very kitten-like.  He shares Loki’s easy-going-ness (perhaps that’s a long-furred black cat trait?)  We’ve discovered that he also loves sleep. :)

I think we’ll likely have Introduction Day later this week, or maybe even next weekend, once the newbies have adjusted to their new surroundings and to us too.  Fingers crossed that they both like Jacob, and that Jacob likes them too.  I already love them all.  :)

Missing my Loki (the sweetest and most loving black cat ever)

Posted by Joy on May 5, 2012 in Tails | 0 comments

Just a quick post today to say that we lost someone really special this week – our gentle, loving, amazing, furry boy, Loki.  It was sudden and unexpected, and we miss him lots.

Loki was my cuddler – the most unbelievably affectionate cat ever.  He never fussed about the fact that his legs didn’t work very well (both of his back legs were broken at some point before he came to us as a rescue, and never really healed properly, so he had a bit of a waddle, and he couldn’t move particularly fast), or that he had asthma and had to take puffers a couple times a day.   All he ever asked for from us was love and endless cuddles (well, that and food – Loki loved his food.)

It’s only been a few days, but I already miss feeling his paw tap at my leg, asking to be picked up (because his hind legs were a bit screwy, he needed lots of help from his humans to get anywhere vertically.)  (Which was ok with us.)  And I miss him snuggling into the crook of my elbow and just hanging out there whenever I worked-from-couch.  I miss him trying to sleep as close to my face as he could get at night (it was so sweet, but it drove me a little bonkers – his whiskers were super tickly!) and I miss finding him passed out on his back, all four paws up in the air, napping under the coffeetable, like a big furry black starfish.  I miss playing “creature under the covers” with him every morning while making the bed (despite having bad back legs, he was a good little pouncer.)  I miss his super big purrs (and even his overly-happy drooliness.)  I miss his ginormous furry black paws.  And I miss his cuddles – any opportunity to cuddle was a good time for cuddling according to Loki.  He was awesome like that.

I hope that he’s reunited with his buddy Thomas now, somewhere where his back legs work perfectly, his asthma is gone, and he can run and jump and play the way a cat as special as he was should be able to.  And we hope that he knows how very much he’s missed here by his humans and his furry orange friend Jacob too.  (Even if Jacob is too proud to say so, we know he’s sad too.)

Loki came into our lives eight years ago, and I’m so glad he chose us as his humans.  I just wish he could have stayed with us a little longer.  He was a good boy.  He was my friend.  He was loved dearly.  And there will never ever ever be another like him.