Meowy Christmas

I haven't blogged for awhile, but I wanted to stop by and wish efurryone a very Merry Christmas. The holiday season is especially significant for me. December 22nd marks the second annifursary of the day my daddy finally agreed to let me become a member of our household. Back in December of '07, Mommy kept telling him that the only thing she wanted for Christmas was ME, and Daddy finally gave in and agreed to let me live indoors. Daddy wasn't too enthused at first, but the other day when Mommy told Daddy that I was the best Christmas present she ever got, Daddy gave me a hug and said that I am "the gift that keeps on giving!" Can you imagine that??!

2009 has been a difficult year for my family. My puppy Sasha went to the Bridge in February, and my brofur and best friend Lalo followed her there seven months later to the day. I have really missed Lalo especially, but now I'm trying to step up and am cuddling with Mommy and Daddy more. (That used to be Lalo's job.) I have some big pawprints to fill and may not be able to completely fill them as I'm not polydactyl like Lalo was, but I'm giving it my best shot.

My baby sisfur Rayna, who joined us the end of March, has been a welcome addition to our family. She is very good company and snuggles with me the way Lalo used to do. (She is about half Lalo's size so she takes up less space in the kitty bed.) A few days ago, Mommy took a picture of Rayna wearing a sweater that used to belong to a teddy bear. Rayna wasn't too thrilled, but she allowed Mommy to take her picture, and then Mommy promised to never make Rayna wear that sweater again. The things we have to put up with from our humans!

I'm sending purrs to all of my friends in the kitty blogosphere, and I hope that you and your families have a very happy holiday!

A Song for Old Cats

My mommy is a songwriter, and she decided to write a song in memory of two of my brothers who are at the Rainbow Bridge: Jimmy-Joe (who gets credit for sending me to mommy), and Shortstop, who went to the Bridge in 1996. But mommy says the song isn't just for JJ and Shorty, but for ALL old cats. So I guess it will be for me, too, when I get to be old. Here is the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7C2kH2q-so

World's Coolest Cat & Dog Show Photo Contest

Hi folks! I'd like to ask a favor of my furiends. My furmily has entered several photographs in Catster and Dogster's annual "World's Coolest Cat & Dog Show" photo contest. If you click on the links below and vote "5 paws" for our entries, we would appurreciate it so much! Thank you!

Catster entries:

Curly (funny face category)

http://www.catster.com/show09/vote_pet.php?i=652958

Rayna (best friends category)

http://www.catster.com/show09/vote_pet.php?i=994260

Lalo (craziest tail category)

http://www.catster.com/show09/vote_pet.php?i=651769

Dogster entries:

Pen (Best friends category, Best smile, and Tongue slobber categories) http://www.dogster.com/show09/vote_pet.php?i=973491

Sasha (Naughtiest dog category)

http://www.dogster.com/show09/vote_pet.php?i=930821

A visitor

My pawrents have these two friends, Robbie and Lucy, who often doggy-sit for my dog Pen when my pawrents are out of town. And sometimes my pawrents return the favor by dog-sitting for their dog Kiki. (I posted a picture of Kiki in my blog of May 17, 2009.) You may or may not recall that Kiki is the doggy mom of my late canine sisfur Sasha. Anyway, I digress....
Robbie and Lucy are going out of town for a week, so Robbie came by this evening to drop Kiki off at our house. And along with Kiki, her doggy bed, food, chew toys, etc., they brought a kitten! Her name is "Rescue" and she is 13 weeks old. Rescue's biological mother is a feral barncat who lives on Lucy's property, and she abandoned Rescue when she was only one week old! So Lucy and Robbie started bottle-feeding Rescue. I'm not sure that she knows she's a cat; I heard that she likes to ride around on people's shoulders like a parrot! Oh well, efurryone has their idiosyncrasies. She seems like a pretty nice little kitty....She certainly purrs a lot! I guess I can put up with her for one week.

My little sisfur

Furst, I want to thank efurryone, here on my blog and also on Catster and Facebook, for all the kind words of suppurrt in the loss of my brother Lalo. I still miss him, but after more than two weeks, we are coming to terms with the fact that Lalo has gone to the Rainbow Bridge. That mean ol' mountain lion was back around here again last night. Thank goodness all of us kitties were safely indoors, but we could hear all the neighbors' dogs barking and the donkeys next door braying like crazy. And along with all those animal sounds, there was a really creepy growling sound outside that made our fur stand on end. We don't like to wish harm on any animal, but we sure wish that someone would put a stop to that giant cat preying on pets and livestock around here. Either that, or we wish it would leave our area and never come back. It's caused us so much grief.

OK, enough about the depressing stuff. I want to talk to you about my little sisfur Rayna. It seems like only yesterday that she could fit in Mommy's hand. Now she's almost six months old, and she is growing up to be quite a beautiful young lady. I don't mean to be a dirty old cat, but I couldn't help but check her out the other day as she was walking away from the feeder. I hope she doesn't figure out how purrty she is; I wouldn't want her to get all full of herself.

Oh, one more thing about Lalo...I don't think I ever told my blog buddies about how Lalo let Rayna nurse when she was a baby! Yes, I'm serious! Lalo was a neutered male, but he was such a good big brofur to Rayna that he let her pretend he was her mommy! So I'm including a picture of Rayna at three months of age, nursing on Lalo. I would never let a baby kitty nurse on me! But Lalo was a wonderful brofur to all of us. I hope he wouldn't be embarrassed that I'm showing you this picture. I just want efurryone to remember Lalo as a really great guy. And I also want you to know that my sisfur Rayna is kind of goofy.

I miss my brother

Lalo was my very best friend! We could often be found napping together in the window of the computer room, or playing a game of tag in the house.

My pawrents try very hard to keep us kitties indoors at all times. In April of last year, Lalo ran outside and went missing for three days. The next-door-neighbor found him hiding in her doghouse, with a big hole in his side and his leg fractured in two places. It cost $1,100 to put him back together again, and Mommy and Daddy really hoped that Lalo had learned his lesson and wouldn't try to sneak outside anymore. Their hopes were in vain. After he healed up from that bad injury, Lalo continued in his old ways of trying to dart out the door every chance he got. Mommy or Daddy could usually block him, and when he did manage to get past them, Mommy would give chase. Sometimes it took a long time to catch Lalo, and Mommy would have to climb over rocks and through scratchy branches to get to him, but she was determined that he wasn't going to ever get hurt outside again.

Lalo's (and our) luck ran out last Friday, September 4th, when Daddy must have accidentally let Lalo out. Daddy says he never even saw him go out, so no one went looking for him right away. And by the time my pawrents realized that Lalo was missing, he was nowhere to be found.

Mommy went walking to the back of our property, and along the trail, she found some humongous animal droppings right in the middle of the trail about 150 feet from our house. She knew they couldn't have been left there by a dog because they are too big. So she Googled "identifying animal scat" and found a web site with photos of the droppings from different kinds of wild animals. The ones near our house match the photos of mountain lion poop. Also, the article said that it is typical for mountain lions to mark their territory by leaving droppings in the middle of their trail. It was only about a month ago that someone told Daddy about a mountain lion trying to take down a horse, right around the block from us! (The horse wasn't killed, but it was badly injured.) Right about that time, Mommy saw a young mountain lion sauntering down the road about a mile from here. Mommy doesn't think it's the same one that was on our property, as that one was too small to have left such huge droppings, but it might've been the cub of the one that was near our house.

Mommy has alerted the neighbors that Lalo is missing, and she has plastered the neighborhood with "lost cat" flyers offering a reward. She also reported Lalo missing to HomeAgain, the company in charge of Lalo's microchip, and they sent out reports to the vets and pet rescues in this area. My family is purraying for a miracle that maybe Lalo just got spooked by that bad ol' mountain lion and ran off, and he will return to us when he feels it is safe. But we know that the odds are against that. I love my brother Lalo very much, and I miss him.

ConCATS to the winners!

The winners in Monty Q's "Doing the Q" contest have been announced. I was honored to have tied for furst place in one of the CATegories, but the winner of the tie-breaker was a very deserving Yoko. Thanks to efurryone who voted for me, and conCATulations to all of the winners!
You can see all of them here: http://doingtheq.blogspot.com

I'm tied for furst place....Please vote!

Oh my cat! I can't believe that my photo is tied for furst place in the Monty Q category of the "Doing the Q" contest! If you are a blogging kitty, you are eligible to vote in the tiebreaker. Just go to this email address: doingtheq@gmail.com
and say that you are voting for Curly's Monty Q picture. Thank you so much for your suppurrt!!

The week in review

Hello, furiends! It's Furiday, and I thought I'd stop by and give you a recap of my week. The big excitement was that Mom took my puppy Pen to the vet on Tuesday. He was gone overnight, and when he returned, he was carrying less baggage than when he left. MOL! Mommy and Daddy say they hope it will help him to become a gentleman. Pen will turn seven months old next week. If you ask me, he has a long way to go before he becomes a gentleman, regardless of corrective surgery. But I must admit he is less hyper around me, and we don't have anywhere near as many wrestling matches as we did when he first came to live here. Good thing, too, because he's about five times as big as he was when he first arrived at our house.

Okay, enough about the dog. How do you like my extra-curly-tail picture? Mom took that photo a couple of weeks ago, but a few days ago she printed it out on her compooter and then put it in a frame and hung it on the bedroom wall. I feel SO honored! Mommy is really happy because now she and Daddy can both admire my picture efurry day. I'm not sure if Daddy shares my mom's enthusiasm...Mom didn't ask him.

Okay, what else is new? Well, I am checking in efurry day on my Facebook event page entitled "Purresident Curly's Town Hall Meeting". Attendance has really dropped off since I started the event, but I still check in frequently, just in case someone stops by. My furiend and Vice Purresident Princess Kitty came to the meeting yesterday. It's always good to see her.

Oh, I have a new blogging buddy! His name is Christopher http://www.blogger.com/profile/05908623676437513493
It was really funny because I just happened to read about him and thought he sounded pretty cool, so I invited him to be furriends on Catster.com. It turned out that he had seen my blog and had sent me a Catster furiend request right about the same time!! Talk about a coincidence! Obviously, we were meant to be furriends.

Well, that's about it for now. I hope efurryone has a super-duper weekend, filled with purrs and Temptations treats.

Purrlease vote fur ME!!

My dear furriends, I have great news! Even though my hooman messed up and missed the deadline for the Monty Q photo contest, Monty Q and his Mom Bean are very kind and are allowing me to be in the contest anyway! Thank you so much, Monty Q and MomBean!
I would so apurreciate it now if my blogging furriends would vote for either or both of my pictures! I have reprinted the instructions below on how to vote. My two pictures, once again, are in the "Full Monty" and "Monty Q" categories. (The "Full Monty" is where my legs are straight up in the air.)
Thank you for your suppurrt!!

Here's what you need to do, head over to the contest blog (http://doingtheq.blogspot.com) and peruse all of the entries. Then write down your favorite for each category and send them to doingtheq@gmail.com. You don't have to enter to vote, either -as long as you have a blog you can enter.

Categories:
Best Monty Q and Full Monty
Viewer's Choice
Best Interpretation on a Theme (Have you done a Q With a Twist? Or a Half-Monty?)
Silliest Q! Category-sponsored by Parker & Co.
The Curly Q Tail CATegory is being handled by Victor, so send yer bribes his way. ;)
Voting will be open until August 31st, and MomBean can be bribed with powdered sugar doughnuts.

Purresident Curly's Town Hall meeting

For my furriends on Facebook, I have initiated an ongoing Town Hall meeting, where I will be responding to the concerns of my fellow catizens. Please note that this is a non-purrtisan forum. All cats are welcome to voice their concerns, which I will address to the best of my ability.

Here is the link:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=117097903705&ref=share#

Photo Contest

Today Mommy read about a photo contest on The Cat's Meow Blog. This contest has been going on for over a month, but Mommy just learned about it today. (Sometimes Mommy is kind of slow...) The contest is open to cats who blog, so I guess I'm qualified to enter. There are two main CATegories: "Full Monty" (cats laying on their backs), and "The Monty Q" (cats on their tummies with their hind legs outstretched). There are also sub-categories of "Silliest Q" and "Curly Q Tail". (I like the name of that last one!)

Mom sent in a photo of me in each of the two main categories. I doubt if I am seriously in the running for a prize because Mom sent my entries in so LATE. But it's still fun to show off for the camera.

Here is a link showing all the entries: http://doingtheq.blogspot.com/

(My photos may not be on there yet....the reason being that Mommy was so LATE in entering them! Oh, I already mentioned that, didn't I?! MOL!)

Peacock Feathers!

A few days ago, I told you about my adventures with Mommy's stuffed toy cats. Now I have found a new kind of prey: peacock feathers!!

I already had some prior experience with feathers, but they were generally small, and got kind of boring after the first few minutes. But peacock feathers are in a class by themselves!

This past weekend, Mommy and Daddy went to visit the mom and grandpawrents of my furiend Guido the Italian Kitty (http://theguidogazette.blogspot.com/). Guido's grandpawrents live on a ranch with a whole bunch of peacocks roaming the grounds. Now, I already had some knowledge of peacocks because our neighbors across the road have just one of those big birds, so I know that they make a loud meowing sound like a cat! But I never got up close and purrsonal with our neighbor's peacock, so I didn't know what the deal was with those tail-feathers. It seems that the big birds shed their feathers so they can grow new ones, and that's what was going on when Mommy and Daddy went to Guido's grandpawrents' place. So my pawrents picked up some of the feathers off the ground to bring home and put in a vase. (I thought vases were for flowers...I really don't understand humans.) But they did let me have one that was a bit scraggly, and I'm having a blast with it!

I wish all of my furiends a good week, and if you're looking for a good time, I would highly recommend peacock feathers to all of you.

Fake kitties

My mom collects all kinds of cat stuff. That's not a big deal....so you walk into my house and see hundreds of ceramic cats, maybe a few made out of wood or glass, and you know they're fake. No big deal! (I purrsonally like my mom's decorating taste, although my uncle once told her that she's "eccentric", and sometimes Daddy complains about clutter.) What confuses me efurry now and then are the stuffed cats. They are usually about the size of a real cat (though not always), and they are furry, and sometimes....well..... I just have to challenge them! Of course, some of them are no problem...Toy Curly's head is so darned huge and out-of-proportion to his body that I just know he's a wannable kitty, and there are others that are so small that I don't perceive them as any threat. But then there are those like Mom's snow leopard that are just begging for a fight. I usually give them the benefit of the doubt by offering a friendly sniff, but if they ignore me, watch out! And what's really cool is I ALWAYS win! I guess they're too scared to fight back. Today I seriously kicked some snow leopard butt. That'll teach that fake kitty to ignore me when I'm talkin' to him. MOL!

Rayna won the contest!

In my last blog, I was kidding around about Rayna getting caught and having to have her picture taken for a 4th of July contest on Catster! I guess I got my payback for making fun of my little sisfur...Not only did I also get caught and have to wear the same shirt as Rayna while having my picture taken, but.....{drum roll, please....} Rayna WON the contest! Her prize is 50 zealies from Catster. (If you don't know what zealies are, you can find out here: http://www.catster.com/answers/question/what_are_zealies-6130)
My consolation is that I know I look better than Rayna in that flag shirt....She looks like a little kid playing dress-up with grown-ups' clothes! MOL!

4th of July Purrade!

Independence Day is a significant holiday for us cats, because we're independent by nature. How pawesome that the entire country celebrates a holiday that honors a characteristic kitty trait!

There's a 4th of July dress-up contest on Catster, spearheaded by my good buddy Skeezix. I managed to sneak away while my meowmy was attempting to dress us kitties to participate in the contest. Rayna is only 3 months old and didn't realize what was going on, so she got caught and had to pose for a picture. (From the look on her face, I don't think she did this willingly.)

Here's a link to the dress-up Purrade and contest:
http://blogs.catster.com/the-cats-meow-a-cat-and-kitten-blog/win-50-zealies-in-the-cats-meows-july-4th-parade/2009/06/29/

I enjoy looking at the other cats in their Fourth of July finery. I just don't want to have to dress up myself. Oops, gotta run! Here comes Meowmy with a cat-sized costume and a camera....

I'm a winner!

You may remember awhile back, when I asked for your votes for a video my mom sent in to a contest at Yobi.tv. In the video, I was playing with a pair of my daddy's underwear. Thanks to your votes, my video made it to the semi-finals, but it was eliminated early on in the final round of voting. I thought that was that, but yesterday Mommy was surprised to receive a check in the mail from Yobi.tv for $100! At first, Daddy said it should be HIS check because it was his underwear in the video. Then he said I deserve a treat for winning that money with my fine acting. (Well, he didn't exactly say that, but he did say I deserve an extra treat.) Hmmm....I wonder how many bags of Temptations Treats could I buy with $100??........

MOL! My puppy tricked Mommy!

I have a whole new respect for my dog Pen! Some people had organized a free/low cost spay & neuter day which took place yesterday. They sent a truck to the local church parking lot to pick up dogs and cats whose owners wanted to have them spayed or neutered. Then they would drive the pets to the clinic for the operation, and return them to Squaw Valley in the afternoon. Mommy wants to have Pen neutered, so she set her alarm really early yesterday morning so she could be down at the church parking lot by 7:00am. When she went to put Pen in the car, she saw he was foaming at the mouth! At first she thought maybe he just chewed some grass or something, so she wiped his mouth off and they headed down the hill. But then Pen started REALLY foaming at the mouth and drooling big gobs of drool all over himself and the carseat! Mommy freaked out and decided to take him to the vet instead; She didn't know if he had been poisoned or bitten by a snake, but she was crying and praying all the way down the hill, pleading with Pen not to die. When she got to the vet hospital, the doctor wasn't there yet because they don't open until 8:00, but the vet tech arrived shortly after Mommy and Pen got there and said they could sit in the waiting room. As soon as they sat down, Mommy saw that Pen had stopped drooling and frothing at the mouth; Instead, he was bouncing around and wagging his tail and acting like a silly puppy! So after 15 minutes, Mommy decided he was okay and there was no reason to pay a vet bill since he now seemed fine, so they left. Of course, by then it was too late for Pen to get in on the low cost neuter deal. I think he must be psychic...He TOTALLY faked Mommy out! Bwahaha...High five, Pen!!!

A kitten??? For Mewing Out Loud!!!

Two months ago it was a puppy. Okay, I can handle that...Dogs are so goofy that it isn't difficult to teach them their place. But now....a new kitten? WTM?!!
The way my mom explained it is that their elderly neighbor Ray passed away last week, leaving behind several feral kittens that were born to two momcats who were dumped on his property. He and his daughter had hoped that my folks would take one of the baby cats. Of course, I hoped that common sense would prevail ... I was the last kitty they adopted; You would think that once I came into the picture, there would be no need for more cats. But my parents are sentimental fools, and took the kitten anyway "in Ray's memory". She already has her own Catster page: http://www.catster.com/cats/994260 , and to top it off, they named her "Rayna" in his honor! That's a bit too close to "reina", the Spanish word for "queen". I hope she doesn't get any ideas that she is some kind of royalty! Pffftt!!

Another dog in the house!

My pawrents are dogsitting their friends' Black Russian Terrier for ten days! Kiki is the doggymom of my late puppy Sasha who went to the Bridge last March, so I'll admit that I have a little soft spot for her in my heart. But she is HUGE...Her head is about the same size as my entire body. Kiki seems to already be pretty well-trained when it comes to her manners around cats, so I don't have a whole lot of extra training to do... I can focus my efforts on Pen, who is still in need of a lot of serious attitude adjustment. I hope he doesn't corrupt Kiki before she goes home.

Auction to benefit Death Row kittens!

Purrlease check out this link:

http://thepiratesbootyauctionblock.blogspot.com/

This is an auction started by Donna, mother of the renowned Morgan the Pirate Gato. (Morgan's sisfur Apache is my brofur Stanley's girlfriend....but I digress....) Anyway, Mommy has a friend on Facebook who is a really nice lady named Patty. Patty rescued two kittens, Koda and Prince Geronimo, from a high-kill shelter in Georgia. The kittens need to be neutered and also need some veterinary care before they can go to their furever homes. Koda already has a home lined up, but it is in another state so some of the auction proceeds will help to pay for his airplane ticket. Please check out the auction and bid on something if you can. There are a lot of cute items, and you can get a good bargain while helping a most worthy cause!

Now I'm on Facebook!

What will Mom think of next?! Now she has opened up a Facebook page for me. Facebook doesn't allow "non-human" members, and they have been known to delete kitty profiles. But there are SOOOO many kitties with pages on Facebook, Mom decided "What the heck?" If they delete me, I'll still have this blog and my Catster page, so I won't be incommunicado. But I hope I don't get deleted. I always enjoy making new furriends. I have already joined a Facebook group called "handsome boy cats rule!!!!" (That was Mom's idea for me to join....I really don't have that big of an ego.)

Guido's photo...Purrlease help him WIN!

My friend Guido the Italian Kitty is in a photo contest, and although there are over two-thousand entries, his photo and one other entry are way out in front, with about twice as many points as the entry that is in third place! It is very, very close between the top two photos, so every view counts. And you don't even need to register, or even cast a vote....All you have to do is click on the picture itself and it registers as a "view"; The photo with the most views wins! Let's help Guido to win, not only because he is a good furriend, but because his picture is really adorable! Here is a shortened link that should get you to Guido's picture:
http://tinyurl.com/rxzdt9

Wildflowers and Donkeys

In my last post, I meowed about how my mom only lets me go outside for "photo ops". Thanks to the wildflowers blooming here in the mountains of eastern Furesno County, Mommy saw a new photo-op today. I don't know what the big deal is about wildflowers.....After all, you can't eat them! (Or at least I can't eat them....ptooey!) But I dutifully posed on a log with the colorful flowers in the background.

To tell you the truth, I was actually glad to get back inside the house. If I look a bit apprehensive in the photo, it's because the donkeys next door (who are extremely nosey) were coming up to the fence to check out the wildflower photo shoot. Mommy tried to reassure me that they were just looking to see if she had brought along any carrots to feed them over the fence. But I don't trust anyone with four legs who is that much bigger than I am. One loud "hee haw" and I would've been out of there! Anyone who talks about the peace and quiet of country living has never lived next door to two donkeys!

Earth Day!

My dear wife Lily sent me a pawmail via Catster, wishing me a Happy Earth Day. Yes, it is Earth Day! We are already one month into springtime, the trees are full of leaves, flowers are in bloom, and a cat's thoughts turn to long walks through the tall grass. But, *sigh*, how is one to celebrate Earth Day if one is being held prisoner indoors, as I am most of the time?

I haven't decided yet if my new dog is good for much, but I do have him to thank for my occasional forays into the great outdoors. The hoomans seem to open the door much more often since Pen came to live with us, and that provides more oppurrtunities to position myself near the door and plot my escape. I usually get caught and brought back inside, but efurry once in awhile, the hooman mommy says something about a "photo-op", and allows me to spend a bit of supervised time outdoors. Unfurtunately, "photo ops" usually involve some foolishness with the puppy. Oh well, I'll take what I can get, if it means I get a few minutes to chomp on a nice blade of grass or get a bit of fresh air and excercise. The rest of the time, I have to appurreciate "Earth" through the window. I hope efurryone is enjoying this Earth Day and doing something nice for the planet. As for me, I'm going to go sit by the door and wait for the puppy to go out.

I'm on Stuff On My Cat today!

Finally! My picture has been published on Stuff On My Cat today!
http://www.stuffonmycat.com/Toys-On-My-Cat/20090415-curly.html
Mommy promised me that if I posed for this foolishness, I would be rewarded with about fifteen minutes of celebrity. And it took only half-a-year for the picture to appear on the SOMC web site!

Please vote "thumbs up" for my video!

Last year, my mom made a video of me playing with Daddy's jockey shorts and entered it in an online contest. Last October, I posted here in my blog that my video had made it to the semi-finals. Voting has been closed for awhile, but now it has reopened and I need all the help I can get from my furriends (and their hoomans) to make it into the finals! There are thirty finalists in the Yobi.TV "Laugh" category, and each week, the five videos with the least "thumbs up" votes will be eliminated. So I'm asking all of you again to please vote "thumbs up" for my video every week to help me stay in the running, and please tell a friend! Here is the link, and THANK YOU for your suppurrt!

http://yobi.tv/semifinalists/view/35

Here we go again!

Well, Daddy caved in to Mommy's pleas and agreed to adopt another puppy. Daddy thought it was too soon after Sasha went to the Rainbow Bridge, but Mommy was so sad without a puppy around that Daddy finally gave in. (Actually, it was a little less than 3 weeks, but it seemed like a long time to Mommy.) I hope my kitty furiends won't consider me a traitor for saying this, but I have really been missing having a puppy around, too, and was glad to welcome a new pup into our home! Mommy and Daddy named the new puppy "Pen", after the Bill Monroe tune "Uncle Pen". (My pawrents are huge bluegrass mewsic fans.) I can't quite figure Pen out yet. When he is inside, I flop down in front of him and roll over, but I can't seem to entice him into playing with me the way Sasha used to do. I have a lot to teach this kid. Mommy doesn't usually allow me to go outside, but she did let me have a supervised outing this morning, and Pen actually did play with me for a minute! But then he lost interest and went to check out something else in the yard. I guess puppies have a very short attention span, so I'll have to be patient.

Honest Scrap Award from JFF

I received this "Honest Scrap" award from my friends at Jan's Funny Farm http://jansfunnyfarm.blogspot.com/. I'm supposed to tell ten honest things about myself. Well first, let me say "thank you" to the furfolks at JFF for honoring me with this award! I'm also supposed to pass the award on to some other furs, but that may have to wait as my staff is pretty swamped right now. (They just adopted a new puppy tonight...More on that in a future blog.)
For my ten honest things, I will say that
1. I could not hold my tail straight even if I wanted to.
2. I am more tolerant of dogs than my cat sibs are.
3. I think my wife Lily is very pretty... (no...make that BEAUTIFUL!)
4. I never miss in the litter box...If you see a mess, you can blame Stanley. (That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.)
5. I'm a genial, all-around nice guy cat.

That's only 5 things, but my typist is soooooo tired. Maybe she'll help me type five more honest facts later.

When Two Catmoms Meet

Neither my mom nor my furiend Guido the Italian Kitty's mom live in Tracy, CA, so what are the odds that those two catmoms would find themselves in the town of Tracy on the same weekend?! But it happened! Guido's mom Judi was there to visit Guido's grandpawrents and uncle, and my pawrents were up there for my daddy's cousin's birthday party. So they found time to get together! My mommy told me that Guido's grandpawrents live in a wonderful old farmhouse and they have two giant Newfoundland doggies, and there are a bunch of colorful peacocks roaming the grounds! Guido doesn't get to go with Judi when she visits the family because the two giant doggies are not kitty-furiendly (although Mommy says that they are very people-friendly). But Judi shares lots of photos of Guido with his grandma & grandpaw on the compooter, so at least they can enjoy their grandcat through pictures. My mommy couldn't bring me with her, so she brought along my stuffed toy counterpart to stand in for me. That's toy-Curly in the picture of my mommy with Judi (along with a photograph of Guido), and my daddy in the background with a glass of dee-li-cious wine that Guido's uncle poured for him. Guido's family made my family feel right at home! They even fed my pawrents some of Guido's uncle's homemade chile rellenos, and gave them some delicious almond biscotti and a bag of huge juicy lemons from the tree outside their house. My mommy and daddy are mewsicians so they played a few tunes for Judi's family. It sounds like a fun time. Wish I could've been there! (or maybe not....Mommy says those doggies were VERY big!)

Thank you to Jan's Funny Farm for my award!

Wow! Not being the most computer-literate kitty (and not having the most computer-literate hooman), I totally misunderstood when the kind kritters of Jan's Funny Farm said they had something for me! They are actually sharing their "Kreativ Blogger" award with me! Whoo hoo!!! Thank you so much, Jan, Crystal, Cotton, Merci, Cyndi, Percy, Cameron, Buddy, Rusty & Sam. I feel very honored.

Six things that make me happy

My furiends over at Jan's Funny Farm (http://www.blogger.com/profile/15291874914770283114) posted six things that make them happy. I would like to try this, too!

1.) Sitting on Mommy's lap while she's on the computer
2.) Being married to my gorgeous wife Lily (http://www.catster.com/cats/647722)
3.) Getting my morning ration of Temptations treats. What a great way to start the day!
4.) Hanging out with my BFF Lalo (even though he does sometimes crowd me in one of the kitty beds.)
5.) Running outside and grabbing a mouthful of fresh blades of grass, before Mom catches me and brings me back inside.
6.) TUMMY RUBS!!!

My puppy is at the Rainbow Bridge

I know I complained about Sasha...She pretty much wouldn't leave me alone, always wanting to play with me. But I have to admit, I had gotten used to her, and was even enjoying our wrestling matches, especially since I always won. When it snowed here a few weeks ago, we had a fine time romping in the snow (although I pretended to be annoyed). Here is a link to a YouTube video of our romp:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27pCIoGKf6Y&feature=channel_page

So it was a shock last night when Mommy broke the news to me that Sasha was gone. She was barely four months old! She had been riding in the back of Daddy's pickup truck when I guess she got excited by a neighbor dog and tried to jump over the side. Her collar broke off, and Sasha landed under the rear wheels of the truck. Daddy is blaming himself, and he and Mommy are both so heartbroken. I am trying to comfort them, but I am heartbroken too. In my own kitty way, I had come to really love that dog.

How I impurressed my pawrents.

A few nights ago, my mom was looking and calling all over the house for my sister-cat Flaca, whom she hadn't seen all day. Finally in desperation , she asked me, "Curly, where's Flaca?"

I immediately walked over to a storage closet off the family room, looked at the doorknob, and then looked back at my mom. Mommy opened the door, and out walked Flaca! My mom and dad were both very impurressed with my ability to understand, as well as my willingness to help out.

A virtual trip to FURance!

In the wonderful world of cyberspace, we cats can pretty much go wherever we want and do whatever we want to do. A prime example of this would be the wonderful Valentine's Day weekend trip to PURRis, FURance which will be attended by many of my furriends from Catster.com. I'll be accompanied by my lovely wife Lily as well as numerous furriends and my fursibs Stanley and Flaca. I don't want to embarrass Lily as we stroll down the Champs-Élysées, so I have put together an appropriate Purrisian wardrobe. Just call me Meowrice Chevalier!

Pawesome Purrson

One of my mom's hooman friends on Facebook posted a link for this cat sanctuary in New Jersey:

http://blogs.catster.com/the-cats-meow-a-cat-and-kitten-blog/new-jersey-sanctuary-for-hard-to-love-cats/2009/01/27/

The guy who started the sanctuary made a ton of money in the dot-com business, and then spent about two million dollars to take in "special needs" cats that were destined to be euthanized at other shelters. The cats aren't caged, and they get lots of love, attention, and whatever medical treatment or physical therapy they need. Mommy says if she won millions of dollars in the lottery, she would like to do the same thing. I say, "Don't hold your breath, Mommy!" But it is a nice thought. A tip of the tail to the fine gent who spent $2,000,000 of his own money rescuing kitties that no one else wanted, and giving them a loving, furever home!

Literary cats

My mom and I were reading "The Guido Gazette" (http://theguidogazette.blogspot.com/), a weekly blog written by our good furiend Guido the Italian Kitty. In his latest blog, Guido extols the virtues of reading. This prompted us to pull out one of our very furravorite books, "Mike the Cat", circa 1934! The book tells about the adventures of a fine tabby named Mike, and how he explored his surroundings one day while his hoomans were away from home. This book belonged to my grandma when she was a kindergarten teacher in the 1930s, and she used to read it to my mom when she was a little girl in the 1950s. Although some of the technology depicted in the photographs (like the telephone, shown above) is somewhat antiquated, the book's message still rings true after all these years: Cats still love to explore their surroundings, and we still love to put one over on our hoomans! Strange to think that Mike, who would be over 75 years old now (How old is that in cat years, anyway?!) can still educate and entertain us with his timeless message. Thank you, Guido, for reminding us to pick up a good book!