I'm baaaaaack!

Hi furriends! It's hard to believe that I haven't posted anything in my blog for nearly a year....How time flies! Many things have happened over the last year. My pawrents adopted a little brother for me last October. Mommy named him Vern. Vern and I became great friends, but it turned out that he had F.I.P., a horrible incurable disease. Sadly, Vern went to the Rainbow Bridge last May when he was only ten months old. I miss him, but I'm still enjoying the company of my little sisfur Rayna, and my doggy brofur Pen. Mommy wants to get another cat, but Daddy is saying no...at least for now.
In June, Daddy, Mommy, and I spent a week at a bluegrass festival. This was my second year in a row going to the festival. I'm no longer scared on roadtrips now that I am a seasoned traveler.
I wish efurryone a safe and pawsome summer!

Another eBay auction!

Hi furiends! Time is growing short for this one. My mommy is thinning out her cat collection, and decided that she would be willing to part with this very unusual {giggle} kitty. The auction ends on Wednesday, Sept. 1st at 5:52pm PDT.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&Item=180552930224&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT

Cute video, and Cat Hair Auction!

Greetings, furiends! I haven't blogged here for about four months, but I want to get the word out about a fundraising auction my mommy is holding on eBay which ends next Tuesday morning (August 3). This is kind of a funny story that you can read about on the auction page. It started out as a joke, but when a few people bid real money for my cat hair, Mommy decided to turn the auction into a fundraiser for The Cat House On The Kings no-kill animal sanctuary and adoption center. The high bidder will also receive a wallet sized photo and a 5" x 7" pawtographed photo of me playing the banjo! Below is the link to the auction, and also a link to a video that Mommy made showing my daddy with the kitties on a recent visit to the Cat House On The Kings. I think you will get a giggle out of both the auction and the video. Even if you don't bid on my auction (which is for a very worthy cause), Mommy and I would really appreciate it if you passed the infurmation along to a furiend. Thank you for your suppurt!!!

Link to auction page:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Viewitem&item=180538731387

Link to video:

For some reason, Mommy couldn't get the link to the CHOTK video to work from this page, but if you go to YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/) and type "Cat House On The Kings" along with the word "calico" into the search box, it should be the first video that comes up.

Purrivacy, purrlease!

My fellow fur-furiends, have you ever noticed that one of the down-sides to being a cat is that we have very little purrivacy? In my house, at least we have covered litter boxes, but that's little consolation when Mommy walks by the box, sees my head sticking out, and makes a comment like "Oh, what a good boy!" Sheesh! What does she expect me to do? Hoomans can be so condescending.

I've heard my hoomans complain that my sisfur Rayna spends too much time hiding under the bed. They think she is "shy". Did it efur occur to them that purrhaps she is merely seeking a bit of purrivacy? I myself tend to not spend much time under the bed, as I enjoy getting attention much more than Rayna does. I just wish it could always be on my terms.

The picture above is a case in point. There I was, sitting on my dog's bed (as the dog lay on the floor), giving myself a nice bath, when along comes Mommy with the CAMERA! I heard the shutter click, and stared up at Mommy in horror, exclaiming "Oh no you DIDN'T!" But it was too late. She did.

I wonder if I could bribe the dog to help me move his bed under my pawrents' bed. Rayna may be on to something, after all.

Keeping Busy

It's happened again, folks; I have the best of intentions in keeping up my bloggy, but time just gets away from me. Of course, there is the staff to blame...My typist gets so preoccupied with other things. She really needs to rearrange her priorities.

I'll admit that I've been purrsuing some hobbies of my own. I love to check things out, just to try and figure out what makes them tick! My mom has this little battery-operated golden kitty (It's really plastic, but gold-colored), and it waves its left foreleg back-and-forth. Here's a picture of me trying to analyze why it does that. Mommy calls it a "maneki-neko" and says that it's a beckoning cat that is supposed to bring good luck. I don't know how that works. If I were to wave my foreleg around like that all the time, it wouldn't bring anything but a case of bursitis. Hoomans have some strange supurrstitions.

I've also been spending a considerable amount of time on my purrsonal grooming, which isn't the easiest thing to do when you have a curly tail. There are some hard-to-reach spots, but I try my best. I can tell from my dog Pen's expression in the attached photo that he is impressed. He should be...He could definitely use some help with his doggy hygiene. Watch and learn, Pen.

I hope my furiends in the east and midwest are all staying warm and dry during the terrible storms that have hit those parts of the country. My purrs go out to them and to their families.

Until next time, fellow furs, have a great month, and may your Valentine's Day be filled with love and catnip.

Mysteries of Life

Well folks, the Mew Year is already two weeks old. I haven't blogged for nearly a month, but today I am purrpondering some of life's mysteries and thought I'd share my musings with you. #1
Why do dogs smell funny? (And I'm using "funny" as a polite word.) Cats don't smell funny. We smell normal, or downright good. Our dog lives in the same house that we do, so we can't blame it on environment. Whassup with the way dogs smell?
#2

Why do dogs act silly, whereas cats are dignified? (Okay, so the photo doesn't back that up, but there's an exception to efurry rule.)

There are many more mysteries to life, but I'm getting tired from so much purrpondering. It's time for a nap.

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!