Well, Momma came back frum her va-cay-shun in Lost Wages late last night and sed she left effun MORE of her munee back there. She missed giffing me treats and pets on my gotcha day on Sunday cuz she wuz gone. But she came back in time to take a pikshur of me in this bandana fur Halloween. I wuz not too happy 'bout that! Now she has to go to werk. Maybe she brawt back sumfing fur me frum her trip. I'll find owt when she comes home.
Uh oh, Momma and Grandpaw and Grandmaw are going on va-cay-shun to look for the munee they left in Lost Wages! How'd they looze their munee? Wiff efurrybean gone, who'z gonna feed us?
Don't worry, Pumpkin, Aunty Lynette and Aunty Leona will come over to feed the kitties, as well as Pluto and Suzy and Quincy and the fishies. And clean the litter boxes and change your water and water the plants. Who'z gonna giff me stinky goodness in the mornink? And play wiff me and let me pounce on them? And giff us Tem-tay-shuns? Well, you're just going to have to wait until we get back on Monday night for that. Aww Momma, do yu haf to go? Sorry, Pumpkin, but the tickets are paid for and we're leaving tonight.
There's nufing in here. Aren't yu taking anyfing, Momma?
Since I was in the sixth grade, we've always had cats off and on but they were always outdoor cats. Eventually Mom started letting them come in the house for short periods of time but they always yowled to go back outside. Emily was our first all indoor cat. My sister Leona was getting married and she was staying at our house so that she wouldn't have to commute into town during the final days of preparations. We didn't have a cat at the time and she was missing her own cats so on 4/25/90, she went to the humane society and brought home a cat. Emily was 10-months-old and reminded her of her own favorite cat, Jennifer. Her adoption papers described her as "tiger with orange" but I've since learned that she was a torbie, a tortie tabby. She was a very calm and self-possed girl who LOVED neck scritches and tummy rubs. We had her for nearly 10 years until the day we had to help her to the Rainbow Bridge on 1/27/00 when she developed liver cancer. She was a very good cat and I still miss her.
I'll be teleporting offur to Derby's place to celebrate the Oktobur birfdays and gotcha days this weekend. Mine birfday wuz Oktobur 15 and mine gotcha day is Oktobur 29 so I getz a twofur. Come on offur to the party!
I don't unnerstand why us kitties haff to be locked owt in the patio effurry night. I wanna be in the howse! So whut if the beans can't sleep wiff me jumping on the bed at night. I wanna play! And grandmaw shoots me wiff water when I climb on the screen door. It'z not fair!
Momma makes lotz of paper balls fur me but they keep running away. Then she went hunting fur them. She fownd lotz under the microwave stand and behind furnicher and in the cornerz of diffrent roomz.
I don't play fetch wiff them likeEmma does, cuz when Momma tosses them to me, they're MINE and I won't giff them back!
The earth shook for Pumpkin's birthday. Yes, Sunday was Pumpkin's 1st birthday and it was a memorable one! At 7:07 in the morning, I was awake and lying in bed when everything started to shake. And it wasn't a quick jolt, but seemed to last a good 10 seconds. The walls of the house vibrated, the roof creaked but nothing fell down or was damaged. Tiger and Pumpkin were darting around in a panic looking for a place to hide. A little while later, the power went off. And the island-wide blackout lasted all day. With no power there were no traffic lights so it wasn't safe to go out. No lights, no TV, no fans, no telephones, and NO COMPUTER! All we could do was listen to the portable radio, nap and read -- at least while the sun was up. We had a propane cooker so we were able to cook a pot of rice and steam some frozen lau laus for dinner. Our neighbor also gave us leftover beef stew and potato salad from a party they had. Power was restored to our area around 8:30 in the evening. Cable and DSL service came back around 1:00 a.m.
After his initial fright, Pumpkin took everything in stride. He enjoyed his Fancy Feast stinky goodness (white meat chicken and whipped egg souffle!) and shared it with Bebe and Blackie. Poor Tiger was spooked for the rest of the day and hid under the bed. With nothing else to do, I had a photo session with Pumpkin while he was on my bed.
At first, the big cats refused to go into the living room where we were keeping Pumpkin. Again, it was Bebe who was the first one to check out the new kitten like he did when Tiger joined the family. This video was made on 11/20/05, 3 weeks after Pumpkin's arrival and he's about 5-weeks-old. That's me and my Mom commenting in the background.
Since I've been looking at Pumpkin's kitten pictures for the recent posts, I've realized how true this cartoon is. Cats are tiny only for a little while and then they hardly change once they grow up!
Pumpkin soon outgrew his bucket and was now living in a large cardboard box. At 4-weeks-old, he's entered the cute playful kitten stage. Here are my very favorite baby Pumpkin pictures.
And he learned very early how to put the bitey on his Momma!
Pumpkin refused to nurse from the bottle on his first night at our house which had us really worried. Would he make it without his kitty momma? We bought eye droppers the next day and dribbled milk into his mouth to get him to eat. Once he started drinking from the eye dropper, we tried the bottle again and he soon got the hang of it. In addition to feeding him every few hours, we had to wipe his bottom with a warm wet paper towel to get him to pee and poop like his momma would have done. His appetite was voracious. When he was hungry, he let you know it was feeding time. And if the milk wasn't coming out quickly enough, he got frustrated so we had to squeeze the bottle for him. After eating, I held him to my shoulder and patted his little back to get him to burp, just like a human baby.
On the evening of 10/29/05 while my parents and I were eating dinner, the telephone rang. It was my sister Leona. She started to lell us about a kitten that she heard crying in her yard all afternoon. She left it alone, thinking that the momma cat would come back to get it. But when the sun started to set, and the kitten was still crying, she couldn't stand it anymore and went out to find it. It was too small to be accepted at the humane society. They only took cats if they were at least 1 1/2 pounds. Any smaller and they would euthanize it since they didn't have the resources to foster it. And Leona couldn't keep it since her husband was VERY allergic to cats. So she asked if we could take the kitten. Uh oh, ANOTHER cat? We had 4 at the time and didn't want another one, but we couldn't say no to the poor abandoned baby. Twenty minutes later, Leona showed up with the kitten in a bucket (who we heard mewing all the way in the driveway), a pet nursing kit and a can of powdered KMR. We looked in the bucket and went awwwww!
We think he was only about 2-weeks-old, and was very dirty from scrambling around in the dirt outside. His little front claws were just CAKED in mud which I managed to clean off. Leona named him Pumpkin since he's orange and was found 2 days before Halloween. And he weighed just 6.7 ounces, which is waaay below the minimum weight for acceptance at the humane society. However, once he entered our household, he became a permanent member of our family.
Fank yu Grr, Midnight and Cocoa fur all the goodies yur Momma sent us fur winning secund place in yur Whoz Who contest. We gotz so much gud stuff we din't know whut to play wiff furst!
I'm a ginger kitty and I live wiff Tiger and Sophie as well as Benson, the woofie who lives owtside. We effen got owr vury own fev-ver maker, Quincy. Mine kitty momma losted me on 10/29/05 when I wuz 2-weeks-old and then I came to live wiff mine noo Momma. She sed I'm spoiled but I'm just SPESHUL!
Happy Halloween Efurrybody!
