help for furrends

Mommy sez:

if you haven't heard yet, miss brandi (of catitude) and her mama are having a tough time right now. if you think you would like to help them out and/or "pay it forward" or reduce your time in purgatory or enhance your karma, please go here:
http://www.crystalsandjewelry.com/private/brandi.html
where there's structions on how to do it. many grateful purrs and blessings will be yours! and you'll feel good about it!

complicated beans

edmund sez:

it's furry complicated being a she-bean! i watch Her every morning, and she does some furry strange stuff, too. when i jump up on the little table next to the sink, this is what happens:

first, She uses the big litter box, and talks to nels and me. sometimes, he reaches up and pats Her cheek, just to reassure himself that even though She smells so bad, She really is still alive. *hah* it's not like he leaves roses behind!

next, nels leaves and She starts water in the sink. Taking a cloth, She rubs it on a square of good-smelling grease and then rubs the cloth all over Her face, arms, and stuff. then She washes it all off (why go to all the trouble of putting it on?).

then She opens a little door and takes out some more good smelling stuff to rub under Her arms. y'got me on the why of this one, too. it just covers up Her own smell. maybe She does it so nokitty can stalk Her outside.

next, She opens the other little door and takes out a squoosher-outer thing full of white stuff and spreads it on a little brush. She keeps both things behind a door where there are no other squoosher-outer things. She says brushing Her teef with hydrocortisone once was enuf. maybe She should drink that koffee stuff first, instead of when She goes out the door to work. i know from observation that there's a lot smaller chance of Her doing dorky stuff after She drinks some.

here's the part you won't believe, but i swearta bast it's true! She takes Her upper teef (fangs, chewers, and all) out of Her mouth and starts rubbing them with that brush!! see, i toldja you wouldn't believe it.

after that, She puts the brush in Her mouth and rubs. then She slurps water and spits, and puts the upper teef back in. now Her mouth smells all minty, which is good. when She was talkin' to me and nels earlier, we could tell She hadn't gargled with catnip lately.

then She uses another kind of brush and grooms Her headfur. i likes to do that for Her (without the brush), but on the days She "goes to work", She won't let me.

then She says, "ed, it's time for the unveiling". She whips off the smooth blue pelt She puts on at bedtime, and hangs it up on the wall. i wish i could have a removable pelt; it'd come in handy sometimes, like b-a-t-h-s.

then She goes back in Her den, and when She comes out again, She's got a whole new pelt on.

then She goes to the kitchen and makes a peanut butter sammich and gets a cup of koffee, and if She didn't hit the sleep alarm too many times, sits down at the table to read the paper and share the sammich with us. we all sit like vultures on the table, waiting, and She gives us little pieces while saying, "i can't believe i'm rewarding your rotten behavior this way!" if She is late, we just get outta Her way!

so that's morning at at our house. we're azawsted by this time, and practically fall down for naps right where we are. it's a good thing we nap frequently; we get to wake up, go potty; nap, groom a little; nap, get a drink; nap, nibble; nap, nap. i don't know how beans do it!!

a tail tale of two kitties' tales tails

xing says:

now, this is where edmund is certainly the winner--my little tail (right) is very plumy. it's not very fluffy at all, but still graceful and just right for me. (you can *click* on the pictures to biggify them.)



but edmund (left)! oh, edmund's tail looks like the thingy Mommy uses to clean the ceiling fan. (only he's not shocking pink, and Mommy couldn't lift him up that far.) Mommy sez he used to have big, fluffy white pantaloons,too, but one time his flea allergy acted up so bad that he yanked out the all fluff on his whole nether region, and the pantaloons never grew back! how funny to think of ed with a flounced skirt!!

and this one's for you, skeeeezix!

here are all my hairy toze! i don't noze why i has such toze! Mommy thinks maybe i'm part yeti.

--purrs from xingxing

blue-eyed white cats (redux)

holy jeepers. Mommy went ahead and did some 'tective work and this is what she found by a guy who used to run a "dating service" for kitties. or maybe she said "mating service." hmmmmm. . . anyway (excerpted from White Cats and Deafness,
by Roy Robinson.):

The association between blue eye colour and deafness is well documented and is shown by Table 2. Cats with blue eyes are more prone to deafness than those with orange eyes. Furthermore, cats with two blue eyes are more likely to be deaf than cats with one blue eye (Table 3). The data is meagre but there is evidence that in doubly unilateral affected individuals, blue eye colour and deafness will occur on the same side of the head.

The implication of the above observations is the obverse of that for patch and deafness. It is apparent that those cats with two blue eyes are more severely affected than those with one. The former cats could have received fewer functional embryonic neural crest cells than the latter. That is, the extent of the underlying neural crest anomaly may vary and this accounts for the variation of expression of the syndrome.

and here are the tables:

TABLE 2: Association between blue iris and deafness.
	Orange iris	Blue iris
Normal hearing	46	55
Deaf	13	68
Incidence(%)	22.0	55.3
Chi square = 17.85 for 1 degree of freedom, highly significant.

TABLE 3: Association between number of blue irises and deafness.
	Orange iris	1 blue iris	2 blue irises
Normal hearing	46	30	27
Deaf	13	19	50
Incidence(%)	22.0	38.8	64.9
Chi square = 55.00 for 2 degrees of freedom, highly significant.

my little green eyes glazed over after "doubly unilateral affected", and Mommy's soon after. but even though she doesn't understand all the numbers, she does understand persents, and the HIGH persents mean there's a big chance that an all-white cat will be deaf. poor kitties; i was sad then, but Mommy cheered me right up when she reminded me that they are just like me, 'cept only that they can't hear. they cuddle and sniff and like catnip and enjoy stinky goodness and like tummyrubs and play wif fevvers and such. Mommy sez she's sorry if this was boring and was more than you ever wanted to know (it was for her), but i kinda like to know stuff, so here it is.

purrs, xing lu

things to ponder . . .

xing sez:

my Darling Mommy found these factoids on the innernet:

Most adult cats are lactose intolerant and drinking milk will give them diarrhea. Otherwise, milk is a nutritious snack. Cream is even better than milk -- most cats can handle the butterfat just fine and it's good for them. A small serving of cream will satisfy the cat more than a saucer of milk and contains less lactose. WHOA! at last--someone who agrees with me! and i'm not talkin' that wimpy "half-and-half" stuff--i l-o-v-e cream!!

A cat will spend nearly 30% of its life grooming itself. DUH!

A large majority of white cats with blue eyes are deaf. White cats with only one blue eye are deaf only in the ear closest to the blue eye. izzis true? Mommy told me she knew about blue-eyed white cats being deaf, but odd-eyed and deaf on that side? does anykitty know?

Mommy and i are sharing some graham crackers and sour cream. wow! even that kind is good, but it made my mouth a little wrinkly at first.

Gee, we just started, but she says we hafta go now; she's gotta go adjust some attitudes in the living room. it's just nitro and ed, arguing the finer points of how to bushwhack nelson. what's the big deal?

i'll be back; i gots lots more to say! until then--purrs & best fishes from xing

it seems reasonable to us!

sir edmund percival hillary pierce sez:

She laughed and laughed til She snorked through her nose, and said that other beans would like this web site, so we're posting it.

WARNING!

we don't understand the laughing; seems perfectly normal to us, and would avoid a lot of hollering at home!

i AM the mighty hunter

nitro sez:

it was the dark of night. not a creature was stirring . . . except for a mouse. i had hunted the wily creature for days, scenting him, tracking him, chasing him. he ran, i ran. he scooted under under the cabinet, i scooted under the *owwwww* (note to self: must remember to duck lower) cabinet. he faked left, my paws were there! he faked right, my paws were there! i biffed him, i baffed him, he nipped me, i hollered growled kitty curses. he slipped under my foot and dodged away. i scampered after him, driving him relentlessly forward. aha! at last, i had him cornered! his eyes were huge--burning coals of terror. he leaped onto my head and dug in, all his tiny claws digging for purchase. again with the biting! i shook my mighty mane and dislodged him, only to see him scurry off in the direction of the living room--it was now or never. i gathered my steel-spring muscles and pounced. a mercifully brief struggle brought his end. i dropped my prey and paid a moment's reverence to a worthy foe. then i ate him.

well, most of him. i made xing get the camera and flash this picture of me with my trophy. since she had bet on the mouse (hah! *pft* that for you, xing), i felt it was a fitting punishment. then i took the trophy to the beans' den and displayed it lovingly about a foot from the door.

at 0-dark-thirty hours, She arose to feed us and entered the kitchen from Her den. She was so impressed when she found the trophy that She called upon Her god to witness the scene. so proud was i!