plastic-head ed

nitro sez:


honestly, ed's a helpless, hopeless addict. does you wants the bitey put on anything plastic, anything crinkly, anything crunchy? he's yer man, er, cat. munchmunchmunchmunchmunch.he'll chew until his jaws get tired or until you take it away from him. if there were cellophane gum, he'd be savin' his allowance to buy it. newspapers are great, too. he sits next to the chest in the picture for minutes at a time, just chompin' on that paper with his eyes closed. She says he musta been a train conductor in another life.

and here's the absolute proof of the puddin' (*hah* i'm witty today! i'm so witty, i'm so witty, i feel pretty, and witty, and bright . . .)*ow! Mom!! criminy! ok, ok, i'll get back on track right now!* . notice the totally absorbed, blissed-out look on his face:


are any of the rest of you afflicted with this odd compulsion? is it vile and to be shunned, or a legitimate hobby to be embraced (as long as you don't swallow any of the chewee)? any insights into the behavior? our cousin charlie fluffytail was a wool sucker, but then again, he was a balinese, an' he pretty much couldn't help it. (we don't mean anything detrimental against balineezers--She told us that a breeder told her lotsa meezers is furry fond of lanolin, and that's what's in wool.)

okay, you asked for pictures.

here's tiny baby ed, 9 weeks old, the first week he was in our house.





and here he is a year later.


you know, She sez there's a song that goes, "what a difference a day makes". well, here's 365 of 'em for ya.


by the way, here are ed's latest stats in kittenwars:

• Won: 4158 (58%)
• Lost: 2241 (31%)
• Drawn: 795 (11%)

and darned if there isn't another Sir Edmund there! who knew?

holey socks! we've been slackers!

we realizes we hasn't been blogging the last two days--our She has been getting us set up on catster and on the pet blog network, and doing some whatchacallit--bean business--so the puter has been overworked. She told us to leave it alone for a while so it wouldn't have a nervous break down, so we did. we don't know how much time we will have available to spend on catster, but we've already made lotsa furrends there. our paws get pretty tired sometimes, and it's hard to fit in lotsa typing amongst the mandatory (and optional) naps! none of us ever met a nap we didn't like!! an' our He has been home this week, too, so we've been bugging paying Him lotsa attention.

but now She's done, and we can get back to business. we wants to ask if there's anything that we could do better for you, our bloggie furrends. would we be more readable if we change fonts? colors? post more pictures? fewer? (we promise there won't be too many more scholarly posts to snore through.) any other hints, tips, or ideas from you 'sperienced blogcats? please tell us in a comment or a e-mail, and we will sure try hard to improve!

thanks, furrends!

n-e-n-x

we don't have vishus deer here, but

we're all scared just the same! usually on caturdays, He rides around and around and around outside the house, and up and down the big grassy place next to the house on a small, stinky, noisy orange moving box with no top. He calls it "puttin' up hay" but it looks like grass to us. and we've seen the noisy red box He gets in, and the green one that She uses, so it's not like we've never seen that kind of critter before.

purrsonally, I think those moving boxes are animals they don't let come in the house. i always hear Him and Her complaining about how much it costs to feed them, so they must be alive, right?

today, a VERY VERY noisy REALLY BIG yellow moving box came to our house. well, next door to our house in the big grassy place. it was carrying a big round whirling tube on its back. it went backwards over the grass towards the tall, windowless tin house where the fishing boat lives, and He and grandad opened the big sliding door. it drove in backwards and started to make even MORE noise!

then it moved forwards a little bit, and we could see from xing's window what it was doin' in there. you won't believe it: it was poopin'! and it musta ate somethin' that wasn't good for it, 'cause when we do that, we poop about that color, and get our bottoms washed! i don't know why He would let it do that--maybe 'cause it was so big, He figured it'd poop on Him if he didn't let it go on the gravels in the tin house.

anyway, after a while it was all through, and rolled back to the street and away from us. an' for hours afterwards, we saw Him out there trying to bury that stuff, but the most He could do was smooth it out.

tonight He told Her that He was glad it was done, 'cause now the outside kitties from next door couldn't get in there under the door anymore and pee in his boat. well, duh! no kitty would be crazy enough to go where something had left such a huge scent mark!!

so now we're scared that the big yellow box will come back and start poopin' all over the neighborhood, and squoosh all the outdoor kitties (even the ones that pee in His boat don't deserve that)! what if it came an' pooped in our living room?????

purray with us that it won't come back!! we are too scared to purr, even!!

--nitro

about mealtime . . .

He and She are constantly on our furry butts about waking them up for breakfast before they are ready (like they have something to complain about after that l-o-n-g night-time nap!), so we decided to poll you, the kitties of the blogosphere, and see just how much company their misery has! maybe it'll make them feel better. *smirk* we'll post the final tally next week.

At what time do you require your mom/dad/human minion/bean/etc to prepare and serve your breakfast?

4:00 AM 4:30 AM 5:00 AM 5:30 AM 6:00 AM 6:30 AM 7:00 AM 7:30 AM

Make Free Polls

uncle eeker

Nelson sez:
this is the family patriarch. he was the brother of The First Cat, Mouse McNasty. mouse went to the bridge after only one year. since She is lergic to kitties, she had never had one before and didn't know the warning signs of FUS, and he got really sick and couldn't be helped. She still grieves about that, and really misses him. eeker was always the "second cat" while mouse was alive; lotsa beans didn't realize there were two cats in the house. he slunk and hid while mouse always did the meet and greet.

however, he rose to the occasion when mouse left us, and became the king of all the cats that followed. he ruled with an iron paw in a velvet glove. even when he got frail, old and full of years (20), any other kitty could have knocked him aside, but they didn't. he could walk past them, notice he didn't like the cut of their jib, give 'em a whack with his paw, and stroll on unmolested. they respected him.

spotty was his special buddy, and came from nebraska to missouri with him. she was several years younger than him, and also lived to be 20. they make 'em sturdy in nebraska!

he accepted me from the start, even though i was at first only a weekend resident (the rest of the time, i lived in dad's warehouse and kept the mice on the run). i remember him "in the fur", so to speak, but none of the other kitties here now ever met him. over the years, though, every once in a while one or another of us sees him poke his cosmic nose into the kitchen, walk around, and check on the family he ruled. kitties have a duty to their furever homes, and eekie certainly does it.

Her name for this photo is "Uncle Surly", but that was just in fun; he was a Good Kitty.

(by the by: She said to tell you this picture was uploaded directly from google's free picasa photo management software. if you want to learn how, clicky on the little rainbow square.)

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!

i just don't understand

xing sez:

when i sat on Mommy's lap tonight, she made the puter's face show kitty blogs, and we sat there and read them together. i like that; it's fun to be cuddled and see other kitties who don't chase me.

after a while, one of them showed a kitty who sort of looked like me. it was meowing and meowing. i stepped off Mommy's lap and over the typing thingy to see closer, and it meowed right in my face, so i stretched out my paw and patted it--and it didn't feel like another kitty at all! it didn't even smell like a kitty. i stepped around the whole puter face, looking for that kitty and never did see it. how can that be?

kismet asked, we oblige . . .

xing says:
when i mentioned in an email that my toeses were very furry, but ed's were even moreso(i said they looked like snowshoes), kismet said he didn't have toeses like that, and would like to see them. so Mommy got the camera out and took some pictures today. and golly, mine are fuzzier than ed's! i guess they grew some since i first compared!! so here's me on the right . . .
and ed's on the left. the fuzz is very silky and purrty, 'cause we groom it lots, but it's a hazard to navigation: we both slip and slide on the tiled floor, and sometimes crash-land into things when we're running!

i can hear nitro in the kitchen now, clattering around while chasing a little bitty mouse. i'm betting on the mouse. ;-)

kitty game for the beans

nitro here:

She told us you had to have your beans try the cute game here:
http://www.ferryhalim.com/orisinal/g3/cats.htm

i don't understand how anything "cute" could make Her swear. oh, wait . . . we do.

and She said this site has lotsa cute little games for you to waste your time on:
http://www.ferryhalim.com/orisinal/

i gotta go now; i smells mousie inna kitchen!!

xing is NOT a cat . . .

nelson sez:

honest, she's not. she doesn't play with feathers, she doesn't chase paper & string butterflies. she doesn't play "get the hand under the covers", she doesn't like shiny, crinkly balls, she doesn't even like kitty treats, and very often doesn't even eat bean food like chikken--which we all LOVE. we just can't imagine a kitty growing up and not knowing how to play. not with toys, not with kitties, not with beans. what's with that????

she is almost as twitchy as our late cousin, charlie fluffytail, used to be. if She or He was sitting in Their chair when charlie walked by, they could just move their foot a little teensy bit, and he'd do a double-twisting backflip with a half-gainer and run into the kitchen. ok, They knew it wasn't nice to tease him like that, but it was funny. we used to call him charlie twitchytail behind his back. 'cause that's where his tail was, you see. *smirk*

and she hollers! oh my goodness, does she holler. just walk past her, and she hisses; look at her a little too long, and it sounds like a pig being prodded by pitchforks. chase her a little, and she just stands still and wails! of course, He or She both come running with the squirt bottle, and pick Their little precious up out of reach. then we get soaked and hear the "bad cat" routine for the jillionth time. if we're so bad, how come They loves on us so much? answer me THAT!

she doesn't even fight; i don't think she knows she's got those razor shivs on the ends of her toes. and they're much more wickeder than ours--She doesn't like to trim them, 'cause xing gets SO mad. ours get trimmed regular, and She doesn't let our vocal protestations bother her one little bit.

it's been more than a year that she's been here, and she's still afraid of every little noise and thing. you'd think she'd figger out by now that nothing was going to jump out and hurt her. oh, yeah. except us. but we don't want to damage her (well, maybe only a little, incidentally). mostly we wanna see her up close, and play like cats. and she just doesn't have a clue.

nitro, specially, would like to have another playmate, 'cause i hurt in various places all the time, and don't like to chase around. edmund will play for a while, but then gets tired and flattens him. it'd be nice to have someone his own size to wrassle with; ed and cocoa aren't really in his weight class.

one time, our She even brought home some Feliway, but it didn't do a dang thing for ms cranky's attitude. even if They get us all 'nipped up, she's a mean drunk--she gets huffy and hissy if someone happens to roll into her pile, and swats anything that moves. should we pool our allowances and get her some medication? jeesh!

runty? i think not.

HEY! nitro here: there's been some calling of runt names here lately, and in comparison with fatboy ed, i guess i do seem a little undersized. but our She calls that "perspektive".

i'll have you know that our nice vetlady, dr harders, says my 11 lbs is more what cats were intended to be like, sizewise, considering their jeans. (although i don't understand that, since we don't wear them; it'd be silly. how could we zip or button them without thumbs? those damn thumbs again!!!) anyway, she learned about jeans and being the right size by knowing someone named evvie looshun.

but the doc says ed is healthy even though he's big; he's not just one big liver or something. (one big stomach, i say.)

so according to evvy looshun, it's not us "runty" guys who are abbie normals. it's the big fellas'n'gals. not that there's anything wrong with being big--besides, She would sit on me and mash me flat if She knew i said that. the more diversity, the better. *wink*

dr harders is very smart and loves all us meowers and even the dawgs, and she wouldn't lie. we like her 'cause she takes good care of us and doesn't ever hurt us more than she has to. she even likes cocoa, that screwy dog who has a crush on me!

and i am, after all, an easygoing but bold, vigilant, stubborn obstinate ummmmm, i don't give up easy, extremely handsome ginger cat who bravely holds the fort every day while the slackers sleep when She leaves the house to go work. i AM somekitty!

noisy neighborhood!

wow, the weather threw a very noisy party last friday night, and our neighborhood is still cleaning up from it. about three hours past treat time, They went to bed--and that's when rain started. the wind blew real hard and banged the rain into the house like cat kibble being plinked into a metal bowl--from off the roof! it was pretty intense.

nelson went and hid under the china closet. after a really big flashy-boomer, he slunk into the kitchen all low-slung like our big cousin the panther, and so fast that it looked like he had lots more legs than four! we heard a ka-thunk, and knew he'd scrambled into one of the cabinets where he could hide and not see even a teensy bit of light. maybe it's quieter in there, too.

we have no idea what xing did. she sleeps in her own rooms with the doors closed. she says it's because we gang up on her. we think she's just a stuck up little princess.

we could hear cocoa thumping around in Their bedroom, and Him finally getting out of bed to explain to her that everything was ok, she was there in Their den, and He wouldn't let anything happen to her.

mom just snored.

xena just snored; she's old and deaf. we don't know what mom's problem is. . .

ed and i are the guard cats. we just laid in our chairs, ears cocked and alert to anything that might threaten our family! although after a really loud flashy-boomer and a HUGE THUD, we hastily conferred and decided to adjourn to the underneaths of our chairs, where we could groom ourselves into some semblance of coherence a state of bliss and then consider what to do next.

well. finally the rain stopped and we all began to sleep better. but we didn't see nelson again until He got up to let the dogs out and feed us crunchies!

and later, we saw from our kitchen window perch that the big wild cherry tree where the squirrels perch and cuss at us had just twisted off! betcha it made the loud THUD that rattled our alerted us that the storm was at its peak. so He took the big noisy stinky saw out and cut all the wood into lengths that will fit in the fire box that keeps us warm in the winter. when He was done, He looked like He'd already been sitting close to the fire box. She said that He looked like He'd been dipped in sweat (we think she said "sweat") and rolled in crackers, ready for the fryer 'cause he was fulla wood chips!

even this morning, we can still see that there are still big tree arms lying on lawns all down the block. mosta the time this neighborhood is pretty quiet, but when nature throws a party, we hold on tight!!

--nitro