it's me--iggy!!

the big boys sed i could talk to you today (although i don't see nocat anywhere acept them), an' they would help wif the spellin' part. then mama sed she would help wif hittin' the little squares wif squiggles on them, so here i am talkin' to you fur the furst time--me, igmu sapa!

so far, i don't really know what that igmu business is. it's somethin' called a "name", an' the big orange cat sez that it means me an' that i should pay attention when i hear it. the big fat fluffy cat sez not to bother, acause we is kitties, an' that means we can do just zackly whatefur we want, asept when we hear "NO" eifur befur or after it. then we just hasta do zackly whatefur we want anyway, only faster. but i am cornfused acause i think i has ofur names. so far, i has heard sweetbaby, iggums, moo-moo, funnyyoudon'tlookmooish, inky-dinky, an' iglet. what does i do when i hears THEM?

an' the hissy-fissy big green-eyed fluffy cat just sez HISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS when she sees me. i know what THAT means! geddouttahere!! so i gedout whenefur she sez it, an' keeps a respectful distance. the big boys are nice, though, an' i has already snatched something good-tasting outta the orange one's mouf acause he wasn't chewin' fast enuf, an' i thought i could help him. he din't bite me; i fink he was surprised. we both tried to help daddy eat his suppers, but he wouln't let us. later he put crunchies in our dishes, an' we all got full bellies. then the big orange guy let me sleep wif my head on his hinder end when we were on mama's lap after suppers. but i'm not sure he really knew i was there. maybe he did. he saw me when we both got up at the same time to vestigate the smell of mama's ice cream, an' he din't hiss at me when we got to the dish.

there's a REALLY BIG brown kitty here, too, but i don't like the way he smells (an' his mouf is bigger than the whole me), so i hisses my feroshusest hiss at him, an' he stays away. i'll get to know him later. the orange kitty sez he hopes it's MUCH later.

mama sez she has already tole you about how she come to take me home, so i won't tell it again. it was pretty asitin', i will tell you THAT! but i will show you now how good i can press the square things wif squiggles, an' she isn't gonna hafta do it for me next time, i betcha:

xqqqqq33333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333swwwwwwwww

see?

anyway, i'm tired now an' mus' go nap for a while; mama gave me more crunchies, an' i hadda eat 'em fast acause the big boys wanted them, too. g'bye fur now.

mom's side of the story, part the final

SUNDAY: at 5:00 a.m. i heard edmund singing for breakfast, which is a little odd, since it is always nitro who sounds the chow call. nitro had been acting a little weird the previous two days to The Arrival, and been unable to keep food down when given his antibiotic, so tom's gotta call the vet tomorrow to ask about that. but so far, he and the kitty have been nose to nose several times, with only minor hissing from nitro, so we hope this doesn't stress him into further problems. timing here could have been better! at any rate, i fed & played with mr. kitty, and put him back into the cage, and headed back to rack up some more zzzzzzzs.

at 8:45, i re-arose from the (temporarily) dead, went into the living room, and there sat tom with the kitty on his lap. he said to the kitty, "there she is, that mean ol' white woman who left you out with the lions and the wolf! i wouldn't talk to her if i was you!" "what?" sez i. "he was out here runnin' around when i got up!" sez he. i must not have gotten the latch on the cage set perfectly, and the li'l feller had been at liberty between 5:30 and 8:15 when tom got up. but he was unperforated and in good spirits. the boys were nearby; xing was still in her two rooms;`1``0------------9\\\\\\\\00000 (guess who, typing) and cocoa was in tom's chair, studiously ignoring the kitty on the floor.

in the early afternoon, we made the weekly wal-mart run with him loose in the house, and still no bloodshed. we think this might work out. xing is all hiss and no bite, and cocoa has been begging to stay outside most of the day (although it IS a gorgeous day), so we think she will not offer him violence as long as he is small (and a relatively unknown quantity). i suspect that he'll hand her more than a snootful of claws when he gets bigger and she tries to roughhouse him like she does nitro, who never offered more than token resistance.

please purrr and prrray for a successful and healthy integration of kitteh and family!!! he's already got the hang of the "big boy potty box". he eats like a feral, diving face-first into anything that smells edible, even if it happens to be in your hand at the time, a la nitro. and yes, he got his first taste of the dreaded squirt bottle this morning while rummaging through the dishes in the sink. sadly, while it got his attention and persuaded him to exit, stage left, he was quickly back for an encore. and another. and another. *sigh*

oh yes: in honor of his uncle steven (who is lakota), his name is Igmu Sapa (IGmoo SAHpah), "black cat" in the lakota language. tom's calling him iggy, and i refer to him as moo-moo, with further variations to come, i am sure.

mom's side of the story, part the first

if you hasn't been following the story, please go back to here and start at the beginning.

THURSDAY (8/20/09): the black kitty? i really didn't mean to; i really tried not to. i really, really, did! but last thursday the guys at work kept the back door open for ventilation, this little kitty-guy wandered in (we dunno how much before he was first heard crying), and when they spotted him in the warehouse, four grown men couldn't catch him. (you must understand that there are no homes around our building; the railyards are at the back, a c-store to the west and an electrical supply place on the east. very busy street out front, and nearest inhabited homes about a block away on the other side of the street.

so up the 14 stairs he scooted and at the ONE place in the whole building where the gap in the walls is exposed, down he zoomed and vanished. we don't know if he fell or managed to climb on something. at any rate, he was soon heard yelling at the top of his cons bbbbbbb (helpful little kitteh types, too) considerable lungs. they guy were busy on a build that was to go out the door on friday, so it took a while for them to get to the wall business. in the late afternoon, they blocked access to the largest part of the room under the stairs, sawed the hole, and constructed a one-way door over it so he couldn't go to ground back in the wall. i got a can of cat food from the c-store next door (where they had had a crying kitty the day before, but caught it and turned it over to (shudder) "animal control". i left the can in the room with a small pan of water, and went home with heaviness in my belly and fear in my heart.

FRIDAY: but the next morning, there was the little wild thing sitting on a shelf, spitting and screaming and swearing (where DO they learn such language so early?). i couldn't lay hands on him because of the tight quarters and my arthritic legs and hips (he was far back on the bottom shelf behind a stack of heavy parts), so i had to leave him there after replenishing the water and mopping up all the poop generated by a whole can of friskies (and, probably, fright). i called everyone i could think of, and of course, cat people have cat people as friends, and they were all "maxed out". i took a tip from the c-store cashier and tried the gal in the hair salon across the street. she said, yes, she wanted one, but her b.f. said no; she promised to ask some of her clients, though.

about 3 pm, i tried again to pick the little feller up, and finally succeeded (after falling into the shelf on the way to standing up). i scruffed him and held him to my chest, and he just melted; started to purr. THIS was a feral??? more and more, i think that he and his littermate (and maybe others) might have been dumped over the fence between us and the railyard. in the late afternoon the hair salon gal and the b.f. came in and she squeeee'd and he appeared to be softening (they already had 2 cats) until he looked under the tail and pronounced him a "she" and he wasn't havin' no kitten factory in HIS house. she went away almost as sad as i was; but after an hour, she called and said that one of her clients who lived out on a farm was coming in on monday and said would take "it" to live with the other barn cats. well, ok. i felt better. but not right, not good enough. i called tom and said to find the large cat carrier, that we'd have a weekend guest, and explained. loooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnggggg silence. "ok." *ffffweeew!* i thought he'd blister my ear or stroke out, or both, but he didn't.

we equipped the cage with folded towel to sleep on, dish of water, dish of food, tiny litter box: he seemed to know what to do with all of them. he hollered as long as he could see me, but shut up after a while when i left the room, and all seemed well. the boycats had sniffed in my direction as i brought him in, but didn't say anything. we left him overnight so the others could sniff at him if they wanted to, but i don't know how much, if any, of that occurred. at one point, i screwed up my courage, and asked if we couldn't PLEASE keep him; tom looked surprised and said, "i kinda figured that was what was gonna happen." *faint* *thud* *faint sound of sphincter unpuckering*

SATURDAY: i got up early and called the vet (ours was out of town, but they recommended one nearby, and was gratified to be worked in at 9:15). off we went, and the vet reported that this was indeed a boy (tom called it right), he had no ear mites, his eyes were clear, his mouth looked pink and healthy, she couldn't hear his heart and lungs for the purr-motor working overtime, he had precious few fleas, and was negative for FeLV *hosanna*. got his first kitten shots, and i went home with another $100+ free cat.

we never saw the other kitties lurking around the cage all saturday long. we let him out several times on the desk next to the computer to eat and drink and play (he had upended the water overnight and saturated his little cardboard potty box), and then locked him back up.

in the evening for a while, we brought him into the living room on our laps and there was some more minor hissing again, but funniest of all--cocoa is terrified!!!!!!!!!!!! she was actually shaking with fear when he swiped a paw at her big, intrusive nose, and would not re-approach him. xing, of course, didn't want anything to do with him, and griped and hissed and b!tched the whole time she was out there, so (to her delight) we returned her to her 2-room suite.

little guy was returned to his cage, and we all settled in for a long night's sleep.

. . . to be continued

we has a WHAT??????

our momma (who has lied to us MANY times befur) sez we has a new brofur!!! there is a little black ratty lookin' thing (sorry, to our rattie furriends) runnin' around here. it kinda looks like a cat, an' kinda smells like a cat, an' kinda feels like a cat . . . an' kinda acts like a cat. well, ok, it acts an awful lot like a cat--but it's awful small, an' about as hissy as xing-xing. (who, incidentally, pronounced a GREAT. BIG. HISS. on the whole subject, an' cannot be reached for further comment). we has sniffed it, an' only hissed a little, but then again, xing don't like ennycat. not even us.

does this mean we's gonna hafta share our mom an' dad?? what's wrong wif us that they think they need anofur meower?? oh, we know mom sez the kitty was trapped inna wall at her day-hunting place, an' uncle steven an' uncle james cutted a hole inna wall for him to climb out, but we dunno how a kitty could get inna wall inna furrst place! an' why did she think she hadda bring him HERE once he came out to get the can of foods she left for him?? (an' she sez he nommed the WHOLE can ofurnight; we don't see how ennycat so small coulda ate that much wifout asplodin'. we fink that's anudder lie.)

there's only so much mom an' dad to go around, an' we fink we should haff a say in if he stays or not!! we ain't so sure about this guy; we know fur sure xing votes no, but the jury's still out on us an' the dbd . . . stay tuned. if we lets him stay, maybe we'll let him blog tomorrow.

we three . . .

and wee one:

huh????

okay, reese, here they is!

a kitty named reese tole us we should learn howta post our own pictures, so we don't hasta wait on mrs lazybones mom.

so we's gonna try this "publish right frum the place wif the pink'n'blue dots" thing: we hopes three pictures follows!

felix riese

felix_2, originally uploaded by olrebbie.

this is our cousin felix who lives onna farm wif mom's auntie & uncle. he was furry nice to our mom, an' even slept on her foot fur a while.

daisy

daisy, originally uploaded by olrebbie.

this is our woofie cousin, who lives onna farm wif mom's auntie & uncle, an' our kitteh-cousin, felix. she is a furry friendly woofie!

in the coffee shop

me 'n' jennifer in the coffee shop, originally uploaded by olrebbie.

this is our mom an' victor an' nina's mom, jen, hammin' it up in a coffee shop. they were nommin' pastry an' suckin' back coffee--an' nitro's mad acause she din't bring him any! it was the first time our moms had met, an' they agree: they could get into some serious fun/trouble if they lived nearer apart!

mom's bein' lazy!

she keeps pleadin' that she's still tired frum her trip home frum chicago!! but how can she be tired if all she did was sit all the way?? the brown machine did all the work! she has some pictures to post, an' promises faithfully to get them onna bloggie . . . we is sittin' here tappin' our paws, waitin'. please wait patiently wif us; we'll get them up, one way or anofur!!

i'm home!!

dear furriends an' beans: fank you so much!! yer purrs, wags, an' purrayers all helped normusly!

i is home an' peein' up a flood!! i has new meddysins that don't make me loopy, an' some pills fur pain (if i needs 'em) but so far, not!!

i knew i could count onna kitty blogosphere to get me through this--it was hard, acause mom wasn't here, an' even though dad is The Best, he's not the same as mom. but she's here now, too, so efurrything is better! fanks again!!

purrs & headbonks from yer furriend,
nitro s pierce

hey, cats?

i has a yoorinary fection. my dad has taken me to the v-e-t, an' i has a pill called clamabox to take. please purrr for me. i will try to keep you updated, but mom's still in chicago, an' cocoa volunteered to type for me, but she don't do so good wifout thums eifur!!!

thanks, love an' purrs,
nitro s pierce

UPDATE: the meddysins din't work right; they made me goofy, so dad hauled me back to the vet-motel. i hasta stay all night an' come homes inna morning. the vet stucked me wif a sharp thing an' let water drip inta me. i still doesn't has much inna bladder, but he's hoping. so please keep purrin'!! thanks!!

THE WINNER!!!

we's proud to announce that the lovely miss p. parker's entry is the winner in our story contest!!! she wins a yummy nip cigar (an' we are pretty sure she'll get some use outta it;-) and a badge to display on her bloggie!

getzger said it was a furry hard thing to choose among the stories, acause there were some really good ones--but he forced hisself to make the decision. thanks for your help, buddy.

many thanks to all who played!! we hopes you had fun, an' will wanna try again. we was gonna haf a "caption" contest today wif anofur funny picture, but dadgummit--it's posted today on anofur site. so we will comb the innernets an' find one to post again in a couple of weeks!

last chance!!

today's the last day for entries in our story contest! you can win a nip cigar an' this hansum badge to decorate yer bloggie, if getzger the cat picks your story as best!

***scroll down to monday's post (or jump here) to our contest!!***

thrillin' thursday

o. m. c. !!!!! i'm outside!!! whazzat noise???

gots to keep an eye -- BOTH eyes -- on it!!
an' tune in all my whiskers!!
and then . . . and then . . .

HE PUTTED ME ON THE GROUND!!!
green prickly things tickled my little pink toez, so i bited them . . .
an' they were delicious!!
where has this been all my life??????
why din't they bring me out here before????
can i sue????

and when can i go back???

***scroll down to monday's post (or jump here) to our contest!!***

happy birthday, mom robyn!!

we hopes yer birthday is the bestest ever,
an' yer baycayshun is restful an' fun!

***scroll down to tuesday toes post***

toez & noez tuesday

nitro's little pink toez an' noez.

***scroll down (or jump here) to our contest!!***

your story, please?

what under the canopy do you suppose happened here??????

tell us in 100 words or less, an' win a nip cigar! winner's story to be chosen by getzger the cat. contest closes friday, 17 july.

enquiring minds want to know!!

a VERY familiar look!!

our mom found a link to this picture on a website about festivals in her home town, berwyn, illinois.

we was surprized skeezix wasn't at the wheel, because it is so perfectly SKEEZIX! since he lives in catifornia--the home of the american car culture--we figgered he might wanna haf one custom-built an' use this as a guide.

(peeyes: this festival was called "cartopia", an' took place in the shopping plaza where the famous sculpture, "spindle" was located: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spindle_(sculpture) you may haf seen it inna movie "wayne's world", one of mom's all-time favorites!!)

oh, noes!!!

our good bud on facebook just posted this warning for springfield and environs:

Getzger Cat sez: ***WARNING*** Beware kitties on the southside! Ginger and Gary went for a drive last night and saw dozens of vishus deers invading the city. Some even had antlers. And they looked very hungry. *shudder*

what if they work their way out to the west side, where we live?????

oh, right. they'll prolly get shot; this IS the ozarks, after all, where efurrybean has a gun, an' money's tighter on the west side than the south side where the rich beans live.

(mom's note: yes, it's true. the city council has been mulling over a "herd thinning season" on deer within the city limits!)