It's all Mom's fault

She keeps telling me we will blog soon, but then she never gets around to helping me. She hasn't even uploaded any pictures in months... and I don't like to make posts without pictures. But today I just had to do it. She's busy at school/work trying to finish her Ph.D. But she isn't even going to finish it until December (whatever that is) so I think there is still plenty of time in the day for blogging. I miss blogging and all my blogging buddies. I try to read your sites sometimes, but it is hard with the laptop computer on the fritz a lot and my restrictions with the house computer because I took the tab key for a walkabout (naturally those pictures are still stuck on the camera somewhere). I'm still allowed to use that computer, but I have to be supervised.

I will tell you that I did survive my visit at Mr. and Mrs. B's house while Mom was away, but just barely. I will tell the whole story of that when Mrs. B gives Mom the film of the pictures she took so Mom can develop it. Let's just say it was very scary, and though Mr. and Mrs. B were very nice to me, I never really want to be anyplace but home. I have scrounged around the computer a bit and found some pictures we haven't blogged about before, so I will post them now for your pleasure. Thanks for all your comments, and please keep coming by my site. Mom promises we will update more soon, but she always says that.

Here is a picture of when we used to blog together a lot:That's me curled up on her lap at the computer desk.

And these pictures we've had for ages. After Christmas when Mom was taking down the tree and wrapping some ornaments in paper towels, I spied the roll left unattended and made it MINE! Mom laughed and said I could have it. Oh I do love paper towels and toilet paper and tissues...
Boy that was a fun night! Oh and before I go, I see that many kitties out there are posting about their favorite blogging words. I like so many words. Let's see:
Squillions of course is an obvious choice, given to us by William. But along this line, I also enjoy Bajrillion, which is a number Buddah has quoted once or twice, usually referring to "sleeps", another word I like. It's a typical word, but I like the way he uses it! I like chin scritches (see also scritchies). Oh and Doots just cracks my Mom up. There are tons more, but I can't think of them right now.

Anyway, I hope all you kitties and beans are well. I'll post again when I can!

Scared Kitty

It's my fault Mattingly hasn't updated lately. I have been extremely busy, and he's not allowed to use the computer by himself anymore after an incident with a missing "tab" key. I have the pictures to prove he took it, but I will let him talk about that in another post. At the moment my husband and I are preparing to go away for a week. It's the first time we will both be away for more than a night since we found Mattingly last summer. Since he is such a social kitty, I opted to have him stay at a friend's house while we were gone instead of just having someone stop by twice a day to feed him and clean the litter box. I didn't want him to be basically alone for 7 days. But now I'm not so sure. He is so attached to us. I dropped him off at my friend's house this morning. It is a clean quiet place with no other animals, and I absolutely trust her to take excellent care of him. But he was so scared and it's breaking my heart. He was hiding when I left, and wouldn't even make eye contact with me... he was just staring into space. I brought his favorite toys, his scratcher, and one of my slippers (he LOVES my slippers) and we scattered them around the apartment. I showed him where is food and water was and he sniffed out the area, then I showed him where his litterbox is, and he sniffed that as well. Then he went into hiding and wouldn't look at me. I'm feeling dreadfully guilty and concerned that I didn't do the right thing. I'm hoping I'll feel better about it later when I've called this evening for an update. I know he will be fed and loved and kept healthy. I just hope he's happy and can forgive us when we get home. Have any of you had any experiences like this? Is there something I could have done to make it easier? If you have any advice to share, I will gladly accept it. And in return I promise Mattingly will write lots of posts when we are all reunited at home again. Thanks at least for reading while I poured my heart out.

Game Night

I'm very far behind on blogging all the stories I have to tell. The last post is an example. Some of those pictures were from November! I am going to share with you something that happened before Christmas. Dad was on something called vacation and Mom decided to be too (she's a grad student so she can do that). It was glorious having both of them home a lot. I'm so much happier when both are around. Anyway, they played some games since they had the time and one of them was Trivial Pursuit. One night I asked if I could play too, and they let me! Kind of like what Maggie did. I was very happy when I saw her post... something we have in common! Maybe one day Mom will let me invite her over for a game. Anyway, here are the pictures of when I played (you can click the pictures to make them bigger if you like):




The box was so much fun I thought I might like to try the game.






Getting ready to roll the dice. See the smile on my face? I was glad to play.







How many did I roll?








Counting out my next move.








That's ok Dad, I can move it myself.






This game is tiring. Wake me up if I win.

Warming Up a Bit

Mom and Dad tell me this hasn't been much of a typical winter here in NY, but I'm here to tell you that we have had plenty of cold days. Many kitties blog about the cold weather, and also it being too cold in their home. Most began talking about this at the beginning of winter, buy my Mom was too busy to help me blog then. Our home tries to be the same temperature inside as it is outside. Mom says it's something about an old building and lack of insulation and a stingy landlord. All I know is that I have often had to snuggle down really good to keep warm. I present a few photos.

Sometimes Mom and Dad were kind enough to help cover my when it was clear my fur wasn't enough.Also you can see Mom was generous with her own warmth from time to time. She would make "caves" with her blankets for me to crawl into, then she would collapse the cave around me and we would watch TV or go to sleep just like this, sharing warmth. (See how Mom's nose is red with the cold?)

But this was one of the lowest points. While Mom was enjoying warmer weather in San Francisco at some point in December, Dad and I were left home to freeze. The only warm one in the whole apartment was the lizard because he has this special heating lamp. I've tried to get in several times to talk with him, but no one seems to want me to share his home with him. But I found a way to mooch his heat anyway. Look how uncomfortable I am though. I'm leaning sideways on a pile of papers. Next year we are going to have some serious discussions about a space heater.

PS My Mom made me add her so she can post from time to time, but now my profile picture has disappeared. Anyone know how to make it come back?

Festival of Feet

OK Everyone! You can read the comments section below for my final word on prevous posts. Now... let's move on! I missed out on the pawtrait contest over at 2 Carolina Cats. It was mostly Mom's fault. I tend to miss out on a lot of the fun stuff that goes on in our little kitty community (we did really enjoy looking at all the paws though... my Mom is a paw lover). Anyway, in the spirit of talking about paws and all of that, we thought we would share with you a phenomenon that Mom and Dad like to call "Too Many Feet". It occurs when a kitty lays down to go to sleep and just doesn't seem to know what to do with all their feet. Turtling (that's me doing a turtle on the fish tank a few months ago) is a sensible way to handle your feet, as is stretching out or laying on your side. But Mom and Dad think when I lay like this I look silly. The bottom one is Mom's favorite. I really think Mom picks on me so much because she can only dream of being this flexible.


You can see that the bottoms of my feet are both pink and gray. This worried Mom at first because she thought the gray was dirtiness in my pads that wouldn't go away from when I was on the street. So she was happy to see that lots of other kitties have multi-colored feet too! Anyone else ever have too many feet?

What I have learned

I have learned that I was very excited to be tagged and do the meme, but it seems that some kitties find in a nuisance. So next time I will just do what I've seen others do which is to write "I tag anyone who hasn't done it and wants to". Problem averted. I also found that I am honored to have lurkers on my site as long as they are real kitty lurkers and not a mean human who is trying to make fun of me. I lurked for awhile before I convinced Mom that I would like my own blog too. And sometimes I'm still like a lurker because I don't post for awhile or leave comments, but I'm still reading some of the kitty blogs. So please everyone, continue to read and comment on my blog. And if you get the urge to tag me... don't hold back!

Thanks to everyone for their understanding and support. I got worried that I was doing something irritating and didn't want to upset the other kitty bloggers.