Hand in Hand

My cat is in love with me – and quite needy.

Usually on Saturday and Sunday mornings, I get up and read the paper(s) before getting breakfast.    That meal usually consists of a bowl of Honeycomb and then Second Breakfast is either a piece of fruit or an English muffin.

But before that meal, Tovah plants herself on the right arm of the chair, reaches out and holds my hand.  It makes it quite difficult to read the paper – especially turning the pages.

See?

I now know how hard it is to be disabled and only have one arm.

I do attempt to use the right arm, but Tovah reaches out her paw and pulls me back over to her.  Time and time again.  And I just can’t say “no” to her.  And why should I?   She doesn’t ask for much.

Ok, it ain’t the prettiest picture of me, but it’s like 7:30a on Sunday morning and it’s all I got.

I’m kind of fond of her too, by the way.

Song by: Dire Straits

Happy Dog (for Caggy)

Yes – it is my annual post for the Puppy Bowl. This is possibly the most important sporting event of the year! (that is not just hyperbole, either!)

I have never cared about the Super Bowl…and that’s not just because Cleveland has never been in it, or possibly will ever be in it. It is just the most over-hyped sporting event. Ever.

Quick! Who played in it last year? Who even won? Yeah, I didn’t think you’d know either – at least without Goooooogling it.

It’s not even worth sitting through it for the commercials. That’s what YouTube is for anyhow.

The Puppy Bowl is just fun. And cute.

C’mon! 20 doggies romping around a heavily product-placemented (it could be a word!) gridiron? What’s not to love? Buster, Charlie Brown, Griffey, Mac & Mercy are my picks before going into the game.

Oh – who will get MVP (most valuable puppy)?

And of course, let’s not forget the Kitty Half-Time Show. You can watch Springsteen almost anywhere these days. Watch the kitties and doggies instead.

Song by: Blondie

Cool for Cats

Since I’m preparing for a week of travel, I thought I’d just throw out a YouTube video.   It is only 46 seconds long, but I just love it.

I want to get one for Sophie to ride around on.  Tovah wouldn’t do it for sure.  But as it turns out, we just don’t have much carpet.

Song by:  Squeeze

I’m the Cat

Oh she looks cute – but as we all know, looks can be deceiving.  She is 90% good and 100% evil.  All eight pounds of her.

Yes, the math does not add up….but it’s still pretty accurate.  She is 90% good with us and about 100% evil with her sister.  Poor Tovah, she puts up with a lot from this one.  The little one wants to be alpha cat.

Sophie is still the snuggly and purry and more like a dog than a cat.  We can play fetch or tug on a string for hours at a time and she just never gets tired of it.  But she has no issue just walking over and taking a chomp out of Tovah – completely unprovoked.  Sheesh.

And while I (or we) should discourage the behavior, she has now figured out how to open all of the cabinets in the sunroom. You walk in and it looks like the kitchen scene in The Sixth Sense with all the cupboards wide-open.

Soph just gets in – and if the door shuts behind her, she’s ok.  She’ll eventually push her way out.  But more often, she gets in there and pushes things out or finding her hidden toys – mostly strings (as she brings me one right now as I type this).  She’ll just sit at your feet and quietly meow, just asking to play.  It’s really hard to say ‘no’.

I also don’t say ‘no’ at bedtime.  She likes to get between my legs to sleep.  Somehow I accommodate this. It is uncomfortable, but like I said, I can’t say ‘no’ to her. Usually.

Anyway, it’s not that I missed it – I just missed blogging about it:  we rescued her two years ago (three days ago).  Or she rescued us, is more like it.

Song by:  Jackson Browne

Cat People (Putting Out Fire with Gasoline)

Maybe I’m not a dog person. I always think I am. I want to be.

We had to hit Petco today – as we were in need of litter and fud. Naturally, Denton was with me. It was Saturday and we had to do our EDL things. That’s ‘Everyday Living’ things. You know – shopping, laundry, stuff.

Normally our Petco doesn’t have the cages of cats and dogs for sale, but the Humane Society was there doing adoptions. There were some great brother/sister cat combos and then one cat that had to be 20-25 pounds. So nice. So gentle. So HUGE.

But outside there was a dog. A puppy. A larger puppy, but a puppy nonetheless. Mostly golden retriever, but it looked like he/she had some shepherd in him/her. The pup was on a leash and was with someone from the Society. But as I was about to walk in the store, the dog walked over to me.

I got down and petted him/her. They seemed to like it, and even licked my hand. But then things turned ugly. I heard a noise, but wasn’t sure. But it was there……a growl. One that got louder. And then the pup lunged, growling, snarling – teeth all bared.

Ruckiry (not Jon’s boss), I had quick reflexes and jumped back a bit. Just out of range of a mad dog on the end of a leash. To paraphrase Buddy Cole, “that could have been nassssty”.

All this happened in about 45 seconds. When I turned around, Denton was gone. He missed the entire thing. He was inside already looking for cat treats.

On the way home, I finally told him what transpired.  Somehow I got chastised for being “too trusting”.  ….for both dogs and people.

People?  Really?    It’s like he’s never even met me!

Song by: David Bowie

Living in a Box

Chef Bob and Nurse Matt are grandparents for a 2nd time. Or is it the 5th time?

One of their dogs, Jake, had her second litter of puppies less than two weeks ago. The first litter had two puppies. This one had three. Don’t get hung up on the mom’s name. Clearly she has gender issues, brought on upon her by her dads.

The puppies are cute – as you might imagine. Golden Labs. Right now they kind of are a cross of Sharpeis and hamsters/gerbils. When I visited a few days ago, their eyes weren’t even open.

Jake had two boys and one girl – now known as Peter, Paul & Mary. Temporarily, I hope. I’m all for a good folk trio, but this might be a bit much.

Bob is trying to talk me into getting one. Of course, I want one. The girl. I’m all about the girls. Denton says if I can find a way to make it work with our schedules, I can get her. He knows deep down that I can’t get it to work – so he doesn’t have to be the bad guy by saying ‘no’.

Meredity is worried that I’m not a good dog parent because I don’t believe in obedience. That’s a lie. I just like dogs to be dogs. If that means jumping and licking and rolling around with them, then yes, I’m not a good parent. (though the dogs LOVE me for it!)

In reality, a golden lab is probably too big for our first dog. And I’m really ok with a mutt from the shelter. But we still have to work on our schedule thing.

Here are pics of the pups, who are indeed, living in a box. They were crawling on their bellies more than they were walking. And they have the cutest noises coming out of them.

you can see Jake here, tending to her children

this is Mary.  isn’t she adorable??

Song by: Living in a Box

Cool For Cats

We are bad dads.

We almost missed Sophie’s 2nd birthday!

We haven’t had her for two years (that’s in October), but the shelter says she and her brothers and sisters were born on June 15th. …and we almost missed it – because I thought yesterday was the 16th. Even though I had been talking it up for the last month.

She’s a long little girl – and she does like to stretch out quite a bit. The things that make her comfortable would make a contortionist wince just at the idea of doing what she does. For some reason she really likes her head to hang down when she sleeps – over an ottoman, off a table, off the bed. We don’t get it at all.

Don’t let this docile behaviour fool you. She may as well be a 5 month old kitten. She is still a bullet that races from end to end of the house, trying to make corners she can barely navigate (and sometimes doesn’t), even with all back claws out. Or bounds down the steps – two, three or four at a time. Her goal: to get there before you do, even if she has no idea where you are going. She’ll win. She always does.

Sophie is a gifted kibble hockey player too. One piece from her bowl, to her mouth, to the floor and she dribbles that thing all over the kitchen for days on end. Pele was never this adept.

Tovah tolerates her pretty well, though I won’t say she’s happy happy. The bites on Tovah’s butt….then her tail…..then her ear, all her bold attempts at becoming alpha cat, when just the speed and agility of Soph annoy the fuck out of Tovah.

Denton is Sophie’s favourite – and I’m ok with that. I mean, sure, I was all like, ‘why doesn’t she like me like that?’ and yeah, I’d like her to curl up on my chest now and again, but it’s always nice to look over and see the two of them together. There is some special bond there and we don’t understand the ‘why’ of it. It just is.

Song by: Squeeze

Gonna Buy Me a Dog

I don’t know why I like this so much. I was just sitting on the Metro and this lady and her ‘dog’ gets on the train.

The camera phone doesn’t pick up the colours all that well. The tongue was extremely pink.

Even for a fake dog, he was cute. Well, I assume it was a ‘he’. It seemed like a ‘he’.

I want a pup, but I don’t think we’ll probably ever get one. With my current work schedule (more on that later….possibly), I still don’t know we could do it and keep a doggie happy. It is just not fair to leave them alone for that long of a time…..and I’m not keen on hiring a dog sitter or walker.

Maybe the lady on the Red line can’t have a real dog either – which is why she is most likely on her way home from FAO Schwartz with her new pet.

Song by: the Monkees

Bigmouth Strikes Again

I don’t think I mentioned that around the xmas holidays we had taken Tovah to the vet. ….and by ‘we’, of course, I mean Denton.

After we lost Kylie about 18 months ago, I couldn’t bear the possibility of hearing bad news, as Tovah is now the age Kylie was when she got ill – so I didn’t go.

Since they are not outdoor cats, we have been really bad about going to the vet regularly. With Sophie – that has all changed. She’s gone more times than Tovah and Kylie combined.

There was good news and bad. Overall, Tov’s health was good – except some dental stuff. The poor girl had six infected teeth that needed to come out. Ouchy.

Cats are very stoic – so we didn’t know that she was in probably in pain. A few weeks later, Denton took her back in for the tooth extraction and she came through that just fine….though she is never too happy with us when she goes in the carrier or in a car.  Oh – and they also took photos of her mouth during surgery.  I couldn’t even look at them – though for about a nano-second I thought of scanning and posting them.   You can thank me later for not doing that.

Apparently cats use their teeth to kill things more than they do to eat kibble. So she bounced back quickly – though she got a few days of pain killer and a week and a half of antibiotic (you guessed it – Denton gave her that too!).  She has been happy and a little feisty (not 1-2-3-4 Fiest-y), so I think she’s ok now.

She had one follow-up appointment where she got the all-clear. But the vet gave us a cat dental device, so we can brush her teeth…….the ones that remain. You can see it below – it’s like a plastic ring you wear and get the right side of the thingy in her mouth. GOOD LUCK with that!

….but also if you look close at the picture, she gets Poultry Flavoured toothpaste.

I suppose that is supposed to make it all better!

Song by: the Smiths

Puppy Love

Yes, I know I posted something similar a year ago – but who frickin’ cares? It’s the Puppy Bowl IV.

It is worth at least another mention.  You’ll probably see another one a year from now.  Suck it up!

I know I’ve mentioned before, I could care less about pro-football, and the Super Bowl is no exception (save the chance to see a shot of Mike Vrabel).

TPB, as I’ll refer to it, runs the same time as the highly expensive commercials football event, but it a lot cuter and a lot more fun. Though I’m not obligated to watch it, TPB runs on one of my client’s channels.

When/If you got to the website, you can check out the starting line-up – though I’m looking forward to seeing Justin, Colt and Mrs. Roper (i love that name!).

You really should keep it on for the ‘under the water bowl cam’ and when a ref comes out to call a foul (i.e. pick up some doggie doo-doo).
I don’t see a link to it, but there is also a Kitty Kat Half Time Show.  You should stick around for that too.

Song by:  Donny Osmond