Well, here's what the cats are doing.

Rufus blissfully suns while Pancakes ponders ruining it.

And he does.

Then he retreats to his fortress of solitude, AKA the inside of Uma's food stand.

Lil loves the smell of my mom's head. Here, she savors it.

I am not a photographer.

I got to thinking yesterday about those holiday photo "cards" you get in the mail of people's kids; and for some reason decided it would be fun to make something like those but with my pets (since I have no kids). When I got home from work, I constructed a "studio" in my kitchen consisting of a red fuzzy blanket & some Christmas-y colored embellishments. It was pretty much a total failure. My sister, who promised to be my pet-wrangler, mostly just laid on the floor (inexplicably). Pancakes refused to go anywhere near the "set"...Lil had to be bribed with catnip, and Rufus refused to come out of his dressing room. So here's some results for early holiday enjoyment:

Pathetic.

The only way to get Lil anywhere near the set was to spray concentrated catnip all over it.

Pancakes wouldn't sit nice on the blanket, but he would lounge everywhere AROUND it.

She actually looks like she's smiling here, huh? That's my layabout sister under the smiley face.

I like this picture of Lil.

This would have been a really nice picture of Pancakes; but again, I am not a photographer.

The only halfway decent picture of the whole session.

Not Much Up

I've been feeling sort of blech lately. Kinda tired, a little coughy, generally uninterested in things. But while uploading some pictures from my memory card today, this picture of Rufus made me laugh out loud.

Caption contest?

We've got so far to go...

About a month or so ago, I set out on a mission to toilet train my cat, Pancakes.  I bought something called CitiKitty, which is basically a tray that you place under the toilet seat with segmented rings that can be punched out one by one until your cat is making their poops and pees in the toilet.

BUT FIRST!  There are steps before you get to the rather graphic stage that I arrived at today (see pictures).  I started by placing the litter box adjacent to the toilet for a few days, then gradually raised it a few inches every few days by placing it on all manner of boxes, cake pans, etc.  By the time it was level with the toilet, as recommended it was very much a nightmare version of the princess and the pea.  Once the litter box was level with the toilet, I switched them to the flushable litter that we would be using in the actual toilet phase.  

I wholeheartedly support the idea of flushable litter.  Basically it is made out of teeny-tiny granules of paper that are sort of grayish and sort of look like actual cat litter.  It's better for the environment, better for the cat, better for the toilet---but when coupled with cat pee, you end up with cat pee-scented cement.  So I'm not so sure how flushable it would really be outside of this toilet-training scenario without some rather gruesome chopping maneuvers.

So once they were used to the new litter, I introduced the actual tray in the toilet while leaving the litter box in place.  At this stage, Pancakes mostly played Tasmanian Devil with the litter in the toilet, spraying it all over the bathroom, but still using the actual litter box.  From all the literature I'd read, if you have multiple cats you should go a bit slower with the training process, so we hung out in this phase for a few weeks.  

Next, I emptied the litter box of litter, but left it in the bathroom.  Miraculously, no one peed in the empty litter box.  Rufus mostly sat in it and cried.  Pancakes continued to distribute the litter into all corners of the bathroom from the toilet for awhile, but eventually started peeing in there.  I suspect Lil may have made a few deposits, but I can't prove it, as her pee output compared to Pancakes' is like comparing a shot glass to a Super Big Gulp.  The boy can pee is all I'm sayin.  

So today was the big day when I turned my toilet into the obscene thing you see in these pictures---I cut out the first hole, and judging by Pancakes' reaction, I think we're gonna be in this phase for awhile.  He spent about a half an hour just sticking his arm in the hole, getting freaked out when he hit water, retreating wildly, and then immediately going back for another fishing expedition.  

So there you have it...I'll try to keep you updated on our progress.  

Last Blog Post as a Man

He gets clipped in the morning. No more tiny ballies.

Pancakes Yawns

I got some sweet new lamps for my bedroom, the kind that actually shed light, so that I may now take better pictures of my pets in bed. I was trying to take a normal picture of Pancakes, but he yawned instead. I am totally mesmerized and terrified of this picture. But mostly, I'm stumped for a good lolcats caption. Any suggestions?

Say hello to my fuzzy friend

I think this officially makes me a catblogger, but I am trying to ease back into this whole deal.

A friend of mine works with a woman who does animal rescue, and they had a surplus of adorable kittehs, so I brought this guy home for an audition.

My sister is frontin' like he can't stay, as he is incredibly tiny, and fears that he may be crushed under the feets of the beastly 80 lb. dog. Who, by the by, believes this kitteh to be her baby.

So, for now, I've got him holed up in my bedroom, and I'm lackadaisically trying to find a home for him. Because my science books tell me that he will get bigger. I hope I can hold my heartless sister off til then. For now I will continue to give him a bazillion kisses on his fat little belly, wash him in the bathroom sink with the baby-wash I got from the Pediatrics unit at the hospital, and add to the long list of potential names. So far I like Carmine the best. Any suggestions?

lolCats

Apparently there's a phenomenon going on out there on the interwebs called lolCats .

From what I understand they're just pictures of cats with silly or absurd captions alluding to the cats' (or other animals) intentions or desires with amusing misspellings.


Good for a larf.

I Can Has Cheezburger?

Meme Cats

LOLcats2

(Links ganked from the Wikipedia entry on LOLcats.)