Another lame toy

Really, somebody should take my peeps aside and give them a little cat-play advice. Today they came home from the pet store with a load of cat food and litter (always good) and some kind of crinkly tube thing. It seems Mom saw a YouTube video of a cat playing in one, and then saw it on sale in the store.

Here's the thing, Mom. The cat in the video was, like, probably 10 pounds and short-haired. I'm 17 pounds and a fluffball. I tried to get into it, really I did, but all I succeeded in doing was pushing it across the floor until it ran into the wall. Yeah, I know you thought that was funny. Ha ha.

Oh, but you know what I did like? The twist ties that held it to its cardboard box, and the box. Now those are some cool toys.

Birthday treats!

Wow! Today we got baby food treats for breakfast! It's because it's my birthday, I know! I'm three years old today.

*Um, Bear. The baby food was because of Severian's dental. I knew if he got it, you'd all want it. But we'll have special treats tonight for your birthday. *

Oh. Well, OK.

Wow! We're getting special treats TWICE today!

Dumbest toy ever

As usual, we got some goodies for Christmas this year. We didn't pay much attention right away to what Santa brought us, because we had all the ribbons and bows and boxes and wrapping-paper balls to play with. But Mom finally bagged all that stuff up and threw it away.

Mostly Santa has good taste in cat toys, but the elves gave him a bum steer on one. It's like a flat turtle shape made out of mesh, and it opens up and Mom puts a treat in there. We're supposed to chew on it to get the treat, and the mesh is supposed to help keep our teeth clean. Not!

We each got one, and we all looked at Mom like she had a hole in her head. One sniff was all it took to know that the treat wasn't coming out without a fight. The toys stayed on the floor until Dad stepped on one. Crunch! Treat fragments all over the floor.

My advice, Santa: Lose that toy in next year's lineup.

My favorite things

Squirrels on the back deck and chicken on dishes
Bright balls of Mylar and catnip-filled fishes
Brown paper baggies that I can crawl in
These are a few of my favorite things

Soft fleecy cat beds and crispy Temptations
Mom's weekends and days off and summer vacations
Asleep on my back with my feet all tucked in
These are a few of my favorite things

Mousies and crickets and warm sunshine puddled
Playing with Jasper 'til he's all befuddled
Walks on my leash in the summers and springs
These are a few of my favorite things

When it's bath day
Or a vet stay
When I'm feeling sad
I simply remember my favorite things
And then I don't feel so bad

The mousies are back again!

It must be having-babies time in the mouse world, because I caught one junior-size mousie yesterday, and I was hot on the trail of another this morning.

Yesterday, Mom heard a clatter in the kitchen and found me standing outside an open lower-cabinet door with said mousie in my mouth. She started toward me, and I quickly trotted into the dining room and under the dining room table. She moved a chair and I momentarily dropped the mouse, but I was quick and jumped on top of it, flattening it under my manly chest. Then I backed up carefully until I could see it again, and grabbed it by the tail.

I led Mom around the dining room table twice, mouse swinging from my mouth, and then onto the porch. She quickly closed the porch door behind us, figuring she'd limit the escape possibilities.

I ran merrily all around the porch, under the table and chairs, and finally trotted over to the water dish out there and dropped the mousie -- kerplop! -- into the water. Mom fished it out by the tail and disposed of it. What a spoilsport.

But there's another one under the range. Vicki and I take turns watching for it to come out. Mousie stands no chance!

A REAL bear

Last week the peeps had a cookout on the deck, and when Mom put stuff away, she forgot to bring in a steel bowl with some leftover corn on the cob. The next morning, there were shredded cobs all over the deck, and Mom found her steel bowl in the yard, bent in half. She told Dad we had a bear on the deck. Dad was skeptical.

This week, as she was headed to work, she saw the bear. It trotted across the road a half-block from our house and then sauntered down a neighbor's driveway. It was a BIG black bear. Mom figured well north of 200 pounds. And it wasn't the least bit startled by her car or the one coming from the other direction.

Now we don't get to take walks in the yard, and the doors to the deck are always closed so we can't sit by the screen and look out.

Thanks a lot, bear.

Test Diary Entry by HQ

Test post by -watch cat-

The Dad is going back to work!

Gotta get the good news out before Catster closes down for maintenance tomorrow. The Dad peep is going back to work! I don't know what exactly that means or why he and Mom are high-fiving, but we all got rotisserie chicken as a treat, so it must be good. He is going to be a consultant, but says he will still be going to school, because the consultant thing is just for a while.

Mom says it means we cats get to keep insurance, because that was the next thing she was going to cut, and she really didn't want to.

And the even better thing is that we got a new toilet today, which doesn't mean much to me except that it came in an awesome box, which I have claimed. Mine, all mine! Well, at least until recycling day, when Mom says I will have to give it up.

Purrs, please, for our family and friends in Norway?

Sissel, my Mom's cousin in Oslo, was at work in the building where the bomb went off last week. Her husband, Vidar, who was parked on the street preparing to pick her up so they could spend the weekend with their son and daughter-in-law, was seriously injured.

Sissel was still in her office when the bomb exploded. Had she been in the elevator or lobby, she, too, would surely have been seriously hurt or even killed.

Norway is a small country, just 14 million people. The loss of so many, especially the young people who were at camp, is a great sorrow for all of its residents. Please be generous with your purrs?

Lovebug tag

1. Meow! Are you a noisy kitty or a quiet kitty?
Very, very quiet. Unless I'm getting a bath. Then I let loose with this sort of strangled meow.

2. Litterbox! Cover your business or let some other kitty cover?
I cover. Sometimes I even cover somebody else's business. And sometimes I get so energetic I rake the litter right out of the box!

3. Happy! Favorite Daily Routine?
I love to grab Mom's bathrobe tie in the morning, yank it off her robe and run down the stairs dragging it behind me. I also like playing soccer with my jingle balls.

4. Hiss! Least Favorite Routine?
Not being allowed outside when the peeps are on the deck. But if I sit and stare at them sadly through the screen for long enough, Mom gets my harness and leash and takes me for a walk.

5. Ding-Dong! What do you think about visitors to your house?
I love visitors! I follow them around and if they don't pay enough attention to me, I roll over on my back and expose my fluffy belly. Nobody can resist that!

6. Friends! Do you like other animals?
I like my fursibs. I don't like any other animals, although I find the chipmunks fascinating to watch and I love to chase and catch mousies.