Introducing Cha-Ching, the Tasmanian Devil Kitty

Let me introduce the newest (and last according to Mommy and Daddy) member of our feline family: Cha-Ching, the Tasmanian Devil Kitty. He's a lovely little Seal Point Siamese from the Orecatay Cattery. His dad is Orecatay Tigger and his mom is Raz2Taz Ming Jiao of Orecatay. He was born only three days after the furballs on February 25, 2007, but he's much smaller than the furballs. We're sure that he won't be for long though! He's taken over the furballs' nursery where he promptly hid under the desk then discovered hidey hole in the cat tree that grandpa made and refuses to come out.


The furballs so far are not terribly impressed. Chewie hissed at Mommy when she picked Chewie up after coming out of the nursery. I've tried to tell them it's no use not to bond with the meezer; it's here to stay. After all, I discovered that about the furballs!

Mommy reported that Cha-Ching does not like the PTU and cried for much of the ride home and displayed a temper and destructive streak to rival a Tasmanian Devil trying to escape from the PTU.

Daddy had the pleasure of naming this kitten (he also named each of the Furballs). He chose Cha-Ching because Mommy sucked lots and lots of greenpapers out of his wallet to pay the V-E-T today and the cattery. Mommy let him have the name since he's finally agreed that she can get a stroller if she wants one. To which I say, he he, cha-ching Daddy, more greenpapers are leaving your wallet!

Secret Paws

We interrupt our usual posting of Friday's Feast for a special post about Secret Paws.

Smoke: What does it say Chewie?

Chewie: I can't read, but it smells interesting.

Furballs: Open it Mommy!

Mommy: It's your Secret Paw surprises from the Tyson Crew. They don't have a blog but we have an e-mail address to tell them thank you.

Chewie: Smoke get your head out of the way!

Smoke: But I smell 'nip! Ooooh and packing peanuts! Fun!

Daddy: No Smoke!

Mommy: Give it here Smoke. (takes packing peanut away and sets out packages)

Smoke: Hey, give me that one Chewie.

Gandalf: I want one!

Smoke: What to do you have there Chewie?

Smoke: Whoohoo! I think there's 'nip in here! Open it Mommy!

Smoke: It's a 'nip mousie. Grrrrrrrrr...

Gandalf: Gimme that!

Smoke: No way!

Mommy: Neither of you will have it if you can't share.

Smoke: Share? Share? I can't share.

Mommy: Then you don't get any.

Smoke: What? Okay I'll share (until you leave the room).

Smoke: See Mommy! We're sharing the feather ball!

Mommy: Sharing requires that one of the other kitties gets to touch it too.

Smoke: Hmpf.

Zoey: Forget the toys. Open the Temptations! Thank you Tyson Crew furry much for our wonderful Secret Paws surprise!

Mommy: Excellent manners Zoey. Also Tara, I mailed off your gift for winning the 50th post "contest" today. You should get it it in a couple of days. Jessica, thank you so much for the kitty notes. They are adorable!

Thursday Thirteen #6

Some of you already know this, but for those that haven't heard yet: Mommy and Daddy are off to visit a meezer kitten this weekend and see about bringing it home. Now, some of us think they are crazy, but overall beans and kitties have been very supportive. Given the event, I thought the furballs and I would list the thirteen reasons why Mommy is getting a meezer:

1. None of us are "talkers." The furballs disagree with this one and claim to be talkers, but I've heard them. They don't hardly say a peep except for when Mommy is dishing up food, they are stalking a fly, they have control of the infamous ratty pink boa (and then it's more growl than talk) or they have gotten "lost" in another room and need to find where everyone is.
2. Daddy can't say "no" to her (except, strangely enough, about getting a stroller).
3. There's still two square inches of space left on the bed at night.
4. There are still some things left on the shelves that haven't been knocked over and/or broken.
5. The people who make Science Diet, Temptations and Fancy Feast need her to single-handedly keep them in business.
6. There is still at least one night each week that she doesn't wake up to the sound of yaking, crying or fighting.
7. She is still able to navigate the stairs even though we have tried everything in our power to be underfoot when she goes down them.
8. There's still one finger left to count with when she tries to keep track of us when we get to venture outside.
9. She's having a mid-life crisis and is trying to relive her youth when she had a meezer named Bogie.
10. Daddy got a raise at work and Mommy needs to spend the extra money before he realizes that he could get something.
11. Daddy wanted to name something "cha-ching" and we all had names.
12. The V-E-T needs a vacation home and someone has to pay for it.
13. Mommy and Daddy still have room in their heart to love another kitty.

Wordless Wednesday

Sunday Drive

Mommy and Daddy went for a drive this Sunday and left us at home. They went to find out about renting a boat for when my auntie Kim and her boys Bernie and Ailin come visit later this summer. After looking at pontoon boats they can rent on the big lake, they drove up to where Daddy will be doing some armed hiking later this year (he calls it "hunting"). They brought me back these pictures.

This is the view from the road to the mountains:

This is the mountain that Daddy will be "hiking" in:

This is about the only thing that's likely to be shot:

Mommy learned that rhododendrens grow wild in the mountains:

Sorry Daisy, they didn't find any lizards, but they did find a frog. Can you research that? (Daddy has really good eyes to have spotted this one)

The demise of the boa....

As we reported last week, on Thursday we got a brand new pink Barbie boa attached to a gold wand.By that night, we had ripped the boa off the wand. After four days of tug-o-war and keep away, a lot of growling and carrying on that looked like this:

Our feather boa now looks like this:

Good thing that I saw that Mommy has a back up in the top of the hall closet.

As for the meezer, Daddy's already talking like it's here. Mommy's going to call the rescue shelter and tell them that they should call when they have one available. Sigh.

Have Mommy and Daddy gone crazy????

I heard Mommy asking Daddy today about whether they should adopt another furball! I thought for sure that Daddy would tell her no, but he didn't. Okay so maybe it was wishful thinking that Daddy would say no to her; he so rarely does. But have they gone crazy??? Here I was finally getting used to these three annoying furballs and they're talking about whether or not to adopt a meezer kitten. Mommy only had seal point meezers when she was little and she meant to get a meezer when she got me and my brother McKenzie instead. She was going to get a meezer a few months ago, but ending up fostering then keeping the furballs. Now they've been talking about whether they are insane to add another furball. Well, YES!!!! Mommy says that it isn't that the furballs aren't great because they are (I'm glad someone thinks so), but she keeps thinking about a meezer. I think she's crazy; what do you all think?

Friday's Feast #149

Appetizer - Name a funny habit you have.

Zoey: I only like to drink water from places that Mommy doesn't want me to, like the floating candle bowl and the pond.

Mommy:

Soup - If you could instantly know how to play a musical instrument, which one would you pick?

Zoey: Piano. I've played one at Grandma and Grandpa's but no one liked my playing.

Mommy: Ditto.

Salad - How long is your hair?

Zoey: My furs are medium length but there's a lot less of them today after being petted with my Zoom Groom yesterday.

Mommy: Slightly longer than shoulder length.

Main Course - When was the last time you forgave someone, and who was it?

Zoey: I'm working on forgive the beans for adopting the furballs. I'm not quite there yet though.

Mommy: Wow, this is a hard one. I can't think of it anything, which either means that I don't forgive people or don't think anyone's done anything to me that rises to the level of needing forgiveness. Oh now I know, I forgave the idiots at the Rose Garden for taking my group's money for a skybox at Women of Faith and then telling us it wasn't guaranteed. Of course, I only forgave them after they confirmed that we would in fact be getting a skybox (two demand e-mails later). That was last month.

Dessert - What is your favorite kitchen appliance?

Zoey: The can opener. It's a throwback to the days where my food required a can opener to open.

Mommy: My Kitchenaid because I joke that Daddy only married me to get his hands on it.

Mommy told me that she mailed off the secret paw pack (and a special thing for DaisyMae Maus too) today. Yea! This is lots of fun!

Thursday Thirteen #5

We are some very spooooiiillllleeeddd kitties. Mommy's been collecting stuff to send our Summer Secret Paws, but we're the ones that made out like bandits (no, the picture yesterday was not a package from our Summer Secret Paws but rather was a lovely cat pillow from DaisyMae Maus). Everytime Mommy goes to look at stuff we want to send off, she finds "a little something" for us. So here are thirteen new things we got while Mommy was shopping for our Summer Secret Paws (no, the picture yesterday was not our Secret Paws surprise, but rather was a lovely cat pillow from DMM):

1. A catnip carrot

2. Two fluffy soft balls

3. Two catnip mice

4. Five catnip puffs

5. Three bottles of worm medicine (okay so we didn't so much care about this one)

6. A round track with a flashy lighted ball in it

7. An orange collar for Smoke since Tony Stewart's car colors are orange and black

8. A plastic mousie that dispenses catnip

9. A Zoom Groom

10. Beef Temptations (of course and thank you DMM for the coupons)

11. Delibites (a kitty treat)

12. Pounce meaty morsels treats

13. A pink Barbie feather boa wand!

I highly recommend the pink Barbie feather boa wand. Mommy found it at PetSmart and the furballs go ape over it. Mommy has video but she couldn't figure out how to upload it. Maybe someday she'll get stuff like videos and auto-linkies figured out.

Also as mentioned yesterday, here is the press release on Tuesday's sentencing. Phyllis got 51 months as was agreed in the plea agreement and has been ordered to pay over $13 million in restitution. Mommy's just okay about it. It wasn't the satisfying event that she thought it would be. In fact, it was rather sad (pitiful sad, not crying sad she says). She has another sentencing tomorrow in a much smaller case and she hopes that will go well too.

Wordless Wednesday

(Press release to come tomorrow....)

Happy 90th Birthday

We want to wish a very special "happy birthday" to uncle Don. He is our mommy's mommy's uncle so that makes him great, great; we think he's many greats anyway. Mommy looked but didn't have any pictures of him at all on her computer. She says they didn't have digital cameras for most of his life. What???? No pictures for every cute look? How sad. Anyhow, Mommy and Daddy are going to his birthday party tomorrow and very proud that they were invited to spend this special time with him.

Mommy says that it's going to be a very busy week so I might not get to blog much. Tomorrow she gets to go watch Phyllis be sentenced down in Eugene at the federal courthouse. She worked with a bunch of people from a lot of federal agencies with three letter names to put together a case against her and are continuing to work on it because Phyllis' husband, Michael, is going to trial in November. Anyhow, the sentencing is a big deal for her because she needs to believe in justice again and thinks this may help. So if I'm not perusing your blogs as much or posting, be patient. I'll be back as soon as Mommy gets her groove back.

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day! Since I already feature Daddy for my Thursday Thirteen, I thought I would focus on my parents' daddies. Mommy was trying to find the picture where her daddy and daddy's daddy were rubbing each other's bare heads and laughing about their similar hairstyles, but she doesn't have that picture in her computer and she couldn't find any other pictures with just the two dads together. So I'm left with a picture of her dad and the furballs. He didn't feel good that day so the furballs curled up with him and took a nap. I have to admit that they can be sweet at times (just not often). So anyhow, to all the fathers out there, we hope you had a fantastic day.

I'll be back to visiting blogs tomorrow. Mommy had a bad headache yesterday and slept all day. Daddy's wouldn't blog with me (although he let me look at the comments to our blog). Today Mommy felt great, but she and Daddy spent the day with mommy's parents and auntie Michele, who says that Perla is a "wholy terror." Now, Perla never had wholes when she lived with us so I'm guessing something must have happened since she left us, but I guess that's a story for another day.

Now that things are almost back to normal, Mommy says there's only a load of laundry left and she wants to run the loud machine that sucks up all our fur still, but then she'll have so time to take my dictation again and help me visit all my friends.

Our first birthday without McKenzie

Friday's Feast #148

This week I again asked Mommy to share in the answers with me.

Appetizer - Fill in the blank: The best thing about where I live is ________________.
Zoey: Mommy and Daddy.
Mommy: All our immediate family is close by.

Soup - Create a new name for a deodorant (like “Flower Fresh” or “Shower Scent”).
Zoey: Catnip clean
Mommy: Spring shower

Salad - What was the last piece of software you installed onto your computer?
Zoey: What?
Mommy: Photoshop Elements.

Main Course - If you were to receive a superlative award today beginning with the words ”Most likely to…”, what would the rest of the phrase say?
Zoey: Smack a furball
Mommy: Smack opposing counsel

Dessert - What two colors do you like to wear together?
Zoey: Black and white of course.
Mommy: Black and red.

Thursday Thirteen #4

In honor of Father's Day this weekend, we decided to devote this Thursday Thirteen to our Daddy and list thirteen reasons why we love Daddy:

1. All: He pets us.

2. the furballs: He doesn't step on us as much as Mommy does.

Zoey: Purrsonally, neither of them step on me. I think it's your fault if you get stepped on. You shouldn't be so annoying as to run under their feet.

3. Zoey: He cooks good food.

the furballs: Food? There's something to eat other than stinky goodness and crunchies? We're missing out!

4. the furballs: He lets us out of our room.

Zoey: Hey! I don't like that. I like the fact that they lock you up during the day when they aren't here. Come to think of it, I think they should keep you locked up all the time.

5. Zoey: He fills my food bowl when he gets home from work so I can have a snack before the furballs invade.

6. the furballs: He lets us go outside in the backyard.

Zoey: Ha! I can go outside anytime I want!

7. Zoey: He's better at giving me my sub-q fluids.

8. All: He plays the red dot game with us more than Mommy.

9. Zoey: He didn't get mad when I peed in his truck on the way to the v-e-t.

10. Gandalf: He hinted to Mommy that they should keep me instead of having another family take me away from my brother and sister.

11. All: He's good to cuddle with.

12. All: He keeps Mommy sane.

13. All and Mommy: He loves us very much!

Wordless Wednesday

Okay so not so wordless...

First, thank you furry much DaisyMae Maus for the kyoooot kitty pillow. We had lots of fun opening the package today and had a blast taking turns sniffing it.

Second, concatulations to Tara, Princess Meezer. She was the first person to comment on our 50th post. (Can you believe it's been 50 already?) Anyhow, Mommy will be sending her a little something. I hope that by our 100th post I will have whipped Mommy into shape so we can do a more structured contest, but what can you expect from a bean, right?

New toys

Mommy says she's very tired tonight and I can't have the computer for more than a couple of minutes. She was muttering under her breath about CC&Rs, Daddy's boat and finishing the fence the previous owners never finished. Anyhow, they got home really late with some wood stuffs, but more importantly a bag from the pet place! I got more bags of beef Temptations (but Mommy was muttering under her breath about having to go to multiple stores and still only getting two bags and how that's only going to last a few days at the rate that I eat them, what do I care, that's her problem) and some new toys. Sure enough, the furballs confiscated my new toys so I didn't get to see more than a glipse of a little mousie, a plastic mousie that smelled like it might have nip and the prize, a new nip carrot with fevers. Stupid furballs. Just wait until they aren't looking, I'll snag myself the nip carrot, but I'm smart enough to stay out their bunny-kicking, kitty pouncing way in the meantime.

Goodbye Sweet Suzanne

We are furry sad to hear of Suzanne's trip to the Rainbow Bridge. Please stop by and purr for her Mommy and brofur Ben2 as they grieve over her passing.

In honor of Suzanne we are including Mommy's favorite passage from the Bible.

"The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever. Psalm 23

Also, I want to pass along an update on my uncle Jason. We learned today that he had another seizure this morning and is experience weakness in his left leg. He had shooting pains in his legs today and the vicodin is not helping the pain. We pray that this is merely just a bad day.

Weekend Wrap-up

Well it's been a busy weekend here. On Friday, Mommy took a quick (over 10 hour round trip) trip to Gray's Harbor to get some records for work and check out one of the projects involved in one of her cases. She said that she must have been stuck in traffic caused by every car accident there was and was very tired of the talk radio people talking about Paris Hilton. Auntie Kim called to she that she and the boys may be coming up from Texas at Thanksgiving as well as in August. Mommy hopes that she doesn't have to work during the November trip, but unless her schedule changes, she'll be getting ready for trial that week. After talking to Kim, she stopped by the glass shop and bought the glass for the new project (except one part of it that she doesn't know what color she wants to use).

The picture above is the stack of glass that she's going to use. She was very tired by the time she got back and didn't want to do anything but let me read kitty blogs and sleep.

Then on Saturday, she prepped her workspace and began working on the project. She had already taken the pattern to the copier store and enlarged it to the size she wanted and made extra copies to use as patterns for cutting. Plus she had already taped the pages together and covered them in clear shelf paper. Here's the pattern all ready to go tacked on her work board. Because Mommy can't find any glass that she likes for the border, she decided to throw out the usual start in one corner and work her way up method, and chose to start in the middle and work her way out. The furballs dropped by to snoopervise her work at one point. They were more interested in playing with her push pins, glass nuggets and other things they were supposed to stay out of so they were banished to Parker's to keep her company. Mommy worked on her glass a lot this weekend. She said she had to get it in gear because she bought Daddy three new video games on Wednesday to keep him occupied while she worked on glass so she wouldn't feel guilty for abandoning him and he's already completed one entire game!

By Saturday night, she had finished cutting out, grinding and fitting all the pieces of the kitty. She made it look just like me by combining certain pieces, cutting some pieces differently so I would have my white gloves and socks, changing the colors and even put in a little pink piece to match the one on my bottom lip. I know that the detail doesn't really show up on this picture, but it actually does look quite a bit like me. Mommy said that it was a lot of fun and there were only a couple of pieces that were tricky, like my pink lip because it was soooo small, the dark green shadowed grass because the curve was too deep to break properly and had to be done by grinding and the small grass piece because it was so thin that it didn't want to break properly. She has to find another piece of glass because she didn't have anything that matched my ears. Hopefully she'll be able to find some at the glass store or get some online if the store doesn't have it.

On Sunday she did some coloring with her ink pens so she wouldn't have to look back at the pattern book to be able to tell which piece was supposed to be what color. The blue and green above the sunflowers is coloring, as is the yellow on the sunflower on the right. All the rest is cut glass. The yellow coloring is to remind Mommy that she's supposed to use the "other" yellow to be the backside of the petals. Mommy said that the brown sunflower center was difficult because of all the little nooks and crannies where the petals meet the center. Mommy finished not quite 95 pieces of glass this weekend and hopes to be able to finish the rest of the cutting in the next week and a half, so she'll have a lot of time for wrapping the glass in the special tape and soldering. She wanted to get more done today but she's going to have to take a break for a while because her fingers hurt. These pictures don't really do a good job of showing all the little cuts and scratches she gets working on her glass. Fortunately they heal really quickly and she should be able to get back to work tomorrow or the next day. The furballs napped with Daddy most of the day while he watched cars go left when it wasn't raining. I got my sub-q fluids and lots of treats today. Then Daddy mowed the lawn and had a "safety break" (aka beer) with the neighbor, Skip. All in all, a very good weekend!

Photo Hunters #2 - Shoes

I was perplexed by the subject of today's photo hunters: shoes. As you probably figured, I'm not to fond of wearing the things. But for the sake of photo hunters, I decided I wanted to have pictures taken of me trying on some of Mommy's shoes. She said that she's too busy to do that and I would have to use this picture of one the furballs playing in Daddy's sandals that she took several weeks ago. Hrppp. I knew that this stained glass project was not going to be a good thing for me. However, for those who are interested, she went with the popular vote, so she's doing the kitty to look like me and will post pictures of her progress in posts to come. In the meantime, please enjoy the furball in the sandal, I'll be pouting in the living room.

Friday's Feast #147

I have asked Mommy to answer these with me today.

Appetizer - What do you consider to be the ultimate snack food?

Zoey: At the risk of repeating myself, beef Temptations.

Mommy: Peanut M&Ms

Soup - On a scale of 1 to 10 (with 10 as highest), about how popular is your last name?
Zoey: What's a last name? Is that the word that Mommy tags on when she's yelling at me for doing something wrong?

Mommy: Probably about a 9.

Salad - Who is your all-time favorite sitcom character, and why?

Zoey: Is Itchy the mouse or is that Scratchy? Whichever one is the mouse, that's the one I choose. He looks delicious, I mean, devious.

Mommy: Fonzie. Who doesn't love the Fonz!?! Plus, we had a cat named after him when I was young. He was good cat and let me dress him in baby clothes and carry him around in a baby carrier. Now that's love.

Main Course - Do you shop online? If so, name some sites you like to browse for goodies.

Zoey: Does a cat purr? Amazon.com, Ebay, Petco, Petsmart

Mommy: Absolutely. 1-800petmeds, Petco, Petsmart... holy cow, I don't have a life.

Dessert - Fill in the blank: I think ___________ should be ___________.

Zoey: Mommy says the sentence cannot contain the words "beef" and "Temptations." Geez, that ruined what I was going to say, so now I have to start over. I think my bowl should be full of bee.... (sigh) ... I think every meal should be bee... (heavy sigh) I think I should be able to eat be... geez, I think this question should be easier to answer than this.

Mommy: I think the world should be over Paris Hilton. (Eight hours of being trapped in a car listening to talk radio where she's the main subject will do that to a person. Isn't there something else of importance going on in the world?)

Princess Mia

I am so furry pleased to report that Princess Mia featured me as her Female Feline Friday. I am very honored that she has done so. Princess Mia and my feline Mommy were both left behind by mean beans. It's a sad thing to have in common, but the good thing is that they were both rescued by good beans and have gone on to have wonderful lives. So thank you Princess Mia for doing the cat world a great honor by featuring wonderful felines for us to meet every week.

I would also like to thank the Meezers for alerting me to this great honor.

Thursday Thirteen #3

Celeste tagged me for a meme (thank you Celeste!), so I thought I would combine it with my Thursday Thirteen.

The rules: Each player starts with seven random facts about himself. Cats who are tagged need to write on their own blog about the seven things and the rules. You need to choose seven cats to tag and list their names. Don’t forget to leave them a comment/pawmail that they have been tagged and to read your blog.

I thought I would make it a little more challenging by making each fact contain at least one word in common with the previous fact. So, here's my thirteen "random" facts:

1. I am recovering from acute renal failure (ARF).

2. Because I have ARF, I'm supposed to eat KD diet.

3. I don't like KD diet so I will only eat beef Temptations.

4. Mommy saves money on my beef Temptations using coupons from my cousin DaisyMae Maus (thank you DaisyMae).

5. I look like DaisyMae Maus.

6. I do not look like my brother McKenzie.

7. McKenzie would act like he only tolerated me but he really loved me (especially when Mommy went away on vacation and left us alone with the housesitter).

8. I still act like I really only tolerate the furballs.

9. The furballs, particularly Gandalf, like to jump on me when they play.

10. I like to play with my Whirly-bird.

11. My Whirly-bird has seen better days.

12. I have been spoiled all the days of my life.

13. I'm very happy that I get to spend my life with Mommy and Daddy.

Okay so I had to stretch in some places, but that was fun. I think pretty much everyone has been tagged for the meme. If you haven't and you want to play, I tag you!

When will my beans learn?

I don't understand beans. I've told them for weeks on end I only want Temptations. Don't give me the KD diet kibbles or stinky goodness. I don't want the stinky goodness that you feed the Furballs either. Don't bother to cook me chicken, salmon, beef or turkey. I'm not going to eat it. I only want beef Temptations. Why don't they understand this? It's all I eat when they put down stuff; haven't they noticed? What's it going to take?

Dona Nobis Pacem

What's your favorite?

Mommy has the opportunity to enter a piece of her stained glass in a show at a gallery not too far from our home. It has to be a certain size, so she went through her books and stuff tonight and picked out two patterns that she can make fit the size requirements (and didn't have a copyright warning about reproduction) and that she thinks she can get done by the middle of July. She isn't sure which one she should do, so I thought I would take her dilemma to the cats for some sage advice. She says the fishies are less pieces and may be faster to do, but she can make some changes to the pattern for the kitty to make it look like me! I've included both the pattern and the drawings of colors that they suggest (although Mommy never pays much attention to their color choices). So leave me a comment as to which one you think Mommy should do.