Wordless Wednesday - Katrina Cats

Tummy Tuesday - Couch Potato Walter

This is a scan of a color copy of a 35mm photo.
It is one of Mosaic Lady's top ten favorite shots of Walter. Maybe top 20.
Nearly every photo of Walter was tops.

Our hearts continue to be with Karl and the Staff, especially when they speak of learning to live with the Void left behind by the loss of Anastasia. It's been over three months since Walter left us, and the Void is as big, black, deep and painful as ever.

While all cats are forever remembered, some cats are forever painfully missed.

(PS: We apologize to our friends, Tyler, Miss Peach and Kellie. They were all kind enough to tag us for the catnip meme, but we are not nipheads. Only Walter was. That fact, coupled with the recent sadness over Anastasia, made it too sad of a meme for us to play with. We know you understand, and we thank you for that.)

Time to come home now, Baby Girl

Formerly Feral now Foster Friday!

Guest Blogger: ANNIE, Mini House Panther

Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeey Kitteeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees!!
We all knew it was only a matter of days before I seized the blog. YAY ME!
And lookey here...I am Kat's Cat of the Day today! Foster Friday. It's ME.
Thanks Kat! (and thanks to the nice lady who called me Mini House Panther!)

So much good news!
First: the Dawg has finally stopped fixating on me and stalking my every move.
She is a pain in the a$$.

Second: Mosaic Lady and the Prez of TAAG talked today and because ML is hopelessly attached to me (who didn't see that coming, huh?) she can't bear to take me to Pet Smart adoption days on Saturday. She can't drop me off and then have me adopted by STRANGERS, nor can she inconspicuously hover for 5 hours, giving every possible adopter the evil mosaic eye of "you are not worthy" scrutiny. So it was decided that I will continue to live here and explore purrfect forever home finding in "alternative ways". (That's delusional human speak for buying time. Or, delaying the inevitable.)

Really -- ML would like to find me the purrfect forever home. But she wants to control it. I'm sorry..."remain involved".
Plus, she's hoping a few more weeks of terrorizing her cats will get it all out of my system and I will play nice with others in my next home. HA HA HA HA.

Seriously -- here I am sharing Willie's couch with him. (Bianca is living under her couch again. Bianca HATES me. HA HA HA HA.) Last night ML woke up to find me AND Willie sleeping at the foot of her bed. Unfortunately, her disbelief was so strong that she had to turn on the light to see it. We both dispersed, and when Willie tried to resume our amicable repose, I spat and hissed at him, chasing him out of MY bedroom. ML had to carry Willie back in and place him on the bed, reminding him that he belongs here too.
HA HA HA HA.

Here is a very blurry photo PROVING that I am making progress with Sadie. We are sharing HER table!
But that was yesterday. Today I spent the whole afternoon thunderstorm stalking her. See that corner next to the printer? I had her backed into it until ML rescued her. YAY ME.

And then I spent some quality time in the mosaic studio helping Mosaic Lady make a new wine carafe. Hey! If you like gardens and bunnies, pinks and greens... you need to see her latest one HERE.

See Faz snoopervising from a safe distance? Even he and I get along now!
From a safe distance.

Please don't let my honest confessions scare you away from adopting me!
I am confident and affectionate around all humans and Leah the Dawg; I eat ANYTHING and I eat a LOT; I am impeccably groomed and fastidious in my litter box habits; I come when called (and even when not called); I have the BEST reflexes and eye-paw coordination ML has ever seen in a four-legged! She calls me Air Annie when we play catch.

Other kitties are just hard for me right now. I don't trust them yet. I spent my entire life (all 9 months of it) outside around other cats where we only got fed once a day and I had to fight for every bite. And then I had babies when I was still a baby myself! It's a wonder I weighed even 5.5 pounds. Now that I am learning to share territory, and can eat good food at any time of day or night, I am learning how to relax and trust.
And I am finally growing into my paws!
I am going to be a gorgeous and sleek Mini House Panther!
(And a well-adjusted one. Even if it's the last thing Mosaic Lady does.
And it may be.)

Wordless Wednesday - Sadie's NOMSNSS Friend

Not of My Species Nor Sentient

Our newest piece of Cat Art Sunday

Looky who was hangin' out on our back deck with us!
(It only looks like the grass is as high as the benches. Really.)

Mosaic Lady put Faz in her mosaic studio to keep her company while she works.
And also to keep Faz away from Annie the INTRUDER.
Annie plays like a kitten, and she bunny kicks like none of us ever did.

The introductions were a little rocky.

Mosaic Lady loved the Faz Cat when she first saw it on Monty Q.'s blog, but now that Annie is around, she loves it even more because of the black panther face!
But she is not going to let Annie play with it.
It is ART -- not a toy.
Really.

Saturday Sadie's Middle Name Meme

Oh gosh...that sweet Victor Tabbycat just tagged me for this meme and it's SO timely! I read his request for more photos of ME recently, so I made Mosaic Lady do a very extensive photo shoot of ME out on the back deck yesterday afternoon. I was thinking of Victor with each pose. I was also purring and making my air muffins with each snap of the shutter. HOT STUFF. SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSssssssssss.

OK, so most of you kitties know this one by now, but just so no one thinks me a non-conformist (which I am, but I don't want you to think that of me just yet), here's the deal: (scroll scroll scroll to the GOOD PARTS! ME!)

(EDIT after Publish: HA! I tried to cut and paste the four rules from Pixie's post and it got all fuxxed up.
Forget it. You guys all know the blurb by now.
Onto ME...)

I'm pretty sure my middle name must be BADIE. (NOT Baddy! Rhymes with Sadie, Sillies!) Here is why I believe Mosaic Lady calls me Sadie Badie so often:

Beautiful Tummy Floof (well, actually, beautiful All Over Floof.)

An orange toe!

Darling ('nuff said.)

Independent, self-sufficient, low-maintenance -- yet loving.
If ML would leave me alone, I'd spend all my life in my yards with the snakes and bunnies and lizards and birds.
(Do not talk to me about the unkempt and overgrown chav yards. I am not the CFO of the family.)

Enjoying the attentions and affections of darling Victor Tabbycat, even though Bonnie opposes it.

BITE ME, BONNIE!

er, I mean...

TALK TO THE ORANGE TOE, BONNIE!

(I think it's best to start alienating your future sister-in-law as soon as possible, don't you? Boundaries are so important in families.)

I'm going to tag a very good looking new blogger cat (don't be threatened, Victor. Remember what the I stands for!) named Sebastian. He is a Coon Cat from Maine, born in the UK, who now lives in Hong Kong with some very exotic family members. He is very big, and very floofy! And he looks like he has good boundaries, too, ah hem, BONNIE!

Bianca's Special Gift

Do you all remember two short weeks ago when we celebrated MY 15th birthday? Mosaic Lady claimed to be thoughtful and deliberate when it came to adding new fur to our family.
She lies.
Just like the INTRUDER, foster orphan Annie, lies.
All over MY couch...

All over Sadie's consultation table...

and all over OUR bed.

So you can understand how very excited I was this week to receive a beautiful piece of mail, JUST FOR ME. Even though it was addressed to Mosaic Lady, I knew it was FOR ME because she doesn't know anyone in Washington state. I do!

Chanel #5!
I knew it was from Miss Peach!

Inside there was the most beautiful and colorful handmade card with a lovely personal note from Miss Peach, a poem, a photo of her, and a little blue pouch. I got so excited that I grabbed the pouch by a string and immediately starting batting it around. I thought the pouch was the gift! And then I read Miss Peach's note and looked inside the pouch.

A necklace! In my favorite colors, with a lime green kitty charm on the end. ALL FOR ME!
This is the very first present I've received in the mail in our new NC home and it is so special. I will never turn 15 again, either, so more special. I think that Miss Peach is the most generous and kind and loving cat in the whole blog sphere, don't you? She has billions of friends (of all species and countries of origin) and somehow seems to find the time to do generous and gracious things for all of them. Every day! When does she sleep??


Daisy, I might wear my new necklace on my left ear.
Is this gauche?

So after all the trauma around here the last week with the INTRUDER foster cat, this just brightened up my whole week, having something this special and this unique made by my very good new friend, Miss Peach.

And most special of all... it was made JUST FOR ME!

Willie Wednesday

I had a special request for more photo sharing of ME from a certain Divine Boolicious One, so here are some photos of me around my house. My favorite place to hang out is on the front porch, just outside the door, with or without the dawg next to me.

Here I am relaxing on the hot tub. Mosaic Lady doesn't use it. Something about UTIs. But I love to lay on it and survey my front yard. I'm quite stately, don't you think?

Must inspect the shower pipe next to the hot tub. We don't use this either but it's important to mark it good anyway because it is OURS.

Here I am in my back deck area. There is more nice yard back there. Lots of trees, forest land and bunnies. We were all three of us today in the back watching Mosaic Lady sweat like a pig while she grouted two new pieces. Deadlines are good for her. The black INTRUDER, little orphan Annie, wanted to come out back with the rest of us so badly, but ML doesn't think fosters should have outside privileges. If we were to keep her (ACK! DID I JUST SAY THAT OUT LOUD????), then she might get to start going outside. For now, she punishes Mosaic Lady by taking off the heat registers. I'm hoping she'll "fall in" soon.

More photos of ME soon!
And thanks for asking ;-)

My orange toe - by Sadie

See my one orange toe in the back on the left? It is hard to capture its full orangeness with a camera. It looks a bit buff in these photos, but it's orange!

Mosaic Lady has bugged me about it since I was tiny. It was very orange then. "Where's your orange foot, Sadie?" "I'm gonna get your orange foot, Sadie." Someone get that woman another ginger so she will leave my left foot alone.

Here you can see how truly uniquely orange it is in comparison to my other three feet. It matches my tummy floof, huh? (I am not fat. The camera adds 10 pounds of floof to my belly, especially when I'm on my side.)

Here is a nice shot of it with the afternoon sun streaming onto it.
I like this corner of the front deck a lot. It's shady and cool.
I am pensive and contemplative.
And trim.

Here is my new special friend. I think he is dreaming about my orange toe in the sunset.
Do you recognize him?

Critter Art Sunday

Mosaic Lady is full of malaise and ennui today (those must be new Temptations flavors) and wasn't even gonna do her Sunday art show but we are making her. It will put some life energy back into her. Plus, our dear friend Miss Peach already posted hers, so how can we not join in? You must go see the amazing watercolor that Michico did of her Adan and Miss Peach. What a gifted artist!

These are scans of photos of paintings from the mid-90s by Santa Fe artist, Anne Embree.

Aren't the bear and bunny darling and wonderfully rich in color?

When ML was working in an art gallery on Cannery Row in Monterey back in 1995, dreaming of getting out of CA and the gallery itself, she came across a profile of Anne in Southwest Art magazine. The images in the article, along with a very sweet photo of Anne and her dawg, Daisy, captivated ML. She wrote to Anne and once she moved to New Mexico, she visited Anne's Santa Fe home studio and bought a painting. That was a very exciting day because she got to choose from among many completed canvasses. How to pick just one? Back then, Anne's work was fairly uniform in terms of the animals she painted and the composition. And the canvasses were massive and very commanding! ML had to decide which specific grouping of critters she liked best, and in what color combos. This was another favorite!



We don't have a photo of our painting to show you (and of course we are too full of M & E to shoot one, or to even measure the dimensions to tell you how huge it is, framed all in gold), but ours has the same yellow cat as this one below does. It also has a darling blue bunny, two birds, a fish, and a huge green elk (or deer) in the center of the image. The colors in ours are very rich, bright and deep. That's why ML chose it, along with the big cat and cute bunny, of course.


Anne's style has changed since then, as you can see on her web site. She's done some really cool mixed medium paintings. When she's feeling more social and chipper, Mosaic Lady will get back in touch with her. Today all she wants to do is lie on the bed and watch Dreamboat Annie groom herself. She's exceptionally fastidious for an outdoor stray!

Keep creating, gifted cats!

WCB - Foster Friday!

LOOKIT what we got! A lodger in the spare bedroom!

Mosaic Lady calls her Dreamboat Annie.
Whatever.
We call her competition for the couches, and let us tell you, she had no hesitancy about claiming our places next to the ML and the computer last night and she's in there sleeping on OUR bed right now! For a cat who's lived outside for most of her short life, she sure adjusted quickly to the softer surfaces in life.



How many toys do you see in this photo? EXACTLY. And there are 6 more not showing!
Do you know that's more than we've accumulated in 15+ years? She got all those in one afternoon.
Mosaic Lady says she wishes any one of us were half as well adjusted as her precious Annie. We say let's see about Annie's disposition after she lives with Mosaic Lady for 15+ years.
Mosaic Lady already gave her the stinky runs from feeding her stuff she's not used to.

The dawg is obsessed with her, of course. The ACD has a lot of OCD fixations, cats being one of the biggies.
We've heard Annie mumble under her breath "that dawg is dancing on my last nerve here!"
We feel her pain.


Here's Mosaic Lady's Petfinder blurb for the recsue group's site:

Annie is a dreamboat cat! She is curious, confident, responsive and affectionate, but also relaxed and laid back. She was being fed as an outdoor stray by a lady who recently passed away. A very nice lady trapped her and brought her to her foster home. Annie is very petite, only 5.5 pounds, and is approximately one year old. She is jet black with turquoise green eyes. She's had at least one litter of kittens, but is now spayed and current on all of her shots. Annie is comfortable around friendly dogs and is learning to warm up to other cats. She loves to be held, to play, and will follow you around the house to be close to you. Her sweet disposition and happy temperament, despite her rough start in life, make her a great fit for many different kinds of loving, forever homes. To learn more about Dreamboat Annie, call Laura...

We don't see her trying very hard to learn to warm up to us! HISS HISS HISS.
And we are all three cutting her a very wide berth. Sadie is terrified, Bianca is pissed and Willie is being quite an indifferent gentleman. (He's got love in bloom on his mind.)

ML is taking her to Pet Smart by the Asheville airport tomorrow for their weekly adoption day. The rescue group she hooked up with has no shelter but relies on foster homes and a few decent cubicles for cats who live at Pet Smart all week. We're glad Annie doesn't have to do that. We guess. (But if you know anyone who collects black cats in Western NC, please think of Annie!)

Mosaic Lady has wanted to do this for over a decade but only last May when Walter died did she really decide to stop thinking about it and just DO IT. Walter would be 11 tomorrow if he were still here, so it sort of all makes sense, in her mystical mind, anyway.

All sentiments aside --
NO FOSTER CATS GETTING THEIR OWN BLOGS!
We already know we're gonna be asked to share this one with them.
Whatever.


Sunday update: Annie had stiff competition at Pet Smart yesterday from NINE adorable kittens that shared her roll away, four-cage cube. Mosaic Lady says she advocated her rear off for the little girl (HA! As if.), and hovered pretty much the whole time, loving on the other cats in the permanent cubicles. Annie was back, sleeping on our bed again last night. ML and the dawg were happy to have her back. We don't share their joy. Here is Annie's link on Petfinder.com.
Can you help expedite the removal of her little black body from our couches and our bed? Her new trick o' the day is removing the metal covers off of the holes in the floor where the hot and cold airs blow. Sadie's pretty close to shoving her down the hole next time. That would be some Sunday night excitement!

This is an appropriate post for Weekend Cat Blogging, courageously hosted by Sher at What Did You Eat.
Their family lost their darling Sundance to FIP last Friday. He, and his sister Dexter, who also died from the disease, came to Sher and Upsie's house as foster kittens but ended up finding their loving forever homes there. Please stop over and extend your heart to these very sweet friends of all blogging cats.

T13 - It's all about YOU

Call us intensity junkies if you must, but we like to be MOVED.
Moved to tears --
moved to gasp in awe --
moved to pants-wetting laughter!

We're addicted to brilliant cats, funny cats, creative cats, deep cats, philosopher cats, kind cats, snarky cats and nasty cats. Sometimes, the lucky cats, are all of those rolled into four paws!
We like RANGE. In cats, and in persons.

We are new kids on the blog block and have been MOVED by so many of your photos since we arrived. We were too lazy to grab the date-specific links to each photo, but we think they have all been posted after our blog launch date of July 13. (How is it possible it's not even been a month? We feel like we've blogged for all our lives!)

We're cheating and posting 14. There was just no way we were willing to leave out any one of these. Impossible. Sit back and enjoy some of our favorites so far. We are confident that they are some of yours, too!


Luxor

The Blog of a Big Man Cat

Kellie the Orange Cat

Marie the Defender

Miss Peach's Meowz

The Ballicus Blog

The Cat Realm

Our life by Eric and Flynn

Daisy the Curly Cat

What a Good Cat

We Three, Ginger Cats Tales

The Meezer Mirror

Beezer Song

The Blog of a Big Man Cat, #2

We broke our No Duplicate Images From the Same Blog rule for this one. Sophie's VARY FIRST FASHUN SHOW FRIDAY!!! How could we NOT, kitties?

And because we could never, ever, single out just one photo from Skeezix's portfolio, (the exercise alone would turn Mosaic Lady into a slobbering idiot. Or a bigger slobbering idiot), we can say that this archived T13 post of Skeez's is probably the funniest thing we've read so far in the Cat Blog Sphere. And you get to see more great photos of YOU in his post! It totally made us want to be cats who blog!