Tattle Tail Tuesday #4 - Mosaic Lady: Master Gardener

Kitties, for today's Tattle, I thought I would show you around my so-called "yards" and "gardens".
I am certain that you will be very impressed by the diligence with which Mosaic Lady "maintains" them.

Here you see Willie and me enjoying the verdant, terraced gardens, teeming with fresh vegetables and many kinds of bulb flowers.

Here is a better view which shows you the unrelenting commitment that Mosaic Lady has to caring for Walter's Memorial area.
(This makes me glad that I am not her favorite cat.)

I am trying to determine if I can squeeze my wide body between the slats to get off the back deck because I think the leaf pile is big enough to swallow me whole.

I am especially fond of this lush "flower bed" next to the carport.
Martha Stewart, don't hate me because I get to live here!

I am going to enter this "planter" in a national Container Gardening contest.
I am sure to place high, don't you think, Kitties?
(Maybe if they had a category called growing cigarette butts in a planter used as ashtray by previous tenants.)

This is a very good photo that shows you not only the leaves on the front porch by the door, but also the dead bugs and their webs clinging to the house.
I am certain pretty sure that is not a wad of gum on the porch.

Here I am trying to find the stepping stone path that leads from the porch over to the front deck area.
I may be here until summer.

Mira the front "lawn"! Wouldn't this make everycat proud to call their own?
I hope Victor and Bonnie's Mom sees this. Her self-esteem will skyrocket.

Actually, the lawns looked exactly like this last Dec. 3 when the family landed here. Mosaic Lady did nothing at all to them, and come spring, the grass was plentiful and magically leaf-free. (You may recall just how plentiful from previous posts.)
I am confident that ML will put the same amount of effort into the project this spring.

Be careful Mosaic Dawg!!!
You do not want to sprain your knee again upon impact with 8 tons of leafy resistance.

Here we are on the front deck area, atop the "grouting table".
Mosaic Lady clearly takes great pride in the condition of her work station.
I am becoming increasingly depressed.

I decide to survey the forest, determined to find a tree whose leaves are not sitting in my yard.
Yet.

Success!
(Leaf has a flavor!)

Like many things in life, Kitties, my "yards and gardens" are more attractive when viewed from a distance.
And through a dirty window.

Cat Art Sunday ~ Bohemian Violet Rhapsody

Annie gives this wine carafe 5 Head Butts UP!

Biggify to check out the big bird on the front!
It looks a lot like the big bird Mosaic Lady is cooking in the oven right now.
(Yes, we're having our turkey today because we got very jealous after seeing all of yours.)

Except the big bird cooking in our oven is not green.
Yet.

Turkey 13 ~ Annie's Box O' Thanx

Kitties, I have been tagged by the adorables, Maggy & Zoey, for the Thankful Meme.
I'm supposed to fill a box with good things that I treasure.
I DON'T HAVE A BOX, KITTIES!!! (I barely have a tunnel!)

What do we have here? Mosaic Lady is giving me a box that she's had a very long time but has never used for anything but display.
I am not sure that I like this box.

There are intruder cats on this box.
But in the spirit of the day, I shall press on.
(Yao-lin, please don't think less of me.)

1) I am very grateful for the nice woman who fed me for many months outside of her home in the beginning of my life. I am sorry she died.
2) I am very grateful that a generous woman named Evelyn heard about the death and continued to feed me outside there, every day, for another three months.
3) I am so grateful that Evelyn got me my shots and my spay. I had already had one litter and was too small and young to care for them well. Evelyn is a realtor who sells houses just to support her rescue work. She is a very special person. She took me to her home for ten days so I could recover and adjust to being an inside cat. (Ha! Nice try, Evelyn.)

4) I am so thankful that Evelyn asked TAAG (Transylvania Animal Alliance Group) to take me into their system and that they said "YES".
5) I am extra thankful that inside my new box I found a SCARF! Everyone knows how beautiful I look in scarves and this one is very autumnal!

6) I am very grateful for Walter. If not for his untimely and tragic death, Mosaic Lady would never have gotten off of her lazy a$$ and volunteered with TAAG. That is how she learned that I needed a foster home. I was her very first foster and she was "not going to keep me." (Ha! Nice try, ML.)
7) I am very thankful that ML took me into her home on 8/9/07; that Walter taught me how to channel his spirit so perfectly; and that ML then knew she had to adopt me on 9/19/07.


8) I am super thankful for my Fairy Godmother who forced Mosaic Lady to adopt me and promised to be my godmother, making it impossible for ML to come up with any reason why it could not happen.
9) I thank ML every day for letting me be the outside-during-the-day-with-semi-supervision kitty that I was born to be. I thank her by sleeping quietly most of the time I am inside instead of: breaking things; jumping up high on things; eating bad things; getting into things I have no business being in; tormenting the other cats; taking the covers off of the floor registers; swatting Mosaic Dawg's nose. You Kitties know the drill.

10) I suppose I am grateful for Willie, who never feared me; Bianca, who has learned not to fear me; and Mosaic Dawg, who has finally stopped obsessing over me.

11) I am so thankful that I get to eat many kinds of food all day and night, whenever I want them (Leaf has a flavor!). I used to eat only once a day when Evelyn came, and I had to fight for it with other stray cats.
I have my own bowl of Wysong Nurture in the bathroom just for me, and I get to eat canned food in the kitchen with the Mosaic Cats and Dawg twice a day as well.
When I came here I was so little, Mosaic Lady wasn't sure if I would ever grow into my paws.
Kitties, I am happy to tell you, I have now grown out of them.
Widebody Wednesday here I come.

12) I am thankful for thankful for glad that Sadie lives here in my house because after all these months she is still afraid of me and runs from me so I can chase her good. She even hisses at me if I just look at her in the eyes.
Good times, Kitties, GOOD TIMES!

13) I am thankful for all the clever, creative and funny kitties I have met on the innernets.

Well, that is a good start for my box, don't you think?
Later we will have some 9-Lives turkey "food" (we like that better than any of the organic crap ML tries to feed us) and maybe some of her leftover roast chicken from last night.
Of course there will not be turkey cooked here today, Kitties.
Remember -- Mosaic Lady is lazy!
But I'm so grateful that she's MY lazy Mosaic Lady!


HAPPY THANKSGIVING KITTIES AND PERSONS!

I am going to tag a certain black sumo Japanese boy kitty living over in South Korea with a woman I believe to be Mosaic Lady's twin sister from a different mother.

Wordless Wed ~ 3 Reasons Why We Have No Good Fur-niture

Tattle Tail Tuesday #3 ~ The eVillage Idiot

Kitties, as I have circled the Cat Blog Sphere, I have noticed that most all of you enjoy an abundance of toys, tents, tunnels and cubes.
I am impoverished and cruelly deprived in this area.
You may recall we once had a hand-me-down cube for a very brief while. Like two weeks. Smudge, the severely poo-challenged foster kitten, pooped in it four times.
Mosaic Lady got tired of cleaning poo out of it (remember -- she is lazy) and threw it out.

Because I must be playing with something, breaking something, or tormenting somecat (preferably Sadie) every second that I am not asleep, Mosaic Lady has tried to find me self-amusement, independent play toys (remember -- she is lazy.)
And I did enjoy that cube immensely. Even though it was used.
So she finally, FINALLY, got on eBay and ordered me this:

Kitties -- whatthe"f"-word?
She thought it was some sort of cool cube, tent or tunnel!
When it arrived, I had to sniff it out immediately, fearing that Eau De Smudge might be upon it.

It looked very inadequate, un-fun, and LAME to my eyes.
But I pressed on, in the spirit of open-minded willingness, trying to give her a chance.

Yes, it collapsed. Every time I got near it.
Quelle shock!
So the really nice eBay seller man requests feedback from ML and she writes him back that as much as she thinks he is a perfect seller, she hates the tunnel. It has no structural integrity. It collapses. She tells him the strings are my favorite part and she thinks he should not sell this tunnel/cube.
The man is very nice and patient with the eVillage Idiot, sensing she rides on the special bus a lot. He tells her he has sold this tunnel for three years with not one problem, but he graciously asks her to return it, offering to refund the postage and full price. She does so. He writes back:

Hi Laura:

Well I got your item back yesterday. The item you ordered and got is a Tunnel Connector Tee, not a tunnel. It's meant to attach to the tunnel not be a stand alone item. Please take a look at e-bay item # 300172288171. That is the item the one you sent back attaches to. If you want you could order the tunnel and I'll send them both for whatever the shipping charge is on the regular tunnel. It's up to you!

I force ML to write him back immediately and say to him:
I am an idiot!
Twice.
He kindly assures her this is not so, but Kitties, we know better.

So ML goes back to his store and orders me the FOUR FOOT KITTY CAT PLAY TUNNEL that the TUNNEL CONNECTOR TEE attaches to. It is en route.
I will believe it when I see it.

Good Lord, Woman.

Just a few words, Wednesday

Sadie on the rocks, "Pictors for Victor"...






And a HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Victor's very, very young Mom!
You're the BEST!

Tattle Tail Tuesday #2 ~ The Room of Shame

Proudly submitted for your ridicule amusement by Annie

No, I am not searching for Amelia Earhart, although Kitties, she might very well be in this "bedroom" and we would never know.
I am here to bring the shameful light of truth to yet another deviant aspect of Mosaic Lady's daily life.
She is a box hoarder. She's like one of those crazy people you see profiled on Prime Time Live, The Discovery Health Channel, or Dateline: Online Cardboard Predator.

Hey! How did my picture get on that box of Pro Plan?

When Mosaic Lady and the Colorado Furs moved to NC, there was this spare room. ML's weak excuse is that after moving three times in five years, she vowed that when she moved again, the very least she could do for herself was have all her empty boxes handy.

Because she buys all of her mosaic supplies online (and most everything else), the boxes have easily doubled in under a year. You are looking at maybe one quarter of the boxes in this room. They are nearly tumbling out the door.
No. There is no "breaking down" of boxes. That is extra work.
(Remember -- she is lazy.)

Besides being appalling and shameful, this is surely some sort of fire hazard.
Adding injury to insult, she keeps the door closed to prevent me from going in and playing. This is very rude of her. There is nothing I enjoy more than scaling the very back row to see how many towers I can tumble at once.

Asstro-backwards Annie

Did I miss lift off?
Or are we landing today?
All this zero gravity has made me L@@@@@PY!
(Hey! You promised me there would be a fresh litter box in my space suit!)

Tattle Tail Tuesday ~ the first of MANY!

~ Proudly brought to you by Annie

I was pondering this idea before I visited Tybalt's blog, but that cemented it for me. He was mentioning that he did not really relate to the established cat themes for Friday, so decided to launch his own recurring Friday theme.
ME TUESDAY TOO.

Tuesdays are sort of a lag day for us. We don't think our toes or tails are very interesting (well, except for Sadie's one orange toe, I guess), and since Walter is gone, there are no really cute tummies around. (Well, Sadie's is kind of cute in an overly flooffy sort of way, some might say.) We never think of Sadie as a Tabby (I try to not think of her at all except for when I'm chasing her, cornering her, stalking her, and bullying her), so we don't feel very inspired on Tuesdays.

I am decreeing Tuesday Tattle Tail Tuesday. There is so much naughtiness going on around here, someone needs to expose it, so I shall take on that daunting challenge. Plus, tattling is super-inspiring for me. I thrive on negative attention! (All you tattlers out there, join in! Surely Mosaic Lady is not the only scandalous, deviant person with dark secrets that need revealing who is living with cats who blog?)

So here's a spooky thing about ML:
Even as a child she hated Halloween because she loathes having to dress in costume.
It's waaaaay too much pressure to perform, plus she's lazy that way.
But she LOVED the candy, being the obsessive/compulsive overeater sugar junkie she is was.

As an adult, she still hates Halloween because she still hates to dress up. And is still lazy.
And now she hates children.
Especially children in costumes, on her property, pounding on the door, screaming loudly at her.
(Her degree in Child Psychology baffles us, too.)

mmmmmmm...KitKat!

So, every Halloween, she turns the porch lights off and makes us watch tee vee with all the inside lights turned off and the sound down real low.
She has carefully cultivated her "crazy cat lady" image over the years, so her reputation in the 'hood, coupled with the fact that we've been lucky enough to live in very sparsely populated places, pretty much ensure NO KIDS DARE COME THIS WAY.
Ergo: she never buys Halloween candy for Halloween night.

mmmmmmm...Butterfinger!

So, true to form, last week she hit the market on November 1 and came home with 6 bags of $1.25 Halloween markdown crap.

mmmmmm...Snickers!

That 50 pounds by 50th birthday goal is getting more and more elusive, isn't it Mosaic Lady?

Mosaic Dawg is NINE, Monday!

Well, I'm learning
It's peaceful
With a good dog and some trees
Out of touch with the breakdown
Of this century
They're not going to fix it up
Too easy

~Joni Mitchell, Electricity

Say WHAT? Saturday

Dear laura,
Here is your horoscope
for Saturday, November 3:

You're not exactly sure what's really going on in front of you right now, butt the good news is that you've got time to take a closer look. Explore the details and things should start to add up soon.

(No words or letters were harmed or altered in the cutting and pasting of this actual email Asstro Cats Cast.)