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.)

Thursday 13 -- 13 Good Things about Mosaic Dawg

Next Monday, Mosaic Dawg Leah will be 9 dog years old. We decided to try to find 13 good things to say about her.

The Feline's Digest Condensed Version of how we got her is:
In October of 1998, Mosaic Lady told a friend that she kept thinking of getting a dog to take on her daily Colorado mountain walks, which was very strange because ML is so not a dawg person, really.
On November 5 of 1998 , Leah was born two houses up the street from us.
It was a sad situation and the puppies were living with their mom in a tent in the freezing cold front yard.
When ML would walk by every day, the tiny puppies would get out of the yard and run into the street on the blind curve.
ML did her usual obsessing about their welfare, and early morning, Sunday, January 7, 1999, she dreamed a disturbing dream of the litter.

A few hours later, that same Sunday, January 7, she went to the market and found the puppies being given away for free outside the store.
UH OH, said ML.
She was NOT going to take a puppy, but well...maybe if there was a girl she might just look real fast.
Leah was the only girl dawg in the litter of 8, and she was one of 3 puppies still left.
UH OH.
Leah came home that day.
ML googled "Australian Cattle Dog/Blue Heeler" that night and said UH OH.
What the h e double hockey sticks have I done?
The next year found ML and Leah in puppy school and then practicing practicing at home. A lot.
Leah is not a perfect dog, but she is so much better than ML had any right to hope for, given the dominant personalities and very annoying (potential) behaviors of this breed.

13 Good Things About Mosaic Dawg

1) She does not eat our poop.

2) She does not eat is not supposed to eat our food.
3) We can eat her food. She is not allowed to be food aggressive with us, ever.

4) She does not bite us. She is not allowed to dominate us. If she forgets, Mosaic Lady reminds her who the aggressive and dominant bitch in the house is.

5) She does not chase us. Much. Anymore.

6) She will chase away any intruder cat or dog that comes into our yard.

7) She knows how to break up a cat fight. If ML tells her to go get the fighting cats and bring back the Mosaic one, she knows what that means.

8) She walks every day with Mosaic Lady, off leash. She knows the meaning of: "get out of the street", "wait for me", "stay with me", "cross" and "Leah, NO chasing cats!" when walking.

9) She is not allowed on ML's bed. That is ours.

10) She is not allowed on the couches. Those are ours.

11) We are allowed to sleep on her bed whenever we want. That is ours, too.
Bianca likes to remind her of this occasionally, so she pees on Leah's bed.
Even though Mosaic Lady then uses the "f" adjective in front of Bianca's name, she does not get thrown in the trash.

12) She barks VERY loud at anything or anyone that comes to our house. This is bad because it annoys ML. This is good because ML can sleep feeling protected. She can shower with the doors unlocked. And she can run errands and tell Leah "watch the cats for me" and know that it will get done.

13) We never worry about her running away. Where would she go?? She is pathologically attached to ML. There is a reason Heelers are called Velcro Dawgs. We don't need a fence and she doesn't need a leash. It's nice to have a dog you can trust...
even if she is a super freak.

Thanks to Zoolatry for taking our oldest accessible digi-photo of a young Leah (the first one up top), cleaning it up, and customizing it for us! We'll post the rest next Monday when she's NINE. All of her baby photos are packed away under tons of boxes in a storage room. We'll post a photo of that one day when ML is not here to prevent it.