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Oona, gorgeous and fierce, feral huntress and blanket-stealing freeze baby.

an apple a day

But TWO apples?? zOMG!!

sweet dreams

There's a reason housecats aren't as big as German shepherds.

Phooey.

Why won't anyone play wif me?


My poor, sweet Ronan. He spent the morning trying to start a game of tag with little Fae but she kept rejecting him. Seems he's decided to give up before the growling starts.

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Don't vote for me.

I spent my school years with my nose frequently buried in a book and as a result wore glasses early (& contact lenses too late). I was in honors classes, AP classes, had football players threatening me for my editorials in the school newspaper, never got invited to those "my parents are out of town for the weekend" parties, took my gay friend to the homecoming dance (both years), ate a brown bag lunch almost every single day and even rode the school bus home the last day of senior year. My entire life I've been a dork.

So I suppose I should be thrilled to be considered cool enough to be part of the blogger in-crowd and be lobbying for your vote.

But I'm not and I won't. I realize this is probably intended to be fun, and perhaps I'm being ornery, but I don't like it. I've always believed that one of the most amazing things about the gunblog community is the lack of elitism and the "more pro-2A voices, the better" mentality. Popularity contests can defeat that purpose, especially when even the least well-known blogger can have an impact in the fight for our Second Amendment Rights. And, to be honest, even though I can throw together a seriously enjoyable Gunnie Prom, it doesn't mean I should be crowned queen of anything - I've gained blog fame mostly in spite of myself. If anything I should probably be voted "Most Likely to Blog Exclusively About Nail Polish and Cats, with a Gun Sitting on the Desk Next to Her Laptop."

I suppose I should also say that it's an honor to have been nominated to be one of the bloggers asked to give a company (albeit a very reputable company with an exceedingly clever marketing department and excellent prices on ammo) free advertising.

But, umm...no. Nice try, though.

fuzzballs

The hot new accessory for crazy cat ladies everywhere! (As the owner of six cats, I figure I should be able to make an fortune. Especially this time of year, sheesh.)

Too busy.

No blog.



Interspecies snoozling!

Butt hug

What happens when cat owners go off to work on a Monday morning.



More blog later, gotta go work out.

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Little, big

(click for unpixelated, better view)

Desmond & Fae. Littermates, if you can believe it.

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New toy

Meet Spitty the Mouse.

Before:



After:



Shortly after this photo was taken, Spitty's tail was chewed off. Poor mouse. (good thing Spitty came in a 6-pack)

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TLNC*

Ugh, yesterday was just...ugh. That's about all I can say.

However, I will never again doubt the power of free internet. The usual suspects braved below zero wind chills just to get their fix.

The library was the slowest I've ever seen. In 8 hours, I had 4 reference questions. We're between billing cycles, so I couldn't place an audiobook order and because it's the end of the year and all available storage space is taken, I couldn't weed the fantasy fiction. I was bored. Painfully, tragically bored. And lonely. I would have even been happy to see the creeper who, when he's not ogling my coworker, offers us Hershey's chocolates along with a sly, "How's about a kiss?"

And somewhere in in those hours of backlogged blog reading I saw just what I needed**.

9:20 PM and I was there. Home.


*too long, no cats
** this is my favorite "smiles guaranteed" blog. Enjoy.

Friday feline

There has been a serious and most tragic dearth of kitty photos on this blog of late, so guess what!

Cat butt!!

snuggle up

Cats make excellent thermometers...

(...& bed hogs.)

Summer is well and truly gone.

this wasn't me...

...honest.*

But chances are good that the woman, at one time, might have worked in a public library.

*the article about me would read, "Six cats, a cranky turtle, a few guns, but holy crap, you should have seen the knife collection on her nightstand."

chilly kitties

The first truly brisk night of late summer means finding a fleece blanket to throw on the bed, sleeping in a pile of cats, and someone deciding to make biscuits* on various parts of your anatomy at 3AM. If the vigorous massage doesn't wake you, the rumbly purr sure will.



*that weird paw thing cats do, also known as kneading, treading, making prickle bread (with claws), etc.

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inside joke

Officer Whitebread* has finally made #gunblogger_conspiracy dreams come true...

bredashowercam.com

______________

(*& yes, he really did name her after yours truly.)

bugged

As if suffering through the heat and humidity wasn't bad enough, last night we discovered that we have fleas. All six cats are scratching as if they're possessed, I'm covered in red itchy welts and Mike....well, he has one bite. One. I'm fully expecting plague filled buboes to show up any moment now and he's trying to decide if that tiny red dot on his stomach is itchy enough to qualify. Argh.

And to top it all off, the vet said that since our cats all stay indoors it's likely that I gave them the fleas.

Fae is most assuredly not pleased.

Oscar's new paws

Even the smallest cat is a masterpiece*(...feet or no.)

*Da Vinci

Is this thing on?

(tap tap...Testing 1, 2, 3...)

Today I downloaded an app that lets me blog from my iPhone. It's so much easier to use than having to log in through a browser.

Oh, and look! I can even add photos. Here's Eloise, from a moment ago:


She thinks there should be less blogging & more napping.

Cats have very good ideas sometimes.

- Posted from my iPhone

my distraction

I could spend all day blogging about how horrible the news is, our failure of a president, or guns and shooting but really? I look out the window of my back porch, see this

and it's all over. All I want to do is get outside, get my hands dirty, and feel the sun on my neck. We've got our little garden planted - a few tomatoes (even a delightfully odd heirloom purple), lots of peppers (hot and not), and the usual wide variety of herbs. I put in a few sweet peas, some tomatillos for my salsa, and what I call the great eggplant experiment. I've never attempted to grow them before but the varieties, which produce a black and a white fruit, were called Hansel and Gretel - how could I resist?

We also have a squash type thing growing. Or it could be a cucumber. Or maybe even pumpkin! The seed snuck in from the compost pile and found a happy home in amongst the jalapenos. It's like the mystery grab bag plant - we're excited to see what we get.

I've planted a few flowers, too, just for the pretty.

Check out the planter I made out of a section of old hollow tree trunk. (It's the best kind of clever & lovely - free.)

And just for fun, here's a bonus photo of two naughty boy tabbies surveying their domain from the bay window.
(all photos can be enlarged by clicking on them)