Merry Christmas!

Not that we noticed that much of Christmas.
As you know we've had the tree around for a while, so the only difference would have been gifts. Do you hear me, Mom?? GIFTS!
The lady honestly thinks double the "squishies" (that's what she calls the liquid snacks she hides my pill in) make a good Christmas gift. We got even more from the neighbors, a load of stinky soft toys!
On the other hand, they might have been a late apology to me because after all it was them who let den Dekan loose in my place and my life.

Mom on the other hand gives the dog in her virtual advent calendar more snacks than us. You don't believe me? Look here, on the left hand side.
She has been in there more than once a day because she's addicted to one of the games - neglecting us shamelessly of course, don't believe her when she says she only plays when we're asleep - and if it were possible, this dog would be as round as that Santa Christmas bauble in the front now!

Anyhow, I hope you all have a wonderful holiday time, no matter what you are celebrating or not, der Dekan and I send you our very best wishes!

Cats versus Christmas tree - Day 8

Both der Dekan and I are very busy, so I'm just giving you a short update of what has been happening to our Christmas tree.
It's safe to say we both are still having a lot of fun with it.
Mom had neglected her duties of hanging ornaments back yesterday, so she had to dig in corners today. It's her own fault, we told her she should check the tree at least every three to four hours.
We are very good at the hiding game, she should know that by now. Not only did she find pineapple slices strewn about and gnomes sitting here and there, she also found the body of Moose the Fiddler which had not been in that corner the day before! She's welcome, we like to give her the feeling of success every, now and then.
Now she just needs to remember in which of her many safe spots she put his head last year.

She also found something weird looking next to the tree's box. On closer examination, she realized that they were a gnome's arms. She hadn't been aware that the arms were glued on like that - in a very minimalistic way, to put it nicely.
"Armless" still held on in the tree, though, and soon he and his arms were reunited again. Surgery was short and quite simple and as Mom is a genius with glue *wiping tears of laughter from my eyes* Mr. Armless has good chances to keep his arms for longer now as she made sure to use more glue in more spots.
I hope she will be able to do the same for Moose, so he'll be able to play the fiddle for us again soon.

I wonder if she will also find his neighbor eventually.
On the branch next to Mr. Armless, there's only a small red thread left.
Who knows, maybe that gnome decided not to fight with huge cats reminding of Iceland's Yule Cat or Jólakötturinn and jumped off the tree?
Oops, that reminded den Dekan how he had planned to become Jólakötturinn after growing up and he sure has done some growing since Mom wrote about the Yule Cat two years ago!


We also had our own fallen angel. It was done rather cleverly by hiding him in the light arch with the neutral back to the front, but Mom didn't miss it. I think she probably knows us a little too well by now.

We are ready for the next round, I wonder if Mom is, too!

P.S. By the way, I know it's the 7th today, but the tree went up on November 30th, so it's Day 8 of our fun and shenanigans.

Ride, boldly ride to the end of the rainbow .....

Yeah, I wish I could ride to the end of the rainbow ... without Mom singing along, however ... maybe then I would get a moment peace and quiet here!
Okay, it's not that bad. Der Dekan likes to sleep with Mom, on her pillow, in her arm, even on her chest by his own will, and that gives me time to do my own stuff, like sitting on the newish cat tower, sleeping in the office chair or on the armchair, for example. Or to go for a ride.
You know how little brothers are, though. You have something, they want it. The top of the stairs which usually gets us both thrown out of the room because Mom is afraid we are going to end up on her head, the ball you are playing with, the food you are eating while their own plate is still full, I could keep going like that.

Where I'm drawing the line is Liese. The Steiff sheep (that has no name, poor thing) and Liese are mine. I'm the rider here. Of course Mom keeps trying to tell me that all cats loved riding Liese or sleeping on her, but I don't care about "all cats". I'm putting my paw down here. The brat has to learn that there are limits, even for him!
And this time, I prevailed. That'll teach him, don't you think?

"I wanna ride, too!"

"GO away."

"Pfff, I didn't want to ride after all."

Funny how unimpressed Liese is with all of this. I guess she must have seen a lot in her 50-some years on this planet!

Where's Emma?

Shame on me. I still haven't told you about Emma and Johnny. I'll make it short for now and show you pictures another time instead. There are thousands of them.
Emma (Peel) and John(ny) Steed are the "new" kids on the block. Not my block, but Mom's sister's block, and "new" isn't that new anymore.
You remember Mulder, my pal? We lost him about 1 1/2 years ago which was very hard, but of course hardest for his Mom. She said she didn't want another cat, but eventually it happened, anyway. So when our vet heard of some kittens to adopt, she let us know and we went there to have a look. There were four of them babies, just old enough to leave their mother. The first one that crossed our way was a little girl called Emma, with a pattern much like Mulder which sealed her fate quickly. All the others were tabbies, two mackerel, a boy and girl, and a boy in the classic tabby pattern. The last one had won the heart of the teenager of the house, so the decision fell on the mackerel boy who was renamed into Johnny. Mom's sister was very happy although she had forgotten how exhausting it can be around kittens, hehe. Of course they grew up much too fast for her liking.

Johnny really isn't a gentleman like the TV character who inspired his name. He's mischievous, adorable and a thief. He'd steal food whenever he gets the chance. I have absolutely no idea why my Mom thinks it's a good idea to call him Ponder Two under a fake cough! She says he reminds her of me when I was a youngster, always up to something and a bit of an adventurer (did she mean my latest attempt to escape again a few days ago?). Hm.

This is not about Johnny, though. This is about sweet Emma. She's a little beauty, a bit shy, doesn't like much to be picked up and she isn't a lap cat. She loves to sleep under her Mom's blanket on the couch.
And she's a natural at hiding. Can you find her? ;-)

 

My new couch

It's really hard to believe, but it's true. The lady who doesn't like IKEA went to ... you guessed it, IKEA.
She explained to me that she was in a bit of a hurry now to buy a bed couch because she needed it fast and couldn't wait a few weeks to have one delivered. And not only did she order said couch, but she also bought new lamps. Whoa! Where's my Mom and what did you do to her?

We are expecting a visitor from the USA. I don't even know her, I only heard about her. She's the lady who made it possible that we kitties are living here.
Mom always loved cats, but she used to think that all cats needed to go outside or they would fall over and die like her plants. White Dude, the very first cat in the house, changed her mind about that. I think we need to be very grateful for that because without him Esme and I would probably run around in the woods now ... or worse.
If you read Dude's story, you also know about Jenn who introduced him to Mom. And she's coming over to see us. And Mom, I guess.

Mom says that's why she needs the couch, but of course we know it is for us. It's about time, too. Can you believe that we have a cardboard bed with a see through bottom? A not as nice way to say it would be to say it has holes. It's worn down, it's kaputt.
I hope we'll get a new couch every time now that one of our cardboard beds is dead. I like to choose from many comfortable places and scratching spots. The fabric looks great for sharpening our claws although Mom just now claimed that at least Esme's claws are sharp enough to kill a big fish. Just because Esme held on to her knees for a bit, pfff.

Now excuse me while I go and take a nap ... but where? Oh, those choices!

Love

You may remember that I always try to join in the blog carnival of Mom's forum, the Jewelry Artisans Community.
This month's theme is love. What comes to mind first of course is my love to Meffi, my Queen. I still haven't given up hope. Since she's on meds and feeling better again, she is much more patient with me, too. Who knows, maybe one day ...
I decided to dedicate this post to someone else, though. They were the true lovebirds in this house and although it stings a bit, I'll show you a picture of them, Meffi and Merlin who will never be forgotten.

Wanna see what humans have to say about love? Check it out here!

Bead Sophisticate
Jewelry Art by Dawn
Cat's Wire

Coming to an end

The year is coming to an end, not me. Not this blog, either, although you maybe thought so. Gosh, I have been lazy lately. And clingy. Mom says I'm extremely clingy, and she's right. It's probably the weather. It feels good to snuggle up to a human who keeps telling you how good it feels to snuggle up to a cat.
Until she's freaking out, that is. She has that from time, telling us (Greebo is usually on the other side while the girls hang out in a bit of distance) that she can't breathe anymore and that she needs to move. It usually doesn't last long before she's back with us again.

Meffi is so much better now, and she makes the pill giving pretty easy for Mom ... we'll see how long that will last.
She even took up lap sessions which she hadn't done for the longest time, in fact since Mom got her own desk which has been years.
Isn't she a little beauty?

Now that she's gaining weight again, Esme and I have no scruples stealing her food if we think it's better than ours. Or if we were too fast cleaning off our own plate. Or just for the heck of it.
Too bad the paparazza was there ...

A lot of you already know it. We had to say goodbye to our beloved Buster bunny.
It came as a complete surprise and it went fast, too fast. I miss my little buddy and I also know Mom is still very sad. She can't talk about him without tearing up. Her friend Heather (the other half of the HeatherCats) painted a picture after one of Buster's photos. It's just how I imagine him. He's probably snuggling up to Merlin right this second, lying in the grass in the sun.
You won't be forgotten, Buster, that's for sure.

Time flies

"Einszweidrei! im Sauseschritt, läuft die Zeit; wir laufen mit." That's what the German humorist Wilhelm Busch said in 1877, translated that could be "One-two-three, in hasty race, time is running, we keep pace." as I found elsewhere.

These pictures of my sister and me were taken merely eight years (seven years, ten months, two weeks and three days if you want the exact time) ago.
We had invaded the household not long before that and captured hearts immediately. How could we not, just look at us! Are we adorable in this picture or are we ADORABLE? I'm the taller one, by the way. The picture was taken when we were sitting at the second floor window that became one of our favorite spots because pigeons liked to fly close by. When we grew older, we felt they did it on purpose to taunt us. Even though Mom agreed on that, we couldn't convince her to take the cat net off the window. 

These pictures were taken two days ago. We might have changed since then. Just a tiny teensy bit. We both grew, we both gained some weight, but we didn't lose our curiosity. That time we were looking out of the side window on the first floor (the second floor has been lost to us for quite some time now, but that's ok, we could handle that amazingly fast, much to Mom's joy and relief), and it was 5 am. Outside doesn't just look dark because it was obviously dark, but also because the house there is under construction at the moment which means lots of scaffolds, plastic covers and stuff.

 Boy, we sure had some fun in these eight years.

Don't touch!

"Ponder, stop that!" "Greebo, will you please stop?" "Don't you dare destroying my boxes!" "Nooo, it's enough now." "I'm going to sell you, I swear." "What's wrong with you today??" "If you scratch the books in that box, you are going out the window in a second, Mister."
And so on and on and on ....

Why is the crazy lady always yelling at Greebo and me?
"Excuse me, but I'm not yelling at the girls because they don't go after the boxes, they are happy to lie on top." "Yeah, sure, 'cos they are boring. There is stuff in there, interesting stuff. I just know it, it's waiting for me to discover it." "Don't be silly. You know all of that stuff, you have been hanging out in my shelves and cabinets often and long enough." "Not in the nature section, I haven't." "Nature is not even packed up yet. You didn't give the Peanuts books so much as a glance when they were still piled on your cat tower, now you constantly try to get in there and I do not like scratched covers, do you hear me? Do you??" "Nag, nag, nag ... all you can do lately is nag. Yesterday you were all over Meffi and me for some harmless ..." "See, I'm not just yelling at Greebo and you. And some harmless hissing and screeching, not even talking about your banshee act in the empty room??" "Great acoustics, I swear." "We don't do midnight concerts here, Mister Opera Singer. Not if there are people trying to sleep one floor down. Not if I am trying to sleep next door." "WE don't. I do." "No, you don't. And stay away from my glasses. You are crazy. What's the fun in biting my glasses. I'll be lost if these break as well. Wait, is that what you want? Get the human out of the picture? You do know about that opposable thumb thing, don't you?" "You are getting paranoid, lady. Here, let me give you a nose kiss." "Oh man, you always know how to do it, eh? Come here, crazy boy, mmm, you are so nice and soft. Of course you are not plotting against me."

Hehe.
And please don't try to tell me humans are not weird.

CSI: Göppingen

It seemed to be an ordinary day in the little Swabian town. People went to work, came from work, went to sleep or got up, got something to eat and lived their ordinary little lives, more or less.
None of the unsuspecting passers-by could have known what would happen in one of their town's ordinary little streets.

Nothing was ordinary about this crime. It was committed in complete silence. It was committed without scruples by a criminal as cold as ice. Someone who knew his job. Someone who let nothing stop him. He came, he hit, he left.

Shortly after the CSI squad appeared on the scene. Only a very trained observer would have noticed the tiny moment of shock they experience when being confronted with the crime scene.
The case is in the paws of Mr. P. Stibbons now who refused to give us an interview at this point of the investigation.

We only got a short statement from Mr. Stibbons' assistant, Ms. M.Ephista, who told us that the possibility of it being an insider job is not ruled out at the moment.

The Dell box

Mom didn't think this box was interesting at all, flat and boring as it is, but what do humans know?
Often when she is sitting at the computer now, she hears a noise and with all the packed boxes around that Greebo so likes to use as scratching posts, her instinct kicks in and she yells "Stop it!!" Then she turns around and apologizes to whatever cat just took its seat in the "boring" box.

Usually it's Esme. She loves that thing, can you tell?
She can hold hands with her wooden buddy and tell him about her day, maybe her wishes and dreams and how much the food has been sucking again in this house lately (don't let her sweet little belly distract you from the fact that she's very much malnourished, starving, neglected and has to work so much around here).
I can imagine her saying "You are so lucky, my friend. You don't need food. You don't need snuggles and love at 3 in the morning. It's not easy for a kitty like me."

And sometimes, if I have been really good to her, she lets me sit in there, too. (Yeah, so I AM an attention whore and have problems to blog without including a picture of my gorgeousness! Deal with it!)

2012

Weird things have been happening in Pondertown, I already told you about some of them. Big changes are lying ahead of us.

I should have known, there have been strange signs. I'm not an augur, I don't read the innards of small critters - mostly because Mom won't let me visit the gerbils (even if I was allowed to supervise the cage cleaning today) eye to innards - but seriously, in all of my seven years on Earth this is something I haven't seen before.
Not that it lasted for long, but long enough for Mom to grab her camera and save the memory for future generations.

Meffi and Greebo underneath the desk, side by side, furs touching. I think I'll better surf the internet for some good spaceship offers now!!

The tiger(s) and the panther

Right at this moment a tiger girl is sleeping under Dad's desk. It's amazing, suddenly Meffi is hanging out up here all the time. Of course that means Esme lost one of her favorite sleeping spots, but she prefers the bed much more these days anyway.
It also means I get growled at a lot more often, but that's a side effect I gladly accept if it means my goddess is near me. I keep staring at her because I still can't believe it.

Last night she refreshed her acquaintance with her big friend, Mr. Big Tiger.

I'll tell you something. Panthers shouldn't interfere when tigers have a chat. Can you tell by Meffi's look?

"Maybe the laser eyes do the trick. Don't mess with me, Esme, or you'll regret it."

My sister doesn't give up that easily. It's a family trait. We call it perseverance, Mom calls it annoying.
No one tries to mess with Meffi for long, though. Usually she is the one with a tail fluffed up to look bigger than her whole tiny body, roaring like a fiend from the underworld, chasing us.
Esme gave in. Naturally.

(Mom says that Meffi wasn't growling, but biting Mr. Big Tiger's whiskers She also told me that she is tired of us molesting the poor guy and that she can't understand why we are all so obsessed with those whiskers. Well, she's only human, poor creature. How could she understand?)

Memories

Yesterday we had a blood bath here. No worries, everyone is ok. It was an accident. During a little fight Meffi's ear was punctured. Mom has her experiences with that from when she took blood from Merlin's ear to check his blood sugar. That was a blood bath as well sometimes.
Only she didn't know this time it was the ear because Meffi shook her head all over the place which means there were spots of blood everywhere (including the wallpaper and the Steiff lamb's leg, oops).
Meffi got some of the infamous herbal cream put on her ear and things were ok again.

This inspired Mom to pull up some of the old pictures to show us how much friendlier we used to be with each other. It's true, those cuddly times have gone. Not that we don't snuggle anymore, but not as long as we used to. She still thinks it was Merlin's good influence and she's probably right.
Wanna see what she's talking about?

Merlin, Greebo and me - are we adorable or what?

Merlin and  Greebo

Merlin cleaning me

Esme and me - much younger then (can you believe we'll be 7 this year??)

Greebo and me

Gandalf and Greebo

And of course the lovebirds Merlin and Meffi

This was before Esme and I came along (a long time ago, just look at that video cassette on the floor!) when Mom had her first incredibly expensive and pretty lousy digital camera

Of course there are more pictures, but you know how it is when old people tell their stories "When I was young, I had to walk to school in 4 feet of snow, barefoot, 15 miles only on a piece of bread for the whole day" ... we just walked off and let her ramble ;-)

Special edition

Big things have been happening in this house. Not once, not twice, but three times and at the moment I don't see an end to it yet. That actually makes me very happy because the big thing is that Meffi started coming back upstairs for longer than 45 seconds!
Therefore this post is dedicated to her which is a good thing as you hardly ever get to see pictures of her. Mom had a lot more snapshots, but with many hmms and pooohs and oh mys she finally cut it down to the ones I'm showing you now.

It's amazingly funny how a human can freak out about a cat making her way upstairs. "My camera! My camera!" Did she think I would fetch it for her? There is this opposable thumb issue, you know.
Of course I kept my cool. Against general belief in this house I did not stare with an open mouth. I did not try to get near that gorgeous tigress and give up in a pathetic way dropping on the floor and rolling around because I didn't know what else to do when she wouldn't let me. I observed, calm and collected as always and only had a slightly condescending smile for Greebo who followed her in disbelief when she did her rounds.

A good spot to see who's coming upstairs

The window sills downstairs are nicer

I can see you, but you can't see me, hehe.

Those shawls are new and I wasn't even asked to help picking them!

Beware the Shadow of the Tigress!

Editing a picture of Dad holding Esme, very interesting. She might have to pay for that.

What's that up there? Cat painting? Why do they need fake cats, they got me!

The boss of the house! (More like a seriously confused Ponder, believe me, he was too funny - Mom)

For those who wondered about Esme taking over Dad's lap - here she is