It has been awhile since we last posted, so here is a summary.  But first, a recent photo of me.  Look at the toe-hawks on my back paws!  Cookie and I are 9 months old now, so my floof is really growing in!

Awhile ago, Mommy was sick as a pig.  A lot of people where she works were sick at that time.  Mommy said that the worst part of pig flu was that it made her really really tired.  On the plus side, I was able to score lots of extra naps with Mommy!

Regular readers of our blog know that Mommy and Daddy volunteer with an animal rescue group called PAWS.  On November 15, The Apostles went to a PAWS adoption event held at PetSmart.  They did not get adopted that day though.

There were lots of cute kitties, including these sweeties, Faith (grey), Hope, Love, and Charity.  Hope, Love, and Charity are all sisters, and Faith is a female from another litter.  Faith and Charity got adopted that day.

As you may know, PetSmart does not mind if you want to go to pick out your food and treats yourself.  Usually, we trust Mommy and Daddy to do that for us.  That day, a pet skunk decided to come to PetSmart to check out the food selections.

In other news, we got to have Real Live Fresh Dead TURKEY on Thanksgiving!

Padre is very fond of Real Live Fresh Dead Turkey.

Cookie and I are also very fond of Real Live Fresh Dead Turkey.  I like it even more than Cookie does.

Meerkat doesn’t really like it.  You can tell by the expression on her face.

Neither does Panda Bear.

Mom thinks that maybe the eye infections that Meerkat and Panda Bear had as kittens affected their sense of smell or taste, since the rest of us nom nom nommed.  As for The Apostles, Matthew, Mark, and Luke liked the RLFDT, but Joann did not.  The Apostles were at boarding school (PetSmart), but came home for Thanksgiving break.

The day after Thanksgiving was a very busy day.  The Apostles went back to boarding school.  Here they are in their dorm room.

Then Padre, Cookie, and I were taken to the V-E-T!  Cookie WILLINGLY climbed into the PTU that was intended for Padre.  And then she refused to come out.  So Mom shoved Padre into the PTU intended for Cookie and me.

That left no PTU for me, as Mom did not want to put me into Padre’s PTU, and the PTU Cookie was in was too small for Cookie and me.  I was thinking that I might have played my cards extremely well, but no such luck.  Mom grabbed me and held me in her lap on the ride to the V-E-T.

When we got there, Mom walked up to the desk to check in, and the girl behind the desk was very complimentary to me!  She said that I was Beautiful!  She asked Mom if she could hold me, and Mom let her.  The girl was very nice to me.  She said that she needed to show me to the Office Manager, or she would get into trouble for not showing her a really cute cat.  So the girl took me back to a very nice lady who held me and cuddled me.  She said that my furs are very soft!  And that the way I let her hold me made her think that I might be part rag doll kitty.  At last, proper treatment for a floofilicious cat like myself!  I was beginning to think the whole V-E-T business was not so bad.

However, Padre was absolutely miserable.  He tried to hide in the back of the PTU.

Cookie explored the exam room, giving it a thorough sniffing, and reported back to Padre and me.

Padre, Cookie, and I each got weighed.  Padre currently weighs 13.0 pounds, Cookie weighs 10.2 pounds, and I weigh 9.2 pounds.

But then!  Oh, the horrors!  Mom asked them to trim my pretty furs!  (Something about litter box issues on a long-haired kitty.)  So they took me to the back and gave me a buzz cut on my derriere.  Oh, the shame.  I am so embarrassed, I can’t believe I am even admitting this to all of you.

Later that same day (Friday, November 27), Luke and Matthew got adopted into two separate families!  And someone else applied to adopt Joann and (possibly) Mark.  I guess because it was “Black Friday” it was a good day to adopt black kittens!

As it eventually turned out, Mark was not adopted by the family that adopted Joann.  Joann went to her furrever home on Sunday November 29.  Luke’s new family calls him “Shadow”.  Matthew’s new family calls him “Neo”.  And Joann’s new name is “Inky”.  But Mark is still Mark.  Or Marko.  Or Marko Polo.  And he still lives with us.  But now he is allowed to mingle with the rest of us instead of having to stay in the foster room.

So Dad cleaned out the foster room.  He removed the food dishes, litter boxes, and toys.  Dad took out the rug-sucking monster, and ran it over the whole room.  While Dad was cleaning, he came across this:

A dead mouse.  Apparently, The Apostles are good mousers!

rooty, binky, and betty, you all were correct. i wanted advice on ways to keep my pesky brother panda bear away from me when i want to enjoy a good catnip bananer, or play with a mousie that i caught, without him butting in.  my girlfriend tammy faye recommended swinging a dead chicken over my head three times.  quasi said that he would help by bringing the dead chicken, but that i would need to bring the rope to swing it with.  victor tabbycat, max, and tybalt agreed that this plan should work. kilroy the love beastie added that putting the bitey on panda bear might help, in case panda bear decides to eat the chicken.

queen snickers expressed an interest in doing her own typing as well. she posed an important question about ways to keep the keyboard keys from sticking:

Very interesting! I trying my own too, but the keys seem to lock up on me. How do you prevent this??

i recommend checking to see if your mommy has installed the evil software “pawsense”.  basically, when installed on a computer, it will sense the different style of typing distinctive to us kitties, and then freeze up. according to the pawsense web site:

PawSense is a software utility that helps protect your computer from cats. It quickly detects and blocks cat typing, and also helps train your cat to stay off the computer keyboard.

if you are using a pc, i recommend that you uninstall the pawsense software. go to the start menu, select “settings”, then “control panel”, then “add or remove programs”. a dialog box will appear. scroll through the list to select pawsense, and then click on the “change/remove” button. all gone!

pawsense is not available for macintosh computers, so if you are using a mac, like i do for most of my blogging, then something else must be the problem.

if pawsense is not the problem, then try shifting your weight from one paw to another more frequently. try holding keys down for not quite as long. let me know how it works for you!

purrrrrrrrss and happy typing!