It’s Me, Padre, Elder StatesCat of The Furry Bambinos!

Five years ago today, Mom and Dad adopted me (Padre), and siblings Panda Bear and Meerkat from this great place!

All three of us are Rescues!  We were rescued by the Northeast Ohio animal rescue group PAWS (Public Animal Rescue Society).  We are very grateful to have a safe, loving, and forever home now! Special Thanks to Diana (my Foster Mom), and Eileen (Panda Bear and Meerkat’s Foster Mom)!

This is me on Adoption Day, sniffing the couch:

This is Meerkat on Adoption Day, sniffing the bed:

This is Panda Bear, sniffing a glass of water, on October 23, 2007:

This is all three of us together, at dinner time, on October 27, 2007:

Purrs!

Padre

Pee. Ess.  I would appreciate if you could spare a few purrs for me. On Saturday I got shoved into the PTU and hauled off to the Emergency V-E-T. (All because of a little tocks problem.) I am home now, and being kept separated from the other Furry Bambinos. I am lonely, and have been yodeling my displeasure. I may need to visit the regular V-E-T today.

Panda Bear here, to tell you about a Wonderful Box.

Mom and Dad brought The Wonderful Box home one Friday night back in Feburrrrrary. They put it on the floor in the dining room, but did not open it! We wanted to know what The Box was like.

So we just had to sniff the outside of The Box. And sit on The Box. That’s Cookie sitting on The Box.

Finally, Mom and Dad opend The Box on Saturday, and took all the stuff out. Which gave us the chance to thoroughly examine The Box.

Before I was done checking out The Box, Padre joined me inside. The Box was big enough for both of us!

Padre is giving The Box a Thorough Sniffing.

I am Trapped in a Box of Tremendous Size!

Just hanging out in My Box.

Happy International Box Day Efurryone!

Pee. Ess.  Can you guess what was in The Wonderful Box? We’ll tell you about it next time!

So that means I am 9 years old today!

To celebrate, Mom ordered us some primo Valerian Root. Thanks to the Katnip Lounge kittehs for the recommendation! Panda Bear and Cookie were the first Bambinos on the scene when Mom opened the box.

Mom thought we would like the Valerian Root because she heard that Valerian Root smells like “stinky feet”. And, ahem, a few of us Bambinos are connoisseurs of The Stinky Foot Smell.

Caramel (aka Ms. Floooooofs) also really enjoys a good whiff of Mommy’s Old Stinky Slippers. Floofs’ toehawks are visible in this photo.

Meerkat took one whiff of the Valerian Root, and look what happened:

The same thing happened when Sunny took one whiff:

And Sky got Sky High after rolling in the Valerian Root that Mom sprinkled on the carpet.

When I sniffed the Valerian Root, I was not impressed. Mom, you woke me up for this?

Then Sunny and Panda Bear really became feisty after a few more whiffs of the Root.

They settled their differences in true ManCat style.

Mom and Dad made up for the lousy birthday present by giving me some REAL Food for Breakfast today. They opened a can of Albacore Tuna and gave me lots of tuna and tuna juice!

All right, I shared the tuna with the rest of the Bambinos. Sky also really loved the Albacore Tuna!

You are most welcome to teleport over here to try out the Valerian Root for yourself! If you don’t like the Root either, we also have some Primo Nip! Oh, and Mom’s Stinky Slippers, too.

Purrs,

Padre, aka Earth Day Birthday Boy

Pee. Ess. We haven’t been blogging much these past few months for a variety of lame excuses. Late last year, Mom’s compooter started slowing down to the point of the ridiculous. So she uninstalled some software which kept it limping along for a few more months. Finally, it was so bad that she broke down and bought a new compooter. And you know what that means kittehs – it takes humans FOREVER to set up their new compooter and install all the software and files needed for blogging. We hope that Mom is now back in proper blogging form. We have really missed you and can’t wait to start getting caught up reading all your bloggies!

After so many chatty posts about Mama Rose and her babies, I thought I would let the photos tell more of the story this time. The little brown tabby is Woody, and the orinch tabby in the litter box is Rusty. Sky (grey tabby) and Marigold (calico) are pictured later.

Sniff sniff …

“Hey, what are you doing back there?”

“I’m not quite done yet …”

“Do you mind?! I’d like some privacy!”

“Thank Bast, he left me alone!”

“He’s back …” Sigh … scratch scratch scratch …

Sniff sniff … scratch scratch scratch …

Sniff sniff …

Woody: “What would Rusty do without me?”

“Sky, cut it out!!!  Don’t you start in on me too!”

Yeah, brothers can be really annoying! Next time, Panda Bear is going to tell you about getting to meet the bebbehs in purrson!

the flowers are bloomifying, and it’s warm enough to have windows and screen door open so we can sniff the fresh air!

just last week on thursday, it snowed! but then last friday was sunny and warm, so most of the snow meltified …

… except where there was too much shade, like along the tall fence.

but now, all the snow is gone, and it has been so warm that we actually set new records for the high temperature! it was 82 degrees F on thursday, and 86 degrees F on friday.

these temperatures are more typical of august, not april. normal highs here for this time of year are in the low 50’s, and it can snow here in april, like it did a few years ago on easter weekend.

to celebrate, here are some photos of spring from our garden. crocuses are one of the first things to bloom, so Mom loves them, which is why she plants so many.

these are yellow crocuses:

lavender crocuses:

white crocuses:

purple crocuses:

Mom says the best thing about living where the winters are so harsh is really appreciating spring! Mom is glad that we live where we can plant bulbs in the fall. when she plants them, she says “good night until spring” to the bulbs as she puts them into the ground.

mom and dad call this flower bed daffodil hill. (it’s not really a hill, just a raised flower bed.) it’s a reference to the famous Daffodil Hill in Lake View Cemetery.

more daffodils:

these are called blue hyacinths:

these are white hyacinths. Mom says they have the strongest scent of the different colors of hyacinths, which is why she likes the white ones.

* * *

it also seems appropriate to mention that our friend Monty from Monty Graycat Ponders Out Loud gave us this fabulous award: The Sunshine Award! Thank You Monty!  we are so humbled!

the rules for this award are: to accept this award you must pass it on to 12 other recipients and post their blog links along with the award and of course send a comment to them telling them how they have brought SUNSHINE to you.  we thought we would give it to six bloggers, in order to leave some others out there eligible to receive it.

1) It’s All Good

2) Fin

3) Tristan & Crikey

4) Cat Sitter in the City

5) Darling Millie

6) Momo

* * *

In other news, Cookie is entered into Misha’s Kitty Fight Club! She is competing on April 22! Please visit Misha’s blog to read more about it!  And please consider voting for Cookie!

1.  Cold.

2.  Snow.

So, here at Casa Furry Bambino, that means two other things.

a)  I, Panda Bear, try to get outside to frolic in the snow.

b)  Mom and Dad try to keep me from getting outside and frolicking in the snow.

In order to get outside to frolic in the snow, I attempt to seize every opportunity I can.  This involves pretending to be all “Hi Welcome Home from Wherever You People Go Now Outta My Way I Want Out The Front Door”.  This method results in success only rarely.  Mom and Dad are on to me.  They do this elaborate dance when they come in the front door that should qualify them to be on the next iteration of River Dance.

The other opportunity is once daily when Mom or Dad opens the back door to feed the squirrels and birdies.

By the way, we haven’t seen chipmunks in awhile.  Does anyone know, do chipmunks hibernate?  Do they have time shares in Florida?  Be right back.

OK, I asked my good friend Google who is a real know it all.  Chipmunks DO hibernate! But I digress.

As I was saying, so I get this great opportunity to make my move when Mom or Dad has the back door open to toss peanuts and seed to the outdoor critters.  Cookie thought about it today, too.

So tdoay, after several minutes of plotting, I made my move.

Woo-hoo!!!  Outside!  I’m Outside!!!

Yeah, so OK, the snow is cold on my feet.  But I’m Outside!!!

I had a great time digging in the snow!

I enjoyed the sights, smells, and textures while exploring this morning.  Check out these wicked cool icicles hanging from the roof and power lines.

But for some reason, Mom grabbed me and hauled me back inside when I walked past the door on my way to the back yard.

Oh, well, there’s always tomorrow!

we all had a lot of fun, and perhaps a few of us overdid the partying.  not mentioning any names, but their initials are Padre.  he wound up completely trashed, as evidenced by this photo.  some cats just can’t hold their nip!

although i personally could not care less about about the apostles living upstairs behind the closed door, i know that many of you wanted to meet them, so we had sniffing opportunities for you.  the apostles even got into the party spirit.  that’s Joann with her itteh bitteh mouth open, and that’s Mark with the boa draped over him.  (Mom says this photo of Joann reminds her of the “Frances” the bear children’s stories by Russell and Lillian Hoban.  she says if you never read them as a kid, they are wonderful. go to the library or bookstore immediately.)

Matthew had fun batting the lamp cord around.

Luke had fun playing with a toy mouse, practicing his hunting skills …

… then napped in Mommy’s lap.

Panda Bear got all mellow and showed us his belly furs while resting on his Gizzy quilt.

that’s probably because he enjoyed a few of these first.  he says it was only water …

Cookie likes to climb the dining room chairs when playing.  Daddy calls her Teenage Mutant Ninja Cookie when she gets like this.  you can see the flame mark on her forehead very clearly in this photo.

caramel tried to play hide and seek, but she seemed to misunderstand the hide part.  kittens!  by the way, check out the floof on her tail!  she is becoming floofier every day.

and i had a great time playing with the trackball toy.  i just love it!

thanks again to all of you for stopping by and for the well wishes!

i’m supposed to tell you to check back soon, as dad is working on some movies of the bebbeh kittehs!

Daisy the Curly Cat agrees with us that this is very mysterious!

Our friends at Jan’s Funny Farm, Joanne, Jane, Jill, Johnny, Jay Boy, Jasmine and Capu from Singapore, Parker, Zoey, Ernie, and Wally (AKA The Island Cats), and Charlemagne and Tamar, all suggested that there might be another Furry Bambino in there.  Gasp!  How could Mommy and Daddy do that to us?

Our friend Tammy Faye (whose Mom is one of our kitty sitters), suggested that Mom might just be in there trying to get some work done.  Without us there to help!  Egad!

Our friends Yaffa, Sebastian, and Dante wondered if there might be a woofie in there.  Oh my goodness!

Our friend Poppy Q thinks that there may be more fosters in there!

And our friends Lizzie, Caitie, and Nicky (AKA The Good Cats) suggested that we use our other senses, such as sniffing and listening, to try to learn more.

Well, I can definitely make out a scent that is a mixture of feline, litter, and food.

Look what Panda Bear sniffed out:

He found it in the food pantry next to our bags of crunchies:

Cookie says she heard “ba-ddump ba-ddump ba-ddump” coming from the room.  Meerkat says she heard mewing coming from the room.

Padre saw these on the kitchen counter:

Kittehs, what do all these clues tell us?

By the way, I am supposed to mention that Padre, Panda Bear, and Meerkat will be celebrating their Gotchaversary on Thursday, October 22!  Stop by on Thursday for a party!

i guess there was an “adoptathon” at the local petsmart.  so mommy and daddy agreed to help out, because they volunteer with paws.  paws is the animal rescue group that saved us furry bambinos, and helped us find our furrever home.  paws was one of the organizations at the event.

here is some of the photographics evidence: exhibit a: mommy cuddling a tuxie kitty!

and this is a tiny baby kitten that a nice man found in his back yard, in the dark, in the rain.  the kitty somehow got separated from his mommy.  mommy said that the kitten was only about two weeks old. gail, another paws volunteer, is holding the tiny baby kitten.

so the nice man went to petsmart to get “kmr”, which is kitten milk replacer.  kmr is a powder that you mix up with warm water and bottle feed to tiny baby kitties.

so here is exhibit b: mommy helping gail bottle feed the tiny baby kitty. that’s mommy’s left hand holding the tiny baby kitten’s chin to the bottle.

this is a close up of the tiny baby kitty.

this is a “pile o’ kittens”. can you tell how many there are?

and here is photographic evidence of the sniffologic evidence i hinted at.  when mommy and daddy came home that afternoon, they were COVERED IN OTHER KITTIES’ FUR and they SMELLED OF OTHER KITTIES!!!

sigh, those kitties sure are cute, though.  and i really hope that they find their furrever homes soon!  i just hope that mommy and daddy don’t have any ideas of replacing us!

In the meantime, we have a new source of entertainment here: The DeLuxe Bird Feeder Station.  Mom and Dad bought it at the local Wild Birds Unlimited store. The real name of the bird feeder is the WBU Advanced Pole System. It’s really cool, and keeps us entertained for hours.  The right side has a regular feeder for tasty regular birds. On top is a nifty house that the squirrels have pretty much claimed as theirs. Check it out:

The left side has a special feeder for tasty yellow birds like this one. Mom says the bird is a Gold Finch.

And now that it is warm here in Northeast O-Hi-o, windows have been left open for our sniffing pleasure!  Here is a photo of all of us Bambinos sniffing a squirrel:

In other news, I have a confession to make.  I LOVE Mommy’s shoes and slippers!!  It’s a little embarrassing, but I just can’t help it, I LOVE to cuddle with her shoes and slippers.

Well, that’s all the Bambino News for now!