New Year's Resolutions

Gone with the Christmas tree and twinkle lights, in with the treadmills and diet books for New Year's resolutions. As other people begin their meticulous ritual of weight charting and calorie counting, I'm setting a few resolutions myself. The relevant ones are to learn how to snap better shots, and to keep updating on a steady schedule.

But I'm not the only one with New Year's resolutions! I think my cats have a few things to say about the matter.

I've been thinking about this past year and there's some things I'd like to accomplish in the next year.

First, I'm going to recalibrate my whiskers. I am NOT just clumsy...

Second, I'm not going to be afraid of Momma's rats anymore! H- hey, I'm bigger than they are!

Third, this catnip. You guys, this catnip!!

I am a cat.

Therefore, this question is irrelevant. Cats do not make New Year's resolutions.

Anything I want to do, I've already done. Because I am a cat, and cats do what they want.

I suppose if I were to humor this question, I would say... No. I refuse to humor this question. Now fill my food bowl!

Ooh! Resolution time?! I've got so many things I want to do!

• Groom more! YOU CAN NEVER GROOM ENOUGH.
• MOMMA'S RATS. I will get them. I SEE YOU MOVING, RATS!
• I'm going to kick Malcolm's butt and if he thinks he's getting this spot back, he's got another thing coming!
• The outside. I am GOING to get outside. Momma can't say no. I'll just have to be sneaky...
•  I STILL SEE YOU, RATS.

That's all for today! Have a happy and safe New Year's, y'all!

(Including my rats: Natalie, you can NOT have my rats!)

Merry Christmas!

It's been a couple of days and I've been busy working the holiday shifts. I wanted to wish y'all a Merry Christmas, and so did the Dastardly Kitties!

Yeah, yeah, Merry Chr-- what's this smell?

Oh. Hello. Yes, I am cat! Merry Christmas!

Right. I'm headed back upstairs. Merry People In My House-mas. Hmph.

Well, they did it in their own way. Happy Holidays!

The Water Bowl Routine

Sometimes, the water bowl will go empty. We might be at work, or they might've had a lot to drink while we were sleeping.

Natalie and I have a special routine for filling the water bowl back up. It begins with me noticing that she's curled up in her water bowl again.

"Look, mama," she says, "it's soo dry, I'm willing to lay in it!"

So I grab a large cup and fill it with water. She gets excited for a moment, comes to investigate what I'm doing, but then she goes right back in the water bowl. That's when I pour the water in the bowl.

She'll sit there for a second and then jump out, shake off, and groom herself. I rinse out the water bowl, fill it back up with clean water, and the routine is complete.

It started out as a complete joke one day, because she wouldn't budge from the bowl. I thought, "Are you seriously going to sit there and let me pour water on you?" Turns out, the cat that howls like she's dying if we ever have to give her a bath, is also willing to sit in a bowl while I pour water into it. Go figure.

I think she's come to accept getting wet as a necessary sacrifice to fill the bowl back up. And since I find it hilarious, I let her think that. It's been our special routine ever since.

New Video: First Snow

Not an impressive snowfall by the time the sun came up but they still had fun investigating! It made for an excellent first video of many to come.

Felix, of course, was as dignified as ever. "I don't know what the fuss is," he mused, sniffing the doorway with a dignified air. Malcolm wasn't sure what to make of it, but Natalie was so excited she just wanted to be outside.

YESYES I get to be outside again!!

Until she discovered that this fluffy white stuff made her paws wet.

I-- Oh dear, this isn't nice at all!

At which point she had to go back inside and clean her paws off from this highly offensive sneaky-water.

It didn't look wet at all, I do NOT appreciate this!

But all in all, the cats found it very enjoyable. Even Felix. I think.

That's all I've got for now. Hope you enjoyed the video!

Lovely Weather for a Sleigh Ride Together

OH MY GOD IT'S COMING.

SNOW.

NOOOoooo! First snowfall of the season! Our gorgeous blue skies gave way to clouds and rain and now there's going to be sticky white stuff making an adventure onto the porch unthinkable (and the roads treacherous for the furless folk).

I have to admit, while I'm going to be crapping myself trying not to find myself wrapped around a pole this winter (new driver, go easy on me), I'm going to have lots of... fun... with the cats.

Oh, calm your whiskers. Like I can be bothered by this nonsense.

It may or may not stay around until morning. It's supposed to snow more, but who knows if it'll stick. I don't know if I'll have any pictures or videos until a more solid snow storm... So enjoy a couple pictures from last year!

I was similarly disinterested last year.

I blend in with the snow, I blend in with the rail. I am now... camouflage cat!

Hi. I'm 5 months old and what is this funny stuff on the ground?

I'm Back!

I finally picked myself up a decent camera, so I'm back in the kitty blogging business. With decent pictures to do my cats justice, and maybe some good-quality video of kitty shenanigans.

Ahhem, no, I did not spend 500-some-odd dollars just to put my cats on the internet, thank you very much. But that is a very nice bonus.

I last posted about the new kitty on the block, Natalie. Let me introduce her to you:

I'm Natalie. This is my chair, Malcolm.

This is Miss "I sits where I wants to" Natalie. When she isn't busy grooming, sitting on other cats, sitting in her water bowl, or flouncing about looking highly offended, you can often find her curled up in someone's lap. True to her beautiful looks, Natalie is a princess and loves to be pet. And then there's her BFF, Malcolm.

I'm chair. I mean, Malcolm.

Malcolm's three years old now, but that doesn't stop him from being an excitable kitty who loves a good chase. In the year that Natalie's been with the furry family, they've grown incredibly close. They're cuddle buddies, grooming pals, and sparring partners. You usually can't find one without the other.

I'm trying to get some good video together of the two in action. It's been great to see how she's grown, and see how they've grown together over the past year.

That's about all I have for this update. I only just got this camera, so I'll have more for y'all soon. For now, I'll leave you with Malcolm and Natalie in their favorite spot: sitting on each other at the top of the cat tree.

And no, I don't know why she's staring at the wall.

Busy Bee

Malcolm's got himself a new girlfriend.

This is one reason why I haven't been posting. That would be my new kitty, Natalie. Now, if I can bother myself to get up and get my phone, I'll have some better pictures of this beautiful little girl to show you all.

Let me backtrack a bit. First, I got a job. That's the other reason why I haven't been posting, and it also happens to be related to the first reason. I work at a pet store, and we have space for rescues to come and put their cats up for adoption. You can guess what happened from there. It took me one week to go from, "So cute, but we shouldn't," to, "Boyfriend, come down here and look at the kitties. I want one." And he did, and even though he walked in determined to say no, he couldn't say no to this:

Seriously, how cute are these two together?!

It was love at first sight for us, and practically the same for them-- as much as it can be with cats, anyways. They were playing together by the end of the day, and in the world of cats, that's just as good. Malcolm no longer wails in the morning. Felix couldn't care less, as long as Natalie keeps a respectful distance. Laying within close proximity is fine too.

Laying within extra-close proximity is also fine with Malcolm.

So, that's what's been going on in the past month. Maybe when I have some time tomorrow, I'll put together a video and have something else to post.