Friday Round-up

Oh boy, buddies, I love summer!

And it's a good thing that Coco and I are in good moods, because Momma has been saying a lot of bad words this week. Our computer's network connection is still faulty, even after Momma bought a new network cable and checked out the modem, so she thinks it's a hardware problem. The computer men on the telly-phone think it's a software problem. So she has spent hours on the phone trying to solve it, and now is waiting for CD's and memory cards. (did you know that you can get memory on a card? I think Momma should get an extra one for herself, because she's always forgetting to give me treats).

So we have a hard time staying connected to the Inter-nets, and it is hard for me to leave comments. But I am visiting you as best as I can, buddies!

This is my Friday report: My New Latrine.

A nice lady named Miss Christina offered me a new latrine to try out, called a "Breeze." Momma put it together for me two weeks ago, and I can now report to you that I have gotten used to my new latrine, even though it has funny pellet-type things in it instead of nice litters that go flying all over. This is what it looks like:

See, it fits very nicely under the sink. Here are the pro's for my new latrine:
1) it is a nice green color
2) it doesn't get dirty, because all of the pees drain out
3) Momma can flush the poo's down the Bean-latrine
4) that means that Momma doesn't have to put a plastic bag full of dirty litter in the dumpster every day
5) there are no more litters and dusts all over the kitchen floor

Here are the con's for my new latrine:
1) there aren't a lot of pellet-litters, so I can't dig to China, which I like to do
2) that means that I don't have nice litters to walk over on the floor anymore
3) Momma says the monthly cost for the pellets and the pee pads is a little more than for my clumpy litters, but she says it's nice not to have to lug 38-pound tubs around anymore, so I guess that's a con and a pro

Since the pro's outweigh the con's, we have decided to keep the new Breeze latrine. I hope this helps you all, buddies!

Meezer Monday Tribute

In honor of Storm, I thought that today I would share some more stories about Momma's Meezer Who Came Before, Lola. I told you buddies about Lola and her ninja noises in an older postie, but there are lots more Lola Meezer stories to share. She was a kitty with a big purrsonality.

Momma and Granny and Auntie Jane picked out Lola at the shelter in 1988. They got my cousin Oreo at the same time. Lola was about two years old and her Beans had left her at the shelter because they had "not enough time." I don't know what on earth Beans could be doing that is more important than taking care of Lola Meezer, but it's a good thing they took her there, because our family loves meezers and took Lola right home.

Lola's name at the shelter was Princess, but our family is not very royal (Momma said there's a fancy word that describes our family: "plebian") so they thought she should have another, regular name. Granny came up with Lola, because she walked like a woman and talked like a man. Actually, though, Lola sounded more like a goat. Instead of saying "meow," it came out more like "Maaahhhhhh!" This scared me at first, but you got used to it after a while. The ninja noises, I gotta say, you never really get used to.

Lola didn't cover her business after she used the latrine. Once I got not quite so scared of her, I asked her about it once, and she just sniffed at me and said, "I have people for that."

Lola liked to get scritches at the base of her tail, but when she did, she would stick her tongue in and out like she was licking a lollipop.

Lola got all sweaty when she got some 'nip.

Lola lived to be 17 years old before she had to go to the Bridge because her kidneys were giving out. The Beans still talk about Lola a lot because she was such a great Meezer and they loved her a lot. I hope you liked these Lola Meezer stories! Here is a picture of Lola.

For Storm

Farewell, my beautiful buddy Storm. You are a true kitty hero, and we will miss you terribly. Our tears are making the rainbow to take you to the Bridge.


Beautiful graphic by Miss Ann of zoolatry.

Wordless Wednesday

Tattle Tuesday: Summer Flowers

Sorry I haven't been visiting too much over the weekend, buddies. I was taking care of Momma, as you know, and then our Internet kept going away. Yesterday Momma said some bad words and went and bought a new network cable. I don't know whether it was the bad words or the network cable, but we think that that did the trick. Momma's gonna keep an eye on our modem, though.

Well, since Momma had such a bad week last week, I thought I would do a positive Tattle on Tuesday for her. See...my momma has learned how to be a good gardener over the past few years! She works at home most of the summer, reading and writing her dissertation and articles, and so she likes to have it pretty outside, and Coco and I like to walk around the flowers, too. Here are Momma's plants this summer:

She keeps petunias outside the building door and in a box outside our kitchen window.

There are pinks and marigolds outside our bedroom window, and there are seeds that are growing now!

Momma dug up this flower bed (did you know that flowers stay in beds all day?) and put some iris from Granny's house in there. Granny put some marigolds in here, too, when she and Poppa visited two weeks ago. The red flower is a poppy. Momma said it "volunteered," which I think was very nice of it. Volunteering is a good thing to do.

This is the bed outside our living room. This plant is called a "Coral bouquet heuchera." It was there when we moved here, but Momma takes good care of it so it blooms for a long time. And Mr. Hummingbird loves it, so we get visited by him every day! The plant next to it is a peony, which was here when we moved in, too. It is tired in its bed and is almost done with its flowers.

This year Momma decided to try having some tomater plants, because she loves tomaters. She told me and Coco that we will have to help her keep the rabbits from eating her tomaters.

And this is the best plant of all: Momma took my catnip plant out of its little pot in our 'partment and put it in a bigger pot outside so it can get big this summer!!! I am so excited.

I hope you all are having a nice summer so far, buddies. Granny and Poppa and Auntie Jane in Michigan have lots of water around their houses, and Auntie Jane has water standing in her basement, which sounds very gross to me. I hope none of you have water inside your homes!

Finally Friday

Oh boy, buddies, I have a confession to make: I did not do a very good job at taking care of my momma after her surgery. But, in my defense, it is summer now, and of course we all want to go outside and play and hunt, right?

In the middle of the night two nights ago Momma got up and she was leaking her bloods and then a bunch of people came and took her away. She came back later that morning but she was very pale--not as white as my whites, of course, because she's a pinkish sort of Bean, but she was whiter than she usually is, and she said that she doesn't look nearly as nice when she is all white as I do--and she said that she had to take it easy for the next few days.

Well, Coco and I felt pretty bad because we had been running around the yard and hunting and playing this week, and we think that maybe we encouraged Momma to do too much. So now it is Finally Friday and I have to show Momma what to do all weekend. I hope she follows my instructions:

Toes on Tuesday: a hunter's tale

[Hi buddies: Momma said I had to put a warning notice at the beginning of this postie, because some of you have bun friends, and this story does not have a happy ending for rabbits. But there were no pet buns involved.]

Well, my good buddy Missy Blue Eyes asked Coco about her job as a mole-digger-upper, and some of you might have noticed that one of my jobs is "mouse-finder" and one of Coco's jobs is "mouse-killer." See, I like to find mousies and voles and small rabbits in the yard, and they are really fun to play with, but then they tend to run away after a while. Coco, on the other hand, likes to make things go dead. She is very, very efficient. She especially likes to dig up moles out of the ground and shake them until they go dead. But sometimes we go hunting together, and I will find a mousie or a vole, and then Coco runs after it and shakes it until it goes dead. We call this "teamwork."

Now, Momma laughed and said that doggies are supposed to flush out prey for hunters and kitties are supposed to be Mighty Killers, and that we have it backwards. But then I pointed out that she is always reading things about how Gender Roles and Sexualities are socially constructed (that means that Beans make up the rules themselves), and so doesn't she think that maybe Traditional Animal Roles are the same?

And she said that I am very, very smart.

So yesterday I was playing jungle kitty in the tall grass in the backyard, and I found a small rabbit to chase, and I chased it into the backyard, and then Coco joined in and got it and made it go dead, and Momma was very proud of us. We are a Top Team.

Now, as you might expect, hunting is a very dirty job, so you have to be ready to get your feets extra muddy. Momma said hunters should clean up before they come back inside, so I sat under the hydrangea bush and cleaned up my muddy paws, and then we came inside and got Temptations! So here are Hunter's Toes on Tuesday:

Sunday Meme: Coco's turn

Hi, Kittiiiieeeees!!!!!

I am so excited that JJ's friend Sunny tagged me, too, for the ABOUT ME MEME!!! OKAY!:

1. What was I doing 10 years ago?
Well, I have been beautifying the world for 9 years now, so I guess ten years ago I was a gleam in some beautiful Wiener Dog couple's eyes.

2. What are the 5 things on my to do list for today:

Well, I already went outside and investigated all of the trees; morning nap; barking; afternoon walk; evening nap

3. Snacks I enjoy:
peanut butter and turkey are the best.foods.ever.; but I also love chicken, and steak, and sausages, and bread, and pancakes, and potatoes; and pasta, and grass sometimes, too, because it's good to eat veggies, too.

But all I get to eat is my special Iams Low-Residue food, because I have a sensitive tummy. Mommie says that I eat much more expensive food than she does, but I think she's lying just to make me feel better. Sigh.

4. Things I would do if I were a billionaire:

I like Jimmy Joe's idear: I would buy a big house that gets all of its energy from the sun and the wind, and all lots of kitties and doggies could live there with enough personal space, and there would be a big yard for us to play outside with no streets around. And I would get rotisserie chickens delivered every day.

5. Three of my bad habits:

Well, Mommie says barking is a bad habit, but I have such a beautiful bark, I have no idear why she would say that. Sometimes I growl at Jimmy Joe when Beans are eating yummy foods, because I want to make sure that he doesn't get any when I don't, but that's not really a bad habit; that's just watching my back. And I scream if Mommie tries to cut my toenails, but that is not a bad habit, that is just Common Sense! So I guess I don't have any bad habits. Hurray!!!

6. Five places I have lived:
A scary shelter somewhere in Chicago; some strange family's house in Chicago, but I don't remember that very well; the house in Chicago where Mommie lived when she found me; Granny and Poppa's old house in Virginia; Granny and Poppa's new house in Michigan; in our 'partment here in Ithaca.

7. Five jobs I have had:

mouse-killer; mole-digger-upper; squirrel chaser; Chair of the Welcoming Committee; Well-Being Supervisor
Now that it's in writing, I am even more pleased with myself!!! What an accomplished Wiener Dog I am!!! Thanks for reading about me!!!

Bye, Kittiiieeees!!!!