Tiger Pouncings

Momma and four babies showed up.

Dey ated teh soggy, leftover Kat Fud, and trashed teh flower box wit teh impatiens.  Den dey climbed teh tree up to teh garage roof.  

But dey didn't eat any fishies...  =)

Fighting over the soggy cat food...

Ooo! What's this?

Perhaps in our day, it appears somewhat prejudiced. But before you criticize it for what it didn't include, just remember that back then, even saying this much was literally a death-defying act. I for one, am thankful they took the risk...


( Behind the Cut... )

A couple of weeks ago, I went home to Southeast Missouri for my Grandma Bailey's 100th birthday. Grandma had a great time (even though she doesn't remember anything from one minute to the next). Here are a few pics from the party.

( Behind the cut... )

I was going to make a more mundane post, but...

How can you resist this face? Behr hangs out on the landing.  He likes to hang his fluffy paws off the edge.

This afternoon I got to give my "Please fund us, we'd love to help you" briefing to some "decision makers" for a new satellite program.  This after sitting through a day-long meeting that pretty much seemed like a waste of time.

Our current funding ends on September 30th, so if we don't find a new source our little group will have to go off to other sections and other projects.  It's nice to know we'll probably have a hob somewhere, but we all really enjoy working in our little simulator "closet".  It's hard to imagine another job being as fun or low stress.

People are always surprised when they see how much we do with so few resources at such a low cost.

So, we'll see what transpires.  Whenever I do this sort of thing, the stress tires me out.  A few more hours of meetings to sit through tomorrow — perhaps some interesting stuff.

 Just got home from teh airport a little bit ago.  Yoda, Behr, and Spooky were glad to see me.  Bandit is too sleepy.  Butterfinger is grouchy about Behr, and indifferent, "Oh, it's you.  What did you bring me?"  Moonlight is out past "Curfew".

Pics to follow.  I'm sleepy and suffering from lack of oxygen.

Boy, do I have a lot of LJ posts to catch up on.  You kids sure are talkative...  =)

The Panther boys spent the beautiful day outside today. Spooky is doing pretty darn well for a 19 year-old kitty with FIV and kidney problems. He was hiding, stalking and pouncing on the other kids, and this morning he ate a whole jar of baby food.

Moonlight now has a new black collar with skulls and crossbones on it (to reflect his "Evil Twin" personality). He terrorizes the other kids (except for Spooky, whom everyone loves).  But most of the time he's just so sweeeeet.

Yoda is the "Good Twin" and gets along with everyone.

Spooky, Moonlight, and Yoda Enjoy the Patio Patty took this picture of the Panther Boys this evening, sitting on the picnic table on our patio. Spooky (center, 19 years old), Yoda (right, 14 years old), and his "Evil Twin", Moonlight (left, 1 1/2 years old).

When my niece, Danielle was born, we went to visit her and Patty's sister in the hospital. Holding her, I had a vision of her as an athletic young girl with a pony tail, playing soccer. "She's going to be a soccer player," I said.

I took these pictures at one of her games a few weekends ago.  Dani, and her sister, Rachel, are the apples of Uncle Don's eye.

Danielle (left) Goes for the Ball

Fancy Footwork

Dani Throws In the Ball

 Big rain today.  Rained hard enough to chase off all the damn tourists who came out to Old Colorado City for the annual "Territory Days".  It wouldn't be so bad but for the ones who think our neighborhood is a garbage can, the ones who think they can park just anywhere, and the ones who invariably trample our irises.

I spent most of the day down in the basement puttering around, which Behr absolutely LOVED.  Behr is becoming somewhat of a "Basement Kitteh".  He stays down there where he can find safe places from Moonlight (alias Devil Cat).  Behr certainly fits the personality profile called "Personal Assistant".  He was helping me with every activity and following me everywhere.  It's so nice having a big fluff ball brushing up against your legs.

This evening, we went down to Patty's mom's house where we met my SIL, tofarawayplaces and her DH.  My other SIL cecisturn and her DH showed up too.

In other news, I finally started up a Face Book.  I actually have some FB friends now too.    I can see how having an iPhone would be really nice for making posts on FB.  Patty showed me how on hers.

Tomorrow the forecast is for more rain, so I forecast more basement time with Behr Cat.  I think it's high time I played with my toy soldiers a little.  I wonder if Behr will want to play too.   =)

Time to give Spooky his sub-Q fluids soon.  After that, a hot bath for me...

Finally got to talk with my mom and dad this evening.  Their electricity and phone service has been out for 11 days — ever since an 80 mph wind blew through Southeast Missouri.  They said almost all the big old oak trees in their 40 acre wood (trees that were probably a hundred years old) blew down — it has been raining so much that the ground was too wet for their roots to hang on to.

The old oak that held my tree house is among the casualties, as is the huge maple tree my dad planted in the back yard when he first built the house.  I was all distraught a few months ago when Dad cut down the big oak in the back yard, but it was probably a good thing he did or it would have landed on the house.

I don't know what to think.  The heart of my childhood forest, all the old growth, seems to be gone.  A few years ago, I had a string of nightmares that my forest was cut down to make way for houses.  It seems in some partial fashion, my bad dreams have come true.  I dread what I will find when I go back to Missouri in June.

My Oaken Friend This is the big old oak tree I had a treehoue in as a kid. The treehouse timbers had all fallen away, but up till this month, the oak was still there — as big and strong as ever.  Now it's a fallen giant.  It was bigger than it looks in this pic.

sketchmaiden 's niece, darkobservation , just friended me.  She's new to LJ and in need of friends to read about and keep in touch with.  She thinks my kitties are awesome, so you know she must be a good person.  =)

So, if you're in the market for a new LJ friend, or don't mind lending an ear to a young person interested in journaling, please friend her.  You kids are a a bunch of caring people, and she could use some nice friends like you all.

This has been an unpaid service announcement from your friendly Tiger.  =^. .^=      

Beautiful, hot day today. We're relaxing inside with the kitties while it thunders in the distance outside. The kids are starting to accept Behr some. I keep giving them treats and nip every time two of them are in close proximity — to make being around Behr a good thing for them.

Behr's a real helper kitteh...

Mama's Personal Assistant Behr rests his chin on Patty's arm while she plays with her iPhone.

Well, after ripping out half of the kitchen cabinets, vacuuming, disinfecting, sealing, and deodorizing today, the smell was still there.  Still lingering; persisting; antagonizing me!

I tried following my nose one more time and it led to the back of the microwave; the vents in fact.  I looked all around, tipped the microwave over to look at the bottom and saw nothing.  

Finally, I opened the microwave door, and there it was.  A bowl full of cauliflower I had nuked and forgotten about at least a week ago.  As I pulled it out and peeled back the plastic wrap from the top I got a great, toxic wave of what I had thought was Forensic Mouse Smell.  Turned out it was Forensic Cauliflower all along.

Damn!  I sure wish I'd looked in the microwave FIRST, before ripping my kitchen apart.

Oh well, the good thing is it's clean and sterile behind and underneath the cabinets now, and all the places for mice to get through are sealed up.

I guess I would have flunked out at Sherlock Holmes school...

There is a dead mouse, emitting toxic fumes, somewhere in the wall, I think, behind the kitchen cabinets.  I spent yesterday evening and this evening ripping the fronts off our kitchen cabinets to try to locate it.  No luck.

It's not extremely bad, but we're heading to Home Depot tomorrow morning for some charcoal deodorizers, and some expandable foam sealer.

The bright point is this has given us the opportunity to vacuum and bleach underneath the cabinets.  I'll be spraying OdoBan into the crevices between the floor and the wall tomorrow to try to kill as many germs as possible.  Then I'll seal up the cracks with expanding foam.  Hopefully that will block the fumes.

Now we only have to hope that Zombie Mouse doesn't come out of the wall sometime later to eat our brains...  =O

It's got that old zing; the intense colors, the witty dialog. Plus an edgy cinematic style somewhat reminiscent of the new BG, and a cool retro styling to it that makes it feel like you're in a 50s SF movie (if they had good FX and knew what they were doing with the science, story, and character development). The characters are perfect to boot.

Yeah, the "newness" is back. There's a whole new universe to explore out there.  As a person who, as a 7 year old kid, saw the original episodes when they first aired, I'm happy!

Bearcat - An Asian mammal also known as a Binturong

Bearcat - aka Stutz Bearcat, A sportscar from the early 1900s

Bearcat - F8F Bearcat, Grumman Fighter from the late 1940s.

Behr Cat - Name of the newest addition to the Bailey cat clan. A play on words using the paint brand.

"Buddy" was just a name the Shelter gave him.  We call ALL our cats Buddy, especially Yoda and Moonlight.  So we got to pic a new name.  We went through a lot of ideas, but kept coming back to the fact that he's a big fluffy teddy bear.  

One of Patty's friends has a cat named Teddy, so that was out.  Then we hit upon the thought that we'd been painting the bathroom with Behr Paint.  Hence the funny spelling.

Behr is a real cuddly purr ball.  He's getting along with the other kids really well for it only being his second day here.

( More Behr Cat Pics Behind the Cut )

dotcombabe wanted a "Fuzzy Head Update" (fuzzy head, as in cats). She says it's high time I made a post, and you know what? She's right.

But OMG, so much has been going on in the past few weeks: Two weeks ago, Patty and I put up wainscoating in the bathroom and this last weekend, she painted the whole bathroom. Only the trim left to go.  I had to yank on the dang bolts corroded to the toilet tank to get it off, so Patty could paint behind it.  Man I'm sore.

I've been working on my train table too. The shelf brackets are up. Now I only need to assemble the table before I can get started laying track and landscaping...

And this week we're doing an exercise at work.  Up at 4 a.m. today, 5 a.m. tomorrow.  Who knows how early Wednesday?

Some Pics for you...

Patty Paints the Wainscoating

Yoda checks out my progress on the train table. Yep, it's strong enough to hold a cat...

And, in today's news...

Patty and I are new kitteh parents. Just this evening, we adopted a beautiful yellow and white boy; two years old. His name is "Buddy", but we don't know if that's really his name or if the shelter just assigned it to him. Current potential alternate name candidates are, "DaVinci" and "Galileo".

Buddy, the Newest Member of Our Kitty Family Day 1: This is a pic from the shelter web site. I haven't had a chance to take any myself yet.

The other kids, as usual when a new family member is introduced, are unsure what to think.  Yoda is fairly mellow about it.  Baby Girl is a little insecure.  Spooky is, well, he's Spooky the 19 year-old.  He doesn't care as long as he has his Mama's lap.     =^. .^=

More later...

Dear Gang,

My LJ friend, sketchmaiden needs help paying her huge vet bill for her kitteh, Piglet. He had kidney stones and a bad infection but he's doing much better now.

I know the economy's hard, but if you have a little to spare, please click on the link below. No donation is too small. =)

rhondarich.xanga.com/699359630/seeking-donations-for-piglet-rich/


This has been an unpaid service announcement from your friendly Tiger. =^. .^=

Piglet

Arrived at the front gate of the base this morning only to find that they had just released all "non mission essential personnel".  At times like these, it's good to be non mission essential.

So, I'm back home and cozy with the kitties watching the front blow in.  Good time to work on hobbies.  =)

Lots of wet, slushy snow and rain outside — good moisture for our parched landscape.  This is the way Spring in the Rockies is supposed to look...

Looking out Our Front Door as the Front Blows in.

Look Deeply into My Eyes. You will Bring Me Cheeseburgers....