LostWoods Blog

I’ve always wondered what bad things we were doing to the NFC gene pool in terms of intelligence when we bred Talia and Comet, since both of them are a little dense. As it’s turned out, their kittens seemed fine — bright enough, I suppose — but Kalispell has always been a little “special”.

You’ve probably read my earlier posts about the killing of spoons. She’d find the baby spoons I’d used to feed baby food at cat shows in the sink and she’d carry them off to her kittens, yowling the entire way, “Look what I killed! Pay close attention, my dears! This is where the really good food comes from!” She soon branched out to regular sized spoons, forks, and butter knives, along with the plastic knives I use to scrape the wet food out of the cans. Now and then she’d steal a spatula. Next, she started “killing” empty cat food cans. I’d find utensils and cans all over the house. I blamed it on her being too domesticated. Shira killed toys and teasers to teach her babies about hunting (and occasionally still kills things to show the younger cats how it is done) but not Kali. She kills spoons.

I could live with the killing of cutlery. And it makes sense, even if it is weird. But Kali has branched out… She now kills combs. I discovered mine in the middle of the living room floor yesterday and this morning I saw her steal Ken’s comb and haul it off to the stairs, talking the entire way. She kills washcloths. I keep a small microfiber cloth on the bathroom counter for Ken to wipe off the mirror after his shower in the morning. Two of them have ended up in the hallway and kitchen. She now does kill the random toy or teaser, but still prefers to kill household items. The other day I was reading and she brought down a teaser from the bedroom. Then she brought down a toy mouse. Then she brought down a hair scrunchie. Then she spotted her spoon (I’ve conceded that one of the more thoroughly mauled baby spoons is hers) in the cat room so she brought it to me. BTW, she plays fetch with the spoon if I throw it. I came home yesterday to discover she’d destroyed a paint brush and left the remains on the kitchen floor. How do I know it was her? Well, she’s the only who feels the need to kill anything but toys, boxes, or milk carton rings. That’s our Kali.

She’s an odd cat.

Buzzy, on the other hand, has a more annoying habit. She knows that Ken is a softie when it comes to sharing his people food with the cats. ALL the cats know this. When Ken-dad has food, just hang out around him and you’ll probably get some eventually. On Sunday I bought KFC and brought it home to eat during the football games. Ken was sitting on the couch eating a piece of chicken and Buzzy was waiting on the arm of the couch for him to give her some. When he didn’t – mean dad! — her patience ran out and she swatted a piece of chicken right out of his hands and ran off with it. She tried it later with me, but I informed her that I don’t put up with kitties stealing my food and she should go bother dad. At least she leaves the silverware alone!

Basia really doesn’t like to be combed. Now, having said that, I should tell you that of all my cats, she is the BEST, hands down, when it comes to putting up with show baths and being dried. She once fell asleep in the sink while I was giving her a bath. And when I dry her, after one half-hearted attempt to escape, she just sits in my lap and lets me dry her. Every time I get her ready for a show I feel compelled to tell Jim and Donna how wonderful she is.

But everyday combing… that’s another story. I sometimes comb the cats just because, but mostly I comb them when I find a mat. I try to do it as soon as I find one, when the mat is still tiny and easy to remove. Most of my cats get very few mats, so combing isn’t an overly demanding task. But regardless, all of them get the occasional mat in their “armpits”, ruff, and on their back legs. It’s the armpit mats that Buzz most objects to me removing. A month or so ago, she bit me in an attempt to convince me that I should leave them alone. She got a BIG lecture after that and has behaved much better since.

Still, she doesn’t want me combing her and when I do, she complains. Now how does that make ME a bad mom?

Well, sometimes, just because the look on her face is so funny, I wait until Basia is relaxing on the bed or couch then I pick up the comb. She knows the sound of the comb being picked up and looks very alarmed when she sees it. If I make any move at all that leads her to believe I’m going to use the comb on her, she takes off. Sometimes she even lets out a little yelp when she sees the comb.

So last night while she was dozing on the bed I reached over and picked up the comb. Buzzy’s eyes opened and she looked sleepily at me. Then she noticed what I was holding in my hand. Her eyes got wide and she sat up, staring at the comb. I put it back on the nightstand. She relaxed and closed her eyes. I picked up the comb again. Instant alertness. That time when I put the comb back down, she continued watching me. She was sure I was trying to trick her, I think. The third time I picked up the comb, she jumped off the bed and left the room — taking no chances that I would scoop her up for a thorough combing session.

I probably shouldn’t tease her that way, but it is funny to see her face when she spots the comb. Bad mom!

I was taking my bath yesterday morning — in between taking care of problems at work. (Holiday, what holiday? The only difference for me was that I was home working in my pajamas instead of sitting at my desk at work!) Anyway… Buzzy was sitting on the toilet batting at the window curtains, trying to push them out of the way so she could jump into the window. She was getting a little frustrated because she’d bat them out of the way, put down her paw, and the curtains would fall right back into place. So in desperation, she batted them away and put her front paws on the window sill before they fell back.

So there she is, stretched out between the toilet and the window. About then Kali comes running into the bathroom and dashes around the base of the toilet. As she runs under Buzzy, she reaches up and swats Buzzy’s tummy, then runs out of the room. Oh, the look on Buzz’s face! I just sat there in the tub and laughed at her.

Did you all think I’d disappeared from the face of the earth? Not quite… I’ve been very busy at work with a big project — which finally hit its implementation date on Friday. A lot of things left to do, but at least now we’re doing instead of cussing, discussing, planning, writing, and stressing. I was also sick for a couple days AND My neck and shoulder had been bothering me so I wasn’t spending a lot of time at the computer except for work and brief checks of email and the forum. Anyway, enough with the excuses… I’m back!

As for what’s new at LostWoods… Not really much of anything. Galia, Honeydew, and Charlie are still hanging out here, but I’ve answered a few kitten inquiries and we’ll see how that goes. A note to anyone who is sending me inquiries… PLEASE fill out the Kitten Inquiry Form that is linked on my Kittens page, then paste it into an email to me. The submit button doesn’t work. Also, if you just send me an email about kittens or wegies, sometimes I find the email in my spam folder. Heaven only knows why some end up there and some don’t, but who knows how many messages I’ve missed because I don’t check that folder all that often.

Shira has turned into a lap cat, insisting on curling up on my lap almost any time that I’m sitting in the rocking chair in the living room. I haven’t decided yet if it’s because she really does want to cuddle or if she is just trying to convince me to move so she can sleep in the chair. On the side of a cuddly Shira theory is the fact that she’s taken a page from Buzzy’s book and spent some time also lying on my chest in bed, demanding attention. On the side of the wanting the chair theory, she sleeps in the chair nearly every night and often takes her daytime naps there as well.

This does not mean the QoE is retiring from her duties to run the house and her strong opinions about how things should be. She escaped out the door the other day and once I chased her down and made her come back in, she proceeded to take out her frustrations on everyone who walked by. To paraphrase… If Shira ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.

Down in Texas, Cyra the Fish is mama to a litter of Minnows. If the slacker webmistress for ForestKatz would get it together, there would at least be a picture of the Minnows, if not individual pictures of the school. (Hee!) In Arizona, Keegan’s and Maggie’s kittens are growing and getting into trouble. I haven’t been able to get to Deb’s site, so I don’t know if she’s put pictures on there or not… but I do have a few and may resize them and post them here in the next day or so. Here’s a teaser for that:

Since you’ve probably figured out that I like torbies (patch tabbies) and if you know that Dawnflower (out of Danica’s Warrior Cats litter) was my favorite, you probably can guess that I’m totally in love with little miss Fantasia. NO, she will not be coming to live at LostWoods. I have too darn many cats right now! But, oh, if I didn’t…

Now that I have a little more time, I’m going to try to get some new pictures of Finny. I haven’t shot a good photo of him since he was under a year old, I don’t think. It’s way past time. He’s getting big and filling out really well. He doesn’t have much of a winter coat yet. Maybe later… I also need to get some new pictures of Peanut. Wish me luck! LOL!