Bonkers in Barnhart

Posts Tagged ‘cats’

I want you to take a look at this picture:

Is that not the picture of innocence?  There is a feline who could do no wrong — a cat of many talents, but certainly not a single mean bone in his 20+ pound (!) body.

Well, not really.  That adorable face and those lovely golden eyes disguise the heart of a troublemaker,  a rebel (definitely lacking a cause, feline or otherwise), and sometimes even a bully.   I feel like I should burst into a song from the Music Man about trouble right here in River City (aka Barnhart) — I’ve seen too many musicals obviously!

William the Orange is the third cat in our household but certainly top cat in terms of rank, and unfortunately he tends toward more then his fair share of arrogance and attitude.  And lately he’s been picking on the lovely (and older) MacKayla the Empress who is having problems with arthritis in her hip.

I’ve tried various methods to discourage this, the most effective being a spray bottle when William decides to be pushy, but really he’s acting like a brat!

There are days when I wish there were kitty time outs — or perhaps kitty military school!

Do you have a multi-cat household?  If so, how do you handle disagreements/bickering among the various members?

Welcome to the weekly meme that celebrates the wonders and sometime hilarity of cats! Join us by posting a favorite LOL cat pic you may have come across, famous cat art or even share with us pics of your own beloved cat(s). It’s all for the love of cats! Enjoy! This fun meme is hosted by The True Book Addict.

This is MacKayla the Empress (aka Charge Card) — she is the oldest cat in our household (shh, don’t say the word “old” around her!) and is very opinionated. We’re a little worried about her right now as she has been limping the last couple days and we’re not sure why — so we are making sure to baby her a lot and keeping an eye on her. She is our Empress and we want her with us for a long time yet!

Related articles

• The 10 Most Famous LOL Cats Get Our Daily Tips! (catster.com)
• Simon’s Cat: The Daily Mirror cartoon strip – 12th January 2012 (mirror.co.uk)
• Why Does The Internet Love Cats? (pcworld.com)
• The 30 Most Important Cats Of 2011 (presurfer.blogspot.com)

William the Orange

It is difficult to obtain the friendship of a cat.  It is a philosophical animal . . . one that does not place its affections thoughtlessly.    (Theophile Gautier)

It’s good to be the Empress because:

Everyone knows you are a VIF (Very Important Feline)

You are told, repeatedly, how beautiful you are, how soft your fur is and how perfectly fluffed your wiskers look (the more often this is repeated the better, of course!)

It is very clear that the other cats (who live here on upon your sufferance) are not nearly as cultivated — after all, there can only be *one* Empress (or any other royalty) in is this household!

You are perfectly within your rights to assume that all visitors are here for you and you alone and thus must be inspected, and approved or rejected, as an Empress would see fit.

An Empress is never considered to have an “attitude” problem — an Empress is allowed and expected to “be the attitude”, whatever that might mean at any given time!

And, finally (although this list is subject to additions at the Empress’s discretion and as necessity dictates) the Empress always gets to choose the best spot in the household for her royal naps.  If this means that other felines and/or humans must give up their space, then that is what is required to keep the Empress happy and content.

As dictated by MacKayla the Empress — shown here on her favorite pillow in her favorite sleeping spot (Alex’s bed):

All Hail the Empress!!

I knew Alex would ask eventually but five seems a little early even though she often questions the logic of Santa Claus.  But it seems that the neighbor that she plays with (who is several years older) informed Alex yesterday that Santa Claus not only didn’t exist but that he died a long time ago.  Alex told me that she needed to talk to me about this.  So last night we sat on her bed and talked about Santa Claus and, more broadly, beliefs.

I asked her what she believed about Santa Claus and she said that she thinks he does exist.  I said that’s fine, but what was she going to say to the neighbor girl?  Alex said she would tell her that she believes in Santa and that was that   We talked about how people believe different things and that’s fine because you have to choose what you believe in and those beliefs may change over time.  Alex seemed much happier when she went to bed but I wonder how long it will be before she decides that Santa Claus really is a myth like the Greek myths that she loves to listen to at bedtime.

Speaking of bedtime, Alex decided that the cats should benefit from a Books and Songs evening of their own.  Only MacKayla agreed to participate — although I’m not sure she was thrilled by the choice of a dinosaur book as the reading selection

Once MacKayla enjoyed a book we did our Books and Songs — Mac chose The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle, a book that I have read to both kids since they were very young.  Alex always loved to count the foods and Mac does the same thing now — it’s tradition   Alex chose The Napping House by Audrey Wood.  This was a gift to Alex when she was very young and she still enjoys the repetitive text as everyone piles onto the bed and then is woken by the flea   It’s a fun book and the illustrations are very homey.

Now that’s an interesting title to start the day with don’t you think!

Alex and I cleaned her room last night and packed up a bunch of toys for donation.  We always do this before Christmas time — I encourage both kids to think about what toys they don’t play with much anymore that we can donate hem.  Mac isn’t really sure yet what that means but Alex did a great job of going through her things.  Her room looks a lot neater and she’s pleased at the idea of helping other kids.

But let’s get to that all important the Feline Sock Fetish!   We have a cat, MacKayla the Empress, who is Alex’s buddy.  She adores Alex and, it seems, she adores Alex’s socks as well!  Alex keeps her socks in a basket under her dresser — they’re tucked together in pairs.  Now I know that MacKayla likes Alex’s socks because every morning as I walk from our bedroom to the kitchen I find pairs of socks along the way.  I pick them up, toss them back in the basket and go on.  But I was wondering recently why it seemed that Alex didn’t have very many socks — where on earth where they going?  The washing machine hadn’t eaten that many I was sure.  So last night during our cleaning of Alex’s room I pulled out a storage box from under her bed, and there, lined up neatly where six pairs of Alex’s socks! Alex climbed under and got them out.  MacKayla was sitting nearby watching all the activity and completely unrepentant, of course

I know we could stick the socks in Alex’s dresser and then we wouldn’t have the Feline Sock Fetish issue, but it makes her happy to carry socks around so what the heck, she can do that.  At least now I know where to look when the socks seem to be disappearing entirely!

And here’s the culprit, she doesn’t look the least bit troubled by her behavior does she!?!

Honestly just when I think my life is getting to be more “normal” something has to go wrong.  I had just left work last night and had a car accident — sigh.  The car is not too badly damaged and everyone is fine — which is a relief.  But just what we don’t need right now is a car repair bill.  And dealing with insurance companies makes me a nervous wreck.

The weekend has not started off well — sigh.

We have a carnival at the church this afternoon which I was looking forward to with the kids — But I’m still rather upset — sigh.

So I’m sitting here trying to relax and William Oranges has settled on my lap to snuggle and purr — life is still good when your cat loves you no matter what

The weather has just been gorgeous today, I love these days when it’s not too hot and not too cold — just right!

I went to the kid’s sale this morning — I’ve never been to this one (it happens twice a year) so I wasn’t sure what to expect.  It was packed!  I didn’t look at clothes much since I’ve managed to stock the kids up for winter pretty well already through various garage sales and a trip to the second hand kids store.  I was hoping to find a nice winter coat for Alex but they either didn’t have them or they were long gone by the time I wrangled my way through the crowds to that section!  However, I did have some good luck.  The first thing I saw when I walked in the room (a school gym) was a rack of Halloween costumes and right there looking out at me — a horse!  Alex has been asking for a horse costume for next Halloween (she plans ahead my girl!) but there are not a lot of horse costumes out there.  The ones I’ve seen tend to be pretty expensive for our budget.  But there was the cutest fuzzy horse costume — in her size no less.  It was still a bit more then I planned to spend on any one item — $15.  So I decided to look around and if it was still there when I came back I’d make a decision.  So I went through the toys — my goal was to find some toys for “Santa”

I found a Lightening McQueen remote control car and a bouncing Tigger for Mac.  Even better I found the exact robot he has been asking for everytime he sees it at Target — at a great price.  I found Alex a Paint a Pony Bank art kit and a pair of snow boots (those won’t come from Santa but she will need them).   So I went back to the costumes — yep, the horse was still there.  I took it along and got into line — the very, very long check out line (it took a half hour to get through it so it wasn’t quite as bad as it looked).   I debated the horse for a while but decided it would make Alex very happy and if it was big enough it would last her two Halloweens and it really was a good price since it looked brand new.

When I got home I showed it to Alex — guess who has yet to take it off after “trying it on just to make sure it fits”   I’m going to have a heck of a time convincing her to take it off at bedtime I suspect!   She has decided to be a horse this year so Mac now gets to be the dinosaur that Alex was last year.  He’s quite happy about that so all is well.

After lunch we baked cookies — Halloween ones with black cats — they taste pretty good for being premade   The kids worked on some coloring pages for a bit and now we’re off to play outside since it’s a beautiful day.

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Long afternoon, Mac seems determined to either say “no” to everything or ask “why” over and over and over — please tell me it’s a phase <sigh>  But the day ended nicely with a long walk through the neighborhood to see one of our favorite doggies — Hooch.  It wears the kids out a bit before bedtime   Which is still a good hour off at the moment since it’s the weekend.

And what did our cats do on this beautiful day?  Sleep, of course, on pink pillows no less   This is William Oranges and Joel Gray:

I read a fair number of blogs but I can’t say I’ve ever felt particularly inclined to blog myself. I’m not sure why, in the same way that I’m not entirely sure why I decided on this day to actually sit down and write something.  I have read that I should blog about the things you know, the things that are important  — that would certainly be my children, our cats, our lives in general, reading (how I love to read!), occasionally art (even though I’m art challenged — my life is centered around those things.

So that’s my goal for this blog — to put down the things that make me happy, to not feel a year from now that I’ve somehow lost another year to the mundane minutiae of doing the same things over and over. If my life passes me by whose fault will that be if not mine. It’s the sort of thing I lay awake at night and worry about — that and why has Sprocket (our oldest cat) suddenly turned into the Howard Hughes of felines!

He looks normal enough doesn’t he?

So there you have it, a blog that no one will probably ever read but I’ve set a goal to write something here every couple days, even if it’s just for me.

Onward . . .