Her Name is Maggie Fu

Her name is Maggie Fu. She came to us in the Oligarchy as a perspective junior member on Saturday, October 28, 2006. This is a picture of me conducting her "interview" shortly after she arrived.

From what we've been able to piece together, our Humans went out for breakfast together with Aunt Susan on Saturday morning and then proceeded to do some of their regular hunting and gathering activities. Their last stop on the way home was at the v-e-t office to pick up food for our Woofie. At some point, in what should have been a short routine stop, they simultaneously lost their minds and somehow came home with two twenty pound bags of woofie-food and 1.5 pounds of Maggie. It wasn't even a "package deal" of "buy two bags of woofie food and get a kitten free" (our v-e-t would NEVER do anything as tacky as THAT) They had to fill out this long application and be evaluated. They didn't think they'd be able to bring her home right away.

"Maggie" was born August 14, 2006 to a feral mother who had been brought to an Operation Catnip clinic for spaying but was too pregnant for surgery. All we know is that her kittens were born "in captivity" and entered rescue. We don't know if the mother was released back into her original environment or if she also entered rescue. We don't know how many were in her litter. We don't know for sure if Maggie's real name is even Maggie or if it's just a name on her papers, but so far she hasn't revealed anything different.

The Humans thought she was "Calico", but her papers say she is a "Torti/White". Maybe someone can explain the difference.



The Humans were suggesting various middle names on Saturday when one of their friends and colleagues came over to meet Maggie. This friend grew up during the Thought Revolution in China and spent what should have been her high school and college years on a collective growing rice. She eventually came to the U.S. for higher education and stayed to teach. She's never known the joys of being owned by a furry one and has often made cryptic remarks about the resources our Humans spend on us. She never seems to know what to "do" with us when she visits although after years of training her, we have been seeing small improvements. Never-the-less, she came right over to meet Maggie and they both seemed to enjoy the visit so much that Maggie's middle name became "Fu" in her honor.


Maggie seems to know no fear. She got on so well right away with me, Sky, Alberta and the woofie, that the Humans didn't isolate her. Charlie, however, is deeply traumatized and is still sulking. The humans are constantly trying to reinforce how much they love her and wanted a playmate for her. So far, she's not buying into any of it. The Humans, of course, are very worried about Charlie.

Maggie seems to be a smart little thing in addition to being cute and gregarious. Except she likes to sleep under pillows. (The Humans are also very worried about this.) She doesn't sit still long enough for pictures to be taken. She follows the Humans around from room to room and they are so giddy with the joys of having her around that they're actually kind of fun to watch.

Maggie Fu is definitely Oligarchy material. That she could persuade our normally logical rational Humans to bring her home shows great potential for their future manipulation on our behalf. We're hoping that this is the beginning of a long and furry friendship.

--
Blackie

No Pain No Gain

I want to thank everyone for their support on the absurdity of my diet change and, given all your responses, plan to pursue it further with my humans. In case you're wondering how the exercise regiment is going .... ... well...

we're all too exhausted to write much about it.

And we can't turn the blog over to the humans to write, as we don't think they've started theirs yet.

--
Sky, Alberta, Charlie and Hana (the woofie)

No More StinkyGoodness Forever

That same v-e-t who said I needed to loose weight also said that because of having seven of my teeth removed last August, I am to never eat stinky-goodness again. Something about it getting stuck in my sockets? So the humans are to take crunchy food and soften it with water. I can't believe it. You'd think with a diet like that it would be easy to loose weight, but not so. The good news part is because of my tooth surgery, they've rechecked all my heart medicines and now I'm taking less of those pills than I had to before. But no more StinkyGoodness? Ever? After loosing all those teeth, I thought they would have to feed me nothing BUT stinky-goodness for the rest of my life. I want a second opinion but the humans say I have to save my own money to pay for one.
--
Sky

Do I Look Fat to You?

My v-e-t says I need to loose weight. I'm the only cat in the house that can't get through the sliding glass door out to the porch when it's cracked open with the security stick. I keep telling the humans to shorten the stick and the door would open wider. (It would be the equivalent of them buying a size larger clothes which, ahem, they have been known to do lately.) And they keep telling me that would defeat the purpose of having a security stick.

It was so affirming last summer when Fat Eric had this fantastic entry featuring Big Boys On Parade in his blog. (Although, especially given my short hair, I really don't think I'm in their league at all)

I felt even better when I found some web sites with some really fat cats. Next to these guys, I am downright puny.

But, I started getting a little worried about this weight thing this fall after Shaggy wrote about having to eat special food and getting dragged around the house three times for exercise. Can you imagine?

Then this machine shows up in our front hallway. It is so big and heavy the humans could barely carry it in the house.

They think we are ALL going to exercise more, eat better and loose weight.

Stay tuned.
--
Sky

Happy Gotcha Day, Charlie!

Dear Charlie,

Just two years ago today, we heard the OtherHuman tell the HumanGyrrl that she could bring home this "stray cat" who had been hanging around outside the small town community theater during rehearsal of "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown".

We couldn't believe our ears. So now, we were taking in stray cats off the streets. And a feral one at that (so we thought) who would be a "scaredy cat" in social situations.

We knew someone new was in the garage: a skinny quiet barely moving grayish female feline with bits of orange and a clipped ear. Who kept eating all the food put in front of her.

Little did we know that within a month she would be running all over the house and knew no fear of people or felines or canines. We weren't thrilled that this new creature wanted to PLAY with us. We weren't thrilled at all. But she grew on us. And she grew on our humans. And now we can't imagine our home without her.

Happy Gotcha Day, Charlie!

love,

Alberta and Sky
(and Blackie, who came later)

Photography 101

Hint to the Human: if you really want to capture my sophistication and grace by photographing me on the antique piano next to the "musical cat" print you bought at the art festival, try not to get the litter box in the background.

This is a little better, but maybe you should go back to reading the camera manual?

Or studying more art prints for composition?

Or getting rid of some of the clutter?


BTW: I AM available for modeling jobs.
--
Charlie

Special Blessings

Today we all got specially blessed.

That place our humans go on Sunday morning had a special service this morning to celebrate St. Francis of Assisi by blessing all the animals in the congregation.

The regular Sunday service was held outdoors. A unique cloth created just for today covered the alter. People brought their animals or pictures of them
and everyone (human and otherwise) got special blessings and learned about St Francis of Assisi and what we animals can teach our humans about a lot of things should they ever happen to actually pay attention.

We felines didn't want to actually go anywhere that involved us getting into carriers or halters or hanging around a lot of woofies so we sent OUR woofie to represent our household.

But she said they blessed all of us just the same.

P.S. Next year at least ONE of us will attend so the service isn't quite so woofie intensive.