Conference misery::feline_v1

    My precious Tiger used to sit on the vanity and watch me apply my
    make-up.  Often he would get so impatient, as he was waiting for
    breakfast, that he would crawl up my arm and perch on my shoulder.
    He always insisted on sitting on my lap and kneading my skin until
    I couldn't take it any more.  And when he purred, he hiccupped!!!
    It still hurts to think about him.
    
    Since Tiger passed away this summer, I adopted two cats from the
    Humane Society.  Jenny and Jessy are wonderful little muts that
    suprise me every day with a new trick or quirk.  The little one
    is the feistier of the two.  She has a pension for toes...I wake
    up every morning to her licking and biting.  Ouch!!!  The
    other cat, Jessy, is very aloof, snobby in fact.  Certainly above 
    toe-sucking.  But when she sleeps, her tongue always hangs out.
    Very sophisticated, Jess.
    
    I'm looking forward to discovering more as we travel together. 
    
    Regards, June, Jessica and Jennipurr

    
    I have been meaning to tell this story for some time.
    First I need to give you a little background on Tasha Marie.
    She is an extreme fussbudget.  She has to have certain food
    in a particular place, she keeps her litter box area immaculate
    (she pefers to go outside so her litter box is always neat in
    case of an emergency), she does a complete washing of herself
    twice daily with clean ups in between.  Tasha does not like
    cats and only likes some dogs if they are not too ridiculous
    looking and keep themselves properly groomed.  Well, you know
    the type.
    
    Anyway, the most adorable gentleman puss you have ever seen has
    moved in next door to us.  He is buff colored, a bit stocky and
    has big blue eyes and is friendly and lovable.  He started coming
    in our yard and we have become good friends.  Tasha however is
    not impressed with him.  They have gotten in a few tiffs outside,
    nothing serious mostly just howoling.
    
    Well, one day Whitey (thats what we call him, we don't know his
    real name) decided he would like to see the inside of the house.
    It wasn't my idea, he just walked in with my boyfriend.  So Whitey's
    walking around saying Oh, heres the bedroom and the dinning room,
    yup table and chairs just like my house etc, having a grand ole
    time for himself.  Then Tasha Marie sees him!  She can't believe
    her eyes, she is mortified!  She starts howoling  and hissing.
    Whitey (he is just so happy go lucky) just looks at her as if 
    saying whats your problem, your very grouchy, and then he goes
    about his business.
    
    Anyway, I could go on and on, but I think I have done that enough.
    Whitey has been over a couple times before and Tasha has watched
    him eat her food, (and then not wash up), throw litter around
    in her litter box etc.  It is just so funny to watch the 2 of
    them with their different personalities.
    So now he always ask Tasha Marie "Where's your boyfriend, We'll
    have to make sure we have enough food in case he is hungry"
    You can imagine her answer.
    
    
    
    
                              Donna
    
    P.S. I want to catnap Whitey!
    

    What a great note to open.  I love it.  I have plenty of stories
    about Selina and Mijo.
    
    Selina has a favorite stuffed mouse that is about 2 times the size
    of her.  She carries it around the house in her mouth all the time.
    You never see her without it.  It's funny to watch.
    
    Mijo loves to read the Sunday newspaper with us.  He paws at each
    corner of the page waiting for us to turn it.  I can't believe him.
    He reads each page so quickly that we can't keep up with him.  He's
    a riot to watch..... pounce here..... turn page there.... back up
    a page.... hey wait a minute, I wasn't done reading that part..
    
    
    I have others, but I'll save them for later....
    
    
    Shelly, Selina, & Mijo

    I have a cat that likes the newspaper AND DEC manuals! I can be
    sitting in the floor, newspaper or manual spread all out, and my
    Shanti will look at me, and the whole time she is looking at me,
    walk across the paper, make sure it's what I'm reading, and lay
    down on it! Curls up, and ready for a long winter nap!
    
    Or, she takes one of our small couch pillows, puts her head on it,
    and goes to sleep!
    
    And the morning, her ritual includes sitting in the tub and watching
    me go to the bathroom --- hmmm.............
    

    
    			< Beets and Flour >
    
    	My upstairs neighbors have an overweight tiger that allows them
    to live with him.  Buggy (aptly named) visits often and on occasion
    helps himself to any food that I have not had the foresight to put
    out of reach--which includes a plate of hot BEETS that were left
    out!  I was so amazed at his appetite that I commented on it to
    his roommates and they told me about the time that they came home
    to find Buggy with his head in a bag of FLOUR!!  He and his sidekick
    Scooter terrorize the neighborhood on forages for food that make
    the Holy Grail look like a Sunday scavenger hunt...
    
    						gotta love 'em-
    
    							C
    
    
    
    
    

    
    There are endless stories about T.C. and Rocco but I'll share a
    couple.
    
    A couple days ago I brought the boys home a new toy.  The base is
    a small round carpeted piece of wood with a thin plastic pole coming
    from it with a fuzz ball at the end.  It weighs all of about 5 oz.
    Rocco had tried a few times to hit the thing but sure as shooting
    when he hit it, it came back and hit him. He got properly upset
    hissed at the bad thing and then walked away.  Well this morning
    when I was getting ready for work I guess he decided either it
    was going or he was.
    
    The toy was sitting next to the side of the chair. Rocco came
    around the back side of the chair so he could take it by 
    suprise.  He then leaped on the horrible thing, started making
    his favorite alien kitty noises, turned the base over (such hard 
    work) and pushed the darn thing under the chair.  He then looked 
    at me as if to say, "Well that's that!". I of course took the thing 
    back out and put it in the middle of the floor.  I don't think Rocco 
    is talking to me anymore! ;^)

    T.C.'s has an amazing habit (although this is kind of gross). T.C.
    has an *incredibly* long furry tail.  Well every once in  a while
    it seems to get in the way during the box visit.  When this happens
    T.C. comes out of the bathroom (where the box is) and will show
    me his tail and then talks to me (meow meow meow) to tell me to
    please clean it off mom!!!  Yuk, I hate that part!
    
    
    Donna, T.C. and Rocco

    If we have any left over after an Indian takeaway, she picks one up
    in her mouth, and prowls round the house with it, growling as she goes.

    Ali

    
    		I was about to say the same thing....
    

    Stories......which ones do we pick.....
    
    LIGHTNING.....
    
    When she was a kitten she used to *love* to fly up the stairs to
    the second floor, leap to the top of the wall, and slide down 
    (with her claws dug in the whole way down).
    
    When Lightning was 6 months old, she was spaded and de-clawed.
    
    When she was feeling up to her old fiest self, she decided to try
    the *fly and slide* game again.
    
    Up the stairs she raced (no problem).  Fly to the top of the wall
    (still no problem).  Dig claws in and slide down (OOPS. no claws,
    THUNK).  She did try it one more time after that but never again.
    
    DEJAVU....
    
    She also had a *a fly and slide* game too.
    
    She would fly down the hallway, thru the `blue room' and slide on
    the kitchen linoleum.  Unfortunately, she would usually slide head-
    first into the kitchen cabinets.  It took her a while to associate
    the *slide* with the *thunk and pain*.
    
    THUNDER....
    
    Thunder enjoys scaring people.  Her little game is *wait until the
    person is scooting or bending down, come running out of hiding,
    and leap onto their back or shoulders*.  Of course, the person usually
    plays along by letting out a loud noise and bucking like a horse
    (she calls this her RIDE THE WILD HORSE GAME).  Her other game is
    to run to the door when someone walks through it and leap up as
    high as she can and hold onto their body/clothes (with claws of
    course).  This way, she can check out if they are a *TRUE* cat-lover.
    
    I LOVE THEM ALL...........
    
    Sandi (Lightning, DejaVu & Thunder's mom)
    
    

    This story is not for snake lovers.
    
    My Tortie-Siamese loves snakes...to death.  She loves their movement,
    I think.  Playing with ribbons, strings, etc. brings out the same
    effect in her.
    
    Last autumn I was out in the yard raking leaves while the kitties
    played.  I noticed Boomer (the Siamese) was tossing something up
    into the air, watching it land in the leaves, lunging for it and
    tossing up in the air again.  At first I thought it was a stick.
    But when I saw how much it flopped about, you guessed it, I realized
    it was a snake.  She also liked to snap her head back and let the
    snake fly straight upwards and then, turn away so she would not
    see where it landed.  She would pretend to be looking someplace
    else -- at the fence, the car, Mars, whatever -- and then when she
    heard the russle of leaves, BOOM!  She would feel through the leaves
    until she caught the little bugger again.  The piece de resistance
    was the trick she pulled on Seamus (a/k/a Shameless).  He started
    to amble over to see what the girls were doing.  Boomer waited till
    he got just close enough, dived into the leaves, grabbed the snake
    in her teeth and propelled the poor thing right at Seamus with
    the precision of an artillery fighter.  Seamus instinctively knew
    something was coming at him and turned and ran as fast as a cheetah
    across the yard towards me.  Being a sympathetic human being (?),
    I was laughing at him.  He was sly enough to slow his run into a
    stroll by the time he got to me as if to say, "I knew it was a snake.
     I was just checking to see if you were OK."
    
    Never did know what happened to the snake.  It must have expired
    out of acute dizziness.
    
    Anne   

        Re .7, .8, .9,
        
        A chapatti  is  an  Indian  accompaniment  to  a meal - roughly
        circular, about 6" across and very thin and crisp.  Now imagine
        a cat hurtling around,  trying  to  find somewhere to eat it in
        peace...
        
        

    
        
    My husband and I still crack up about the time we were eating dinner
    at the kitchen table, and heard this strange scratching noise in
    the ceiling.(Our kitchen ceiling is one of those "dropped ceilings").
    My first thought was that we had mice.  Boy was I ever surprised
    to see one of the panels with my cat Ginger clinging to it fall
    right on top of my husband.  Ginger had somehow climbed up into
    the ceiling without our knowing it.  She stepped on one of the panels
    that couldn't support her weight and WHAMMO! Down she went.  She
    quickly got up and put on her "that's right, I MEANT to do that!"
    face and walked off.
    
    Both husband and kitty were unharmed...just embarrassed! 

    Re: .12
    
         Thanks for clearing that up!!  Sounds pretty good.....
    
    
    
    Bob

    re: .13
    Ah, yes. ...reminds me again of the day Sity disappeared. We were
    serving continental style breakfast to the several members of the
    Iris Society who had come from all over the country to view my husband's
    extensive Iris gardens (among others) and the several seedlings he had
    recently "introduced" (named and registered ...and made available for sale).
    I had just moved in and had temporarily stored everything in the
    first floor bedroom and closed the door to hide the mess. While
    I was in the middle of guiding some guests around the garden (people
    had umbrellas over their heads and baggies on their feet to try
    to keep dry in the driving rain ....we cat lovers are *not* the only
    fanatics) several of the guests drying off in our kitchen heard a cat
    cry.  Of course they *all* checked out the downstairs bedroom to
    see if she was locked in there!  They gave up looking for her, but
    she magically appeared ....by falling through the suspended ceiling
    into the sink full of water!!!!  ..One unhappy soggy Siamese and
    several startled people!   To this day when I attend one of
    the meetings ...people come up to me and ask me if I still have
    that flying cat.  What a way to make a lasting impression!
    
    Linda
                     

    Ok, first story:  I just upped my cat max to 4 this week-end,
    adding a white oriental shorthair and a silver tabby to my two Siamese
    girls.  Well, my husband brought the kitties home on Saturday, since
    I had other business in the afternoon. Ian said that he brought
    the two carriers in and set them on the floor.  Niniane and Charm
    sat and looked at him as if to say, "Nice. So kind of you to show
    them to us.  They can leave now."  Imagine their surprise when he
    let the new cats out!  Niniane, being a vigorous defender
    of home and property, promptly ran upstairs and hid under the bed
    for 5-6 hours.  I got home later, and things were pretty quiet.
    I asked my husband how it had gone.  He answered, "they haven't
    been bad at all."  Good, I said and went upstairs.  There, unmistakenly
    situated on my husband's side of the bed (the intent was evident)
    was Niniane's impression of the afternoon, and her feelings about
    the new tenants.  It was not a rosy picture.  Needless to say, I had 
    to wash all the bedding and flip the box spring. 
    
    Second story:  In the meantime, hissing ran rampant. Niniane hissed
    at everyone and left her calling card on the bed. Charm hissed at 
    everyone and ran and hid down in the basement. Dream hissed at 
    everybody and lodged herself underneath the entertainment center.  
    Boogie, the tabby, never hissed once. She calmly walked in and
    proceeded to check out her new digs quite thoroughly, providing
    endless photo opportunities along the way.  Totally nonplussed, she
    jumped up on my husband's shoulders and rode around for awhile, 
    checked out every nook and cranny in the place, let us scritch her
    tummy, play with her, cuddle her, the works.  I know you are not
    supposed to lavish attention on the new kids, but you try ignoring
    a cat that jumps into your lap the moment you sit down! Then, after
    we had passed inspection, she jumped up into Niniane's favorite
    chair and settled in for a nice nap!  What a personality!  Guess
    Boogie rules the roost from now on!
    
    Mary-Michael
                                    

In the three days since we've had kitty company at the house, 
poor little Simka has really learned what it means to be low cat 
on the totem pole.  It was bad enough with just her brother
Latka around - he's LOTS bigger and has hit adolescence with 
a vengence.  If he were human, he'd be drag-racing a '57 Chevy 
with a cigarette in one hand and a beer in the other. 
But the visiting cats, Daisy and Shamus, are even BIGGER.  
Little Simka's losing every confrontation - she lost her
favorite chair, she's last in line for the Kitty Tease, 
and she gets muscled away from all the good toys.  
But she's finally found a handy outlet for all this 
frustration.  There's a life-sized, long-haired stuffed cat 
that keeps the teddy bear company on the bed.  Simka jumped
up, grabbed that stuffed cat by its big plumed tail, rolled
onto her back and lit into that cat with all four claws !!
I could hear her as she growled - 'this one's for Latka for
stealing my new rubberband', 'this one's for Daisy for not letting
me out of the closet', etc.etc.etc.

Denise, Simka, Latka, Daisy, and Shamus 

    
    	Missy has a stuffed life-sized kitty also. She will do the 
    	same thing Simka does - she grabs it with her front paws, 
    	rolls onto her side, and rabbit-kicks the poor thing for awhile.
    	She gets bored cause it won't fight back, though....
    
    

    I have to write about this, it was sooooo funny.  Yesterday was
    my husband's birthday, and I bought him some helium balloons for
    his office.  Last night when he came home from work, he brought
    the balloons with him.  He tied them to the stair railing.  Well,
    the cats had never seen anything like this before! Toys that float!
    Niniane and Boogie were especially fascinated with the balloons and
    sat on the stairs watching them bob and weave around, occasionally
    batting at the strings.  Later on, my husband untied one of the
    balloons and let Boogie play with the string.  At first she couldn't
    figure it out - why did string go away when you let go?  All of
    a sudden she jumped up (this kitty is quite a jumper anyway) grabbed
    the string on the balloon and took off down the stairs.  Well the
    sight of a two year old silver tabby bopping down the stairs, string
    firmly held in her teeth, balloon bobbing and weaving amiably behind
    her reduced us both to hysteria.  When she got into the living room,
    she let the balloon go, it returned to us (cathedral ceiling) and
    she ran back upstairs and repeated the whole process.  Jump up,
    catch string firmly in teeth, bring balloon downstairs, let go,
    start over!  What a riot!  What a smart,smart kitty!!!
    
    Mary-Michael

    Mary-Michael,
    
    Your story reminds me of the time that I had helium balloons around
    the house.  Portia went absolutely ape over them.  Just like Boogie.
    
    I think I might stop for a balloon on my way ome tonight.
    
    	-Nancy

    Be careful they don't actually get the balloon ---- if they swallow
    a piece it can block the windpipe and they can't breathe.  I had
    a friend who lost her dog this way!