1.27.2011

Tabby-Cat Tell-All

Hi, everybody - it's me, Tanner.  And my spies have told me that my brother has been telling tales about me to our friends.  All about how I was waking Mom up in the middle of the night last night knocking stuff around and meowing for food.   And I just have two things to say about that ...
 
SO WHAT?


1.26.2011

Working on Wednesday


Hi, everybody ... it's me, Tucker!  So last night, Mom came home early from work because they were predicting really bad weather here in Tampa - lots of rain, and possibility of large hail and even tornados!  As someone who's seen the Wizard of Oz a bunch of times, I have a real fear of tornados.  Oz might be pretty, but that witch is mean!  (For the record, the only thing that happened was that it did rain hard enough to knock our DirecTV out for about an hour, but there wasn't anything good on anyway, so that was ok.)

It also rained steadily throughout the night, just the kind of rain that makes really good sleeping weather.  And that was a good thing, because today is a workday, which I was all ready for.  I had my plan all laid out.  A little filing, a little schmoozing with the UPS and Fed Ex guys and the postman, maybe a short walk around the parking lot around lunchtime, a few naps thrown in.  You know, the usual. 

Well ... you know what they say about the best laid plans.  I got to work this morning, and all was going well, and then Aunt M.'s bulldog puppy showed up.  Now, she is very cute, and Mom sure likes her a lot, but I am not all that impressed.  She is three times my size and weight, and she is always trying to chew on my legs.  Which, you may have noticed, don't have that much meat on them, and well, I just don't like it.  She is staying for the morning which means that if I want my poor little legs (Mom calls them my toothpicks) to remain unmolested, I have to get off the floor.  So Mom got a fluffy blankie and a little travel pillow out of the car and rigged me up a nice bed on one side of her desk.  It's actually pretty comfy ...


See? 

Still ... I wonder how long I have to stay up here?

And here's the perpetrator ... don't let that sweet and innocent look fool you!  If I got down on the floor she would make chew toys of my legs in three seconds!

1.25.2011

Tuesday Tell-All With Phoebe ...

Happy Tuesday, everyone!  It's me, Phoebe!  And I'm here at the office today with Mom, working really hard!  See?

Taking a break for a nice stretch ...

Being adorable is hard work ...


What?  You think being this cute is easy?

Or this cute?

Somehow I don't think you're grasping the effort it takes to be this precious ...


So I guess I'll go take a nap.


1.24.2011

AWOL, but A-OK!

Hi, everybody!  It's me, Tucker.  I know we've been AWOL for a couple of days, but don't worry - we're just fine!  In fact, Phoebe and I had a checkup on Friday with one of our nice doctors, Dr. L., and we just got the results of the bloodvwork back today.  I have a low thyroid which was diagnosed last year, but with Dr. L's help and a supplement that I take twice a day, we have gotten it back within the normal ranges (still on the low side of normal, but still), but I still have to go see Dr. L. every three months.  Dr. L. is really nice but I don't like it when she takes my blood out with the sharp thing and puts it in the little glass tube.  Mom says it's necessary, though, and I always get a treat afterward. 

Phoebe just got a checkup, but she also got her blood taken out, too.  Dr. L. says her blood looks just perfect.

So Mom's still sorta sniffly, but Phoebe & I are just fine, and the cat kids, too.

Happy Monday, everyone!

1.21.2011

Stylish Blogger Award

So ... time to take care of some unfinished business.  In order to be able to accept Trixie, Lily, and Sammy Joe's much-appreciated Stylish Blogger Award, we have some things we need to do (actually we tried to do this last night but Blogger was acting funky):

1) Link to the blog who gave you the award.  We actually already did that, but just for good measure, Trixie, Lily, and Sammy Joe is a great blog about two adorable dogs and one adorable cat.  Mom spends an awful lot of time looking at their pictures and saying "awww."  (I gotta admit, they're all pretty cute!) 

2) Tell seven things about yourself that the people out in Blog Land might not know.  Ok, here goes.  I'm going to include three things about me, and one each about Olivia, Tanner, Phoebe, and Finn.  I get more because, yes, that's right ... IT'S MY BLOG!  Ok, here we go:

  1. My middle name is Benjamin.  (I don't know why we all have first and middle names around here, but we do.  Mom says it's just how we roll.  For the record, though, I think Mom has only had to use my middle name maybe once in seven years.  That's not too bad, I don't think.)  I also have a bunch of nicknames, but some of them are really humiliating, so I won't mention what they are.
  2. I weigh 15.2 pounds.
  3. My very favorite food in the world is Mc Donald's french fries.  (Obviously I don't get to have too many of them, but they sure are yummy.)
  4. Olivia's middle name is Catherine. She won't let me say what she weighs, not because she's fat but because she says a lady never discusses such things.  Whatever ...
  5. Tanner's middle name is Griffin.  Oh, yeah, this is kinda cool.  Tanner's cat mom and Olivia's cat mom were sisters.  So they are biological cousins as well as adoptive brother and sister.  Also, our aunt J. has Tanner's half sister, Lexie, from a previous litter. (It took Mom awhile to get the feral cat population under control at her office.)  She's a calico like Olivia, but with not as much white.
  6. February 2nd is going to be Phoebe's third Gotcha Day.  I've already seen some of her presents.  Coincidentally, since we don't know exactly when I was born, we celebrate MY birthday on February 1st.  I'll be turning eight years old.  I haven't seen any of MY presents, but  I hope I am getting some good stuff. 
  7. Finn loves mushrooms.  Specifically the mushrooms that come on Mom's favorite veggie pizza.  Actually, we have discovered that, probably due to the fact that he had to scavenge for food as a baby, Finn will eat just about anything that isn't nailed down, so we have to be really careful about what we leave out in case he would get into and eat something that could hurt him, like chocolate or sugarless gum. 
3) We have to pass the award along to seven blogs we think are stylish.

  1. William of Mass Destruction (Around here, we love William!  We love Caroline!  We love Russell!  And we even love Olivia and Gracie, though we don't get to hear from them very often.  And we think their custom made cat tree is the epitome of stylishness!) 
  2. The Furry Kids (Two words:  FROOT BATS!  Need we say more?)
  3. The OK Cats (Otherwise known as Fuzzy & Zoe.  Fuzzy is orange and fuzzy.  Zoe is gray and shorthaired.  They are lovely lady cats.  Check them out!)
  4. Tales and Tails (If you are a greyhound fan, you probably already know these girls - they have a lot of followers.  Tales and Tails is a blog written partly by the human mom of Lilac, Blueberry, and Bunny (all greyhounds) and their German Shepherd sister, Morgan.  The rest of the time, Bunny herself writes the blog, and does a fantastic job.  We also love their photos - though heaven knows it's tough to take a bad picture of a greyhound.  They're just too gorgeous for their own good!)
  5. Spitty Speaks (If bada$$ is a style, then Spitty's got style in spades.  Curmudgeon though he might be, we just love Spitty.  He's a gorgeous hunk of a longhaired black mancat, and one of Finn's idols.)
  6. The Feral Cat Rescue Project  (As we have three former ferals here, we are partial to this blog, as it shines a light on the lives of feral cats.) 
  7. Two Pitties in the City  (We love Miss M. and Mr. B. - two gorgeous pitties living in Chicago.  Having never even visited Chicago, it is great to get an inside look at what it's like to live there, and sometimes the posts are almost like travelogues - as we get to accompany Miss M., Mr. B, their mom A., and Dad E. on their jaunts around the city.) 

PHEW!  That was really hard!  Hard to stop at seven, I mean!  There were so many others we wanted to acknowledge.

Oops - there was one more thing we need to do - leave a comment on the chosen blogs to let them know about their award! Off to do that right now.

Thanks again to Trixie, Lily, and Sammy Joe for the award.  We're so honored!

1.20.2011

More pictures

And here are the rest of the pictures from our session ...








Our Picture People Portrait Session

Happy Thursday, everybody.  Just one more day till the weekend! Yay!

Anyway, we got our pictures back from the Picture People ... they took our pictures at Petco a couple of weekends ago.  I think I might've blogged about it. 

I'm no expert, but I think they came out pretty good.  Mom loved them, of course.  Here are a few ... we'll post more later!







1.19.2011

Oh my goodness!

Hi, everybody ... it's me, Tucker.  Yes, again.  And what of it?  This is still my blog.  Remember?  Don't make me remind you AGAIN!

Anyway ... I'm back so soon because I have exciting news.  I was just reading through the comments from the other day and saw that our new friends Trixie and Lily and Sammy Joe  nominated us for a Stylish Blogger Award!  Needless to say, we are humbled, excited, and incredibly flattered, and also incredibly embarrassed that we didn't notice it before now!

I see from reading Trixie and Lily and Sammy Joe's blog that in order to accept the award, we are supposed to tell seven things about ourselves and then pass the award along to seven (or fifteen, we're not sure?) other blogs. This is going to be really fun, but I'm going to leave that post for tomorrow, because tonight it's getting kind of late. 

But Trixie, Lily, and Sammy Joe, if you're reading this, we THANK YOU so much for honoring us with this award.  We tried to leave a comment on your page thanking you but for some reason it would not let us.  So THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU! 

Whose blog is this anyway?

Hi, everybody ... it's me, Tucker.  You might remember me ... I'm the one whose name is on the masthead (do blogs even have a masthead?) of this blog.  I look like this:

Yours truly (freshly washed and appropriately puffified)
I hope this refreshes your memory, because I've been reading the comments for the last couple of posts, and while we certainly appreciate all of our visitors, especially those who take the time to leave us a message, I was a bit miffed to see it referred to more than once as someone else's blog other than my own.  So let me just direct your attention here ... I think that should clear things right up.

Finn would also like me to tell you that he very much appreciates all the birthday wishes he received yesterday.  The fact that he received one from two of his man-cat idols William and Spitty was especially exciting to him, but he treasures each of the messages and would like to thank all of you who took the time to wish him well on his first birthday.  He got quite a few gifts, and maybe tomorrow I'll let him post a few pictures of some of his presents.  So far his favorite one is a little fuzzy mouse on a string.  Mom throws it for him, and he runs and gets it and brings it back to her.  Both Mom & Finn seem to enjoy this game - they play it with other toys also - and can play it for way longer than I would find enjoyable.  I don't see what's so fun about fetching - it bores me.  I'd rather wrestle with Phoebe, or play tug or something.  Needless to say, Olivia & Tanner don't think much of Finn's decidedly uncatly behavior, either - in fact, they are appropriately horrified.  Mom thinks it's great, though.  Mothers!

Anyway, we also had another exciting thing happen yesterday, besides Finn's first birthday.  The Fed Ex guy brought us a much-anticipated cooler from our friends at US Wellness Meats.  Well, we don't really know them, so maybe we can't call them friends, but we sure like them.  They send us yummy stuff that Mom can't find locally but that is important to the balanced raw diet that we eat.  We know there are some other raw feeders out there, and if any of you are on the East coast and haven't ordered from them before, you might want to think about it.  They ship next day air and their shipping is really reasonable - $7.95 no matter how big your order is.  Finn was really excited about the cooler - I think he thought it arrived especially for his birthday, which of course it didn't.  It was just a coincidence, but I let him think it was for him, cause I'm nice that way. 

Other than that, things have been pretty boring.  Mom is sick AGAIN.  She caught that nasty bug that everyone's been passing around at her office and has been coughing and hacking and generally acting miserable.  So I've had to devote a lot of time to taking care of her AGAIN.  Fortunately I'm an experienced nurse and I don't really mind.  Today she even felt so sickly that she couldn't even go to work, so she spent most of the day in bed with her laptop, and tried to work as much as she could from home.  She said tomorrow she is going to have to suck it up and go in, which means she really should get some sleep, but since she slept a lot today, her clock is all out of whack.  Oh, well ... since she's going to be up anyway, maybe I'll convince her to drop in on some of our friends and see what they've been up to. 

Night night, everybody!

1.18.2011

Happy Birthday!

Happy Tuesday, everyone.  It's me, Finn!  And I'm officially one year old!  (Well, at least, it's the day that Mom & Dr. G. picked as being a likely birth date for me, because since I was feral, no one really knows exactly when I was born.)  I've certainly come a long way ...

Just four months old ... recently capured ... and still not quite sure what's going on.

My first home ... Mom's office
Home now, but feeling a bit more secure hiding in the tower.

Me earlier today ...

I love this bed ...

All grown up ...

But still Mom's baby ...


Tomorrow I'll show you my birthday loot!

1.17.2011

Meditating on Monday

Hi, everybody ... it's me, Cosmo.  I know you don't know me very well yet ... because I don't get very many turns to post ... so Tucker said I could have today's post because he couldn't think of anything to say anyway.  SCORE! 

Anyway, it is raining today, which puts me in kind of a sleepy, contemplative mood, and what I've been thinking is best summed up in the words of Rodney Dangerfield:  I don't get no respect! 

What do I mean by this?  Well, pups & kittehs, here's the truth.  I am, let's just cut to the chase, insanely good looking.  I don't say this to be conceited because I'm really not the least bit full of myself.  Still, it's hard to argue with something as smack-you-in-the-face obvious as my good looks.  There are just some irrefutable facts in life:

The sky is blue. 

The grass is green (unless it's sort of yellow where I might have peed on it). 

I'm handsome.  It's sometimes a burden, but what can you do?

And that's all fine and good, but I am not just the sum of my luxurious golden locks or my warm, sensitive brown eyes.  Sometimes people might not think so, but I've got brains, too. I graduated from obedience school.  I even have a diploma with my name on it.  (So what if I sometimes fell asleep in class?  I was still smart enough to pass the final exam!) 

So this is what I've been thinking.  My grandpa is really smart ... and I know he is also well-respected by his peers.  Grandpa wears glasses when he reads, and they do add a certain professorial something to his appearance when he's got them on.  Because he's always losing his glasses, he's got several pairs and it just so happens that he left a pair behind the last time he was at our house.  So I thought I would try them on and see if they do anything for me.  What do you think?


Here's just regular old me.  Cute, right?

And here's me wearing Grandpa's glasses.  Don't I look smart?
Deep thoughts just seem to come more easily when I'm wearing these ...

The square root of Pi is 1.7725

But hmm ... I think something is still missing.  Maybe it's something to do with  my hair.  Does it look too flat?


                                         
I think that did it!  A quick adjustment and I feel ready to discuss the theory of relativity.  E=MC2



Hmm ... maybe I don't need to wear the glasses.  Maybe I just need to wear my hair
a la Einstein and I'll think deep thoughts all the time. 


Or maybe not.  What does E = again?   
 

Ah, who cares.  Being smart is exhausting.  Maybe I'll just settle for being cute!

1.14.2011

ManCat Mandate - all ManCats join in!

TGIF, Friends!  It's me, Tanner - your resident hunk of a tabby ManCat.  And I'm, frankly, just about sick of all these RULES and OPINIONS and the like.  All the Meezers out there in Blog Land have RULES.  And now Olivia has her OPINIONS.  Not that she hasn't always had them, but now she is going to blog about them, too?!!!!!!!!!!!!!   Kittehs, (and dogs), this has got to stop!  Or, at the very least, I need to get in on the action, at least occasionally.

So today, I am putting my paw down.  Today, I have decreed, it is time for a ManCat Mandate.  I urge all you manly ManCats out there to do the same.  MY manly ManCat Mandate for today is:

It doesn't matter if a certain calico diva thinks that Mom's special warm blankie should be hers because the cat on it looks sort of like her.  If I am lying on it getting warm, it is MINE!!!!!!!!!   And if you want to take it from me ... you will have to pry it from my cold, lifeless paws.  So bhwaaahaaa!

Just because I'm not looking directly at you, don't think I don't SEE you.  I will SHARE the blanket if I must, but I will NOT be moved!

1.12.2011

Remembering Dakotah

Hi, everybody, it's me, Tucker.  Today, January 12th, is a sad day for us, because it's the third anniversary of the day that our brother, Dakotah, got his wings and flew to heaven.  It was time for him to go because he was sixteen years old (actually 15 years and 364 days) and even though his spirit was strong, his body was just too used up to continue on anymore.  Dakotah was the best big brother in the world.  He looked after me, and also Olivia and Tanner, and always made sure we were taken care of.  So we loved him a lot and we still really miss him.  Mom does, too, even more than we do.  And since she knew Dakotah (we called him Kody) for almost sixteen years and I only knew him for five, I think it might be a good idea if I let her finish telling you about him.

Hi, everyone.  As Tucker said ... it's a sad day. Dakotah was a Malamute/Chow mix who was the first dog I ever had as an adult.  I was twenty-one years old when we met.  He was eight weeks old.  It was love at first sight .. at least for me.  Our relationship spanned fifteen years, some of them the most pivotal of my life, and not a single day of it was boring.  Although unfailingly gentle and sweet (I trusted him implicitly with any being smaller and weaker than himself, including, once, a baby common marmoset I was raising who weighed about four ounces and whose face was about the size of a quarter), he was a handful in terms of his energy level and athleticism.  I had to work to keep up with him. He also had a pathological fear of thunderstorms, and jumped out of a second story window not once but twice during a particularly bad storm.  Both times he was completely unharmed, and both times he met me in the driveway, soaking wet, but smiling his sweet smile, and leaping and wriggling in celebration of my return.  The stories I could tell about him could easily fill a book, and recently I've been jotting down notes, just so that, as time passes, I don't forget them.  It's hard to believe it's now been three years since I've seen his beautiful face or have been able to reach out and touch his fine head.  Time does heal, of course, but while the searing grief of his initial passing has faded, the ache remains.  I suppose this is normal.  After all, he was a huge part of my life for close to two decades, so it's hardly surprising that the reality of his loss still hurts.

Tomorrow won't be easy either - as it would have been his birthday were he still with us (though by no means did I ever expect that he would reach the nineteen year mark), but though I might be morose for a few days, it won't be long before I'll, if not forget, certainly push the reality of the loss to the back of my consciousness.  Yet I know that next year on this date, I'll feel much the same as I do today:  sad, a bit lonely, and missing the sight of my boy's sweet face, the sound of his soulful howl, and the lustrous feel of his beautiful red coat under my caressing fingertips.  There will always be a part of me that will miss Kody, I think, but that's ok.  To my mind, it's just testament to the great love I had, and still have, for him, and proof of the close bond we shared for so many years.  I choose to believe that one day we'll meet again somewhere beyond this earthly plane.  Until then, rest peacefully, my sweet boy.  You were the gift of a lifetime for which I'll always be grateful, and I hope your heaven is full of endless beaches where you can run forever without growing tired, and where there are never any thunderstorms.  I hope, too, that you always knew how very much I loved you, and always will.


This is Dakotah at about a year old, at Bathtub Beach. Before the age of off leash dog parks, this was one of the only places I could let him run free off leash, and he loved it. 

And this is him (with Tucker) at fifteen years old, at his last Christmas, less than a month before he left us.  He still looked so beautiful, and with the same gentle, loving eyes I'd fallen in love with when he was an eight week old puppy.
  

1.11.2011

How do we love thee? Let us count the ways!

Good evening, everyone!  It's the mom person again.  A few weeks ago, we (well, to be honest, not me ... the honor definitely was Tucker's and the other kids') were honored by our friends  Fuzzy & Zoe (The OK Cats) with the One Lovely Blog Award:


The kids were extremely excited and honored to receive this award, and they really wanted to pass it along to other blogs that we've discovered together and have really enjoyed following.  But unfortunately, a consensus could not be reached on which three blogs to choose.  So Tucker came to me for advice, and what the two of us decided was that what we wanted to do was to talk a little bit about many of the blogs we follow and why we think they're special.

Of course, we naturally want to start with Fuzzy & Zoe who gave us this award in the first place.  We love Fuzzy & Zoe because, first and foremost, we love beautiful girlie cats, and these two certainly fit the bill.  The fact that they are not only beautiful but also have great senses of humor makes us so pleased to see new posts from them and we always get a chuckle from their many antics.  This recent post is one of our favorites.

Next up is Kristine's great blog, Rescued Insanity   Kristine is the "exhausted dog owner." Shiva is her dog, with "officially too much drive."  Together, they are on a journey, one that is, to me, as the "owner" and lover of two resued dogs myself, incredibly inspiring. Kristine and Shiva were our very first followers here at Tucker Tells All, which was incredibly exciting to us, but of course that's not why we love their blog.  This recent post , though a bit atypical for this particular blog, really cracked us up, and certainly provided a bit of humorous insight into Shiva's personality.  Kudos to Kristine for keeping up with this girl.  She is something else!

 The next blog we want to talk about is ... arguably ... our very favorite, though, of course, we love them all. That would be a blog about a family of five special cats, told mostly through the point of view of a special tiny boy named William.  His blog, known to many of you, I know, is called William of Mass Destruction  Now for those of you who don't know William, he lives with his three sisters Olivia (known as Kangaroo Girl), Gracie (known as Pee Queen), and Caroline (aka Screamoline), and also his brother, Russell (aka Russell Bustle aka Pretzel).  William and his sibs have introduced us to a whole new vocabulary ... including the infamous troll box.  If you don't know what a troll box is ... read this recent post and find out! 

Another of our recent discoveries is Ettel's blog, A Poodle and a Pitbull  Charlie is the Poodle.  Emma is the Pitbull.  Living with them is Tigress the cat and Oliver the bunny.  The bond between Ettel and Charlie is a beautiful thing that touches our hearts, and reminds me a great deal of the way I feel about Tucker.  Emma is an adorable, gentle Pittie girl with a beautiful smile.  Recently, Charlie was attacked by a random dog at the dog park, and the poor guy has really been having a hard time, but is now recovering and doing much better.  If you can, stop by and see him and let him know you wish him a speedy recovery, ok?

We also enjoy keeping up with Marge, another rescue dog with a lot of energy and a very dedicated owner who refuses to let bad weather or anything else stand in the way of Marge getting her exercise.  With a snowstorm curtailing outdoor activities today, Marge is turning her attention to card tricks   Check her out!

To mix it up a little bit, the next blog we love is the cleverly named Cats - Goats - Quotes  Why do we love them?  Well, first of all, I am a quote-a-phile.  Second of all ... as we've already established, I'm a sucker for beautiful cats.  But for heaven's sake, have you ever seen anything more adorable than these goats ?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I mean, come on ... these guys are the cutest darn things I've ever seen! 

Well, I think we're about out of time for tonight ... but we are by no means finished!  Back tomorrow for more of the love fest.  And meanwhile, thanks to all of the lovely blogs that have come to mean so much to us in the past few months. 

Night night!

Tell-All Tuesday!

Hi, everybody, it's me, Tucker!  And boy, am I sleepy today!  Up late last night (waiting for Mom & Aunt K. to get back from the ER), up early this morning (to take Aunt K. to get an MRI, which couldn't happen because the MRI machine is broken.)  This made Mom pretty hissed off ... she was stomping around and muttering about some guy Murphy and his whole (insert expletive that I would get in trouble for saying but which Mom said a lot this morning ... not that I'm a tattletale, but hey, I'm just saying) family.  About the only good thing is that Phoebe and I both got to come to work , because that way Aunt K. could rest and relax and not be disturbed by us barking.  As if!!!!!!!!!!!  I am a watchdog.  It is my job to watch people and things go by the windows of our house and to tell anyone who happens to be home that "hey, something is going on out there that you might want to pay attention to."  And I take this job very seriously.  It is why I get paid the big bucks.  (Yeah, right!)  Well, anyway, Mom is tired today, too, and sort of grumpy, so it's good that we are here today to help keep her relaxed.  Which, I must say, we are very good at.  And often we are able to encourage her to get up from her desk and take us outside to walk around and stretch our legs.  Which we just did a few minutes ago.  (We also did some other things, too, and some of them Mom had to pick up in a little plastic bag, if you know what I'm sayin'.) 

Mom snapped this picture of us out in the grass by the parking lot:



Not her best photography (which is saying something) ... but at least the subjects are cute!