Witches' hats and coal black cats ...

Hi, everyone ... it's me, Finn.  This is my first Halloween, and so far it's been pretty nice.  Olivia & Tanner don't like it and run away and hide in the bedroom when the little humans in their costumes come to the door asking for candy, but I think it's pretty entertaining, myself.  And I'm just glad that I'm not still homeless and out on the streets by myself, especially tonight, because I've heard that mean people sometimes do terrible things to black cats on Halloween.  So I hope all of my new friends are safe inside tonight with Moms & Dads who love them, like I am. 

And here is a picture of me when I was still pretty little.  It's not a great picture, but I chose it because Mom messed up the flashy thing on the camera and gave me spooky-looking glowy eyes, which I think is appropriate for today.  Happy Halloween!

Happy Howl-O-Ween!

Happy Howl-O-Ween everyone!  I sure hope your day has been better than mine.  Mom left us alone for the second day in a row, and the worst part is that both days she went down to the Hyde Park Village Art Fair and DID NOT TAKE ME even though she KNOWS that I like to go there!  We go every year and I love it.  Plenty of people to meet and greet, lots of yummy smells ... even the occasional morsel of kettle corn dropped on the ground by the little humans.  But this year ... nothing!  No meeting and greeting ... no yummy smells ... no tasty morsels of food dropped by small, sticky hands.  Just two solid days of cooling my heels in the house babysitting the other kids. 

Mom did bring Phoebe and me new Halloween collars from our favorite local shop, Downtown Dogs.  She wanted to take our pictures wearing them.  Phoebe was going to let her, but I said no!  So you'll have to wait till next year to see the collars, I guess.  Because I am in no mood for a photo shoot tonight!  So thanks for the spiffy collar, Mom, but you'll have to do better than that if you want me to forgive you for this!   Happy Halloween, indeed!

I'm not even in the mood to greet the trick-or-treaters, but one thing I still need to do today is introduce you to the next of my siblings.  It really should be Phoebe's turn, but Finn, my youngest cat brother (really a kitten still) is all black, so I thought since I didn't have a picture of Phoebe and me in our new Halloween collars to post, Finn could be our theme photo of the day.  So sorry, Pheebs - but I'll make it up to you tomorrow, I promise.

Finn has only been with us about five months now - he was another feral kitten who showed up at Mom's office.  Poor little kid was starving and sick, but it still took Mom a few days to catch him, and when she did she tried to find him a home.  She posted flyers all over, and even an ad on Craigslist.  One lady called and said she wanted him, so Mom took him to her house and dropped him off, but then the next day the lady called Mom and said she couldn't keep him, so Mom went back and picked him up. By this time, Dr. G., our vet who helps Mom keep us healthy, had seen him and said he wasn't contagious or anything, so after a few days in the sunroom to help him get his bearings and let Olivia & Tanner sniff him through the door, he officially joined our family.  Mom kept trying to find a home for him for awhile, but she never got any more calls, so he has stayed here, and I'm glad. He's a good kid and doesn't cause too many problems, and he and Tanner like to wrestle which is good for Olivia since Tanner always wanted her to wrestle with him and she didn't want to.  Anyway - here's a picture of Finn - it's his first photo when he was very first captured and was really scared.  Mom says she needs to transfer some of the more current pictures of him from her camera to her computer, but she left the little connecty-cord thingy at her office, so this one will have to do:

Here's Finn!  Welcome to the family, buddy! 

We have our first follower!

Thanks to Kristine and Shiva for being our very first followers!  We're glad to have you with us and we'll do our best to keep things interesting.

And there isn't any need for you to shout it ...

Hey, everyone!  Tanner the Tabby here.  And the title of my inaugural post tonight is a line from a song Mom sings to me sometimes.  It's the Rum Tum Tugger song from CATS ... which apparently is a Broadway show where people dress up in cat suits and sing and dance on stage.  Which is weird if you ask me.  You don't see cats dressing up in human suits, do you?  Well, of course not.  Because no self-respecting cat would do such a thing.  I guess the difference is that it's much cooler to be a cat than to be a human.  Though I do have to give props to T.S. Eliot - that guy knew his felines.  Anyway, Rum Tum Tugger, as I'm sure all of you know, is the rock & roll cat, and by far the coolest cat of the entire cast, even if in the musical version it's some lame human dressed up in a cat suit.  Nonetheless, I do fancy myself something of a rock star - I mean, you should see how all the girls at the vet's office swoon over me.  It's really pretty embarrassing, actually.  Though I am rather handsome if I do say so ... Mom calls me her man-cat candy.  Which, I must say, sometimes makes me a little nervous.  Because what if one day she actually decided to eat me?!!!!!  But no, she wouldn't do that, I don't think.  Anyway, earlier today Mom was singing my song to me, and of course she always changes the name from Rum Tum Tugger to the Tan Tan Tanner.  Which is sort of silly, but not any sillier than Rum Tum Tugger, I guess.

Well, I guess that's it for now.  It's sure nice that my big brother, Tucker, had the idea to start this blog.  I look forward to getting to know all of you.  But I sure wish I could see you better.  Maybe if I get really close to the computer ... like this:

I don't know ... I can't see you.  Can you see me?

Special Saturday!

Good morning, friends!

It's a beautiful Saturday morning with a touch of cool in the air, and somehow that makes things smell so much better.  I had to give the yard a thorough inspection before coming in for breakfast.  Hopefully we'll go for a walk here, soon.  We like to walk down by the water and it should be nice and breezy, so that'll be fun.  I heard the guy who lives in the square box in the living room armoire telling Mom that we are expecting a cold snap.  So maybe soon I'll get to wear one of my winter outfits.  Like this:

But now - down to business.  I promised that today I'd introduce you to the next of my siblings, and that's my man-cat brother, Tanner.  He was another little lost baby when he joined our family, only six weeks old.  I made friends with him right away, but Olivia got really angry and pouted for like days weeks MONTHS!  They're pretty good friends now, but sometimes he'll still antagonize her and make her me-yowl REALLY loud.  If Mom's around, she'll tell Tanner to knock it off, but if she's not, it's up to me to break it up, and I do.  Cause unless it's my day to help Mom at work, my main job is to watch the house and keep an eye on my brothers and sisters.

Anyway, here's Tanner:

Happy Saturday, everyone! 

Voila! It's me, Olivia!

Hello out there ... it's me, Olivia!  (This is me, in case you forgot.)

My big bro, Tucker, introduced me earlier today, and I must say, as much as I love Tucker (he IS by FAR my favorite brother), I don't think he did a superb job of introducing me. 

However, I'll let you learn all about my sparkling wit, pleasing purr-sonality, and my myriad other charms for yourselves as we get to know each other better.  For right now, I pose these three questions:

1) How come these dogs won't ever learn to pick up their toys?

2) Why do you think Mom says my tail looks like a coonskin cap?  I am NOT a raccoon!  I am a calico CAT!

And MOST important ...

3) Do you think my ... ahem ... posterior looks big from this angle?

Purrs till next time,

Olivia

TGIF!

TGIF, friends!

I was so excited when I woke up today ... even more than usual, because honestly, most days I wake up pretty happy. After all, what's not to be happy about? Life is great!  Especially since my early life was not so great ... I used to be homeless.  Anyway, more about that later. 

Want to see what my hair usually looks like when I first wake up? 

Well, it's something like this ...

But I digress!  So I woke up feeling particularly happy, and couldn't remember why at first ... and then I remembered!  MY BLOG!

Naturally, I wanted to post my next entry right away, but I couldn't, because as I mentioned yesterday, I'm a working dog.  Mom's company lets her bring me to work basically whenever she wants ... which is just about every day because HELLO ... why WOULDN'T she want me with her?  Silly question ... because she wants me with her all the time!!!  But sometimes I can't come - like when clients come to the office for things called meetings, which according to Mom is when people do a lot of talking, but not much listening, and not a whole lot of anything ever gets decided.  Meetings sound like something I'd just as soon skip, but it's still sort of a shame, because those meetings are usually held over catered lunches, and I dearly love the opportunity to snag a nibble of something yummy.  Also, Phoebe (my dog sis) and I sometimes go to work with Mom together, but usually we take turns, and today was my turn. 

So after I gave Mom a kiss good morning (because she says she can't start her day off right without a kiss from her best boy), and wiped the sleep from my eyes, I had to hurry up outside, "do my business" (I think you know what I mean), patrol the yard, take my medicine, and then hurry in to work. 

With all that going on, this is the first chance I've had to post my second entry.  And I'm very excited about that, because I get to introduce you to my cat sis, Olivia.  Olivia was my only sister until two years ago, when Phoebe (the aforementioned dog sis) joined our family after my big bro, Dakotah, went to heaven.  Anyway, Livvy was only four weeks old and recently orphaned from her cat mom when she joined our family, and she was my first chance to be a big brother, so I understandably took that job very seriously.  I cuddled up with her for naps, played with her (very gently, as she was super tiny when she was a baby), and washed her face and behind her ears for her.  We still play, and we still curl up together, and sometimes I even still wash her face and ears for her.  I think she appreciates that because she always purrs ... and I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that I am her favorite brother.  Anyway, without further ado, here's Olivia ...

Here she is - Olivia!  And if you look closely you can see a picture of me next to my big bro, Dakotah, in the background.

So whaddya think?  She's pretty, huh?  (But don't tell her I think so ... she already has a pretty inflated opinion of herself, and I wouldn't want her head to actually EXPLODE!)

Testing 1-2-3 ...

Hello out there ... it's me, Tucker!  Can anyone hear me?  I sure hope so, and I hope that, even though some of you don't know me yet, we'll soon be great friends.  I've gotta tell you ... I'm pretty excited.  This blog thing is something I've wanted to do for awhile now, because, as anyone who does know me will tell you, I've got a lot to say.  Some would call me "barky," but what do they know?  How else is a dog supposed to communicate - if not by barking?  Well, friends, this has been a burning question that I've struggled with for some time, and then it finally came to me ... by starting a blog! 

My brothers and sisters (who I'll introduce you to later) think it's a great idea, and in fact, as younger brothers and sisters (at least mine) often do, they want to get in on the action.  At first, I didn't think much of this idea - because frankly it's just like these little copycats (well, actually, only three of them are cats - my one sis, Phoebe is a dog) to try to steal my thunder!  BUT ... because I'm a super nice big bro, I've agreed, and the plan we've come up with is that we'll take turns posting, and whoever's turn it is to post on the day will fill our readers in on what's going on in our family. But there's ONE MORE VERY BIG BUT... and that is that even though I will be nice (because that's the kind of swell guy I am) and share the spotlight a little bit with my sibs, who by the way I love a whole lot, there should be NO MISTAKE that this is STILL MY BLOG!  After all ... whose name is in the title?  Yep, that's right!  MINE! 

So ok ... I think that's it for right now.  This first post is just to get the squeaky ball rolling, so to speak.  More tomorrow, when I will introduce you to the older of my two sisters, Olivia.  She's a cat, but don't worry, you'll like her anyway.  At least I do.  Right now, though, I'm tired, and I am a working dog, and have a lot to do tomorrow.  So I look forward to talking more with you soon, but meanwhile, I will leave you with this image of what I will be doing as soon as I sign off.  This is a picture my mom (more about her later, too) took of me snuggling in bed.  See how sleepy my eyes look? 

So nite nite ... sleep tight ... and don't let the bed bugs bite!