new kitty in the house

neo23 here is a refugee from Hwa Chong School who is in danger of being trapped and sent to AVA. she has a sibling that is still on the run from the well meaning hands of a teacher and some boys who are trying to get them relocated asap to be rehomed. hope they have better luck with the other kitten next week.

neo23 is around 5 months old, extremely affectionate but very much a prima donna like Suede was when she first came back to the animal family. she loves to cling to the man and perch on his shoulder like a parrot. this and her big round eyes endear themselves to him so she gets his pillow at night, which means, none of us get to be anywhere near all night. give me back my man!

Rambo Rabbeet, i wish i knew you

House Rabbit Network says "Rabbits are susceptible to many human diseases and are masters at hiding illness. Their primary caretaker needs to be deeply attuned to their normal behavior and to pick up on subtle changes in behavior that signal illness. Seemingly minor symptoms can escalate into life-threatening emergencies in less than 24 hours."

the man and woman admit that they never came close to understanding Rabbeet in the one and a half years that he was with them. in all that time, he never got used to human contact beyond an occasional pat on the head. successfully trancing him was extremely rare and always deeply emotional.

it's not clear if this crankiness is because of the man and woman's inexperience or because he was abandoned or lost and spent an unknown amount of time fending for himself in the open before being found. my guess is both.

the man and woman rejoiced when Rabbeet took to Leafty when he arrived. but it was shortlived. six months later, Rabbeet decided to hate him and wouldn't let him near without throwing a fit with teeth and claws out. after that, he led a life of solitude and only half tolerated any further attempts at bonding by the woman, Leafty, us or new kittens. so Leafty moved on and bonded with Fruity and me and Rabbeet became the animal family outcast.

inexplicably, Rabbeet maintained his shining eyes, healthy coat of fur, robust appetite and bowel movements through it all, while Leafty is the one who has been plagued by chronic weepy eye, erratic eating habits and droppings that vary wildly in shapes, sizes and consistency. so if Rabbeet was sick, no one had a clue.

maybe he tried to reach out but no one listened. maybe, Rabbeet just decided that he has had it with the lot of us.

this is just what i need right now

Carnival of the Cats 109th

we are sorry that this week's carnival comes to you with none of the usual festivities. we came home an hour ago especially to host the Carnival, only to find Rambo Rabbeet laying eyes open on his side. cold.

this is completely unexpected and we are all still coming to grips with it.

without further ado, here's this week's Carnival of Cats:

Update: Niobium
Tiger kitty and orange tabby in a mating dance. What would you have done?

One Cat's Blog
Here is Huxley Harkin who hates to be called "bub".

StrangeRanger
Maddie's got wonky knees. Still, she is queen of the blanket stack.

Life~Florida~Whatever
Miss Snot has a new friend.

Blog d'Elisson
Matata is a connoisseur of surface texture. She also gives us the famed "Kitty Butt Elephant" pose.

The Wide Awake Cafe
Captain takes a turn around the room while Pussywillow takes the children for walks.

The People's Republic of Seabrook
Would you like to use this cat's grill?

My Cats Are French
Biggie is enjoying the spring weather.

chron.com
Naming Nardo's toys.

isfullofcrap.com
A walking static death bomb?

EGO
Looking for Bin Laden.

Val's Bien
What's growing in this garden?

Mind of Mog
Frankenkitty is too smart for her own good, doesn't like the sound of instruments of lawn torture, barfs where she feels like it and gets into everything even world news and politics.

Furry Paws
Taking an afternoon nap.

FarmgirlFare.com
Patchy Cat chills out to non-stop classic rock.

Striving For Average
Is he lazy? You be the judge.

Sisu
There is no honour in a postmodern inquisition and i certainly don't keep records of wrongs.

Catymology
No one is smarter than Aloysius Katz who gives us the four subjects of catblogging.

Music and Cats
Sasha is very pleased with himself while Miss Lyra rubs the little bit of sleep from her eye.

The Peach Pit
Chocolate Chip goes to kitty jail.

The Scratching Post
Important business lands in their inbox.

Mzkitn's Kitns
King of the castle

Curiouser and Curiouser
Tinker and Harley chilin' on the stairway.

Composite Drawlings
Peanut can't miss her soaps.

Scribblings
These cats have squatters' rights.

Where the Dolphins Play
Hobbes and Gryphon get a cat tree and who is the scaredy-cat covering his eyes?

Poor Impulse Control
This cat is blinded by science.

Stereophilia: Wes Phillips Blog
Bagheera ponders the big questions.

Baronger's Scribblings
Minerva and Mabel have a rare moment of truce.

keewee'scorner
Guarding the computer? Not quite.

Elms in the Yard
Her Ladyship does not like interlopers.

eatstuff
A very naughty Kiri.

Just Between Strangers
Pasha and Pixel snuggling away a sunny afternoon.

i-pets.com blog
Butters, the cat rug.

Texas Oasis
Duncan will not do "the pose".

Manx Mnews
Ping the Playful is just a boy that likes to have fun.

Kitten Picture
Is that a reflection in the mirror? It's anybody's guess.

Mensa Barbie Welcomes You
Poor little Butterscotch, still afraid of the machine lady...

Melange
Chloe and Clover sleep at least 19 hours a day. That's got to be a record.

Conservative Cat
Ferdinand misses Peg-Eye Nate.

The Major's Lady
Going from a one-cat household to a FIVE-CAT household.

No Deep Thoughts
Sometimes Rafe is naughty too.

Sprittibee
Minga and Pug's first time on the Carnival!

enrevanche
Mister Gato enjoys his enormous canvas hammock.

flightless in capetown
See these beautiful pictures: Fish, Kitty and Kiddy and Camouflaged.

Sneakeasy's Joint
The Bouncer of SEJ celebrates 8 years of life.

Gigolo Kitty
A belated Happy Easter!

Bigcatheads - the Blog
Painting the tranquil nature of the scene in the expression of the cat.

Thanks for dropping by. Next week, the Carnival moves on to happier places at Furry Paws.

Singapore's social attitudes

animal family visitors are always a boon. they don't know it yet but everyone who comes through our door that is not a contractor or a delivery person gets to be a part of my project on Singaporean social attitudes.

so my sample size is wacked and you can argue that the woman's friends are in no way an accurate representation of Singaporeans on a whole, but i assure you that nevertheless, the Tooty Rating^TM is compelling, deliciously exacting and comes in an assortment of designer colours.


on the whole, local attitudes towards social issues, especially my PET social issue, are appalling. i have been pretty lenient already and has had to count a gratuitous 2-second pat towards a love for animals and a general mention of recycling towards social awareness to keep the chart looking decent.

this all gives the woman cause to feel smug and superior because her scores are stirling examples to humankind.


and then it occurs to me to put them on another scale, one for responsibility to self and to family and the tables turn. you see many Singaporeans who work very hard and give their all to keep their families strong. who put their families ahead of aspirations and vanities, even values.

interrogating their backstories uncover many quiet personal accounts of courage and sacrifice that sometimes rival the most inspiring banner raising Save-The-World types. arguably, you need a good balance of taking care of your own and a level of macro-thinking. but how many people have that kind of genius and hours in a day.

all in all the woman is suitably humbled.

i absolutely must watch this movie

unless they have relaxed the rule about cats in cinemas, the woman will just HAVE to bring this DVD home when it's out.

it is disney so i presume it is a happy ending although in the true account it is based on, only two out of nine dogs survived. sob. there goes the waterworks.

on a happy note, the movie reminds the woman of the amazing trip she took to Lapland in 1999. more husky pics on flickr.





"do i have to kiss her? this dumb tourist has a serious case of jaundice."

new friends

cuteness moves to Jurong. meet Raissa and Mia. congrats on getting your long awaited new apartment. i see you will have lots of boxes to play with for a while.

does this cat remind you of somebody?

pet-assisted therapy and retirement village

yesterday, CNA reported on pet-assisted therapy for dementia patients and the possible construction of a retirement village in or around Singapore.

wonder if it is feasible to run a retirement home that is also an animal shelter. google surfaces several retirement homes with pastoral animals and nothing else so suspect it has never been done before, probably with good reason. but i would imagine quite a few residents could benefit from proximity and reciprocation with indigent animals and for the more able, active tending to them.

the residents would not be staffing the shelter of course. the arrangement would be one of mutual benefit from co-existence. just the sharing of grounds and possibly some of the administrative functions and staff might derive enough tangible benefits to make it worth thinking about. perhaps even the possibility of cross funding.

but are there enough people who will take to the idea? health risks aside, not sure if the emotional rollercoaster that comes with caring for shelter animals is what the residents need. yet on the flip side, it can be an invigorating, community building experience that is often lacking in most retirement homes.

what does everyone think? if you know of any places who have done this, i'd like to know about it.

please tell the woman to get out more

she is taking pictures of our butts for amusement.

not because there is a lack of things to do and people to see. she was expected this morning at ten and she has a regular clique this afternoon. but she is still in her jammies about the house. sending out insincere apologetic smses. and waiting. waiting for the man to complete his six-year long stint in 2 more weeks.

crazy? sad? pathetic? yep. but you can't imagine, we are all holding our breaths here, cats, rabbits and all because life after ________ has been but a distant idea for as long as we have known the man. until now. when the big unknown is about at our doorstep.

it may mean huge lifestyle changes. or not at all. it can really make you sick just thinking about it.


waiting.


anticipating.

cat pie

anything you can do i can do better

i can do anything better than you.


no you can't.


yes i can.


no you can't.


yes i can.


I can drink my liquor faster than a flicker
I can do it quicker and get even sicker
I can live on bread and cheese
And only on that? Yes, So can a rat

Anyone you can lick, I can lick faster
I can lick anyone faster than you
With your fist? With my feet, With your feet? With an axe
No you can't, Yes I can, yes I can


they so love their Irving Berlin.


Skoda's mummy says Skoda is quite keen to play with Braun and she has taken well to sharing her space with the new kitty. Braun is still on the side of caution with Skoda but things are definitely looking up!

holidays are the best!

the woman forgets what its like to wake up to a bed full of cats because she gets up too early these days for our morning snooze.

she also forgets how she has to fight us off the keyboard whenever she is using it. that part she says she will gladly forget. how could you, you heartless woman!


somethings never change around here.

downside to being spontaneously romantic

the woman went to man's working place to boost his spirits about yet another overnighter.

the man went home early to have dinner with woman before continuing work.

me being helpful

"for the last time, Tooty, i am not stuck!"

Bobby's harem

it's amazing how even though Fruity and i stand half a head taller than Bobby, not to mention Rosie, we still pay him deference just for being male.

when he wants a toy, we stand aside. when he wants the last morsel on the dish, he gets it.

there are a lot of theories about how females are taught from young to associate 'to love' with 'to serve', why our responses are rooted in relatedness more than principles, that even the strongest female can have the desire to want to be swept away by masculine energy.

quite frankly, they are all true. i consider myself a strong, (highly) intelligent, independent, self-respecting lass, but who can resist that daffy masculine face? seriously.

your day's done. ours just begun.

Pet Mobile

anyone out there tried the services of Pet Mobile? sounds wonderful and convenient as they pick pets up for grooming or vet appointments and then drop them back off at the end of the day for a pretty reasonable price.

but they only have a webfront so just concerned that we are going to some unknown place for a good part of the day that the man and woman don't know about.

nutty human dream

the woman's friend had a strange dream. she dreamt she stole the woman's keys, broke into our apartment and nabbed the lot of us. cats, yes. but when she got us back to her apartment, we started to tear the place apart and scratch her to the point when she had to call the woman to confess what she did and beg for the woman to come collect us back.

and this is a friend who is positively scared of cats and woke up drenched in sweat from the trauma of it all. so, pretty inexplicable why she would want to steal us in the first place.

Notes from a Dreamer says "Cats mean many things to many people including, femininity, intuition, magic and sexuality. Your personal feelings about cats are the key to deciphering their meaning in your dreams. Do you think of them as finicky, as friends or in the context of black magic and witchcraft. And then understand that the cat is representing that aspect of yourself (which you will probably deny)". hmm...

maybe the woman should send one of us over as therapy. i volunteer and promise to not tear or scratch if the friend takes me to Belgium with her when her MBA term starts. i will surely make a great travelling companion. "Een pintje, alstublieft?" gets you everywhere.


Pavarotti pulls sleighs in lapland in his dream.

(Cartoon from Nearing Zero)

big eyes girl

and sleeping doesn't lessen her charm.



some one give me a paperbag.

a maybe truce

Leafty and us cats have settled into a truce, with some conditions. but the woman plays it safe and takes to walking around the apartment with a spray bottle strapped to her belt like dirty harry or something. but he is eating well again and bold enough to mingle (when we are in a more distracted mood). the woman says she will continue to wear the weapon of mass humiliation for a few more days, in case. secretly, i think she enjoys it.

(see what we did to the man's chair?)

nightmare

Bobby dreams he became a gucci handbag.

Vote for Rosie

our girl appears in this month's Calvin & Hobbes Pet of the Month Photo Contest so show her your support!

she is for world peace and if she wins she promises to do her best as the ambassador of goodwill to the world, be a role model for young cats all over the world, fight cancer, AIDS, as well as help all the poor children in Africa.

pavarotti warms up considerably

the woman closely watches our changing dynamics as we adjust to her not being home as much as before. The five animal family resident cats have taken to the new situation pretty well without changing our daily routine. surprisingly, Pavarotti is now more willing to interact with us now that there is no human to compete for.


he certainly looks a whole lot more comfortable here now.

actually, i lie when i said that us residents have taken to our new situation without change because in one particular respect, we have started to become a complete nuisance. and to the most unlikely resident, Leafty.

now that the woman is no longer around to disturb whenever we want, Suede and I have diverted our extra energy to Leafty by spending a lot more time chasing him around the house. he used to like that and even reciprocates but obviously we crossed some tolerance threshold during the week and he has started to stamp his paw everytime we come near.

the woman is anguished that things have affected Leafty so bad. what happened to our gregarious cat-loving rabbit?

he now demands his own space which poses a real problem to the woman. just where can she carve out a space for Leafty that saves him not only from Rambo Rabbeet but now us?