Anipal Photo Hunt #15: THE VET

Some of you have seen this before, but it's a picture of my first v-e-t visit. I was very tiny, maybe 9 weeks old. Mom loves this picture and takes any excuse (like this blog hop) to show it to people.

 

I guess I can't blame her. I was a cute little squirt, wasn't I? MOL

Random Stuff on a Tuesday

Guess what I got today! A picture of GinaTheMinPin reading 'Summer at the Lake with Petie'. How cool is this?

Catching up on my reading

And another wonderful friend, @BunnyJeanCook, has written about the book on her blog, Bunny's Blog. Now, if you've never visited Bunny's Blog, you should. Unlike yours truly, Bunny tackles important stuff on her blog. Here's just a couple of the things she's written about:

Help Pawcurious Help Homeless Pets
Adopt a Less-Adoptable Pet Week

I hope you'll all add Bunny's Blog to your reading list!

If anyone else wants to send me a picture of themselves reading Summer at the Lake with Petie, please do! Maybe I'll make a whole page of the pictures.

In other news, @BorisKitty is still collecting green papers to help Peanut and Kiki's families with the v-e-t bills. These poor kitties were shot with a pellet gun and need lots of v-e-t help. And that means lots and lots of green papers. So help out anyway you can, even if it's just one or two little papers.

I'm sorry to say that I'm going to end on a sad note here. Yet another beautiful angel, Whiska Pusskat, has crossed the Rainbow Bridge to get his wings. You can read about him here: Whiska Pusskat: In Memorium. I hope you'll all stop by and say a word or two to his family.

There have been so many furriends crossing the bridge lately that I'm thinking I should add an 'In Memorium' page to my blog. Except I'm wondering if that's just a little morbid. What do you think?

In case we don't get to talk to each other again before Thursday, Happy Thanksgiving!

Edit: Here's @smokey8's sisfer, Princess.

She's been doing a lot of reading. Looks like she just finished not just  'Summer at the Lake with Petie', but also 'welcom to my werld' by my pal Henry Steiff (@henryandfriends). Looks like Princess is quite the reader. Now all she needs are copies of @maxthequiltcat's book, 'The Zen of Max' and @CheshireK's book,'Please Send Money' (which I read and thoroughly enjoyed).

Speaking of  'The Zen of Max', I won a copy from the drawing on Max's blog! I'll be doing a review of it after I read it. Can't wait!

A Book About Love

We've spent a lot of time in #pawcircles and porchsitting lately. We've seen too many furriends cross the Rainbow Bridge in a very short time. When our furriends cross the bridge, the circles are for love and comfort. But sometimes, the #pawcircles and porchsitting result in a furriend getting better. This book is about a success story. This book is about the miracles that love can work.

As we all know, our pal Petie (@Petethecat) had a difficult summer. When we heard our furriend was sick, we all did what anipals do in times of trouble - we banded together to help Petie get better. And Petie did get better! In fact, he's getting married very soon to the wonderful Pandora (@Pandafur).

@toughteddybear with his copy of
'Summer at the Lake with Petie'

It was just an amazing summer, and I wanted something to remember it by. I thought others might like to have something, too. So I put together a book: 'Summer at the Lake with Petie'. I gathered together stories, poems, pictures, memories, and whatever else pals wanted to submit to the book. There is a link in the sidebar to order the book and you can see sample pages there. The book is getting rave reviews from everyone who has already gotten a copy.

This book is special not just because it's about our love for Petie and the miracles that love can work. The proceeds of this book benefit the cat sanctuary that Candy and EK came from  - Duncan's Place. It's a wonderful group of people who foster cats in their homes, help them find furever homes, and help families down on their luck keep their pets with them. I wrote about them in an earlier blog - Blog the Change - Duncan's Place.

One thing we've all said over and over the last several weeks is how lucky our now lost pals were to have had loving homes. I want all the kitties at Duncan's Place to have that, too. Selling 'Summer at the Lake with Petie' is one of the projects I have going on trying to raise money to help them take care of and find homes for the cats in their care. My goal is to sell 100 copies of the book. So far, 30 copies have been sold, so there's still a long way to go.

I want to thank some pals who have been helping to spread the word about Summer at the Lake with Petie:

Rumblepurr put a link up on his blog: Rumblebum.

Whskr And Dash wrote a blog article about it on their blog and plan on writing another: Dash Kitten's Musings.

Blind Maximus wrote a blog entry and put up a widget for ordering Summer at the Lake with Petie on his blog, Adventures of a Blind Dog in a Big World.

I do have the best furriends! If anyone else is interested in putting a link or a widget on your blog, let me know. I'll send you the code.

I also have a chip-in on my blog for pals who want to donate. Or you can go to Duncan's Place web site and donate there. Whether you order Summer at the Lake with Petie or donate through my chip in or directly on their site, I hope you'll choose to do something, no matter how small, to help Duncan's Place. I want every cat to be as lucky as I've been.

Much love to my furriends,
Pumpkin (@Pumpkinpuddy)

Anipal Photo Hunt #14: Mom!

I think I have the best Mom in the whole world, but you already know that. So here she is.

Mom's sisters are in the bottom two pictures. They love to go interesting places and they still play like kids. How cool is that? Told I had the best mom in the whole world.

I'd love to meet your mom!

Thankful Thursday

We been losing a lot of pals. The lastest was our pal @Ryker_Tyker. @MaggieTKat wrote a lovely blog about him and you can read it here: Remembering @Ryker_Tyker.

This may seem like an odd way to start a Thankful Thursday post, but all these losses  lately reminded me how grateful I am for all the wonderful friends I've made since I started twittering, blogging, and being on Facebook. Anipals and their humans are amazingly loving, giving, and so supportive of one another. Everyone I've met here works in some way to make life better for anipals and their humans, even if it's just by giving an animal a home.

I'm especially thankful for @Mulder_cat & Scully_Cat and @Staffpurrson. Mom knows @Staffpurrson from a different online community and he introduced Mom & me this wonderful community that we otherwise would never have known existed.

I also want to thank @Rumblepurr. He was the first one to find my blog the very first day I posted it. I don't know how, but he did. And then he wrote a blog introducing me and my new blog, and the rest is history!

So I just want to make sure you all know how much I care about you all and how glad I am I found you all. We sometimes forget to say that and just sort of take each other for granted. I wanted to make sure that my online friends know that I never take you for granted even when I forget to say it. Now I have to make sure I let my offline friends know it, too.

Hugs, purrs, smoochies and lots of love to all of you.

Candy & EK Have Arrived!

My new fursibs have arrived. Mom picked them up on Friday from Duncan's Place.They are very little, and I guess they're cute. But boy have they taken over! They're constantly climbing on Mom and rubbing and purring on her, the little suck-ups. EK's climbing all over her right now while she's trying to type for me. They climb all over my cat tree and have usurped my little red tent. So far they haven't gotten in my stroller, but I bet that's just a matter of time. They haven't slept in Mom's bed yet, either, so that's still all mine, too.

 EK (short for Evel Knievel. And he's definitely evil.)

Candy. She's ok. She's quieter and doesn't bug me as much.










So far they don't seem very interested in toys, so my toys are still all mine! I did get Mom all to myself yesterday for #PPPawty so Mom could type and upload pictures for me. Mom's also been trying to give me special treats just for me, but I didn't eat them. Not sure which squirt wound up with my shrimps.

Speaking of toys, most of my favorite little toys have been missing for a long time. Mom looked all over for them. She even got a friend's kid to help her look under the furniture. She even looked under the fridge. No luck. Well yesterday, we heard all this squeaking and EK wasn't playing with my squeaky mouse on a stick toy. So Mom goes to see what he found and he was reaching under the little wine fridge. Mom moved it and there were all my toys! Over a dozen of them. I was so happy to see all my toys again. I guess squirts are good for something.

Anyway, Mom went crazy with the flashy box. There's lots of pictures and even some video. I'm in some of the pictures, too. Because of the video, I did a link this time to the album. Click on the picture below to see more pictures. Enjoy!

New Kitties

So far we've sold 25 copies of 'Summer at the Lake with Petie'. I'm not sure how much money I've raised because the website keeps some and Paypal takes some, but its around $70 and probably more. Copies are starting to arrive at pals homes. @LilyLuWhoT has gotten her copy. Mine should arrive tomorrow. As you know, my goal is 100 copies sold. If anyone has ideas how to sell more books, please DM me. The kitties at Duncan's Place and the humans caring for them really deserve the help. I did look into Amazon, but that would just make the books more expensive. I guess I need ideas how to publicize it better without being annoying about it.

Speaking of help, my wonderful friends, @whsker and @dashkitten, are not only getting a copy of Summer at the Lake with Petie, but they wrote about it in their blog: Dash Kitten's Mewsings, I was so surprised!. I think that was such a nice thing for them to do. I guess I shouldn't be surprised though. Dash and his human are always writing about others and are always looking for ways to help everyone. They are some of the most thoughtful pals out there in the Anipal Twitterverse and the Cat Blogoshpere.

The other excitement this last week was Petie and Pandy's shower. The guys went hiking and the girls went shopping, and all kinds of interesting happened while we were out. Everyone had a wonderful time, and a few pals wound up in Twitter jail! That's all I'm gonna tell you. What happens in Twitter stays in Twitter!

*purrs and pawhugs*

Anipal Photo Hunt #13: From Where I Stand...

This is what I saw out my back door this morning. Our first snow of the season. Barely a dusting and a few weeks later than normal, but it is snow. By Friday it will be in the 60s again and the snow will be all melted. That's winter in Colorado. Average daytime temperature in the 40s, lots of sunshine, and the bad weather never sticks around very long.

Mom says she can't think of any place that has better weather that still gets snow. She doesn't want to live anywhere it doesn't snow. This is the only place I've ever lived so I have nothing to compare it to. I do know the snow is fun to watch when it falls and it makes everything all shiny and pretty, especially when the sun comes back out and it looks like the world is covered in diamonds.

What do you see from where you are?

News!

All kinds of news this week. The first item is that the book about #lakewithpetie is finished and ready to order. It's called Summer at the Lake with Petie and is available here: Summer at the Lake with Petie. You can see a preview at the right. I was thrilled at how many pals sent stuff for me to put in the book! There are poems, stories, pictures, memories, and even original artwork. We have some very talented anipals in our community. Not only is this a wonderful way to remember the amazing summer we had, but the proceeds are going to Duncan's Place cat sanctuary. It will make a great Crispmouse present for your humans, so buy lots of copies!

Duncan's Place cat sanctuary is also where my brofurs are coming from. Cathy at Duncan's Place cat sanctuary sent me more pictures of them.

I finally have names for them. The cream colored one is gonna be Evel Kneivel and just EK for short. We've been told he's a bit of a daredevil. The grey and white one is gonna be Bandit because he looks like he's wearing a mask. Mom's picking them up Friday night!


Edit: Just found out from Cathy at Duncan's Place - turns out the grey & white one is a girl. So instead of 2 brofurs I'm gonna have a sisfur and a brofur. Cathy called her Babette and I think I'm just gonna call her that and not change her name again. Bad enough everyone thought she was a boy and called her Bob all these weeks. I'm not gonna change her name yet again.

So that's the good news. Now the sad news. We lost our good friend, Gunner, this week. He crossed the bridge on Thursday. PepiSmartDog escorted him across the bridge and arranged a wonderful welcome banquet for him. The banquet was held at Nipclub so that all the anipals could see Gunner off and wish him a good crossing. It was a wonderful banquet for a wonderful pal.

That's if for this week. Next week I'll have lots of news after the brofurs get here. Wish me luck! Smoochies!

The Price of Love

A love letter to my furriends.

I got some news tonight that's making me think really hard about all I've learned in the past year, and especially since I've been on Twitter and blogging. I've made a lot of good friends since I joined the anipal world. I've lost a lot of friends, too. And tonight I heard that another pal, Inigo Flufflebum, may be headed for the Rainbow bridge.

For some reason, this one is hitting me much harder than any of the others, and I don't really know why. Maybe because there have been so many lately. Maybe because Mom and I went through this the same time last year with my sisfur, Sheena. Maybe because it looked like he was going to get better. Maybe because I flirt with him and Rumbles so much. Maybe because the two of them always make me smile. Whatever the reason, the thought of losing Inigo is leaving a big hole in my heart, and my eyes won't stop leaking.

I know it will eventually have to happen. I know that at some point, it will be what's best for Inigo, and he'll let his family now when that is (hopefully not for a while yet). That doesn't make it hurt any less. But I guess that's the price we pay for letting others into our lives. The more we love, the more we have to lose and the more it hurts. The selfish part of us wants to hold on to those we love for as long as possible. When they leave, they leave an emptiness that no one can fill. But eventually, leave they must, just as we will when our time comes.

The pain of loss is a high price to pay. But what's the alternative? Not let others in to out lives? Not ever care about anyone or have anyone care about us? To be lonely and alone so we don't suffer the pain of loss? I think that would be a worse pain and a higher price. So I let others in. I care. I love. And when someone crosses the bridge, I hurt and I get leaky eyes. Yes, it's a high price to pay, but I pay it gladly.

Anipal Photo Hunt #12: All Souls' Day

You've heard me talk about the cats Mom had before I came along. If you read my interview on Cat's Who Twitter you know their story. Well now you get to see their faces.

 This is Beastie. Look at that face and you can tell where the name came from. MOL. She was Mom's first kitty. Mom got her from a neighbor as a kitten and she lived to be 16 1/2. Mom said she actually wasn't a beastie, but was very sweet. Her daddy was a Persian kitty and Beastie inherited her beautiful fluff from him.

This is Sheena. She passed last Thanksgiving at 18 years old! She lived the longest of any cat Mom's had. She came to Mom as a kitten from a coworker. I got to meet this kitty before she went to the bridge. She and Pixie were best friends and she was very lonely when Pixie passed. Mom got me as a playmate for Sheena, but Sheena didn't live very long after I was adopted. I guess I came to Mom just in time to keep her from being lonely without Sheena.

This is Pixie. Someone threw her out of a van. Mom tried to find her that night and couldn't. Six weeks later after a snowstorm, she showed up on Mom's porch. She was all wet, cold, matted, and starving. Mom took her in and it was love at first sight. She lived with Mom for 12 1/2 years before she passed. I look a lot like her except I have a nice floofy tail and Pixie didn't have a tail. Mom thinks she was part Manx.


I'm lucky to have had them as sisfurs, even if I didn't get to meet them. They were the cats that taught Mom how to open her heart and home to kitties. They also taught Mom that cats were meant to be loved and spoiled. And boy am I spoiled!

Please join this week's photo blog hop and tell us about the ones in your life that came before you that you want to honor.