Simple Pleasures

Sometimes in life it's those simple things that mean a lot, for me, today, this meant a BISSELL - Little Green Compact Multipurpose Handheld Deep Cleaner - Green that I picked up at Best Buy for around $75. Best Buy is great, order something online and you can pick it up at one of their stores in a few hours, and I have one near work and another near my house.

This is a little spot cleaner, a good thing to have when you have pets. It started with a big brown spot under my computer table. Looked just like a leaf, which Aki had been bringing in the house just about every day lately. It's like she thinks they are prey that she has hunted down, she's not the sharpest cat in the kitty box. So because I thought it was a leaf I just left it for several days.

Turns out is was kitty yak (the grass in it is the dead giveaway), but because I thought it was a leaf I let it sit long enough to harden and become hard to clean. Then they did another one upstairs in the hall. Now, my place is half tile, the living room, kitchen and dining room are all tile, which I like a lot. The bedrooms and the hall are the only places with carpet. So where to the cats decide to yak? The carpet of course.

So now I'm feeling really annoyed and in no mood to clean this stuff up, so I started researching carpet cleaners, finally I settled on this little green machine for a number of reasons, being cheap was the main one. And as a cat owner I figure I'm going to need this thing for years.

So I pick it up this morning at Best Buy, bring it home and what happens? Sucker worked perfectly. How often does that happen??!! Now these annoying spots are gone and it makes me feel better about life in general, and I'm armed with a great weapon for the next time we get some kitty yak.

The Cats

Aki is healing nicely and her fur is growing back, but very slowly. What’s funny is her normal fur feels cool but the shaved area is hot. Cats must have a pretty high body heat and the fur traps it. Both cats haven’t been the least bit afraid to go outside but they keep a better watch for the evil cats now. Whenever I see them coming inside quickly I go outside and find one of the evil ones sitting in the yard. I chase them out every time and I think they are coming by less often.

The other night 2 of them showed up together in the yard and had a major cat fight with each other. Loud enough to wake me up at 1am. I actually ran downstairs and outside in my underwear to chase them off, I want them always afraid when they come here. The yard is pretty isolated so it wasn’t a big deal.

Since my yard is pretty enclosed with fences 7’ high I thought that might keep the cats in for a while, but no such luck. One time I’m calling Aki to come in and she comes flying over the 7’ tall fence like it was nothing.

Did I mention that the fence is 7 feet tall! And they are very small female kitties, which didn't slow them down at all.

They both love going outside but I still don’t let them out unless I’m here and never at night. And when I let them out I go out first to make sure the coast is clear. Caed will actually stop and look back at me, like waiting for me to chase off evil kitties, then follow me out. And if I’m outside with them each cat will make a point of walking over to me and rubbing my legs at least once to let me know they appreciate me letting them out.

Shaved Aki

There was a down side to letting the cats go outside. I suddenly hear the screech of VERY serious cat fighting and rush over to chase away the white cat with black spots. I'm assuming he is brother to the black one with white spots. There is also an all black one but he hasn't come into the yard yet. I was there in a flash and chased the cat out, screaming at the top of my lungs so the cat wouldn't want to come back but he had already tagged Aki on her back right where the tail meets her back.

A few days later both the black and white ones cornered Caed and this time I was even faster getting there but they both got her, one between the shoulder blades and one on her lower back. I don't let them go out when I'm not here and I go out first to make sure the evil ones aren't around, then I check several times while they are out.

Didn't seem to bother Aki and Caed much though, they went right outside the next day and rolled in the grass. But a few days ago Aki started acting a little lethargic. On Monday I picked her up and got a meow of pain and I noticed she was swollen where the cat clawed her. So I took her to the vet yesterday and she said it was an abscess and they had to do surgery to clean the puss out. I left her for the day and she was pretty groggy when I picked her up, after spending $400 I felt kind of groggy too.

She doesn't seem lethargic any more and her appetite has come back, she's also been very affectionate. Things like that make me wonder what cats think about these things. Does she think I saved her and brought her home from a dangerous situation where she got wounded and is thanking me? Or does she just want to get in to my good graces so I don't do that to her again? Just how deep can a cat's smooth little brain think?

I think she is thanking me for bringing her home safe but without clear thoughts of what actually happened. I think she also knows she is feeling better and that I must have fixed it somehow.

No going outside for a few days.

Caed seems fine.

Cuteness

I'm a real cat person and a real sucker for cat cuteness. Here is a tiger cub looking incredibly cute. Thanks to Pharyngula for the link.

It's amazing how housecat-like he is. All the same moves, even the "cute" looks like when they cuddle into the bed and show their stomach. I swear that my cats practice those cute moves when I'm not home, probably critiquing each other. I can read his body language because of my familiarity with house cats. He feels warm and safe and comfy.

A Wonderful World

I'm not someone who really cares for "cute" but this one was just too good.

The Third Beginning

I approached blogging the way I do most things, I completely ignored it and thought it a waste of time. Then, one day I started checking out Blogger and jumped right in to creating a blog. I learn best by doing. I originally intended just a business blog - Bear Byte Graphics - but then I put my cats and grandkids on it. Didn't seem right so I started a second blog called - Here In The Future - for me to spout off on philosophical issues, or whatever I felt like. I liked this but still not right so this is my third blog which I will keep as my main blog. So I moved the cats and grandkids over to here so Bear Byte Graphics can remain strictly for business. Here In The Future will remain for long diatribes, with links to new post here, but this will be where I post most often.

In the links on the right are web pages of my comic coloring, cats, grandkids, other blogs and for any upcoming books, movies or TV shows I like.

THE CATS
This is a very small Cead with a big yawn. Pronounced Cade, her name is Gaelic for The First, because she was the adventurous one. The other cat is Aki, which means Fall in Japanese, because she looks like Fall colors. The World's Greatest Cat, Nikko, died 3 years ago and we got these two 2 weeks later. We had had Nikko for 17 years only to have her die of cancer, but she had a long and happy cat-life. It's unfortunate that these two have such a hard act to follow, but we often think about how they don't measure up to Nikko. We don't tell, them, though, so they won't feel bad. They are three years old now, littermates who have never been apart a day in their lives. It's amusing how like human sisters they can be, fighting hard enough to make one of them squeak one day, then curled up on the bed like the best of buds the next day.

I've always loved cats but could never be near them because of severe allergies. Darcy told me if we get a kitten I'll adjust to it as it matures, so we wound up with Nikko. I sneezed and took lots of Vitamin C and Alka Seltzer Plus for 3 months when all symptoms suddenly disappeared. I have not been allergic to any cat since, however when I got an allergy test a couple years ago cats still showed as my biggest allergy by far. I don't know what that means except now it feels strange not to have a little cat following me around the house. Check out my links for a small photo album of the cats.
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THE GRANDKIDS
The one with the helmet is Ally, the one with the cookie crumbs is Maddie. I did what the bumper sticker said "If I knew grandkids were so much fun I'd have had them first." I did this by having no kids but married a woman with 2 boys, both over 18 when Darcy and I first moved in together 20 years ago. Those boys ended up having kids and I'm now their grandparent, a step one perhaps but they don't know that. To them I am just Grandbear. Bear has been my nickname ever since Darcy and I got together, that's the reason the business is called Bear Byte Graphics and why I became Grandbear. Darcy also coined that one and she's Grandarcy. There's also a link for them on the right for a small photo album.