Be safe, everyone! (UPDATED)

Our hearts and purrs and prayers go out for all those in the path of Hurricane Irene, including our own family (beans and furries) who live very close to the projected path in NY. Please be safe, everyone -- and get out of the way if you can.

UPDATE (6:40 am CDT, 8/28/2011): We're in contact with our family in Scarsdale, NY, and they seem to be to the west of the path of Irene's eye. We hope and pray this continues and they are all safe and secure.

Audace, master napper!

Audace usually disappears around 9 am each day and snoozes under a bed or somewhere else equally dim and hidden. This day, however, for some reason, he chose to stick around. He stayed about two or three feet away from me all morning! Made me chuckle!!

They think they're hiding!

Audace and Ruse seem to have perfected the art of disappearing during most days, especially in the mornings and early afternoons. In the first two photos, Audace's back feet are giving him away. He must think it's cool under that bed, though, because he's there just about every morning after 9 am!

In the two photos below, both Audace and Ruse are snoozin' under a chair and footrest in my room. They do love these nice, cave-like places!

Ruse in summer

Ruse is spending most of this summer lazing around on the couch, usually near where I am - or at least my laptop! He knows where to stay cool!!

Gotcha Day #5 - hooray!

June 6, 2006, was a very happy day in this house!
You can see the photos I took that day HERE! <~~click here!!

We have our up and down days, but thankfully there are far more UPs than DOWNs!!

These guys turned 5 years old on April 15 (my arbitrary pick for their birthdate!!), and Grace turned 6 on her (equally arbitrary) birthday on June 1. Aren't they all grown up and beautiful ... err, handsome??

Ruse

Audace

Momma Grace

My li'l beauties!!!
=)

Grace is 6!!

Happy birthday to our beautiful Momma Grace!!

I love you, my beautiful Grace!!
=)

Weird Sunday

I can't believe it! I'm used to getting up in the morning and finding little "presents" left for me by Ruse -- fur/hairballs. Sometimes they're in the house (always on carpet, of course), but lately I've been finding them in the garage ~ much easier to clean stuff up out there!

But today! Hmph! I should have known something would be weird.

• First of all, Audace let me sleep until 6:30 am ~ that alone is VERY strange. His tummy usually gets me up between 5:30 and 6:00, and he's been known to start in around 4:30 or so. Good thing he's cute!
• Second, he was noisier than usual while wolfing down his breakfast.
• Third ~ and this should NOT have been a surprise ~ he threw everything up within 20 minutes of when I put their breakfast out.

I hope this is it for the day!!

5 years ago...

Thanks to SAS for the wonderful graphic above!
We love it! =)

~~~~~~~~~~~~

... I first saw Grace in THIS BLOG POST <~~click here!
and I was hooked!

Now look at my little beauty. She's very filled out and happy ~ and she's such a little jewel.

Her babies are also well filled out and happy. And what's also amazing is that the names Austen chose for the two who stayed with me still fit their personalities! Audace is still audacious and bold; Ruse is still sly and sneaky at times! But best of all, they all are quite loving and lots of fun!


Thank you again, Auntie Deb and Mommy ML, for making sure these little jewels stayed in our world!

Happy Birthday to Mommy ML!!

... to you!

... TO YOU!!

... dear Mommy ML!

... to you ... and many more!!

Love ~ Grace & Company

Honoring Auntie Deb and Mommy ML

Thanks to Maggie and Zooey and their very talented Mom for this magnificent way to tell the world that WE LOVE AUNTIE DEB AND MOMMY ML!!

These are the two ladies responsible for saving my lovely Grace and her four babies from the dreaded back room somewhere in Houston! It's been over five years, and I'm still awed by their work to save these precious bundles!

Be sure to go by their blogs and see their kitty-families, too. All are SOOOO handsome and beautiful!

Auntie Deb's THE TAYLOR CATSSSSS
and
Mommy ML's THE SHERWOOD BUNCH

Super, super, super!!

Remembrance Weekend

Three Tabby Cats in Vienna ~ Kashim, Othello and Salome ~ are hosting a Weekend of Remembrance. I'm lighting a candle in remembrance of my li'l darlin's, Pluto and Indy.

Pluto was with me from October, 1991, until November, 2003. He was marvelous ~ playful and cuddly, too!

Indy was with me from April, 1991, until March, 2006. She has been my longest-lived cat so far! She was a superb hunter, and she made the move from California to Texas with ease.

Thankfully, I have my three little jewels with me: Grace and Audace and Ruse!

I love 'em!!

Boys' birthday yesterday

We celebrated Audace and Ruse's birthday yesterday, for sure, but we also celebrated our lovely Grace for giving birth to her four babies and somehow managing to keep them all alive and together until they were all rescued by Auntie Deb at Mommy ML's urging: "Drive! Hurry! Gotta get 'em!!"



Our fave pastime on special birthdays is to go back into the blog and look at the fantastic photos and movies. Yesterday we focused on 2006, of course!! We also enjoyed all the "happy birthday" comments on the yarn and zzzzzzz post!! Thanks to everyone! =)

2006 <~~Click here to zip back to the magic year!!

Fun, fun, fun ... zzzzzzzzzz!

This morning, as I went from my bedroom to the TV room and kitchen, Audace zipped out of my closet and raced into the rest of the rooms with a strand of yarn in his mouth. He was VERY happy! Following is a series of photos that illustrate his joy. Ruse joined him in the chase, too, but Ruse is harder to photograph when he's on the move!

I'd rewind the yarn, and they'd play again, then I'd rewind it and they'd play, and on and on. They kept this up for quite a while, surprising me.

He was all wound up in the yarn and suddenly lay down and almost went to sleep! So I took all the yarn off him - that was quite a job!

A few minutes later, I found the abandoned, mostly unwound ball of yarn in the kitchen!

And here they are, snoozing away!

They must have played with that yarn for a good 75-90 minutes. That's a long time to keep something like that up! Now they've been asleep for about 3 hours! No surprise there!!

Snoozin' spots

Ruse loves this, day or night -- cuddling up to his momma.

Grace is OK with it most of the time.

Audace disappears for several hours in the middle of the day,

and here's one of his fave spots to curl up and snooze.

He wasn't pleased when I wanted to get a close-up of him!

And this is Grace's fave spot in the afternoons.

This was amazing the other evening.

She just barely tolerated having Audace this near to her!!

Body language tells everything, right?

=)

Purrs for KC and ML

Miss KC ~ the manager, premier poster, tortie extraordinaire ~ along with her Mom, ML ~ keep The Cat Blogosphere up and running each and every day for all of us.

KC is ill, and Mom ML is very worried.

Please send forth all the purrs and grrs, prayers and love you can!

Post your purrs here ~~> KC AND ML

A photo-story!

Ruse tries to snuggle up with his mommy, but he doesn't fit!

"Oh, please, momma ... let me get closer to you!"

"I'll give you lots of kisses!!"

Momma Grace is looking for a rescue!

Ruse: Maybe if I put my arm around her, she'll stay and snuggle.

Grace: I need to get OUTTA HERE!

Ruse: Ahhh! This is what I wanted all along!!

Fun stuff!

Just a quick note -- I can hear Audace playing with the StarChaser. If I look at him or get the camera and come back, he'll stop, so I'm just enjoying the sound (and once in a while, a peek!) while he plays!

I ordered these from Petco, and I'm very pleased with the results. Now to figure out where to get replacement light-up balls so maybe Audace will play "soccer" or something!

http://www.petco.com/product/105853/Star-Chaser-Turbo-Scratcher-Cat-Toy.aspx?CoreCat=CatSFC_Toys

Fun times!!

New Toys!!

A couple of weeks ago, a wonderful box arrived! Three star chasers were in it ... oh, joy!

One was destined to go to Anne's house for her kittehs to enjoy, but the other two stayed here for Audace and Ruse to have fun with!

And a couple of videos!