Tuesday Twofer

Monkey see, monkey do....sigh.....

Meezer Monday

I got a package a few days ago, but Mom wouldn't let me open it. Finally, I got so frustrated, I pulled it off the table.
Of course, Kavan had to butt in......
It was my prize for winning Latte's contest! Look at this great pad from the Siamese Rescue!
I just loved it! And look at this great octopus!

It was so much fun to play with! Again, Kavan had to butt in....
What great prizes! I got two great octopuses, so I guess I'll let Kavan have one. But I get to keep the pad.

Thanks Latte!

Lazin around

We've had a wonderfully lazy weekend. Mom's been so busy, she needed to just hang out with us. So we've watched movies, listened to music, gone outside to enjoy the nice weather. Its been great hangin' with Mom. Little Kavan has been a pest. He is feeling SOOO much better. His head tilt is almost gone, and he is running around like a banshee. Mom can still hear a little drainage in his throat, and a sneeze or two. But it is getting less and less. The squirts, however, have really exploded. Mom's started mixing in a bit of probiotic in his food. She bought him some Activia, but he wouldn't touch it.

While we've been lazin around, so much going on in the Cat Blogoshphere. Zeus just finished 24 hours of blogging and raised $330 green papers for the Human Society! Isn't that amazing?? And we are welcoming four new meezers to the Cat Blogosphere (there can never be too many meezers!). Congratulations Stella! As always, check out the Cat Blogosphere and Simply Siamese for the latest and greatest!

Thursday Thirteen: Ears

With Kavan's ear problems, Mom has been learning about our lovely ears. Here are thirteen facts about ears and infections.

1. The outer or external ear is the pinna (ear flap). It is a thin, fleshy funnel-shaped structure that captures sound waves.

2. The middle ear contains the eardrum.

3. The vibrations from the eardrum are transferred to the fluid-filled cochlea or inner ear, which does the actual hearing.

4. The inner ear also contains three semicircular fluid-filled canals and two chambers (utricle and saccule) that aid in the cat’s balance and coordination.

5. Ear problems can lead to hearing and coordination impairment if left untreated.

6. Head tilting, circling, rolling, or stumbling is one sign of ear problems. A head tilt is what gave it away for Kavan.

7. Otitis is the term used to describe an inflammation of the ear that can occur in the outer ear (externa), middle ear (media), or inner ear (interna).

8. Fifty to 84 percent of otitis externa in cats can be attributed to ear mites .

9. A higher percentage of ear mite infestations occur in young cats and kittens.

10. Middle ear infections are usually the result of untreated external ear infections. This is what happened to Kavan. He had bad earmites, and after he was treated for them, the eardrum problem was discovered.

11. The Eustachian tube connects the middle ear cavity to the back of the throat. This connection equalizes air pressure on both sides of the eardrum.

12. Kavan has a bacterial infection and a perforated eardrum. Fluid is draining into his throat, causing him to cough and sneeze.

13. Kavan is getting the antibiotic Baytril (enrofloxacin) drops in his ear and well as Zithromax (azithromycin) taken orally, both twice a day.

So besides using those ears to hear the opening of a skinky goodness can, be sure to take care of them. They are very important, and ear problems are no fun. Ask Kavan!

Not quite Wordless and Meezer Rule Wednesday

The V-E-T called and said Kavan's poop sample came back negative. So his squirts must be from the old antibiotics or his ear infection. And the new antibiotics might make it worse! Oh dear....

Poor Kavan, until they start working (along with the new antibiotic), the ear drops are making his head tilt worse, and he is walking sideways and his balance isn't great. Its pretty funny, although I feel a bit sorry for him.

Meezer Wednesday Rule: When entering a contest where you have to sign in to a blog, be sure to have your human sign you out before visiting other cat's blogs, or you will have a very strange blog link! I know from experience. Lots of you suggested I enter Monty's contest, so I did, then Mom forgot to sign me out. Humans!

Tummy Good News Tuesday

I was having a great snooze in my favorite Millie bed on my balcony overlooking the world...
Mom had to get out the stupid flashy box....
But I did get a great belly rub, so I forgave her...
I had such a great nap cause we finally figured out what is with Kavan's sneezing. He had a terrible ear mite infestation when Mom and Dad brought him home. He was sneezing and wheezing at the time. The vet couldn't really see into his ears cause of the mites and wax, so treated him for ear mites, but thought the sneezing was a virus. A week or so later Kavan seemed to have developed a secondary infection from the virus, so got Clavamox, an antibiotic. After a month on that, Kavan improved a lot, but still sneezed a bit. And he started tilting his head, like he was trying to focus his eyes. But the vet noticed the ear tilt immediately and discovered an inner ear infection, probably from the mites. The Clavomox helped clear it up, but wasn't strong enough to get it all. Kavan has a perforated ear drum, and fluid was draining into his nose and throat, causing him to sneeze and cough, and explaining why he doesn't have much of a meow for a meezer. So now he is on ear drops, and the pharmacy is making him some Zithromax, which Mom should get tomorrow. Hopefully, that will clear it all up! Might even be causing the squirts, although Mom did give the V-E-T a poop sample to check (yuck!). Kavan was a good meezer, and refused to let them poke that thing up his you know what, so they had to take him into another room! But other than that, he was really nice to the V-E-T.

Stinky and Sneezy Meezer Monday

Sorry we haven't posted in a while. Mom's been super lazy, and I just could not convince her this was a priority!

Kavan goes to the V-E-T today. Even after 30 days of antibiotics, he is still sneezing, and every so often he goes into a sneezing/coughing fit. Mom's afraid he might have allergies or asthma. He doesn't do it as frequently as he used to, but he is still doing it. And to top it off, he has always had the bit of the squirts. I told him to go talk to Skeezix, to get some tips on getting rid of the stinky paws. Mom has to keep around kitty wipes around to clean him up.

Although you don't see his crossed eyes too much here, he is cocking his head in that way he does to try to get you in focus. I don't think it helps much, there just isn't much behind those running lights. Grandma came over yesterday to give Mom her birthday gift. She said I had "regal presence" and that Kavan's expression "reminded her of a football player". I love Grandma!

But he is lovable. So I'm trying to tell him it will be alright. The V-E-T is not that bad.

Meezer Rule Wednesday

We are getting the outside of our house painted, so when I go out for my walks, I see a lot of strange stuff piled up on our patio, which inspired this Meezer Rule:

You must always investigate and approve any new item that comes into your territory. This is very important, and it will maintain your rule over the household. If you do not approve, you have two choices of action to take on the offending item, 1) chew on it, 2) Pee on it. I typically prefer number 1, but the boys typically go for number 2.

Tummy Tuesday

I love to have my tummy rubbed. This is how I often ask Mom to give me a good tummy rub. Why? I don't know, but I like it.

Mom had a nice birthday with us last night. She thanks everyone for the well wishes. Poor Dad didn't get to Albuquerque till almost midnight! He had a flight get cancelled, then one got turned back due to mechanical problems! Poor Dad. But he did finally make it.

Movie Meezer Monday

So Mom let Kavan play with MY whirly-bird!! MY WHIRLY-BIRD!! DaisyMae Maus sent that to ME!! Hmmpf...

You can't really see it in the video, but Kavan is a bit cross-eyed, and it seems to be getting more obvious every day. Maybe that is why he can't quite seem to keep track of the whirly-bird as well as I can.



Mom's a bit blue today. Its her birthday, but Dad has to leave for the week to fly to Albuequerque, and she has to go to work. Well, Kavan and I will give her lots of love when she gets home tonight!

PhotoHunt: Shadow

One of the neat things about going outside in my harness is the cool shadows the sun makes. Here the sun is going through the plum tree in the back yard.


Here the sun is behind Mom and me as I try to say hi to a neighborhood feral kitty. I was a bit younger then. You can see Mom taking the picture.

Thursday 13: Rabbit brush

Lots of kitties asked about the rabbit in the rabbit brush last week. So I thought I'd do a Thursday 13 on that very common plant in the Great Basin sage scrub complex of plants that occurs around our mountain house.

1. Scientific name: Chrysothamnus nauseosus
2. The name means golden shrub.
3. It is also known as Chamisa in Spanish
4. It is in the sunflower family
5. Found from British Columbia to Alberta, south to Texas and northern Mexico.
6. Fall-blooming, with clusters of yellow flowers.
7. Sweetish, resinous smell, aromatic with an almost pine like odor.
8. Up to 4 ft tall.
9. Grass like gray-green leaves.
10. Favorite food of white-tailed and black-tailed jackrabbits. Also attracts butterflies.
11. Native Americans chewed the bark and wood for a chewing gum and used a teas wash for skin sores.
12. Fresh and dried flowers can be used as a dye–gold colors with mordants of alum, copper or tin or chrome for a rust color, or iron for green color.
13. From the fall flowers, bees make a strong-flavored, amber-colored honey.

Mom is trying to get a nice community of sage brush and rabbit brush in our back yard. I love hunting lizards in the these bushes! We get lots of desert cottontails too, but no big jackrabbits.

Wordless and Whiskers

(biggify to really see the whiskers)

Tummy Tuesday, MEME and More...

This is the tummy shot of Kavan that Mom accidently deleted when she was on travel, and Blogger so inconsiderately saved the deletion!

And this is the dare from Anastasia. Dares are always easier when you bully someone else into doing it, don't you think? Doesn't Kavan make a great Pink Lady?

Caesar and Princess taged me for a fun MEME.

What were you doing 10 years ago?
I wasn't even a gleam in my grandparents eye yet. Mom had just finished her PhD (late 1996) and was finding time to take up the fiddle again.

What were you doing 1 year ago?
I think by then I was in my furmom's tummy (I turn 1 in August, I'm not sure how long kitties stay in tummies before being born).

Five snacks you enjoy:
Temptations!
Yogurt
Bites of any bakery good like muffins Mom is eating
Bugs when I can catch them
Grass

Five songs to which you know all the lyrics:
Hmm, I don't know any songs. Mom can remember zillions of tunes that she plays on her fiddle, but can't remember songs real well.

Five things you would do if you were a millionaire:
Make Mom and Dad quit work to stay home with me
Give to our local animal shelter
Fly in first class around the country and world to meet all my internet friends
Buy stock in Temptations
Build a big hugh outdoor enclosure so I could be outside without my harness

Five bad habits:
Eating too many crunchies
Sleeping too much and not getting enough exercise
Smacking Kavan when I've had enough of him
Begging to go out all the time
Being finicky about my stinky goodness

Five things you like doing:
Going outside in my harness
Wearing cute clothes when I go out when it not too hot
Really romping with Kavan
Sleeping in my Millie bed when Kavan isn't hogging it
Sleeping in bed with Mom at her feet

Five things you would never wear again:
Water
Hats (I just can't get the hang of them)
Hm...can't think of anything else, I actually like to wear stuff...

Five Favorite Toys:
Tunnel Tube
Feather fishing pole toy
Whirlie bird
Any box
Kavan

Five kitties to tag:
Miss Peach
Jake and Bathsheba
Casey
Bonnie Underfoot and Victor Tabbycat

That is actually six, so I'll stop there!

Meezer Monday

Kavan is still getting the hang of this harness walking thing. He always has a bit of a stunned look on his face when he comes out with me. I try to tell him to just follow me, but Mom often has to pick him up so he can keep up. I'm not sure I'll be able to teach that boy anything!

Mom finally let us open the package we got from Zoey and the furballs for winning their 50th post contest! Look at the cool kitties on the package! Mom let us open it on the back patio.
Of course, Kavan had to be right in the middle of things! I'm the one that won the post!
Look at all the great stuff! I'm sniffin the primo cat nip....
Kavan couldn't resist playing with some of it......
Thanks Zoey and the furballs (and Cha-Ching too!). You are the best!

Chillin' and Rockin'!

I've been nominated! And by some of my best friends! Casey, Lord Jaders, Sia and Ariel! These are some rockin' cool cats! I'm so honored!

Now its my turn! There are so many rockin' girl kitties out there, its hard to choose. Here my my nominees:

Annie at Forty Paws for putting up with all those boys!

Princess Mia, she honors a girl kitties on every Friday on Female Friday!

Bathseba, she knows how to keep her brother in line!

The girls at HOT(M)BC, including Mom Robyn, that whole house rocks!

Sadie at Kattonic Cats. What a party this weekend!

It was so much nicer here on Saturday, it only got into the low 90's! Both Kavan and I got to go out and enjoy it. I even got to meet a cute hippie painter dude who had come over to work on our house. He was by Friday to pressure wash it. Kavan and I could hear it, and I tried to peak out and watch him, but all the blinds were closed, so it was a little hard. Mom says him and others will be by all next week to paint the outside of our house, so it should be an exciting week!

It's HOT!!

It is soo hot! Mom came home from work, and as usual I begged and begged to go out. She said no, its 105F outside! Finally, when the sun was almost down and it was shady everywhere, she took me out. At first I was excited, but it was still so hot! It was still around 100F!



We stayed out a little bit. Kavan was begging at the glass window door, so Mom brought him out too. But all we did was lay around on the cool grass. Then I got up, went back to the glass window door and asked to be let back in. Whew...I should have listened to Mom.

About an hour later, I asked to be let out the front. Hey, maybe it would be cooler out front! Mom said no.....

We are looking at several days of this. I worry about the kitties who are living only outside. I hope they can stay cool.

Thursday 13: Western Fence Lizard

One thing I love about my mountain house is my backyard is full of interesting critters. I think this is a western fence lizard crawling on Dad's hot tub gazebo.
I jumped up and tried to grab it, but it ran into this rabbit brush bush.
Then it ran under Dad's gazebo to the inside and got away. Darn. Since I'm still working on my MzD, I thought I'd better study up on western fence lizards. Here at thirteen cool facts about western fence lizards.

1. This is the Great Basin Fence Lizard, scientific name Sceloporus occidentalis longipes.

2. Western fence lizards are about 8-10 cm long excluding their tail, and about 15 cm long with the tail included.

3. They are brown to black in color (the brown may be sandy or greenish).

4. Adult males have iridescent blue lateral patches on their flanks, and their entire bodies may be flecked with blue. The blue color is much less noticeable in females and juveniles.

5. The blue stomach of the male is used in a territorial display. They are commonly called blue-bellies and the males are often seen displaying to attract females or drive off male intruders; it bobs its head and flattens its sides, showing off the blue patches.

6. The western fence lizard eats insects and spiders.

7. They are commonly seen sunning themselves on paths and rocks. I find them easily in bushes in the rocks. They are easy prey to birds and snakes (and princess meezers).

8. It is thought that the presence of western fence lizards diminishes the danger of transmission of Lyme disease by ticks.

9. They mate in early spring and produce a single clutch of 3-14 eggs, laid May to July, which hatch in July to September. That means the next time I go up, there should be baby lizards to chase!

10. They are found from Idaho south through Nevada and west to the Pacific coast.

11. They occur in rocky and mixed forest areas from sea level to above 9,000' (2,700 m).

12. They adapt to a wide variety of conditions but not to desert and frequents stone fences, fence posts, old buildings (and bushes!!!).

13. They are diurnal (out during the day) and easily encountered and may be observed even in midwinter on mild days.

And I must say, they are a blast to chase! I've had a few in my paws, but they slither away so fast!

Dressed for the Fourth!

Lots of parties today, so Kavan and I got all dressed up. Kavan put on his special Fourth of July shirt, see the flag? He thinks it is paw-lickin good.

I put on my favorite princess Paw shirt

We both hope all of you have a great Fourth of July!

We are heading home from our mountain house today, so we might not get to visit all the parties as much as we would like. So we wish all the birthday and gotcha day kitties a great day!

Tusseling Tuesday

This is My favorite chair in our mountain house. I was trying to be nice and share with Kavan and take a nap.

But Kavan decided to he wanted to play....
First he went for my ear....
But I grabed him and tried to talk some sense into him....
But it was no use....

Then he decided to lick my cute back paws...
And finally, he just couldn't resist my lovely tail, and give it a good wash down...
Then I kicked him off the chair.

Monday Mountain Misery

Mountains are beautiful, aren't they? But living in them comes at a price. Even a naturally- functioning, non-human impacted mountain ecosystem poses difficulties. Snow, bears, fire, just to name a few. But when you consider an ecosystem that has been so impacted by human folly, from years of fire suppression, to early uncontrolled population growth, to well-intentioned but misplaced regulations, you have a recipe for disaster. Mom and Dad had to make a decision, to have their mountain house IN the mountains, or NEAR the mountains. They chose near. Even the valley they decide upon, they had to consider flooding, so their house is up off the valley floor, with this magnificent view of the Sierra Nevada Mountain range, and Lake Tahoe just right over the top. This last week, they were thankful of their decision. South Lake Tahoe burned. 200+ homes, the lives and hopes of so many families, up in smoke. Some watched their history and past burn up on national news. Our little valley filled with smoke and ash, like Mount St Helens.

People make their choices. They choose to live in a fire prone area. They choose not to clear a fire break around their homes. But they should also expect their government agencies to do their part. Keep the forests from being too over grown, clear the brush, conduct controlled burns. After such a catastrophe, I hope the people learn. But it has happened before, and it will likely happen again. So sad.

Sunday Drive

So we drove up to our mountain house yesterday. It was Kavan's first trip, so I had to show him the ropes. Mom and Dad put us in our separate PTUs and put them in the back seat facing each other so we could see each other, then put a blanket over us. When we started, Kavan cried a little bit, but I talked to him and calmed him down. All was going well until about 45 minutes into the drive. I found I really needed to poop! So I yelled "Mom, I need to poop!". But they kept driving. So I cried again, "MOM I REALLY NEED TO POOP!". But they thought I was just upset for being in my PTU, and kept driving. It was terrible, the litter box was on the floor and I just couldn't get to it. So I'm embarrassed to say I just had to go in the PTU. Mom and Dad smelled it immediately and pulled over, and was surprised to find out it was me and not Kavan. I tried to tell them! Oh, the indignity of being pulled out of a stinky PTU and cleaned up along the side of the road was more than any princess should bear! But Mom and Dad were prepared, and got me all cleaned up and gave me a fresh blanket. They profusely apologized for not understanding. Well, I deserved that apology!

The rest of the trip went really well. We were quiet, and slept most of the way. At the top of the big mountain, we got to go out for a cool walk. It almost made up for the earlier indignity. Kavan was scared, but I showed him how to smell the mountain flowers, scratch your claws on a big pine tree, and climb this cool rock.
Kavan was starting to get the hang of it.

I'm sorry I pooped in the PTU Mom! I tried to tell you, maybe next time you will understand what I'm trying to say. But I'm really glad you brought us along!