Marlene's latest travels - Baltimore, MD

Hello friends! Last week, I had the distinct pleasure of going to Balitmore, MD and meet up with dear Lisa of Hubble Space Paws.

Lisa, graciously, took me around to her favorite restaurants. Clementine was the first of number of stops. I enjoyed a delicious mushroom tart and a spiced melon soup. Delicious!

Now, being from the Bay Area, I have always enjoyed Dungeness Crab. It's my favorite. Well, now, I have a new favorite. Jimmies... Maryland blue crabs cooked with Old Bay Spice... wow... so very yummy!

Now, you are all here to see kitties, so let me show off my photos of 5 of the 7 feline inhabitants of Lisa's home. First off, here is Jerry.

He stays under one of the chairs. When the other kitties sleep, he comes out for a little bit. Jerry is a bit shy and a former feral. He's pretty big and reminds me of Q who came before.

Here's darling Sophie. She didn't come out for me. Apparently, I was a bit too much for her, so she stayed under one of the other chairs.

Here is Buddy. What a sweet boy! He's got some issues with his skin, but oh wow, what a darling. He investigated my backpack which is covered in 9, Chani and Sheamus Popoki's scents, I'm sure.

He then stood on the stairs so I could properly give him attention and pay my respects hehe

Here is Annie. She's sequestered in Lisa's bedroom because she has been a bit too adventurous of late. Running outside, getting into some tussles. Oh dear, Annie, inside is great!

"RAWR!" she says, "Let me out!!!" Oh, I'm sure Lisa will let you out again when you are all healed up.

And finally, my new best kitty friend in Maryland. Bitty. Bitty was a bit shy at first, but then after a while, she warmed up to me and let me love on her a lot!

And there she is above us all on the kitty walk way. I'm so envious of the kitty walk way! I'm sure my three would love one like that. Maybe one day!

I did catch a glimpse of Lucy, but she moved far too quickly for me to take a photo. AND, I did see dear Peggy Sue who let me pet her a lot. But, by that time, I had put my camera away.

Thank you so much to Lisa for making my trip to Baltimore so special! And thank you for sharing your darling kitty posse!

Surprise on a Sunday

 Can you believe it? Mom is posting on a Sunday! Well, there is a good reason for it. We're not sure it's entirely a good reason, but we are satisfied. Sort of.

First, Mom has to show you what happened when she gave Sheamus Popoki's backside a bit of a wash. He didn't clean himself very well and was a little stinky. Mom got the faucet running and the water warm, grabbed the Orange Interloper and gave his little bum a bit of a scrub. For her troubles, Sheamus gave her a gift with his back paws.
 

Yes, it's time for Mom to cut his claws... all of our claws, actually.

Now, here is the part that is a bit distressing. The purple suitcase is out again.That means Mom is going to travel again. She won't tell us for how long, so we made sure to help her out. Lots of fur from all of us to make sure she doesn't miss us.

9 rested atop the suitcase.

I snoopervised from the bed and made my contribution of cat fur to the pile of clothes on the bed.

Sheamus Popoki made sure to add his fur to the inside of the suitcase and to Mom's lovely shoes.

Mom says that she will be heading Back East for a cousin's wedding. So many people getting married this year! Sheamus' foster mom will be keeping an eye on us. 9 and I do like her and Sheamus loves her still. We will see you when Mom gets back!

Huggle Time!

Hello, dear friends. Chani here. Mom has been horribly remiss in documenting our lives. No proper photos of us since St. Patrick's Day! We would be terribly upset except, she does give us a lot of attention and hugs. In fact, tonight, she stayed home with us instead of going to her yoga class. It was quite pleasant.

She did, however, spend a great deal of time on the computer playing a game. And so, my dear little brother, Sheamus Popoki, got her attention by knocking over one of our empty kibble dishes. Can you imagine that? An empty kibble dish? But it gets worse. ALL 3 kibble dishes were empty! It was quite horrific.

Each dish was quickly refilled. Thank goodness.

And now to the topic of the day. "Huggle Time". Honestly, I don't know why Mom does this. Look at us! All 3 of us captured in one ginormous hug, being snuggled by Mom. Look at our faces! Can you tell how much we 'enjoy' this act? Ugh... I cannot begin to tell you how annoying it can be. Sometimes, I am in the center. But sometimes, I escape. Mom usually begins by capturing Sheamus Popoki and 9. The boys do get along with each other quite well. Then, she comes after me. If I am awake enough, I run away because I see what is happening.

Most of the time, my brothers do not see it coming at all. Well, 9 loves being snuggled and Sheamus Popoki... well, he's kind of dim. He hasn't caught on yet. I wonder if he ever will.

Mom is quite right in that she enjoys these huggles much more than any of us do. I am quite vocal in complaining about it. Sheamus Popoki complains too. 9 just takes it. He's kind of passive aggressive that way.

Sigh... we really better start training Mom again. She is such a slacker and obviously requires constant supervision and managment.

Marlene's been painting...

I think I might have shown off some of my yin/yang kitty plates. I've been painting these for the past year or so. Each plate is different (so many types of kitities out there!) and I have a hard time keeping these in stock. In fact, the one above is the last one in my stock and I have promised it to a charity auction that will be coming up. I used to paint back in the day and stopped.  Pottery sort of took over my artistic endeavors. However, recently, I started on painting on canvas again. Which led me to paint on boards.

I really like the finish that comes with that medium.

Originally, my goal was to build a body of work large enough to start selling at my local farmer's market in August. I just need time and of course, subject matter.

Cats were definitely the main focus. Imagine that! ha!  At any rate, I knew I could paint cute cats, but I wanted something more. The images had to be simple and yet show off that I can, in fact, paint and draw.

Now, during a manic phase where I was posting a sketch a night, I drew one based on a friend's cat who had crossed the Bridge (she had sent me a photo of her darling Phantom). She told me that if I ever did anything with that sketch, she wanted it. And so, I did the above for her. So, my style of cat was basically set.

After a conversation with another friend about my painting as well as how much I was enjoying hot yoga (yes, Bikram yoga... I'm no where near the point where I can do all the poses, but I am starting to enjoy the heat), plus seeing little wood carvings of kitties meditating, my friend suggested combining them all. After all, cats and yoga... they sort of go together.

And so you see the first two paintings. I haven't been able to do more because of time constraints. But, I do have plans for a few more. I'm thinking a Rainbow of Meditating Lotus kitties. Eventually, 9, Chani and Sheamus Popoki will make appearances in these (Chani will be on an orange background, Sheamus Popoki on green... I haven't decided on 9 yet. Purple, perhaps).

I have created a few as cards on Zazzle, but those are kind of expensive per card. And so, I'm looking into other print options and opening up an Etsy store. I'll keep you all informed with how that goes!

Spaz, 1995-2012

Spaz was an adorable kitten who belonged to a good friend. After 17 years, Spaz left us to run free across the Rainbow Bridge.

She was part of a trio made up by Q who came before and his buddy, Sylvester. The poor girl really didn't get involved with the boys too much (being a girly girl didn't help), but she did put up with them both quite well. She wasn't the brightest of kittens, but she was pretty.

Run free, dear Spaz, our former 'shiro baka neko', who turned out to be a bit smarter than we all imagined.

Re-furring laundry

Mom went on a trip last week to Austin, TX. One of her cousins was getting married. So, of course, when she got back, she had to do laundry. I, of course, had to make sure the dark clothes were properly re-furred once they came out of the dryer. Teehee... I'm good, conscientious lady cat!

At work, Mom has been making 3d models of buildings. And so, her eye is really attracted to interesting buildings these days. The Frost Bank Building in Austin is the one that she has become obsessed with. She took a bunch of photos of this building and hopes to model it soon.

Austin is known for having a large population of bats. Unfortunately, there was no time for her to see them. She'll have to go back one day.

AND as for wild life that she did see. There was this awesome sign next door to the house where she was staying. Plus, she saw an opossum AND an armadillo late at night. Mom was thrilled!

Chani and the unmade bed

 Puuurrrrrrr, how I love when Mom makes the bed

So much space to stretch out upon!