Happy National Bow Tie Day from Skippy #nationalbowtieday #bowtiesarecool

Hanging with the Catman

My husband has come down with a cold so there is a whole lot of this going on.

In case you can't tell, the Catman is back there covered in blankets and then cats. I'm sure he'll be better right quick, but it is always fun to remember that cats really want to hang out with you when you aren't feeling well.

What is a foster kitten blog without foster kittens??

Seriously woman! And you call yourself my mother!!

Poor Skippy, he has been party to my shenanigans due to my not having kittens. While I have been packing, I found his sparkly bow tie, which he's never worn, so I put it on him to see how it looked. It is okay, but it isn't my favorite.  Then I found (rediscovered? uncovered? no, not really, I knew where it was all along, but I was totally looking for a break from shoveling through the clutter in my office) the fez and knew that Skippy was just going to have to put up with me and my love of a mad man in a blue box.

And Skippy was all like "Don't you have something to take care of" to which I shook my head and repositioned the fez. and Skippy retorted "what about those things out in your thingy" (he has no concept of outside) which reminded me that I had decided to let the milkweed, that was popping up in my flower bed, grow to see what would happen. It only started appearing last year after 12 years at this house and last year I pulled it all up. I've always loved milkweed and their pods and have been fascinated with monarch caterpillars. I loved watching them hatch when I was a kid, so I wondered if I let the milkweed grow if they would come.

Every time I checked them, I saw nothing. some nibbles but no visitors. One day I saw a monarch floating away from the house and I was hopeful, but alas, nothing for weeks. Then this weekend... 

How exciting!! I looked around for more and found one on my peony plant and told it that it was being very silly and it should get back to the milkweed right away. It didn't listen to me, so I "helped" it.

In all, I counted five, but I saw one in the pictures below that I didn't see when I was taking the photos, so we have at least six. I'm trying not to make a nuisance of myself, but it is hard when I don't have kittens to be all not 'grabby hands' (as evidenced by my 'helping' that one on my peony plant) (okay, fine, it is hard in general for me to not be all grabby hands.. I admit it, you are right on that one Dee)

I don't know why the milkweed suddenly started growing in my garden, but I'm glad it did. I hope they have a lovely journey down to Mexico - that is if they pupate and emerge on time to get there.

Skippy gets a new bow tie

Skippy is a little hard on his bow ties. Some he can wear for months, some a little longer, but inevitably he 'squishes' them and gets them covered with fur and food, and they start looking a little ratty. Sometimes I try refreshing them up and have him wear them again, but I thought it was time to buy a new one.

I saw a burger bow tie at Global, so I did a search online and found one at the Woof Meow Shop on Etsy. It was a little bit more than I wanted to pay for a bow tie, but after the cheeseburger post I did a while back, I could not resist. I placed my order and then promptly forgot about it.

When it didn't arrive I went back to my order and saw a notice from Micel apologising letting me know that she was out of the "small" size and offered a larger size. I replied that I was sad, but to cancel my order because it was for my cat Skippy. She replied with 'in that case, I will remake one of the larger ones into a smaller one for you.'

It showed up fairly quickly after our conversation and the packaging alone made me want to blog about this. I mean look at the stickers she placed on it, especially the one on the back.

I wanted to open it up right away and take a peek at it, but she did such a good job at wrapping it up to mail, I made myself wait so I could take photos of the packaging as well.

Fleurp thought she should help with the photo taking.. because why wouldn't she? She usually gets treats when I bring the camera out.

I love that the bow tie was tied to the card so that it was super easy to remove. The bow tie itself was a bit squishy like there was a little padding inside of it. I'm hopeful this one will stand up to Skippy squishing it when he lays down.

But, how would it look on Skippy??

Um, Momma, you have it on upside down you know..

If you would like your own bow tie, check out the Woof Meow Shop and you can use the code WMFRIEND for 20% off. (no expiration date!)

Annoying Disclosure: I'm blogging about this because of awesome customer service and super cute bow ties. I was not compensated for this post in any way, but you know.. if a new bow tie shows up in my mailbox, Skippy isn't going to complain 😸

Happy St. Patrick's Day

While none of my cats are Irish, and despite the red hair, neither am I, we still feel the need to have a little fun with St.Patrick's Day.. because who doesn't love a bit of wearing of the green and who doesn't want to avoid being pinched?

although I'm not sure the cats don't want to pinch me for this..

Love is in the air..

Regular readers of this blog know that I really like cats in bow ties. Skippy wears one on a regular basis. It totally fits with his personality and he does not mind it at all. Occasionally, I'll remove his bow tie for one reason or another and he just looks silly to me... kinda like when your friend who wears glasses takes off their glasses.

This past holiday season an admirer send us a nice pretty pink bow tie and a jar of salmon treats for the kitties. I knew almost immediately I'd be doing a Valentine post with it. When I saw another pink bow tie at Jet.com recently I had to have that too.  Oddly. though, they put the bow on upside down.

A couple of quick adjustments - I hate bells anyway - and we were back in business.

Must say, these really are adorable.




The salmon treats are interesting. I didn't realize I had never had them before. The chunks of salmon were huge in comparison to other cat sized treats, but not one of the cats complained.

Sadly, Jack is not a big bow tie guy, he tends to start to paw at them if I leave them on too long. but I do appreciate the sacrifice he made for the blog fodder ☺

Happy National Bow Tie Day from Skippy

Skippy

Skippy is the baby of the family. The fact that he is with us at all is pretty amazing because when he was a foster kitten he was fairly healthy and went back to the shelter and was adopted. I even spoke to the people who adopted him because he had a bit of history and I wanted them to know about it.

See, Skippy was an abandonment case. If I remember correctly they were even considering going after animal neglect with him because he was found starving and with a pretty bad urinary infection. Any kitty who has urinary issues can be prone to them in their life, so I let them know that. They didn't care, they wanted him, they adopted him and took him home.  A few days later they returned him because he came down with a cold and needed some medication.  I was furious but I was happy to bring him back here and treat him. It took him a little while to get over it and I kept him a little longer to make sure and sent him back to the shelter to be adopted, where he promptly came down with another cold. Another round of treatment and more love and back to the shelter he went. etc.

By the time I adopted him, he was a long lanky teenage kitty that everyone was overlooking.  He was high energy and people were either adopting little kittens or adult cats. I was going to the shelter every single day to spend time with him (hoping to prevent him from getting another cold by sheer force of will) and finally I had enough and adopted him. It was totally the wrong thing to do because it put me at eight cats and my husband and I were both thinking we'd be overwhelmed since the first seven of our cats were needy enough, but he has fit in seamlessly.

He is very much an omega kitty.  He sits and waits and bides his time, and then slowly creeps in for love and attention when we are both occupied.  We call it "Skippy Time" because there really is no denying him when he sets his mind to it. You can push him aside and he just comes back - a bit like a guided missile. He is also a drooler. The other day it was Skippy Time and instead of letting him find a place I invited him in, and he was SOOOO happy that drool immediately started falling out of his mouth.

I really don't remember why I put a bow tie on Skippy the first time, but it was so darn cute and he didn't seem to care so I left it on  him, and now he wears one full time.  He actually has quite a collection of ties and I change them out from time to time.

He and Fleurp have a routine where they spar right before a meal. It is a bit more than whappy paw, but not by much.  Occasionally, they'll get into full body wrestling, but it seems to all be in good spirits.

Speaking of Skippy, here he is, and apparently it is Skippy Time.

The cats who love me

"Skinny" is growling at me constantly when I am in the foster room, it is starting to give me a complex. I talk to her softly, I tell her she has nothing to fear, I make sure she has food and water, I scoop her box, she tells me to leave.  I sit and I watch tv, she tells me to leave. I try to wait until she's not growling to leave but she makes it hard because when I get up to go she growls.  I feel horrible for her and can only imagine what she is going through..

But it is always nice when I do leave the room and come back to the cats who love me:

Okay, maybe not Kit.. she loves my husband more, especially since I have to medicate her at the moment.. but even she loves me more than our poor foster mom.

Don't forget, you can always check in on the kittens via the webcams I have linked at the top of this page. So far, the angle is pretty good, despite the fact that she is behind the couch. But because of that, it is usually in night vision mode so it is usually in black and white, but considering where she is, it's not bad.