Olivia's Journal #1

The cat journals this week conclude with Olivia; cat number one.  The story of this little gray fluffy cat starts when we bought our home.  In fact, maybe even before we bought our house as I was dreaming of a cat from the moment I moved into a cat-free apartment building with my then boyfriend (now husband) who also wanted a cat.  We waited out the three or so years in the apartment until we could afford to get married and get a house of our own.  And in January of 2011, we walked through the house that would be ours and I could picture certain places in the house and how a cat would be in those areas.  There's a small ledge at the top of the staircase that I imagined a cat sitting on waiting on us to come out of the master bedroom.  I imagined how they would like to wander up and down the stairs and peek out through the railings.  I got pretty sentimental about the house even before we were finished house-hunting.  This wasn't a beautiful home by any means as there were so many things that needed to be fixed before adding a pet to our home.

But by spring, we were popping into pet stores and looking at adoptable cats.  I saw a particularly cute one around April or so of the year and begged my husband to let me fill out the paperwork to adopt it.  I'm going to put this right out there though - adopting through a pet store that's just showcasing cats for other shelters is a bad run.  It took us a lot of time to even get the paperwork from a cashier who said it wouldn't get faxed in until the morning, and then we waited a week to find out that they had never faxed it in, nor had they even any record of us filling out the paperwork, and oh...by the way...the kitten was already adopted.  Too bad, so sad.

Frustrated by the whole thing it would be another week or so of visiting the local Humane Society and a last-minute evening trip that would give us only about a half hour of looking time when I spotted the kittens in the front glass enclosure.  A gray kitten!  Just like the one I'd seen at the pet store!  I rushed in, almost bumping another woman out of the way in my efforts to grab for the kitten... and some how this little gray furball actually came up to me.  I scooped her up and except for when we got to play with her in the little bonding room, I hardly let her out of my arms until the paperwork was signed and she was in the new carrier on our way home.

As you might be able to tell, Olivia is my first child and my favorite.  Mina might be an adorable, purring cuddler, and Tenchi might be a rough and tumble head-bumper, but Olivia is my buddy.  Her name at the Humane Society was "Brioche", although I have no idea why they'd name a gray kitten after a type of bread.  We were fans of the television show "Fringe" and that's where Olivia's name came from.  She was every bit the strong female lead in the story that would become our family of cats.  She still is, in fact, as she's able to strand lying near Tenchi and jump neatly away from his advances of playtime.

Brave cat that she is, Olivia scales the highest heights of the house, managing to climb on just about anything in efforts to get to a good vantage point.  She climbs the rafters in the basement, managed to get up to a ledge at the top of our cathedral ceiling bedroom by balancing on a bedpost, can make it to the top of our kitchen cupboards...well, you name it, she's gotten up there.  She's lightweight, and small, only about 7 to 8 pounds on her heaviest days.  Small pink toes, a warm pink-gray in most lighting situations, and an extra-thick layer of fur that is almost wavy.  Unfortunately that also comes with a ridiculous penchant for shedding and even worse when she lays next to my face in bed and I get a mouth full of fur!

When Olivia was a kitten we would get up every morning and make an effort to play with her.  Sometimes she would get so excited she would start panting and have to lay down.  It took us awhile to figure out this was normal and even good to wear a cat out like this, but our first time cat-parent selves were always cautious of her.  She fell off a tall shelf in the basement at one point, hurting herself and she limped for a day.  Another week or more went by with Olivia squinting and barely opening her eye.  This was followed by a week of wearing a cone and putting in eye drops prescribed by the vet.  And then followed by the realization that Olivia squinted with that eye when she was irritated with us for bringing home Mina.  In fact, she squinted more for putting the medicine in her eye so that when the cone was removed and the drops ended, the squint only reappeared when she was irritated.  That was a couple hundred dollars and lots of cat humiliation that could have been avoided!

Olivia still likes to play, but she doesn't like to do it around Mina.  Even when Mina was a kitten Olivia wasn't a fan of her younger sister.  They would tolerate one another at windows and in sunny spots, but if Olivia was playing with a feather toy in one room and Mina popped in, all interest in the toy dropped and Olivia simply walked out of the room as if she were never playing at all.  It took nearly a year before she would return to asking for playtime in the mornings and they went from long, pant-inducing bird hunts to short, crazy jumps until Mina joined the fun and then she would watch from nearby until Mina tired out enough for Olivia to return to her playtime.

 Introducing Tenchi a year later after that and Olivia returned to her snooty "I don't want to play now that that is here," attitude, and again she fell silent to asking for playtime for nearly another year.

Jump back in time now since I forgot to mention how much of a vocal little thing this cat can be.  She asks to play.  She asks to have her 'snicky-snack' (aka hairball medicine which I'm sooo glad she takes on her own since she has such problems with hairballs).  She asks to go out to the garage.  She asks for closet doors to be opened.  She meows at ceilings and random spots on the wall.  She meows in the half-bath on the first floor where, for some reason, she'll howl for fifteen minutes straight if you let her an we're still not sure why three years later.  She chirps when you wake her up from a nap.  She meows to make me roll over to cuddle with her.  Oh yes...she won't shut up until I roll to face away from my husband in bed so that she can knead on my left arm until she feels it's soft enough to curl up against and shove her face in my face and nibble on my nose.  That doesn't happen every night...but it used to before Tenchi arrived.

For the most part, Olivia is a cuddler.  She likes cozy spaces like piles of warm laundry, and my computer chair or now, most recently, my lap.  The two girls fight over it, but refuse to share it.  If Mina is on my lap, Olivia will come up and meow at me and sulk off.  Mina will come up to sniff Olivia if she's in my lap and then go lie on the floor with her head on her paws looking at me all pathetic like, as if she were saying "Why don't you love me anymore?"

If Olivia gets chased off of my lap she might go into CRAZY CAT MODE.  I'm sure most cats have this, right?  That moment where the energy builds up so much they just have to release it by running around the house at full tilt?  Some do.  Mina and Tenchi get out most of their tension by chasing after one another through the house or chasing Olivia.  Now, Olivia on the other hand, barely ever instigates a chase (once in awhile, but not usually) as instead she enjoys suddenly going crazy, meowing her head off and doing kitty parcour against the back of the sofa.  Then, if you turn to look at her, she'll go wide-eyed and high-tail it out into the kitchen.  Eventually this act, plus running into the bathroom and meowing to high-heaven, will get her a playmate of one of the other cats and they'll go racing out of the room and upstairs.  There will be the sound of a great thundering stampede in the ceiling until eventually they race back down again and into the basement.

 Cats are weird that way, I cannot deny it.  Olivia is for the most part, very sweet.  She doesn't mind her toes trimmed.  She loves to be petted in the master bathroom, even my husband gets love from her there.  She loves to meow at us after we come out of the shower until she gets to rub all over our ankles and hands.  She stays out of the way most of the day by finding a nice place to nap.  She doesn't struggle when picked up, but doesn't like it either, usually using it to her advantage to get a good spot on top of our shoulders to see if she can find a good jumping place somewhere she couldn't reach before.  Her main flaw, I suppose, is that she teaches the other cats bad behaviors like trying to get into the catnip (which we've had to lock up due to Tenchi's aggressive nature and fact he's chewed his way through the butter-tub shaped container we have it in).  But because of her bravery, she doesn't hide from storms and gets to play while the others are hiding.  She will bat at the vacuum cleaner if you get the hose too close to her, but she doesn't stand down.  She enjoys spending time watching TV as well, and I've caught her more than once, en rapt with the moving objects on the screen.

And that about does it for now on the three cats in my household.  I hope you've enjoyed reading about them!  If nothing else...this is my own personal memory at this point in time of my three cats.  As other events happen to these sweethearts, rest assured that there will be new journals posted with new adorable photographs.  I hope you have enjoyed what I've posted as well.

Next time on WhatcherStudios... most likely something about backyard birding as I've been doing a lot of that lately.

Mina's Journal #1

 In part 2 of the cat introduction, I present to you the black cat Mina.  She came to us a bit of a raggedy kitten, found as a stray by a different coworker.  It does seem like cats come from people you work for - they always seem to pawn cats off on unsuspecting people!  But that's not where Mina's story begins...

In October of 2011, we had settled into our new house with our new cat Olivia.  I'll tell her story in the next blog, but it's important to note that Olivia had been an 'only child' for a good six months before Mina came into her life.

We run Tsubasacon, in Huntington, WV, so when the convention was over that year we had talked about getting another cat to keep Olivia company.  Perhaps, we thought, having another cat would keep Olivia occupied so she wouldn't constantly bug us to play with her.  Maybe a buddy would help?  Well, I told my husband that if we were to get another cat, it would have to 'come' to us.  I know there are a lot of people out there who don't believe in God, but for those of you on my side of the fence, I believed that God would bring me another cat if that's what was to happen.  Not two days after I got back from my leave from running the convention, a coworker said to me, "You have only one cat, right?  Weren't you talking about getting another cat?"
            "Yes...we were talking about getting another eventually," I replied, wondering where this conversation was going.
           "Well, I have this stray running around my house, and I've been feeding him but my cats don't like him and I can't have another right now... He's a real sweetie."  We talked about this kitty and my coworker told me about how she'd seen him being dragged around in the arms of a toddler a few houses down when he wasn't fending for himself out and about.  Of course when you hear about a cat being tortured by a child I immediately went home and told my husband about this desperate situation.  He agreed we could go look at the cat.
            After a week or so we arranged to go to my coworker's house and she arranged to catch the kitten and have him ready for us to look at.  We made the almost a half hour trip out to nowhere land and there was this kitten in a carrier out on my coworker's back porch.  She brought the cat out and he wove in and out around our ankles and climbed around the back porch area.  I looked up at my husband with big eyes, and begged to take him.  He called the vet on the drive back, because he knew he didn't have any argument about the little raggedy black cat with the silly white hairs sticking out of her chest and back.
              At the vet, just as I'd already assumed after seeing the cat in person, that 'he' was actually a 'she'.  My coworker didn't realize it with how long haired she was, but I knew immediately.  We passed back and forth dozens of names on the drive to the vet and already had a name picked out by the time we got there to have her checked out.  "Mina" was a character from an anime (not originally an anime though, an opening sequence anime to a Japanese drama called "Densha Otoko").  I'd wanted to use the name when we got Olivia, but didn't due to other reasons.


 Olivia is a pretty easy going cat, but for some reason the moment Mina came into the household she lost interest in playing.  Mina basically took over being the kitten with all of the energy.  She'd silently run into a room while we were playing and take over the battle over the birdie or mousie, or whatever feathery toy we would be waving around.  Olivia would sulk out of the room and let Mina have the run of the place.  When they were younger, Mina and Olivia would spend time near one another and sometimes even sleep near one another.  Unfortunately upon the entrance of Tenchi, they lost interest in cuddling together and everyone took up their own territories in the house.

Mina's territory is the first floor.  She rarely comes upstairs to the second level.  UNLESS of course, there's playtime going and she comes running.  She can appear mysteriously wherever a feather or string object is being thrown around.  Occasionally she'll come upstairs to check out if everything is okay, but Tenchi usually runs her out.  Where she shines though is the first floor where she loves to look outside and watch us when we're in the yard.  She stalks the birds and the bird feeders.  She runs in and plops down on the living room floor and will roll over to show you her belly.

Unfortunately a few quirks still exist from her kitten days.  Mina does not like to be picked up.  Almost immediately this normally quiet cat will start to yowl like I've pulled out a toenail or something.  She absolutely hates to have her claws trimmed, which is sort of ironic as she also doesn't use scratching posts so if I don't trim them, they curl back on themselves.  I'm not sure why she has such an aversion to having her feet touched, but the only time she allows them to be touched is when she's completely asleep or she's forced into the trimming.  Luckily she only struggles and yowls, doesn't bite like Tenchi will try to do on occasion.

Mina also hates the sound of thunder.  We discovered this the spring after we got her.  The first thunderstorm that rolled through and she hid herself under the television stand.  She still does it even a few years later, and she'll stay there until long after the storm has passed.  We're not sure where this fear came from as neither of the other cats have a problem with storms and even though Mina used to run from the vacuum cleaner, she mostly stays put now that she's older and won't leave too far from her perch in the front window.

An unusual thing happened when Mina would hide under the television:  Olivia would play again.  In fact, I sometimes think that Olivia enjoys feeling like she's the only cat in the house during thunderstorms because she will play and snuggle up to me on the first floor when Mina is no where to be found.

Then, after Olivia was just starting to act a bit more normal (at least back to her six months of being an 'only child') we introduced the kitten Tenchi.  For some reason he clung onto Mina like they were going to be the best friends in the entire world.

That, of course, was not the case.  Mina hissed, howled, growled, spat, clawed...turned into basically the most nasty sounding evil cat I'd heard - all coming out of the sweetest cuddly thing you can think of.  She didn't want to have anything to do with Tenchi.  (Olivia, on the other hand sniffed at him, but overall just avoided the kitten.)  But Tenchi was enthralled with Mina for some reason.  He would find her sleeping up by the window and curl up next to her.  If she was sound asleep then he could be near her, but the moment she woke up she would sniff at him in disdain and leave.

Even a year later, Mina's admirer still takes time out of his busy schedule of eating and being an overall pain in the butt (walking his bulky 14 pounds of bony feet all over me, bringing toys to fetch and eating when he's bored) to annoy Mina.

Mina's schedule is usually like this - she sleeps on the couch, or the cat tower, and when she hears her humans get up she runs out into the living room floor and throws herself down for scratches.  If we take too long to get up she might run up to investigate which causes Tenchi to chase her out.  Then she rubs around our ankles in the kitchen, throwing herself down on our feet if we stand in one place too long without petting her.  Tenchi comes in and chases her out of the kitchen.  If I don't have to go to work and take up residence on the couch, Mina plops herself on my leg until it goes numb (about a half hour or so) and then plops down on the floor to the left of the coffee table and sprawls out until I get up and walk around.  If I sit down again she'll be on my lap within 5-10 minutes.  Repeat, lots of times through the day.  In the evening, Tenchi comes out from hiding and will lie on the floor and copy-cat her position in the floor, both of them showing off their bellies.

Mina stays downstairs when we go upstairs as that is Olivia and Tenchi territory.  Now, if we've left something on the floor - Tenchi's blue rubber bracelet for example - we'll hear her meowing to tell us that it's been left on the floor.  Mina also has a cute habit she started as a kitten, and that was fetching small objects that DO NOT BELONG.  I say this because she makes a point of making a ruckus if one of these objects is found.  The first was a bit of cement from the basement floor; she brought it up in her mouth, carefully dropped it in the living room and meowed at me.  She rarely speaks, unlike Tenchi and Olivia who are avid talkers.  So it's quite a shock, and the first time she brought me something I thought she had hurt herself.  But eventually we figured out what the meow meant.  "This does not belong on the floor," she seems to say.

Mina has brought up a list of things from the basement and also warns us if we've dropped items that could potentially be harmful to step on.  Maybe it's her foot thing, I'm not sure.  But her list includes: cement, stone, shards of mirror, screw, twist tie, some strange velcro thing and Tenchi's bracelet.  We're not sure why she's so bothered by that bracelet as it's a human object, yes, but my husband has worn it only once and Tenchi took over carrying it around ever since, so in essence it's become a cat toy.  But not to Mina, even though she's played with it herself.

It's taken nearly a year to get 'used' to Tenchi enough to get back into the routine of disrupting play time again.  Olivia got fairly used to the new boy in the house, but Mina stopped playing when we got him, all but on occasions, and maybe it's because she's got such short legs she doesn't run very fast.  She runs with all claws and can't jump very high.  Most of the time she stays on at least two feet to catch birds.  She's scared of heights as well.  She will get to the top of the cat tower, but it took months to get over wobbling with fear when we'd put her at the top.  She started lying on the bottom, then the first ear, then another until finally she would sleep at the top.  She can't jump up on counters, her legs just won't let her jump higher than a foot or so.

I don't mind that she doesn't climb (Olivia is enough of a hassle to chase down off of things), because she's quite the cuddler.  When she's on my lap, if she's really loving she'll start up this little motor going (Tenchi, I didn't mention before, doesn't purr.  He has a tiny little rumble that will come for maybe five seconds at a time when he's feeling cuddly, but it only happens maybe once a week.  Olivia purrs, but more about her later) and put her paws on my shoulders.  She'll rub her face in mine and bury her face in my neck.  She doesn't do this to my husband (only rarely) but she cuddles with me at least once a day.

She also begs for food.  She's the only one of my three cats that care at all about people food.  She LOVES it.  Oh wait... LOVES it.  She'll plop up next to me on the bench at the kitchen table and put her paws on my shoulder and rub the side of my face and then reach over to the dish that I'm eating.  I give her occasional table scraps, but only meat, and only tiny bits as she won't eat anything over the size of a pea.  But she's insatiable.  She'll beg until every scrap of food is cleaned off the plate.  Then she'll turn around and get annoyed that I didn't share anything and leave dejectedly.

And there you have it, Mina.  Next Journal up:  Olivia, Cat #1!

Tenchi's Journal #1

 This is Tenchi.  I was thinking about doing a journal for all three of my cats at one point or another to give a basic introduction to their weird quirks so that I could have it for reference in the future.  Any why not?  There are a ton of people out there who have blogging cats and they get tons of hits on the internet from people who like cats.  There's whole blogging sites dedicated to blogs about cats and cat owners and everything in between.
       I thought to myself as I was going through the sites the other day that I really should at least set it in stone (or digital stone so to speak) who my family is living in this little two-story house.  So, why not start with cat number three and work my way backwards?  Maybe then you can get a good idea of what a cat household is like.  Cat households are different than dog households or children households, in case you were ever wondering.


Cat number three came to us in May I believe, or 2013.  The reason I can't remember Tenchi's date exactly was that I have his birthday memorized as being Feburary 21st.  His mother was a stray that followed a coworker's male cat home one day.  She had four kittens in the litter, two females and two males.

The two black females and one tabby male were named Izzy (long fur), Squeak (short fur) and George.  They wound up staying with Tenchi's mother as my co-worker adopted her after Smudge, they're supposed father died after being run over.


Having been an indoor/outdoor cat, my coworker decided from that point on she would not allow any of the kittens go to a outdoor cat home and refused to adopt any of the kittens out unless they were to be inside cats only.  Tenchi would not ever run that risk as I don't like the idea of outdoor cats at all.  Two of my cats when I was growing up ran into trouble being outdoor cats.  One of which we suspected drinking coolant or some such nasty thing outside and died shortly afterwards.  Of course, in my mom's day, how you treated your pets is a whole lot different than people treat them today.  Even my coworker decided that it wouldn't be a good thing to let them have the run of the neighborhood.  She'd already saved too many strays and later remarked that Tenchi and George's dad may have been a different stray altogether as when a foreclosed house down the street was revealed to be a cat-hoarder's home, one that looked an awful lot like Tenchi wandered the neighborhood not long ago.

 Tenchi was the only one of his siblings to be adopted out, and he was the craziest of them.  My coworker called him "ornery" because he was constantly moving and meowing and running around playing.  We thought to ourselves that we have two cats who love to play and we already played with them quite regularly, so what harm would there be to adding a third to our crew?

WELL...  Tenchi doesn't tear up the furniture.

What he DOES do, however, is get himself torn up by the other two cats.  The moment we brought him home he was calm and quiet.  He had, after all, been worn down by us playing with him before we picked up him that afternoon.  I could have had my pick of any of the kittens.  I could have pulled out the quiet George or the scared Izzy, and if it hadn't been for Squeak being a black female (which I already had) I may have picked her because she'd come out to play when Tenchi was panting in the corner.

I never for once regret...okay...maybe once or twice regret bringing the Tench-meister home, but for the most part I love him.  He IS a bit ornery though, and he can get a bit grouchy.  He's also FAT.  He's managed to get himself up to about 14 pounds of cat now, double the size of our smallest Olivia.  Olivia, for her part, is a jumper so she can get away from him and he's got multiple wounds to prove that she's gotten him from time to time.  But for some reason he likes Mina the most.  He loves to bug her.  Mina is about a pound heavier than Olivia and she's sweet and gentle.  Unless Tenchi gets up in her face and then she growls like nobody's business.  They tear each other up, black fur and white fur everywhere.

But...they live in peace most of the time.  I can't deny that when Tenchi isn't eating (which he does every time he gets bored and there's no one to play with) and when he's not tearing around the house trying to attack the girls, he does get sweet.  He'll bump into my face like a bowling ball though (I swear I've bruised my nose sometimes when he bumps it hard enough) and he's gotten to the point that if he wants to be petted, he'll grab your hand with a paw so he can push his face into it.  However, he seems to only like to be petted on the sides of his face.  Occasionally a stroke down the back or a scratch on the rump.  He'll bite when I try to pet his belly so I have to keep his claws trimmed back.  Luckily it's never a super hard bite, and only once he broke the skin.

Unfortunately, even with Tenchi being a sweet cat, I've had my moments with him.  If you have ever watched "My Cat From Hell" with Jackson Galaxy, you'll know that cats can snap from being treated wrong.  I know that from time to time Tenchi gets this expression on his face and it feels like he's just not there.  It's almost as if a demon has taken over my cat and if I do the wrong thing or act the wrong way he'll just snap and I'll have to make a phone call to the Cat Daddy myself.

So far, it hasn't happened.  Thank goodness.  But he goes through these moods where I swear he's had enough.  I'm not even quite sure what tips it off, although I do know that he's a MEAN drunk - or should I say when he's got catnip he's really mean.  He goes for blood when he's on the stuff, and even though my other two cats are perfectly sweet and adorable and it puts them to sleep...he just wants to tear into everything.  So I have to be very careful about the 'nip.

Tenchi is hit-or-miss when it comes to strangers.  Sometimes he'll be all over them, curious and playful, but for some reason larger men really scare him.  He acts like he's never seen another human before besides my husband and myself.  He'll run and hide from our best man David and he was scared to death of the cable guy last week.  Sometimes he'll get a wild, fluff tail pose on him and scurry away like we're complete strangers too, which is that part of him I wonder if his brain has flicked over to a different cat setting.

The last thing I'll talk about is how our cat thinks he's a dog.  In fact, I compare his actions (even the crazy wild-eyed cat thing) to things I've seen dogs do.  He'll be sweet one moment, wanting to get petted, then bat his paw at me when he's had enough.  I've seen him just randomly lash out at the girls because he wants to play.  And he has favorite toys that he loves to play with.  I don't have pictures of these things, unfortunately, although I do have video I've thought of posting on my YouTube channel (which might get linked someday if I can get things together) but he has a blue, rubber bracelet and a blue chair cushion tie (that he chewed off the cushion and I never bothered to sew back on) that he drags around the house if he wants to play fetch.  He'll also play with these items on his own if he's really desperate, but most of time they wind up next to the couch where I'm sitting or on the bed when I'm sleeping, only so I can throw them across the room and he can fetch them back three or four times.  He does get bored of this, but he has been known to do it for a half hour or more if he's in the mood.

So there you have it.  Tenchi in a nutshell (or at least in ten or so paragraphs).  I think that covers all but the fact that he likes to sleep at my husband's feet at night, he LOVES fresh water out of the tap (we have a separate bowl in the bathroom just for him even though we have a perfectly good fountain) and that he hates to be picked up, held or have his claws trimmed.  Also isn't much of a height cat due to his fat, although he did just make it up on the counter the other day, much to our dismay.

Next entry will be on Mina - Tenchi's arch-rival and best friend.

Bird Watching

    I've never been sure if there are distinctive levels of birdwatchers.  I have heard different prefixes in front of the word 'birdwatcher', ranging from 'amateur' to 'avid' to 'professional', but I'm not sure what distinguishes the levels.  There may even be a few more levels that I'm not aware of.  I'd imagine there are even a few categories that describe people who know what birds are which but don't care to look for them or feed them or hazard a second glance when they see one fluttering in the woods.

     On the other hand, I know there are quite a few people out there who not only know what the birds are, they hunt for them specifically, and even others who make a living out of showing people where to find these birds.  In fact, there's an entire documentary I watched on Netflix about some of these professional birdwatchers.

          I am not a professional.  I don't make a living at it and there are a whole lot of birds that I've never seen in person, even if perhaps I know them by name through looking at books.  I'm not avid, and I'm not amateur... so there must be a category for what kind of birdwatcher I am.  However, I've never spoken with enough birdwatchers, so if you know what kind likes to feed birds, likes to look them up in books and take pictures of them, well, then you've got me down.

        Birds are a wonder to me, and I've always been interested in the different species that live around me.  When I lived up in Michigan, there were a dozen species I'd see on a regular basis.  Robins, House Sparrows, House Finches, Flickers, Starlings and Grackles were the main birds I remembered being able to name throughout my childhood.  Of course, at the time I called House Sparrows, "Chickadees", and it wasn't until much later in my life that I saw what a real chickadee looked like.  My grandmother had a tin windup toy of a House Sparrow, but we always called it a chickadee so I never knew what it was.  Of course, there were also Cardinals and Blue Jays, Seagulls and Crows, the random woodpecker (red-throated mostly) and a dozen other passers by like the random Baltimore Oriole I spotted one summer.
         Now that I'm an adult (ahahaha) and living in my own house, I had to have bird feeders.  I have two of them currently on a backyard fence.  One of them has a standard songbird mix, another is a mix with various small millett seeds and thistle (or I guess it's called Nyger).  I never had goldfinches growing up at my mom's house, but my Great Aunt Doris always had a goldfinch feeder and now that I'm older I have a few nesting pairs that come to my feeders.

 Now, if you're not a birdwatcher, some of these species of birds may be familiar to you in the photos, some may not.  The first one at the top of the page was a Scarlet Tanager that I spotted on Mackinac Island, MI.  The second photo is of a group of birds during one of the more recent snowstorms.  The biggest one being a Mourning Dove (one of my favorites still to this day as it's call reminds me of my grandmother) and Slate-colored Junco (flapping it's wings) and a few others like a song sparrow and white-throated sparrow.  I have an awesome photo which I have yet to upload to my computer of a bunch of house sparrows flying up over the fence that I'll need to post in the near future as it's a fascinating photo - all of the birds hurl themselves up into the air at different rates and angles.
      The two photos above and to the right are my breeding cardinal pair that live nearby.  I believe they take up residence in the more mature trees by the railroad tracks, but when the feeders are full they like to visit.  These photos were taken on different days (as you might be able to notice) and my yellow feeder has now been replaced by a better, more sturdy version.

            Just recently I participated in the Backyard Bird Count on Valentine's day.  I had hoped to participate more days in a row but my work schedule made it awfully hard.  Plus, when the feeders aren't full to brimming (which happens only 15 minutes or so before a group of house sparrows or starlings breeze in and completely empty the songbird mix) I usually get a very small group of birds.  I have about 3 pairs of mourning doves that come to my feeders quite a bit.  Two nesting pairs tend to use my fence as a good place to have their babies and since the first pair arrived, they had two babies the first year that survived to breed somewhere nearby, and a single chick that survived last year.  On some days all 7 or so will sit out on the fence.  I have a few gold finches who are just sleek and brown with little dashes of black and white until their spring plumage comes in.  The cardinal pairs and an occasional hawk that disturbs the whole thing by hanging out on the fence.  Add to that an occasional pair of mallards, and a mockingbird...that about rounds up the group.
            This spring though, I'm looking forward to adding suet to the mix and a couple more feeders, so hopefully I'll be able to start adding new photos to the mix.

Anime Figure Collecting

 So, I have a bit of a confession to make, and it's probably a wee bit late to confess this, because the addiction has been going on for well over 10 years now.  But... I have an addiction to collecting Anime Figures.  And it's only gotten worse over the last few years, because when I first started this collecting thing, it was back around, let me think, 2002.  Back then I was a poor college student, still living at home, just getting my classes paid off and trying to work a full time job.  Later that same year I'd lose that full time job and have to switch to a part time job where I would then work my up the ladder to another full time job a few years later.  However, I digress in my story-telling here because that year as I was just finishing up college and getting my act together, I started going to anime conventions for the first time.  It was, in fact, right around this time of year (or actually a little earlier in January) that I attended Ohayocon for the first time.

Ohayocon was an eye-opener for me because this was the first time I'd ever been where there were so many other people of the same likes as me.  I dressed up as Milly Thompson from Trigun and after registering for my badge with Wolfwood of all people - I started my hunt to take pictures of all of the Trigun characters as possible.  Of course, that meant a lot of Vash, Wolfwood, Milly and Meryl that year as it was still playing on Cartoon Network at the time.  I knew there were figures/toys of anime characters out there, but until I stepped foot into the vendor room for the first time, I had no idea what I would be getting myself into!

In fact, I had just stepped up to the first booth when the first vendor spotted me and held up some of the figures from Trigun and I think I'd spent $45 the first 15 minutes I'd been at the convention.  And it would be awfully hard the rest of the convention not to find myself perusing the vendors, spending money I really didn't have, because most of them didn't take credit, nor did I have much of a credit account, and I still had to have money to eat and pay for parking come two days later!  But that hooked me, and I would forever owe my fevered collecting to my love of Trigun.

Mind you, as you're looking at all of these photos of figures in this blog, you're probably going, "but none of these are Trigun" and you're right, I haven't felt like taking more pictures of Vash and his cohorts these last few months, because, well, quite frankly the early figures were pretty terrible.  Molds didn't look proportionate, paint colors were all over the place, figures were just plain..well, bad.  It's really hard for me to look at some of these little figures that I used to stare at for hours on end, just in awe of being able to hold my favorite figure in my hand.  Of course, we're mostly talking gachapon and the other small figures that I started out with.

 Smaller figures now, many of them are as pretty as the newer, larger, figures, because I think it comes down to companies realizing that fans will spend a bunch of money to get QUALITY, rather than quantity.  That doesn't mean there aren't a TON of Chinese knock-offs, because there ARE... a LOT.  So many, in fact, that I am loathe to pick up figures unless I can see them and their boxes, see what the quality looks like and make sure the prices seem to fit and that the molds are correct, and the packaging doesn't have suspicious markings.  That can be hard, of course, if you don't know Japanese, but usually the rule of thumb is, if it's tiny, $10-$18 is about right for prices, if it's about 9" high (Barbie doll or smaller) then $30-$60 is about right, and if it costs even more...usually you're safe.

That said, of course, it's not impossible to still run across a good deal from time to time or even for a more trained eye to run across a good knock-off.  I still have friends that get tricked because they don't know better.  And heaven knows there are a LOT of cheap figures sitting around this house because I certainly didn't know that something like that could exist.

Anyway, the anime of the figures you're looking at on this page range from "Hentai Prince & Stony Cat", "Bakemonogatari", "Penguin Drum", "AnoHana", "Vocaloid", "The World God Only Knows", "Gantz", and a few others.  The main figures are ones I personally collected rather than ones that my husband bought, because there are a few more of those too.  My favorite at the moment are from Bakemonogatari and the little mini-nendroids from Vocaloid (Miku in particular) because of the fact that I got her from a blind box set and lucked out that I got her rather than any of the other Vocaloids.  I've only just started collecting the smaller nendroids and have a few of the larger ones, but those are for another day!

Writing as a Way of Life

Things are always getting in the way of my life.  Whether it's work, or the anime convention that I'm working on, or perhaps just allergies or maybe it's a cat or two who NEED attention NOW... things are always getting in my way.  I went to college, after all, in order to get a degree so I could have some kind of backing when I typed my little heart out.  I thought to myself, 'With this degree, I can write and then people will say, "She knows what she's doing because she has a degree."'

HAHAHAHAHA

Sorry, I had a bit of a moment there.  I tried to write when I was a teenager, and even though I look back at those stories and cringe, I know there was some spark of life in them.  There are always ideas, but in this day and age it's awfully hard to share those ideas.  Don't get me wrong, the internet is great for putting yourself out there.  But it's TOO big.  There are TOO many people writing.  TOO many ideas being tossed around and no one is patient enough to read through things either.  I've found that about 90% of the emails I send out anymore are in large part ignored because I'll get an email asking about something I already detailed in full.  Was I not clear enough in my first email?  Of course I was, they just didn't read it!  My husband once just re-posted something he'd written to someone because they refused to read what he'd sent before they asked for it.

Basically, back when I was growing up, it was easier to write.  I guess I'm wiser now, because I know unless I put something out there that's fantastic,  it's not going to be read.  In fact, there might be only one or two people who ever read what I'm writing now.  However, do I care?  No.  I've heard authors tell aspiring authors that you just have to write.  Just keep doing it.  Eventually someone's going to take notice that you're doing all of this and maybe by that time you'll be good enough to actually become famous.  Or maybe, at least be found by a small group of people who like what you write.  Or at least, I hope that might be the case someday as I still haven't been found by anyone, and even my husband rarely reads what I've posted.

It's sort of a disheartening thing when all you want to do with your life is write; but there's no one who cares enough to read it.  I used to have to shove stories under my mother's nose for her to read things.  She'd never just ask what I was working on.  I'd have to shove DIARIES under their noses just to get them to read what I thought of them.  I even had a little brother who wanted so little to read about my life that he didn't even want to invade my privacy.

I still leave diaries lying about the house, my only writing that I tend to do that isn't blogging, and still, never do I have someone pick it up and say, 'Hey, what's this?'  No, no one picks them up and I've been writing a daily journal since 1997.  I kid you not, I have at least a small blurb for every single day for over 10 years.  Not once has anyone read them but myself.  Mind you, I've forced people to listen to them, but no one has ever bothered to go, "hey, wonder what she was doing two years ago?"

And even though I have all of these pressures against me writing, I still do it.  Maybe now I just feel obligated to write.  Or maybe it's because after I've read something really great I think about how great it would be if I could write something just as good.  Maybe I could get published writing about my cats, or my home or my life, that maybe someday, somewhere, someone would want to read about it.

Thus...I have this blog.  It only shows a mere fraction of what's been going on in my life, and although much of my life is pretty boring, I'd like to think that perhaps it's an outlet to allowing me to expand my writing.  I still get criticized for my typos and grammar, but I believe I'm better than many of those bloggers out there who don't care about grammar.

Oh my gosh, that reminds me of so many people I meet along the way.  I think it's that bull-headedness that really makes bad writing stick around.  These people think they're good writers.  I'm always amazed at them, really.  I used to edit for one of those people who couldn't take criticism and kept writing badly over and over again.  And then just recently I ran into a fellow who was so haughty about his awesome writing that when I was curious enough to try to read it, I nearly fell over laughing.  I would NOT have taken credit for what he wrote!  If I had been him, I would have been ashamed to even post something that atrocious!

Sure, I know I write with dangling participles.  I know I write passive sentences.  But to read what he wrote out loud...oh my gosh, I'm pretty sure his writing would have improved 10-fold if he'd only read out loud what he wrote.  So take that as a hint for you, have someone read your writing out loud. If it doesn't flow like someone naturally speaking, then most likely there is something very wrong with it!

And so, in something of a summary, as I know my husband will be returning home eventually and I'll need to work on dinner... yet another thing gets in the way of my writing (of course).  But I've started working on a novel about my life with my cats.  Oh of course, I'm not nearly as witty as some of the writers I've been reading lately, and maybe I don't have an incredibly sentimental tale to tell since they haven't died or touched anyone's life, but they've touched mine.  I'd like to tell the story about how my cat drags his cat bed around the house and how my other cat demands to be petted the moment we get out of the shower.  To me, it's interesting, and it's a way of memorializing something that's happened to me over the years.

Maybe...just maybe, someone will read it someday.

Tidbits around the House

There's no real purpose to me having a picture of Olivia on here except for the fact that she's adorable and fluffy and even though she sheds like crazy, she's still my favorite cuddle cat.  Lately, she's starting to come out of her shell a bit more again since we brought home Tenchi, the littlest addition to our crew.  Of course, now he's not exactly little anymore, as he's just as tall as Olivia and only a pound away from her at 6 months.  I have a feeling he's going to be our biggest cat.

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As I was wandering about the house yesterday, fighting an infestation of ants trying to eat the cat food in the kitchen, I recalled the fact that we had a package of ant traps under the kitchen sink.  I hadn't even had my first cup of coffee for the morning as I swept, mopped, and eventually set down the traps in the corners where I saw them coming from.  I think after having our new patio built that they had a new way to get into the house.  My husband was a bit wary about using traps since they kill off the entire community of ants, but as I reminded him, if there are so many ants in the yard that some find a way inside, then there are too many ants.  On the plus side, this morning I have not seen any ants, and maybe it's because it's finally stopped raining for more than two hours (the sidewalk is actually dry the first time in almost a week).  But I'm happy that they've decided to move on...

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Here's a helpful tip if you ever buy a milk carton that's the old fashioned cardboard kind.  If it doesn't have a screw cap, then use a paperclip to seal the opening shut again.  It'll keep things like creamer, heavy cream, and even regular milk good longer than just closing it and shoving it back in the fridge.

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What really irritates me about working retail sometimes is the fact that people have the tendency to look down on you.  Not sure exactly why that is, because I know people who don't work retail and make less than I do, and really, if you don't have a college degree of some sort, most retail stores won't hire you for a management position, that's just how it is.  But just the other day I was calling out for the next in line.  "I can help who's next!"  I said cheerfully.  The woman that came up put her items on the counter and practically growled at me, "URGH!"  I blinked a couple of times thinking she was irritated for having waited too long (which is usually why they get mad...or it's because they couldn't find something.  Usually I can either apologize to make them feel better or find the item, at least, usually.)

"Is something wrong?"  I asked, almost hesitating to find out what was going on.

"It's NOT, 'Can I help whose next?', that's NOT proper English.  And you people always say that, every time I come in, it's just wrong."  I stared at her, tried to explain that not everyone said it that way, but then it occurred to me that I wasn't wrong, because, in fact, I was saying the contraction of "who" and "is" - hence, "who's".  She was still going on about how it was the "English teacher in her" that couldn't stand to hear it said wrong.  I rung her items and said, "May I help the person who is next in line.  Is that better??"

"Yes, that's better."  The woman then left and I shook my head, because it really wasn't any different than saying "May I help the person who's next in line?"  And the fact that she had to jab in there that she was an English teacher, as if all of us working in retail are stupid.  I, in fact, have a degree in English as well.  I've thought at various times that maybe what I was saying wasn't correct, but the truth was, I even looked it up in the Associated Press Handbook to see if the contraction was real.  It is.  But for some reason I think she thought I was saying "whose" which would be incorrect.  Unfortunately with the English language, the two words, "whose" and "who's" sound identical.  The fact that she got upset and didn't say, "are you saying the contraction?" means that she got angry without thinking it through.  It was worse than when someone has to point out the distinction between "can you" and "will you".

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Speaking of English pet peeves; I have a few of my own.  Recently, it's mostly to do with when people add an "s" to the end of a word that isn't supposed to have one.  A few examples:  Targets, Walmarts, Meijers, JCPennys, HotTopics, and Krogers.  I've noticed that oftentimes it comes more frequently in Southern areas, but then again, everyone at home up North used to call it "Meijers" too.  Now, I have thought about it a bit to think that perhaps this comes from our past when places were named after a specific person.  And maybe back in the day it would have been "Kroger's Grocery" meaning some person named Kroger owned a grocery store.  So, perhaps, as stores eventually grew big, they dropped the possessive "'s" and stuck with the last name by itself.  Not all stores did this, I know that, but I wonder if in the collective conscience, some people still think of the stores as belonging to someone.

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I wish it were possible to just become immune to Salmonella poisoning or whatever other bugs exist on food that make you sick.

The reason I say this is because I just came back from a trip to West Virginia and while there ate at a Chinese restaurant that my husband loves.  He's been eating there for years, and now I sort of have been too, but things were getting a bit sketchier over the last few visits, and then suddenly a friend and I both ordered Egg Drop soup and we both got food poisoning pretty bad.  Seems that I keep getting it once every few months to the point where I just don't want to eat anywhere that I feel a bit weird about the food.  This time it was a slightly suspicious green colored egg in the soup.  Didn't think too much about it because I've had odd colored pieces in the soup before without much trouble.  However, what should have made me stop eating it was the fact that the soup wasn't broiling hot like they usually get it.  Usually they're bringing out your egg roll or your meal by the time it cools down enough to eat without scorching your tongue.  This time, no such luck, which meant that whatever was in that bad bugger was still alive.  SO...  A note to you, if your egg drop is not scalding hot, don't eat it!

As for the picture above, this was the sunset above my in-law's house on the night before we left.  I was recouping from the food poisoning by that point, thankfully.  I'm just glad it hadn't been so bad that I couldn't go places, because I've been sick like that and on vacation, it's just not any fun.

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On a last note, I think because we've been having almost monsoon type weather (which, for the record, I actually like rather than last year when we got only a couple rains during the whole summer), we've also got a bunch of bugs.  With the hoard of bugs (remember the ants I talked about?) there are also a ton of birds.

I've heard a saying once that "you never see baby pigeons".  Well, these aren't baby pigeons, but a close cousin, the mourning dove.  Each year we have at least one pair of mating doves that hang out in our yard, and usually they find themselves a nice spot on our fence to build a nest.  This year it was in the back corner above a lilac bush.  The reason you "never see a baby pigeon" is they usually stay in the nest until they almost look like an adult (only a bit smaller in stature) and then they're let out to fly.  Unfortunately I'm pretty sure only one of these little ones survived, as I only saw one of them after this once it was able to fly.  The other probably went to a neighboring cat.

We have two, a black one, and a calico-looking tan stripe/white cat, both pretty fluffy.  I call them "him" and "her" consecutively.  "He" will come up and stare in the back door at my cats and since he looks like my Mina, sometimes I get a heart attack thinking she's gotten outside.  "She" will roll around in the catnip growing in the back yard.  Both of them, when they get too close to the Mockingbird that lives around here, will get attacked and chased away by the little gray bird!

And the robins around here....Oh I swear to you those things are horny.  Already they're on their second brood this summer.  First set had one baby, and now we have two hanging out on the fence pooping everywhere.  At least it's better than the first one who chose to sit on my porch chair and I had to scrub that bugger like crazy.

I will leave you with one last thought:  Have you ever seen a baby pigeon?

Retail Life

I'm going to preface this right here and say that I normally don't talk about work.  And if you know where I work, don't mention the name because even I'm not going to come right out and say it.  And what I have to say is no reflection on my job whatsoever.  I'm just going to ramble idly for a few paragraphs about retail life in general, as a consumer and an employee of somewhere that sells stuff for money.  (I recently went through a very lengthy training seminar about behavior on the web and as I would like to keep my job, I try my best to keep where I work private when and where I can.)

Anyway, so the other day I met this interesting gentleman, who responded to my askance of whether he found everything okay gave me a resounding, "NO, I did NOT."  I get that from time to time of course, and whereas most of the time it's because perhaps we just don't carry it, sometimes I get lucky and can go get the item for them, or perhaps can order it.  I like to do things like that even when we have a big line that will tick off people who are waiting, but you know, if they see you do something like that and then apologize to those waiting, they're usually pretty accepting.  Heck, I'm a pretty patient consumer myself when I see someone going above and beyond for someone else.

Surprised at the gentleman's response, I questioned if I could help him find it and with forcefulness, he refused me and went on to say that now that the store had been moved around he could no longer find anything and since nothing was in the same place as it had been he would no longer return to shop at our store.  What could I say?  It had been over a year since we had changed the layout, and after working there for years, I was actually pretty happy with the new layout myself because things were grouped better than before, whereas similar items used to be spread out all over the store.  I told the gentleman just that and his response  was basically that no one liked to "shop" for things, that there had been a survey about it quite recently, which stated that before, people liked to mosey around to find items.  But now in our busy day in age, people liked to get in and get out.  Apparently he had also stopped going to our local Kroger because they had recently renovated and had moved everything around.  (In truth, some things had moved in the middle of the store to accommodate a liquor area in the middle, but the important non-packaged junk was still on the inside of the store).

I didn't say too much more to him, there's not much more too say to that.  Sure, they actually do make shopping malls completely open air now with parking in front of stores.  Of course, I'm often the same way when I go to a store I go directly to the place where the item is and then get it an leave.  But generally, women like to shop.  Heck, many of the men who come to my place like to shop around too.  They'll wander around the store, but if they want something specific, they'll ask for it at the front desk.  This gentleman did not want to ask, did not want anyone to show him, and did not want to ever come back.  Well, I thought to myself that if it had been over a year since he had been in the store, it wouldn't be much of a loss if we didn't get his $20 purchase every couple of years.  But he made it out to be a big thing.

Now, I know for a fact that as long as you have good customer service, a good product, a clean store, and a refreshing inventory, people come back.  Only those "in-and-out" shoppers won't return once a month or so because they don't care about the new stuff we get in all the time.  Heck, when I go to a store and don't see anything new there, I'll wait a few months before returning back just in case there's something different.  I'm always surprised when people throw a hissy fit about our store, whether it's the layout, lack of an item or just something that confuses them, because I have a feeling that they've never worked, or been around retail much in their lives.  Sure, everyone has to shop to survive (or have someone else shop for them) but it's a cut-throat world out there and if you don't do something to keep people coming back, especially that one Jane Smith who buys the big ticket stuff, you're never going to get anywhere.

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On the flip side of things, I have a confession to make.  I'm very impatient with poor customer service.  I've become more so since I started into management, as it reflects very poorly on a company and brand.  And it was sad because there's places I've been to time and time again just recently that I've stopped going to when things failed for me.

Restaurants are one of my largest pet-peeves right now, and maybe it's because I've seen so many Restaurant Stakeouts.  Recently I've had some pretty poor service that reflects more upon the management then the employees, and it really saddens me because it says to me that the corporate offices of these places are "saving" so much money on training that their employees have no idea what's going on.  The last two places I've seen that were at the local IHOP, which I've eaten at only once because the first time there was no waitstaff on the floor and the kitchen was so backed up that no food was coming out...full restaurant, no food.  We eventually got it, but I thought, okay, so it's new they need work, we'll wait a few months.  So we went back, and there was no one cleaning tables, so the poor hostess was bustling to clear tables just so she could seat people.  She never once asked a manager to help or refused to seat anyone, because I guess if the waiters didn't clear their tables I guess they didn't want money either from new paying guests, right?  So we went to Cracker Barrel.  For the record, I rarely have a bad experience there, they really have their stuff together.

Second most recently was Fazoli's where I love their stuff, but the kitchen staff was all just goofing off and then they screwed up my husband's salad by putting it under the heat lamp while my chicken parmesan was cooking up all nastly... I'm pretty sure I should have returned that bugger because it probably came out of the freezer box like that.  *sigh*

Then there's Firehouse Subs which I love, but when the owner isn't in, sometimes you don't even spot the staff as they're down the way picking up burritos as a neighboring restaurant.  Or maybe it's like the Dakota Watch in the mall today where the employee had completely disappeared even though I just wanted to get a new watch battery.  In fact, most of the places I went to today to find a new battery were completely empty.

And as much as people hate the name Walmart, I'll tell you what, the gal came right on over when called and helped me out immediately.  She explained why her computer was going so slow when she rung me up and I had a nice conversation with her over slow registers.  Doesn't matter that she scratched up the back of my watch, but the point was that she cared enough to get it done and was polite doing so.

Plus, she was there.

Not only in body but in mind too, because I've had a terrible experience at a store at the Easton Town Center that sold local goodies.  The guy who rung me out was too busy talking to the gal behind me, rather than to me, so when I told him I had the coin change after giving him a bill, he said, "Nope, too late," and refused to take the coins!  Then continued having a conversation with the person just standing around!

This, quite frankly, just boggles my mind.

Why are people in jobs that they don't like?  Is it just because that's all they could find?  Why aren't they trying to find something that they like?  I like my job.  I may not love it, but I certainly don't hate it, and I'm good at it.  So when someone complains to me about my store, I take offense, and I take a stand and I take problems into my hands.  And maybe that's why I'm in management and maybe that's why I have so many awesome customers.

But for that one not-so-awesome customer experience in the bunch, I have this to say:  things can get better, but don't be nasty, be patient.  Problems get solved but you have to be reasonable about it.  I won't go back to a few places for awhile, but I'll go back eventually.  I won't stomp my foot and demand for free stuff, because that hurts the employees more than it hurts the company.  And for those of us who like working in retail, we want to help.  A nice request, a well-asked question, a patient attitude; all of these will get you very far in the world.

Firefly

Meet Firefly.  Back in the 1980's when My Little Pony was first getting off the ground with the toys and cartoon, Firefly was the main pegasus pony.  Back in 1983, this was my first pegasus toy.  As you can tell, she was well loved.  Over the years her 'cutie mark' has disappeared to almost nothing.  Her tail was lost when I was a little girl.

It's a curious thing, but I remember very distinctly the day that I took her to school with me for show and tell.  I loved Firefly, and even though I had a handful of other ponies by that point, she was the only pegasus and she had her front legs molded in something of a pose which was completely different than the earlier ponies.  If you've ever looked at the original ponies you'll see they are very stiff legged.  Anyway, I took her on the school bus with me to Kindergarten to show her off.  I'd discovered sometime before that her tail would pull out since it was basically one large hank of artificial hair with a metal bracket wrapped around it.  I'd show it off to my friends how I could pull the tail out and then stick it back in her soft rump.

Unfortunately, that single simple thing backfired on me and on the school bus home from school the tail was lost forever.  For months...literally months, maybe even years, every time I was on a school bus I looked for that darn tail.  Even through High School I still looked on the floors of school buses thinking I'd find it, or one of the other handful of things I've lost on buses over the years.

So, maybe that's the reason that the incident sticks in my head so clearly.  Maybe the affection that I showed to Firefly is also the reason that most recently I decided that this favorite childhood toy of mine deserved some much needed attention.

It also helped that Folk Art paints came out with a product a couple of years ago called "Extreme Glitter" paint.  And as luck would have it, they had dark blue glitter just about the same color as Firefly's cutie mark. So, I just recently embarked on a process of restoring poor Firefly back to her former glory.  I guess the only thing I couldn't do is fix the discoloration between her head and and body since that was a problem in the actual vinyl mold color.

The thing about Extreme Glitter is it takes quite awhile to get the results you want if you want a LOT of glitter.  The picture to the right shows the first coat of glitter paint over the original cutie mark.  Luckily enough of the original glue from the factory still existed if held up in the light just right so I was able to reproduce it pretty closely.

Here is a closeup of that first layer of glitter as it's drying.  It starts out as a milky glue-like substance with just barely any glitter.  The reason for using a paint like this rather than using just glue and glitter is the obvious one, you don't have to worry about the glitter coming off over time.  Of course it can still rub off like the original paint did, but using glue and glitter would have produced a less accurate reproduction.

Now fast forward about three coats later and the cutie mark is pretty much where I want it.  There was still a problem though...her tail.  Now, there are plenty of places around that you can order fake hair, but since I wasn't really planning on doing more than one pony restoration at this time I started looking to find an alternative to ordering it online.

Over the years I have "saved" quite a few ponies.  There was a time where you couldn't buy new ponies at the store, and during those periods I would go to flea markets and garage sales trying to find ponies I could salvage from the brinks of children's hands.  I would also randomly find ponies in the woods across the street from my house and that's how I found two or three including an Apple Jack toy which was a joy for me since growing up I had never had her.  I also got about two or three ponies from friends who did not treat their toys like I did.  One I've always sort of called "Frankenpony" since she was one of those 'brush and grow' ponies which I later found out was named "Ringlets".  However, she'd long since lost most of her tail, cut by some unfortunate scissors and then hot glued into place, and her head was also hot glued into place since it had been removed at some time too.  Normally I'd hate to 'chop shop' one of my toys like that, but one stripe of her mane color is only a shade off in color so it went to restoring Firefly's tail today.

The final result is a much happier pony.  She still has a few chips in her hooves, a bit of dirt here and there, and as I mentioned before her discoloration from using different vinyls in the past when it was produced, but at least she is now restored to some of her previous glory.

It's fitting that this pony's character eventually turned into that of the current series' "Rainbow Dash".  I'm proud to be the owner of this toy on her 30 year anniversary.

My Two (Furry) Daughters

I have two precious daughters.  Olivia, the eldest of two years and three months, and Mina, two years, or maybe just shy of two years.  They are two of the most precious things to me in the world, and I love them dearly in their own, separate and special ways.

Of course, you probably already guessed that these daughters are not human since they are so close in age to one another.  And perhaps by the title of this writing which has "furry" in it.  If you guessed they are most likely cats or dogs, you would be correct in the former.  My daughters are my fuzzy kittens.

There are a great many people now who treat their animals as children.  I would never go so far as treat them as spoiled children, nor would I dress them up, carry them around in designer purses, or speak about them as if they were the only things in the world that I care about.  I do care about people, although I don't care very much about human children.  They have their moments, I will admit.  Hidden smiles behind Mom's legs, a wave or a "Hi!" from a cheerful one at the store, or the way they're always curious about things.  But then, so are cats.  Cats also don't scream and yell at you that they hate you.  They don't require your attention 24/7 (well, some do) but especially they don't require schooling, helping with homework, separate rooms for themselves (they don't, trust me on this) and they don't need clothing which has to be in the newest fashion every other week.

I grew up with pets.  I didn't grow up around small babies.  My younger brother was born fifteen months after I was due to my mother believing that as long as she was breast feeding she didn't need to be on birth control as well.  Hello!  I was just barely out of diapers by the time he was, so I only had a few months of toddling around after the young one with clean diapers to help Mom change.

I had dolls growing up, but my favorites were always stuffed animals.  I had a duck given to me at a very early age by my grandmother, and by the time I was five I was naming my stuffed bunny "Morning" after the thought that mourning doves cooed outside during the spring and it was spring when I received my bunny, and also it was first thing in the morning when I was asked again what her name would be.

It's sort of rare for children to come up with names for toys nowadays.  I digress in my writing since I notice that if a little girl or boy comes up to me to show me their brand new doll or stuffed animal and I ask for its name I usually get, "I dunno," or "I haven't given it one yet," or in my most recent case, "Well, she is a Barbie, so that's her name."

All the way through my childhood and teenage years I liked horses.  If you asked me what my favorite real animal was, I would say "horse".  If you asked my favorite non-real animal, "unicorn."  But I was very rarely attached to actual pets.

My first two childhood pets were Sammy and Trapper, two orange stripe cats with bits of white on them.  They were indoor/outdoor cats so they were pretty wild as most of those kinds are.  After Sammy was put down when I was six or so, we had a bought with a fish tank.  When I reached about seven or eight I begged my parents for a black cocker spaniel I dubbed "Stormer" after a character in "Jem and the Holograms."  Stormer lived to the ripe old age of fourteen before dying of a cancerous lump under her tail.

By then I had already lost my father, and with his death, Mom felt it fair if I had a cat replacement since I'd been asking for one since I entered college.  Alex, a grey and tan stripe tabby, was found across the street from my aunt's house, so we adopted him.  Two years later near the end of college a guy I dated for a short time offered me one of his cat's kittens, and that is when I had black Neo.

Strangely enough, all three animals, Stormer, Alex and Neo were buddies.  Stormer would crawl up onto the couch to fall asleep, and in would come Alex, and finally Neo, all cuddled up together in a fluffy pile.  We're pretty sure both cats felt somewhat sad when Stormer died, but as they had one another, they seemed to get along fairly well.

Alex wasn't as much of a cuddler with other cats, however, so Neo would spend much of his time with me, as was right since I had adopted him and Alex, after my adoption had taken a liking to my brother instead.  Sometimes I think it was because of his mysterious closed bedroom door.  My brother would only open it on rare occasions when the funk was too much to bear and Alex would high-tail it in there and find himself in a wonderland of smells and sights.

When I moved away from home four years after graduating college, I was unable to take my cat with me.  I regret that decision even now, seeing as though not long afterward a disease took him and he died of kidney failure.  Neo wasn't very old, only seven or eight years, which is a relatively short time for an exclusively indoor cat.

So I vowed, as did my husband, that we would do our cats right in the future.  Both of us had grown up with cats in the household, so when we moved away from home into an apartment complex that refused pets, it was a shock to our systems.  We could see our cats in pictures, visit them after a four hour drive, but could not bring them with us or even adopt new ones.

Neither of us regretted the apartment we lived in when first moving to Ohio.  It was a spacious two-bedroom, two bathroom, ground floor with a nice large patio and space for me to plant.  It overlooked a beautiful pond that always had ducks floating around on it, and it was a short walking distance to the pool.  The only times we really wished we had cats in our lives during that time was when it got super cold outside, and when we'd occasionally see a stray running around outside chasing the mice and voles our bird feeder encouraged up to the building.

Then our neighbors moved upstairs and in came the loudest couple we'd ever encountered.  They'd yell and fight all hours of the night.  We were never quite sure what their problem was, but then the neighbor beside us moved and in came a hoarder.  In came the mice too.  Up came our lease and out we went into our new home on the other side of town.

We spent about a month repainting everything, cleaning carpets and putting in new appliances.  Washed windows, hung shades and curtains, moved in a few weeks before we were even due out of the apartment.  Spring was just starting to arrive when we said goodbye to our first home in a new state.

I promised myself that I wouldn't ask for a cat until my birthday in June.  I really only made it until about April before I was begging for a cat.  We went to every shelter, Humane Society and pet store in the area.    I wanted that beautiful fuzzy grey ball of a kitten at the pet store where they kept cats from local shelters.  I filled out that form with my heart beating heavily and we waited.  We visited that little ball of fur every few days thinking we'd get a phone call.  Nothing ever came.  My husband called the shelter.  "Oh, that one was adopted already.  Did you submit a form?"

Heartbroken, I found out the big box pet store had never even faxed in the form for the kitten, instead losing it in the shuffle somewhere.

Almost the very next day we were at the Humane Society.  We had only fifteen minutes to look around before they closed for the day.  I raced in, heart pounding again, this time we'd find one, I knew somewhere deep down.  Right in the front display were kittens.  I didn't want an older cat, although I had thought about it a few times, and was just about to settle for one we saw the week before if she was still in her cage...  I rushed in, not even asking to open the display door, and immediately this little gray ball of fluff ran right over to me and I scooped her up.

"Yata!"  I proclaimed, and even though neither I nor my husband are Japanese, we both knew the "We did it!" proclamation.  We retired into one of the play rooms and she skittered around the floor chasing after balls and fuzzy things like a pro.  She calmed down when I held her in my arms, and my husband ran out at the closing call to grab the adoption forms while I held my kitten in my arms unwilling to let anyone else even see her until I knew she was mine.

Olivia was brought home April 29, 2011.

Olivia was princess of the household for six months all by herself.  We followed a routine of getting up first thing in the morning, running downstairs to play with her for ten or fifteen minutes.  Then she'd eat, then she'd ask to play again.  She asked constantly.  She loves playing with humans.  She would play with herself from time to time, but more than likely, she'd run over and run back to wherever it was we were keeping her toy that week until we finally followed and started to play with her.  It was, quite frankly, pretty exhausting.

Our little ball of fur, however, had very few quirks.  She liked to climb under cabinets, and up on things.  She liked to explore and loved anything new.  She still does.  Most cats like routine, she likes new.  She likes to play the game of "cleaning the house" or laying on new laundry.  She has a strange obsessions with yowling at us as we've gotten out of the shower.  If you bring a new box into the house she'll want in that one rather than the five others she has around the house.

So, we thought a few months later, maybe she would like a new kitten.  But only after we had finished up our convention that year, since it took up a lot of our Olivia play time as it was.  And strangely enough, even after I had just had a conversation with my husband that we would wait until one just sort of 'showed up', the week after the convention took place a co-worker told me she had found a kitten and would we want to adopt her?

Mina was brought home on October 15, 2011.  The vet, at the time, said she was probably born sometime around June, and thus would have some time before she could be spayed.  Okay, thought I, we'll let her settle into the routine and then get it done in another month.  Only we found out in November that she'd already gone into heat, putting her closer to six months of age at that time.  Strangely enough, our daughters were only a few months apart.

Our new black cat with the semi-long fur that resembled a "Chantilly/Tiffany" cat to nearly a 't', was full of affection and curiosity.  She didn't like being picked up, and she'd make it known by a deep, blood curdling growl.  But otherwise, she was quiet and she liked to sit on your lap.  Loved to purr and wanted attention all the time.

Olivia hated it.

She didn't, I should clarify, hate Mina.  She was curious about Mina, sniffing her any time she could and wanting to be near this strange creature at all hours.  She kept an eye on her.  I sometimes think that Olivia didn't know she was of the same species.  Mina would growl and hiss and act very catlike to our spoiled princess, but Olivia didn't know any better.

What Olivia hated, was the fact that this new, what-ever-it-was swooped in and played during her play times.  She didn't get a chance to go after the feather on the string or the little mice we'd throw about.  Olivia didn't get a chance with all of the tassels and balls and spinning things because the moment any of them would come out, Mina would be on them instantly.

Eventually Olivia stopped playing all together.  We could sometimes lock her up in a room by herself to play for short bursts, but eventually she started looking for Mina even in a locked room.  And forget about the old toys, because those didn't hold her attention at all.  Only something new would do.  So we bought a laser pointer.

It was with the advent of the little red dot that both cats would play at the same time.  Olivia would find herself so intrigued by this strangely elusive fly that she would completely forget about Mina.  It worked for awhile until the battery wore out and the cats couldn't see the dot anymore.  Even when we replaced the thing, Olivia had then realized it was an 'old toy' and only Mina would go after the mysterious bug.

If we zip forward to today, things are still fairly similar.  Olivia doesn't like to play when Mina does.  But she has gotten into the habit of asking again.  Mina learned to meow like Olivia, but she does it for generally more odd requests than food and play.  She likes to bring us "hazardous-things-to-step-on".  She totes it from the basement or some corner of the house, sets it down on the floor in the living room and goes, "Meep!"  To which we rush over thinking she's going to swallow it and realize it's a piece of broken mirror.  Or maybe it's a shard of cement.  Today, for example, it was a very sharp wood screw.  I have no clue where she got this screw, but it was her most recent find and she received a treat in return.

Mina doesn't like jumping very much.  She's not exactly a heavy-weight but she does have rather short legs.  She shakes as she goes up the cat tree, and she's never attempted to get up on a countertop, and I sometimes doubt that even if she wanted to jump straight up onto the bed that she would be able to without the aid of the wicker trunk that sits at the end. She makes up for the short legs with big ears.  Those ears can hear us coming from a mile away and she's always there at the door to greet us home.  Or they're causing her to run in fear from a thunderstorm and send her hiding beneath the television cabinet.

Olivia, on the other hand, has small ears and long legs.  She's hurt herself a few times jumping up too high, but we've found her up in the basement ceiling on occasions, or on top of the kitchen cabinets near the ceiling, oftentimes confusing us as to how she even got up there.  But a loud noise doesn't affect her at the least.  She'll follow the vacuum cleaner around, brave the sound of the loudest train or thunderstorm, and barely flinch when I clap at her for scratching up the furniture.

My two fuzzy "daughters" bring me joy every single day.  I do understand sometimes how people get so caught up in animals they tend to forget about humans.  I'm not like that, don't get me wrong, but I also don't have an inclination to go out and have young humans around me for extended periods of  time either.  I wouldn't carry them around or dress them up or treat them like people.  Well, except of course for talking to them when they are around and of course scolding them like they would actually understand what was coming out of my mouth.  It would be nice, but I know deep down they don't completely comprehend what I'm saying.

And most recently I've worried about what adding a third child to the mix would do to this family unit.  My mother of course, would like it to be a human child, of course, and so would the in-laws.  But there's a slight possibility of a new kitten being added to the mix in another month or so, and yet for some reason I'm hesitant.  I'm sure we would settle into a new routine, maybe the girls would find a common ground and maybe some of them would become buddies.  Who knows?  But what would happen to Mina's constant begging of human food?  Or Olivia's demanding play at certain times of the day?  What would adding another litter box to the basement do for the smell?  And what about cleanup?

I suppose I won't know until it happens.  And if it does, Lord willing, we'll be able handle it.  Why did I even want to add a third to the mix?  I'm not even sure now, so I suppose we shall have to wait to see.