People wonder why we had a very simple Christmas tree this year: we have two psycho cats that run around destroying everything.

This year, we put up the tiny tree because we were afraid that the big tree would get knocked down a lot. Smart move. So far--and mind you the tree has only been up since the 22nd--the tree has been knocked down four times. I'm so thankful we didn't put any ornaments on it, only lights. Even still, we manged to lose the star on top of the tree the second night, and I'm constantly catching the cats munching on the lights and the branches. What's worse? I've found pieces of the fake evergreen "leaves" in their poop. God. The tree is going down today, back into its box.

Oh...and by the way...Loki and Monkee have a new nickname for the pair of them: Doofi (pronounced doof-eye). It's the plural for doofus. It's like the plural for fungus is fungi. Doofus is Doofi. LOL.

Why does mommy always hafta take pictures of me? I was sleeping and all of a sudden I hear the clickies of the camera. She says I'm too cute to not take pictures of. OK I guess. Here's the picture she took of me under the Chrissymas tree.

Ooooh! Mommy gots me my own profile so I can blog on my own with my own name and stuff. Yippee! She says it's one of my Chrissymas presents so I don't have to fight with the grump for the computer. I feel so special!

And...and...and...what's really cool? Mommy and Daddy puts up the Chrissymas tree the other night and I got to play with it! Mommy said they weren't putting any ornyments on the tree 'cause she was afraid me and Monkee would try to break them, whatever they are. I don't care 'cause I'm having way too much fun chewing on the tree. It's really yummy.

And...and...and...Mommy said that Santa Claws is coming tonight. I don't know who that is but he's supposed to bring us presents and gifties and such. I hope I get more of those special catnip balls that Mommy brings home from the Kitty store. They are nice and soft so I can carry them in my mouth and they smell sooooooo good. I really likes them.

Last night Darren and I put up our little Christmas tree. Because of the Stooges, we opted to not put up our normal 6' tree (especially after finding Fizzy in the middle of it last year). This time we got a little 3 1/2' tree from Wal-Mart to put on the table in the office to try to bring in some sort of "holiday cheer" to our apartment. Within five minutes, Loki, Monkee and Fizzy were all chewing on the tree. Ugh. Then again, I knew this was going to happen. So now I keep the spray bottle close at hand and give them a quick squirt if they even think of chewing on the tree.

I'm just amazed that the tree was still standing this morning!

The Three Stooges. That's their new nickname.

Last night, as I was trying to fall asleep, I heard a crash in the other bedroom. When I went in to see what the cats had done this time, I saw Loki, Monkee, and Fizzy sitting on the table with this "Who? Me?" look on their faces. It was at that point that I realized they reminded me of the Three Stooges. Monkee is the smart one, the trouble maker, so he's Moe. Loki is the big dumb one, hence Curly. Finally, there is Fizzy who just does what everybody else is doing so she's Larry.

Don't get me wrong. I'm glad to see the three of them having so much fun together. I just envision loads of destruction in my future. LOL.

LOKI: Mommy hasn't been feeling good lately so me and Fizzy decided that we was going to make her feel better by keeping her nice and toasty warm. It musta helped 'cause she was smiling when Daddy took this picture. I like it when she's all happy.

LOKI: Ooooh I snuck on to Mommy's computer thingie. I've been watching the nasty grump type away and why should she have all the fun? She's a big meanie poo head.

Today I was a really good boy. Mommy was busy "drawing" this morning and I wanted to help her. I'm not really too sure what "drawing" is but it looks like she plays with this stick on a board. It must be one of the ways that she plays 'cause she does it all the time. So I got up near her board and helped her play with the stick. It was a lot of fun! And she's got this box full of all these other kinds of sticks and I went into it to pick out new sticks for her. She called me a "good boy" too and gave me lots of pets! I like helping Mommy.

This is fun. Maybe I'll try to sneak on it again the next time Mommy goes outside.

WARNING!!! Incoming chunky belly....



Phoebe. What a great cat. She just loves to lounge around like this. Though she's starting to look like a stuffed animal I have called Fat Cat, but the vet says she's not overweight. Go figure.

Oh my. Loki is getting so big! He's not even eight months old and he's bigger than most of the other cats! I knew he was going to be big--as Maine Coons are supposed to be--but this is just amazing. Here's a picture of Loki in a garbage can held up by Darren:



Just to give you some sense of proportion, Darren is resting the can on his shoulder.

Why is Loki in a garbage can? He is the silliest kitty. He loves to get into the garbage to pull out pieces of paper to play with. We've been trying to discourage it with the water bottle but Darren thought it would be cute just to pick up the can with him in it. I just think Loki had fun.

This was just one of those mornings that I seriously wished I had a basement to lock the cats in.

Darren had to get up really early this morning to go into the City for work but I planned on staying in bed until my usually wake up time. However, the kittens didn't seem to see it they same way. They saw it as "Mommy and Daddy are up....feed me...feed me...meow meow meow...we want food...meow meow meow." Normally I can ignore their pleas if I'm desperate enough for sleep (which I was) but then Loki started attacking my toes and then started spaz'ing with Monkee. The two of them got into everything and made a ton of noise and then proceeded to bite my toes again. Finally by 7:15am I gave up and fed them.

And, of course, they are all sleeping soundly now while I'm wide awake.

This morning's feeding went a little weird. Usually I just have to deal with the eight kitties, meowing like they're starving worse than any other kitty on the planet, but this morning things got downright ugly.

Ayla, the eldest, usually sits by the door waiting for me to pick her up to put her on the counter when her food is ready. The other cats have pretty much learned to leave her alone for the sake of their own safety (she's got a wicked right hook). However, this morning Fizzy went up to her and started whapping her for no reason whatsoever. I just sat there in shock while Ayla hissed away and started whapping back. Finally I snapped out of it, grabbed the squirt bottle and doused Fizzy.

I went back to getting their food ready when I started hearing Ayla hissing again. This time it was Bailey whapping at her. What was going on with these guys? Bailey never gives Alya any problems but this morning she was just beating the tar out of Ayla. I yelled and gave her a good squirt as well.

When I turned around to put down the food, it was Fizzy and Bailey whapping at each other. Now I don't have a problem with that 'cause they can both stand up for themselves and I let them whap at each other. With Ayla, though, she's old and not in the greatest of health. They should've known better.

Now normally, it's Kukai who gives Ayla the hard time. I think a lot of it has to do with his Napoleon complex and the fact that Ayla can't seriously beat him up any more. He can be a little s**t when he comes to going after Ayla and most of the time he comes away from those battles drenched from the squirt bottle. You would think after eight years he would've learned to leave her alone. Oh well.

This morning I was in a bit of a panic trying to get my drawing assignment done for my class this afternoon (yes, I'm a procrastinator). It was a charcoal drawing and I love using a chamois cloth to smudge the charcoal around. Well, it looks like Loki really loves the chamois too. Everytime I put it down, Loki was in my Artbin going after the chamois. Out comes the spray bottle and after a bit I had a very wet Loki. Figuring that he finally got the message, I went back to my drawing. I should've known better. I look down and my chamois is missing and Loki is nowhere in sight. *sigh* After a bit of searching, it was in the bedroom and Loki is looking at me from the window sill with this innocent "who? Me?" look on his face.

I told Darren this story and he got a good laugh out of it. We had kind of hoped Loki's antics would dwindle down a bit after we got him neutered but that doesn't seem to be the case. Don't get me wrong. I love the big mush even though he is a troublemaker. I'm just worried when he turns into a 25lb troublemaker! LOL.

I love Loki, but sometimes I wonder what the heck is between his ears. This morning when I opened up the blinds, he went to jump in the window and missed. I mean, his front paws made it but his back end didn't. Plop! Then this evening, he did the same thing but with the bookcase.

Could it be that the little guy doesn't realize how big he really is? Honestly he's huge! At only seven months old, he's already equal in size or bigger than all the other cats except for Bailey. Maybe it's a Maine Coon thing. I know Bailey has her own problems where she thinks that she is smaller than she actually is.

I just wish I had my camera around. :)

"Meow meow meow...we want food...meow meow meow."

I swear, if I could speak Cat, that is what the Fuzzies are chanting every morning.

It's bad enough I'm an insomniac, but if I wake up at say...oh...5am, all the cats think it's Feed Me time. They pounce on the bed, meow at me and my husband, and start spazing. Not fun considering I normally don't get up until 8am. I try to ignore them until that time but they make it very difficult to get back to sleep.

Our feeding routine is pretty silly. I have to feed the two kittens, Loki and Monkee, in the bathroom. Why? They are just furry eating machines. Not only will they eat their food, but they will eat the food for the other six cats, and then still want more! While I'm getting their food ready, they pretty much destroy the kitchen because of their spaz'ing. Then, when I start heading to the bathroom, the two of them tear right into it and sit on the toilet waiting for me to feed them. It is rather silly.

Next I feed the four middle cats. They are relatively behaved and civilized so they wait, quietly meowing until I put down the food, and they eat out of their own bowls.

The eldest two, Ayla and Kukai, get the special stinky food (aka Fancy Feast), so they get fed last and on the kitchen counter. If you walk by my kitchen when I'm feeding them, you would think I was torturing Kukai from the sounds that are coming out of him. It's this really horrible sounding "meeeeeeeeee-rrrrrrrooooow." What a big noise from such a little cat! Then, when I put the dish in front of him, he's still meowing but in a more pleasant way. It's like he's singing his praises to the stinky food gods in Japanese. Rather funny.

Ayla, on the other hand, is just plain loud. Both my husband and I are pretty sure she's lost her hearing over the years so when she meows, she MEOWS!!! Damn.

Hello

I figure that since Ayla started her own blog, I should probably start one about my Fuzzies.

So where did I get the name of "Fuzzies" from? This is a silly story. Back when I was in college (c. 1990) I used to love the cartoon "Chip & Dale's Rescue Rangers." There was one episode where this little kid comes up to Chip and says in a really cute baby voice "fuzzy!" Then the kid walks up to a friendly bear and goes "big fuzzy!" Well, a couple of months later, I bring home Ayla. When I first saw her, the first word that popped into my head was "fuzzy!" 'cause she's a medium hair cat (not too short, not too long, but fuzzy). I even came very close to calling her "Fuzzy." Instead, it's now a word that I use to describe my kitties. Hence, the Fuzzies, and since I have eight of them, we get the Flock O' Fuzzies.

So who are the Fuzzies? These are my kitties and I have eight of them. Yes, I'm a bit nuts to have eight and no, I'm not a "crazy cat lady." It just started with my original three and built up from there over time. Each ones has a story of how we got him/her and there is no way I would ever give any of them up. Here's a short description of each of them:

Ayla - She's the queen of the house and a very grumpy cat, but the way I look at it, at 15 years of age she's allowed to be. I adopted her from a private owner who did not take good care of his 50 some odd cats. Ayla was very sick, undernourish, and plagued with ear mites and fleas. Even the vet was very fearful at the time that she wouldn't live. However, with lots of my love and attention, I nursed her back to health and she's now a fixture.



Kukai - This is my little Japanese Bobtail who has a serious Napoleon Complex. He's 9 years old and I got him from an animal shelter. A friend of mine knew I was looking to get a Japanese Bobtail told me that she saw him at the Elmsford NY Animal Shelter. He was a year old at the time and when I saw him, I knew I had to take him home with me.

He is a very loving cat, but at times he can be a royal pain in the butt. I have two nicknames for him: Ku-Ku and Little S**t. He's only 7 pounds but he thinks he's three times his size and tries to beat up the other cats. It's rather silly to watch, especially when he goes after one of the Maine Coons.



Bomber - Bomber is seven years old and I got him from the Elmsford shelter after my beloved tabby Xanadu had passed away. He really is a special cat. He's almost completely black, with one tiny patch of white on his chest that you can barely see. He also only has one eye. When I got him from the shelter, he was five months old and the lady there explained that his litter had been found behind a dumpster and all the cats had been very sick. In his case, he had developed an ulcer on his eye that got so bad that it had to be removed. I didn't care. He was a very loveable kitten. Now he's a big, fat loveable mush. He's also a big scaredy cat but I don't hold that against him.



Bailey - Bailey is a purebred blue torbie Maine Coon. She was given to me at six months old from a breeder friend who couldn't find a home for her. She was considered "anti-social." However, when I met the kitten, she was outgoing and loveable. I don't know who would ever think she's anti-social. She's a big loveable mush, but I will admit that she gets very moody. She hates it when my husband and I curl up together so much that she always tries to get in between us. LOL.



Phoebe - She is a beautiful long-haired tuxedo cat and she's five years old. We rescued from the Elmsford shelter. She was six months old at the time but I can't figure out why nobody had snatched her up before us 'cause she is the sweetest, most loving cat I have ever met. She loves giving kisses, enjoys being held, and craves tummy rubs. She does have a scar on one of her eyes from an ulcer she had before we adopted her, but still. I barely notice it at all. She's also special because this was the first cat that Darren and I got together. He had married me and all my cats but he wanted a cat that was "our" cat, so we went and got her.



Fizzy - She is a year and a half old tabby. We got her last summer from the Ramapo-Bergen Animal Refuge after I had some serious biological clock issues. I told my husband it was either a baby or a kitten, so we got the kitten. :) She was 12 weeks old when we brought her home from the shelter. Her full name is Fizzgig after the little creature in "Dark Crystal," but we've shortened it to Fizzy. She reminds me of "Fizzy Lifting Drinks" from "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory." She is a little spaz, living up to her name, but she is developing the universal tabby pudge. She loves to sit in my lap when I'm on the computer and just purrs away. She really is my baby.



Loki - When my beloved Moose passed away last winter, I had to get another Maine Coon. We went to the same breeder we got him and Bailey from and they told us they had a litter coming soon. The kittens were born in April and we picked Loki out soon after. I'll probably regret naming him after the Norse God of Mischief, but I just really loved the name after a friend of mine mentioned it. He's a red & silver tabby and he does get into trouble. I think his biggest problem is that he's not the brightest cat. I wouldn't be surprised if he turned into a big, dumb, loveable mush.



Monkee - About a week after we brought Loki home, none of the cats would still not have anything to do with him. He was so lonely. We called up the breeder to ask if she had any more kittens and we were suprised to find out that she did. I picked out Monkee, who just happened to be from the same litter as Loki. The name was the hardest part, especially since Loki had his name already and coming up with names isn't easy. Well, Darren always wanted a cat named Monkey and this little imp looks like a little rhesus monkey. However, I gave him my own little touch by changing it to Monkee, in reference to one of my favorite bands (The Monkees). Where Loki is dumb, Monkee is just too darn smart for his own good. Also, where Loki is big, Monkee is petite. It's really hard to believe they are from the same litter.



So there is my Flock O' Fuzzies.