I love my 3 guys...Dad and 2 sons. Mom died last spring and I can still cry about that. My daughter, who just adopted 2 kittens from a cat rescue organization, talked me into adopting an 8 year old female who has been at the shelter for 2 years! She is very pretty and quite affectionate from what I hear, but everyone wants kittens. So, she will hopefully be coming home with me.

One of my cats knows the drawer that rubber bands are in and opens it and takes one out when he wants to flip one around for fun! Another one likes to bury his meals and will even drag a magazine over and cover his dish! My little Sneakers who died last spring used to hook a claw into the sliding screen on the balcony and let herself out to sunbathe! They are an endless source of entertainment.

Well, I just found out that my cat is trained to get up with my alarm clock. Every morning at 5:30, the alarm goes off, I hear the cat running up the steps to the bedroom where he proceeds to meow and knock at the door.
Today, I woke up at 5:28 and shut the alarm off before it sounded, then I did a few things around the bedroom and proceeded to go downstairs. No cat in sight, and there he was sleeping, all curled up on the sofa. So, I woke him up for a change!

We've got two six-year old cats that came from the pound, unrelated to each other at birth. One is a beautiful gray long-hair, Smokey, who loves high places. She uses dressers, desks, and whatever else is necessary to get to the top of bookcases and wardrobes. She has a sweet tooth and begs to share fudgsicles and yogurt. She's the curious one who has to check out every noise. She usually naps on the sewing table when I'm at the sewing machine.

The other is a black & white ragdoll mix, Bandit, who hides under the bed when we get company. She begs for chicken and tuna and is an awesome moth catcher. Strangely enough, she's the Alpha cat of the two. She comes running from wherever she is in the house when someone's shoes come off. She'll then either nap with her nose in one of the shoes or with her head on the smelly feet. When I'm working on a quilt, she's sleeping under the frame.

They have appointed themselves the fabric and quilt approvers. Any new fabric that comes home becomes the world's best nap spot. I just basted a new wall hanging last night and they spent the night playing hide & seek under it, from the way it looked this morning.

I also have a cat - about 6 years old. She is the queen of the house (she tolerates the rest of us that live there). If you want to sit in the chair she is already napping in, you have to threaten to smash her. If the dog gets in her sunbeam, she hisses at him. If you're working on a project at the table, she must lay in the middle of it. A favorite saying I once saw: "Dogs have masters. Cats have servants." Sometimes, with my cat, I think it's true. Good day to all!

You need to understand this before I get to the cat story...

In the spring of '02 when my wife was pregnant with our 3rd child (2nd daughter), she was heavily into Sting. He has a song called "Desert Rose", which features an Indian or Pakistani duet with a Middle Eastern male singer whose vocal pitch, inflections & foreign language make him sound distinctly feminine. Apparently my then-9-year-old daughter thought he was a woman.

So I bought the concert video for my wife to watch while she recovered from the C-Section. We're in the hospital room together for the first time as a family of 5, getting to know the little one, the video is playing. Nice time. "Desert Rose" comes on, with a shot of this dark-haired guy yodeling out his part (sounds like he's saying "Alien! Alien!"), and April - seeing the singers with the music for the first time - blurts out "she's a DUDE!"

It was priceless...

Fast-forward to this past July - and we're in receipt of a 5-week-old orange & white female kitten who'd been abandoned by her mother and rescued by my brother, who was home from college. They bottle-fed her for a couple of weeks until we moved into our new house in the woods, then gave her to April. Much thought and debate went into the kitten's name - Peaches and Nibbler were both rejected. She settled on Mango, and even though I lobbied hard for "Rooney" (after the principal in Ferris Bueller - both the cat and the principal have big noses. And thumbs...), she could not be persuaded.

So a few weeks ago I started my new job, and Miss Mango had her first trip to the vet. When I got home, April & Mango were on the deck. "What did the vet have to say?" She looked me dead in the face - "She's a dude."

One of my favorite lines at cocktail parties: My office is in my home and my most significant personnel problem is the cat walking across the keyboard.

Spunky has learned to tell time! I have to get up every morning at 6 AM to put an eye drop in my eye (I'm dealing with shingles). Well, this weekend and on my days off, I try to sleep at least a little longer. But precisely at 6:00, he jumps on the bed, walks right up to my face and "noses" me unitl I get up. He follows me till I put the drop in, then lets me go back to bed. Spunky Carli, RN.

Cats can tell time, I don't know how. Scooter, our Siamese mix cat is 13 years old and still awakens us often at exactly 4:20 am! When he was a kitten, I got up daily at 4:20 for a period of about a year - - it just got imprinted on his little brain.

This is actually about a "calling cat" lover.
Many years ago I was working for an S&L that was taken over by the RTC. I was the last employee and set up office in my home with 50 boxes of legal files to manage to resolution. I had to call the RTC a lot so I put their number in autodial on my phone.
Unbeknownst (love that word) to me, my cat discovered that by hitting certain buttons on the phone he could make it sing to him.
One day I got a bill with two long calls, 124 minutes and 135 minutes, that just didn't seem right. All I could figure out was the cat did it. So I called the phone company to explain the situation. The service rep, once she got up off the floor and stopped laughing, said she too was a cat lover so she checked and determined that indeed the calls were to the RTC which was closed on the days the calls were made and the calls did not match my calling patterns. She deleted them from my bill.
The moral of the story is that, when all else fails, blame the cat!

Steve my cats also dial the phone. I leave my cell phone on my night stand (I only own the cell) and when they want me to get up, then step over my head and stand on the phone. The noise normally wakes me up, but the auto dial feature has been engaged several times. They've called 911 (that was a scarry night when they banged on the door because they thought I was being killed...apparently the purrring on the phone confused the dispatcher). And they call my sweetie so often he's started talking to them when he answers and I'm not on the line. It's pretty funny hearing him shout on the phone..KEEFER GET OFF THE TABLE! BAD CAT!!

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They have appointed themselves the fabric and quilt approvers. Any new fabric that comes home becomes the world's best nap spot

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Mine do the same thing. I had to put the fabric into plastic boxes to keep them off of it. I did discover a little trick though. I keep all my scraps from trimming squares and batting and throw them into a huge bag I made from extra fabric. It's their own pillow and they just love the thing. It has a velcro piece on the back side I can open and just stuff more fabric into when I have it.

They also pull my pins out of the fabric I've pinned. One at a time, then they drop them on the floor. I just know they giggle in cat giggles when I step on them!

We have a silk quilt here at the office that we just completed (a group of bankers worked on it to donate to Boys and Girls Club for an auction...talk about unique and innovative donations credit!). It has some "mink" hairs, which is what we're calling the cat hair so it's more in keeping with the quality of the silk quilt LOL

My sister used to have a cat who discovered that if he pressed that flashing light on the answering machine, people would talk to him. Not too long after that, he also discovered the 'memo' feature and would leave short notes to himself as well.....

When I was in school we had a white cat, born deaf, named "Princess Tarshiba the Poohka." (You had to be there.) In general, she liked things that vibrated slightly; e.g. she used to sleep on top the fish tank covers because of the vibration the air pumps created. (That is she did until the time she jumped up, knocked the cover out of position and went into a 50 gallon aquarium!)

Anyway, the real story is that she discovered the electric can opener created a pleasant sensation when she pushed the lever. Before we figured it out, we were awakened several times in the middle of the night by the sound of the can opener cranking away...

Mind you Kwiltr...they'll still test out your fabric But they do enjoy the bag

We're hoping for $5,000 at least. I'll keep you informed. I'd put pics up but I dont' know how LOL

Man of My Life was cleaning out the ash trap for our fireplace (get ready for winter BEFORE you need it). He opened the little door, shoveled out some ashes, went outside to dispose of them, came back and there was a cat tail sticking out of the little door! Spunky went from a black and tan to a solid gray! He jumped out and POOF! Ashes everywhere. What a hairball!

Also, while I was vacumming up the ashes, I accidently sucked up one of his sparkle balls. Who says cats don't have expressive faces? I swear his bottom lip started quivering until I fished it out of the bag.

My black cat has the best hiding places when we get company. Currently he likes to crawl above the basement ceiling tiles. When I first got him, I lived in a flat, and it took me a long time to figure out he was hiding in plain site on the grate in the fireplace!

My chubby, indolent, declawed indoor (mostly) cat almost caught a bird the other night. It surprised me because he was abandoned by his mommy and fed from a bottle (no other cat contact). I guess it proves a nature vs. nurture issue. He likes to sit on our back patio steps and hang out. He spotted this oblivious bird, and to my surprise pounced on it and actually caught it! The bird was safe because I yelled at my cat, and he jumped and the little bird flew away. Now he thinks he is the mighty hunter cat!

Spunky and Kismet are snakers! We live out in the woods, and there are small cracks in the house foundation. Well, small grass snakes, the size of worms, can get in and do as the weather gets cold. Spunkman and Kizzerator know right where they come in, and post for them. I find dead beat up snakes in the basement all the time. Sometimes The Boyz ever bring them upstairs, when they are feeling particularly proud of themselves and want some praise. So far this autumn: Cats 3, Snakes 0.

My husband is soooo lucky I am not a squeamish kind of girl!

My cat used to be a snaker too! Luckily he's getting a little too old now. I used to live in a townhouse where there was a greenbelt/wash area across the parking lot. I'd be sitting on my couch and look up and see him running across the parking lot with snake streaming from both sides of his mouth. My first reaction was always to get up and shut my back screen door. (He'd go over my back fence to get back into the house.) Then I'd go out and get him away from the snake, take him inside and close the door. The snake, which was always playing dead, was usually gone within a few minutes.

He did manage to get them in the house a couple of times though. I'm not particularly sqeamish either, but I've got to tell you, the time I came down my stairs and saw a snake sticking up out of my garbage disposal, waving its head around, I screamed! I'm embarrassed to admit I had to call my brother-in-law to come get it out. I was just too freaked out to do it. I still get a little freaked out just thinking about it.

My cat, Bubbles, 18 years old, had a stroke on Sunday afternoon (during the 4th quarter of the Panther game when we were about to go into overtime!) Her back legs are lame and the initial prognosis at the Critical Animal Care Emergency Room on Sunday night was grave, indeed. But I brought her home, being told she would probably not live through the night, and kept her close by on the bed. She did live and I took her to my Vet on Monday morning who gave a different prognosis. She specializes in geriatric cats and said she has seen many stroke victims make a recovery. She treated her in the hospital for two days and I brought her home tonight. We are settling into a routine where I move her from room to room. She has a sick bed in the bathroom for when I am at work. She has a sick bed on the couch for when we watch TV. She has a sick bed on my bed for when we go to sleep at night and she has a towel on the patio for fresh air. I am hopeful that in time she will regain the use of her back legs. Anyone out there have a success story about their cat who had a stroke?

P. S. She has a towel in her favorite spot near the computer when I am on-line at night.

Ann,
I don't have any experiences to share, but I'm sure sorry to hear about Bubbles. I hope she'll make a full recovery.
Jill