Winston svelte

Winston's dating profile picture.

Here Winston is looking almost svelte. Let me tell you something about Winston, he is not svelte. I don't know what my parents feed their cats but their coats sure are nice. The cats' coats, not my parents coats. I'm not saying my parents don't have coats to keep them warm, I mean I was just talking about the cats and... sigh.
Actually I do know what my parents feed the cats. Those kibbles you see there are just for between-meal snacks. They get wet food in the morning and an 1/8 can of wet food (each) at night. The food has been dosed with Metamucil. It is usually warmed in the microwave before being fed to them.
That, coupled with the low-stress environment of the retirement community, makes for a nice kitty-coat.

More waking catzen!

Winston after temporary awakening.

What is up with that spot on Meydl's nose? It moves around, changes shape...

Meydl is obviously very disturbed about being woken up for pictures.

Winston

Winston is hard to photograph because he's so dark. I put a box over the flash to get this. He loves my red sweatshirt. 

Cat Gang

People say that cats are supposed to be good for your health.
Which is ironic because I'm convinced my parents' cats are trying to straight up murder them.

Suspects are considered tailed and fuzzy.

Winston (chat noir) and Meydl (chatte orange) are doing everything in their furry-bottomed powers to trip my parents and make them fall.

Suspects are still at large. In the case of Winston, he's just large.

The two of them are simply up to no good at all.
In other news, the black spot on Meydl's nose is fainter this week.

Yup

The cats actually cuddle.

Anarchy and Mayhem

Do they even know it's Christmas? Do they know there is an explicit rule about "no paws on the table"? Where is the force of the State?

I was actually hoping to get a picture of him lying like a bear (cat) rug. But Winston lifted his head oh-so-slightly just as I clicked the shutter.

Shenanigans! I say! His eyes always glow in photographs. They're usually shut in real life.

More of What I Must Put Up With

The cats have taken turns conquering my coat on the sofa. "I shall dwell in the flesh of my enemies!" says Winston, not realizing that the fabric is all man-made. Or, maybe he did realize that...

Meydl absolutely loves the little wrist-strap on the camera. Unfortunately she loves it too close for focus. Her butt is in focus at least.

Meydl hath also conquered the wilde-coat. She didn't do it without me shaking the camera though. It was fear. Fear of the great beast which made me shake so.

This is what I have to put up with.

Meydl will typically sleep on her back. Winston on his belly. Lookit Medyl's sproingy feet.

Look, I can't help myself. Waking up cats is hilarious. I know history will judge me badly. But I can't stop myself.

Harassing cats. It's what I do. I figure that my punishment in the eternal hereafter will be that cats will walk on my head when I try to sleep. Hey, wait a minute...

It's Not Easy Being Me

After

The exposure from the webcam is actually pretty good for the chat noir Winston. And although he's very affectionate I don't think he likes being picked up so much. He pretty much weighs like a bowling ball.

Before

Katzen

Winston (chat noir) and Meydl (chatte orange) lying together on the chair.

The cats get along extraordinarily well, actually.

Cats

My sister Jeanne took pictures of cats.

Winston mostly sleeps, but here he's looking fairly majestic. Shockingly this is him after he's lost weight.

There's something about Meydl that makes you just want to pick her up and put your nose in her belly.
I do wish you couldn't see up my nose here though. 

A New Kind of Awesome

My sister took pictures of cats. You will be looking at my sister's pictures of cats.

Disembodied Pushkin cat head with a Winston in the background.

Is Pushkin really staring down Chien here? I have no idea. Pushkin is not an aggressive cat but Chien is a SERIOUSLY non-aggressive dog.

Chien looks the OTHER way.

Meydl and her blurry tail.

I decided to stick with Foxmarks and not go to Lastpass at all. Thing is, they're the same company now.
I'm completely fascinated with these kinds of anthropological things. Humans came out of Africa (many stayed in Africa) and some (Europeans) bred with Neanderthals. Now we know about Denisovans -- a new kind of not-quite-human whom New Guineans are related to.
Actually, I'm using Firefox Sync. It's not cross-browser though. Oh well.

Cat News

Meydl.

I'm sure you're wondering "Why no pictures of the black cat?" Well he's been feeling poorly of late. He hates those awful sulphur baths the vet puts him through, but we need to take him like four more times to clear up his skin condition. Poor fellow was in a cage in a shelter for at least a month before we got him. He does, on the other hand, occasionally run around with Meydl and the other day my sister saw him licking Pushkin's head.
In any case, he mostly sits in a little cat ball on one of the couches in my parents' livingroom. It's just not that photogenic because he's an inky black puddle of cat when he does that. In fact, normally my parents can't see him at all when he's being a cat doughnut.
Pushkin is less than pleased with the new cable box. He barfed on the old one, shorting it out. I think he's done that to at least six other cable boxes. And that's no hyperbole. In any case, the new box has no vents on the top as a consequence of it running much cooler than the old cable boxes. Which makes it a much less pleasant place for a kitty. I told my mom we should put a heating pad on top of the box for Pushkin. She managed to nix that idea without saying any words out loud.

I'll Have a Black and Tan

And more

I seriously haven't done anything at all today. I can't even say I watched TV. Now that's a new low. But I am blaming the cats. Blaming the cats for your own failings is awesome because they, being unable to speak English (I think their native tongue is French), are unable to defend themselves.
Besides, they're mostly asleep.

The Guardians

Wizard! You Shall Not Pass!

We found out how my dad gets so much work done. He has guardian cats who protect him. Woe to those who dare approach.

In the meantime, Pushkin graciously suffers through a combing from Iona.

Obviously he just hates it. It's nigh on intolerable to him.

Find the Meydl

At first when I looked at this picture my sister took of these cats I thought "Oh how funny, it looks like Bernard (or whatever the name of the black cat will be) has a tail like Meydl's -- like he was originally orange and stripe-y and was dipped in ink."
But no, you can actually see all of Meydl in this picture. If you look very closely...

More Cats!

Pushkin with his way-too-serious face on.

Winston/Bernard (or whatever, he's a cat -- he hasn't told us yet) saying "hello!"

Winston looks o'er the luxurious and silly Meydl.

My lovely sister took some pictures of the cats. She's stayin' on top of job number 1!

Winston

So there's basically no way my parents will be having fewer than three cats. Once my dad started to refer to Winston as "my little Winnie" we knew it was all over.

16 Feet

I have this fierce-some look but I just want you to pet me.

So my parents, through a series of what we might call cat-tastrophies, have ended up with (at least temporarily) another cat. Luckily, the cat is not aggressive at all, because Pushkin really wouldn't be able to handle that (although the last time I checked he was hiding under my parents' bed.) This chat noir has been named Winston and he's really quite nice. He's easy to sleep with (he mostly stayed in my bed last night) and he's very purr-y and nuzzly. And he's the appropriate color for a Halloween cat.
Pushkin doesn't seem to be doing so well lately. He's gotten a lot slower and just seems old. Poor kitty. We have this pain medicine which makes him feel so much better but it's simply impossible to get him to take it.
All of the cats are what we might call "tolerant" of the giant labradoodle. Somehow all the animals are in my parents' apartment right now. That's 16 feet plus whatever number of human feet are around at the time. And what is that, like 4(?) tails? It seems like more tails quite frankly. I'm going to have to go check.