About the Cats . . .

Saucey is the oldest one, she is about 7 I got her from the Animal Rescue Foundation Shelter (ARF) in Walnut Creek, CA when she was about 6 months old. She is my “baby.” She tolerates my hubby, but prefers me to any other human. She is sweet, laid back and very soft. She has the tiniest meow of any cat I’ve ever heard. When I first got her, sometimes she would open her mouth to meow and no sound came out, eventually she got a little squeak. Now she can muster up a pretty good yowl when she needs to, but mostly likes to be quiet. Her favorite place to be is usually wherever I am at. She will sit by me or in the doorway of the room I’m in, curl up with me when I’m knitting, and sleep next to me in the bed. She’s a bit of a chicken and is easily startled or scared. If someone unknown comes into the house she will head for the furthest corner she can find (usually under the bed). She doesn’t like strangers and can take days to warm up to new people, but once she recognizes someone will come out after they have been visiting for a little while. Her tuxedo markings are almost perfectly symmetrical except for her crooked mustache. She also has a really long tail. I think I measured it once and it is the exact same length as the rest of her body to her nose. She is also a Cardinal fan. I think this is in gratitude to Tony La Russa and this may change at the end of this baseball season (sad, sigh). There’s hope though, because she seems to have a crush on Albert Pujols. She gets jealous of my knitting sometimes and demands that I put it down and pet her… right away. She gets a little annoyed by me being on the computer which she usually signifies by attempting to lay down on the keyboard. Again, I should just stop what I am doing and PET HER. Her favorite toy is the cat fisher – sort of a fishing pole with a feather on the “hook” end. She loves chasing and trying to catch it. If I do it right, she will even perform a few back flips and lovely ballet moves.

Zelda is the little one. She is under 2 years old. We just got her from the local shelter about six weeks ago. She is a rascal and is therefore still on probation. Saucy has mixed feelings about her. As I mentioned in the “ice cream” post, she has no manners. She has stolen Saucey’s bed, gets under foot, climbs in and up everywhere, kicks all the litter out of the sand box, jumps on the back of my husband’s chair when he least expects it and usually wants to eat anytime anyone goes into the kitchen for any reason. My husband thinks I should take her back to the shelter and get another quiet kitty like Saucey. I’m not so sure. I think they are good for each other. He’s never had any experience with kittens (I got him from the “bachelor” shelter about 6 years ago) and Zelda has enough kitten left in her to still be very curious, playful and generally zany. So far she likes the crinkle ball. She’s not a love-y kitty like Saucey is so she doesn’t lap sit much. So far she hasn’t bothered my knitting or gotten into my yarn cabinet; but she does climb on the kitchen counter which makes me crazy (ugh!). I don’t want to cover the counters with foil but I haven’t got a good plan for keeping her off of them. The water bottle is minimally effective and yelling doesn’t faze her. We’re hoping she will mellow.

Finally, here is a sneak peek at my current WIPs:hopefully I can go into some more detail at a later time. I have to drive over to base to get my “retiree” ID Card and see about a health care plan. (EEK!)