Since this week’s Photo Hunt theme is “Six,” I thought I’d feature some photos from my sixth birthday in 2008 (my eighth birthday will be in a few days, on June 24). That was a strange year. My human gave me this weird birthday gift called an “Enchanted Palace.” As you can tell, I was a little confused by it at first!

Seriously, does this look like a cat toy to you?

Even so, I was oddly… enchanted by it.

So imagine my shock when I found out my human wanted to take it away from me! It turned out that she was really going to give it to her boyfriend’s niece, and she was just using it temporarily as a photo op for me! Can you imagine? By the time I discovered this unpleasant bit of news, I had grown attached to the thing and napped by it frequently. In the end, my human didn’t have the heart to take it from me, and she had to go out and buy a second one for the niece.

I still have my Enchanted Palace — you can see it in the background of some of my photos.

Boodie seemed to like it the other day. But then, Boodie’s got as much fluff between her ears as she does on her body. And no Furminator can cure that.

Conclusion: this so-called cat toy leaves two out of three cats dissatisfied.

I really don’t understand what’s so special about Stonehenge if anyone can just build it themselves. Seems pretty dumb to travel across a whole ocean to see it.

Anyhow, my human immediately got down to business and put together her own personal Stonehenge. At first she set it by the doors to the backyard so the rays of sunrise and sunset would hit it just the right way. Actually, she had no idea what she was doing.

Whatever. Binga tried to eat the Heelstone. My human had to fish it out of her mouth.

She got really huffy about this. Binga, after all, is over 3 years old, so she should have known better.

In the end, my human thought it would be a better idea to set up Stonehenge in the bay window of her office, even if the window does face the wrong way and it doesn’t get any direct sunlight at all.

I had to agree with Binga — the Heelstone was the most interesting part. I couldn’t resist touching it.

Unfortunately the whole thing started falling apart. I don’t know how these Stonehenges get to be 5,000 years old. They seem like pretty fragile things.

After thinking about it for a while, I’ve come to the conclusion that Stonehenge is really a cat toy, and the big one that my human’s friend visited was built as a cat toy for the Egyptian Goddess Bast. This just shows that the earth is magnetically connected in some very mysterious ways.

 

It wasn’t exactly the best cat toy I’ve ever seen, but I played with it anyway.

Unfortunately I didn’t get to play with it for very long because Binga chased me away so she could play with it herself. Sort of like she does with my dinner.

 

Naturally she broke it.

And as if that wasn’t enough, Boodie got her paws on it too and ruined it even more.

 

My human was gone for two days and she gave me a toy that lasted ten minutes. If you ask me, the math does not add up.

 

It turned out that the guy my humans got to take care of us over New Year’s wasn’t very bright. I snuck out of my private apartment New Year’s Eve, and the other cats snuck in and ate my food. I didn’t like it much up there anyway. I mean, how long can you stare at a bridge that’s badly in need of sweeping?

And do you think my human brought us cats anything from this trip of hers? Of course not! She just brought home a couple of dumb folk art cats. At least the second one had a cool fishing pole. Naturally, she said I couldn’t play with it.

 

The acupuncture treatments didn’t do all that much good and I still wasn’t feeling all that great. I spent a lot of time in bed.

So my human took me back to the vet which, to be honest, makes me feel even worse. I tried to hide my tail for protection. The tech even thought I didn’t have one at first.

They weighed me again — I had lost a lot of weight!

So the vet said I should go back on the original painkillers for a longer period of time so I had a chance to get better. I hate having those pills stuffed down my throat. I wish someone would remind my human that she can put them in my food!

Anyhow, this latest remedy seemed to work, finally. I’m back to playing with my twist ties again, “ad nauseum,” as my human says.

She got me a new toy since I was feeling so much better.

It’s totally lame! My human couldn’t figure out why I hated it so much, but it’s even obvious to her dog-loving boyfriend. “It’s dead prey,” he explained. Duh!

»February 2007

Fortunately for us all, my human’s website started getting traffic and is making money again, so the pressure’s off — I don’t have to support her after all. Good thing… I was starting to feel exploited. It’s bad enough having to support the other two cats, who are clearly too lazy to pay their own way. Freeloaders.

 

The traffic returned to my human’s website just in time for her birthday so to celebrate she got herself a birthday gift — some weird looking chip and salsa bowl that plays really obnoxious music. I hate it. So does Binga.

 

Once again there are a bunch of workers buzzing around the house. The weird thing is that they’re only doing stuff to the outside of the house. Why bother doing that when none of us cats can see it? Binga finally got off her butt and peeked through the upstairs bathroom window to find out what was up, but she couldn’t see much.

I’m not sure how Boodie feels about these workers. Every day they’ve been around, she’s been catching and killing her toys. She runs around with the toys in her mouth, meowing the whole time, and then throws them down at her feet. I thought at first that maybe she liked the workers and was trying to impress them, but now I think it’s her not-so-subtle way of warning them not to cross her.

 

In the midst of all this activity a big box showed up on my human’s doorstep. It turned out to be something called a “TransFIRMer” — apparently she writes about these things on her website, and the company she works with gave her one for free, along with a bunch of DVDs. She was thrilled! She loves jumping around on this thing. I decided to find out what the excitement was about.

 

The truth is, I don’t see anything particularly exciting about this contraption. It doesn’t even make that great of a scratching surface. I suppose it’s okay to pose on.

 

After checking out the TransFIRMer, I decided to have a good, long stretch. My human said I was doing a “cool down.” I think she is out of her mind.

»August 2005

This has not been a happy month. My human’s website stopped getting traffic from Google and even though she found out some of the reasons why, there’s nothing she can do to fix it. Since the income from her site has all but stopped too, she told me that I’m going to have to do a little more to help support our household. That’s a lot of pressure to put on a cat, if you ask me.

In desperation to have some sort of control over her life, she hired a feng shui expert to bless our house and offer some suggestions. I hated the blessing — my human and the feng shui woman were flinging orange peels all over the house! It was weird. Then the feng shui woman told my human to do some stuff to make up for the fact that the house is missing a “prosperity corner.” First off, she told her to rip up the ugly carpet in the office and bedroom. My human hated the carpet anyway, so she was glad to do that.

Boodie was bummed  — she loved sharpening her claws on it and hated to see it go.

Then my human had to rearrange all the furniture to put her desk as close as possible to where ever that “prosperity corner” is supposed to be. I liked that part! I got to play in the little glass bookcase before the books got put back.

Once she was done with rearranging the office, my human wasn’t all that thrilled with the results. The cords are all over the place and it doesn’t look all that great. But at the moment she’s desperate for some prosperity so she will do anything.

 

Of course, I figured this meant my birthday wasn’t going to be all that great and I was right. My human pulled out my gift and it had an interesting looking ribbon thing on top, but when I looked more closely, my heart sank.

 

It was the same Tiffany box from my birthday a couple of years ago. I knew what that meant, and I was right. It was a new collar.

What a boring gift. And then I had to model it too.

In an attempt to atone my human brought out yet another gift. I was not interested even though it, too, had a fun looking ribbon on top.

It turned out to be another electronic squeaking mouse, like the one the calico visitor trashed. Well almost like it. This one’s pink.

I didn’t like the color. I tried unsuccessfully to drum up some enthusiasm for it, but I couldn’t hide my disappointment.

 

I knew my human and her boyfriend were going to the Pet Expo, so I still held onto some hope that the month would turn out better. But no — my human showed up with a handful of free food samples and a really cheap toy.

 

Oh, and let’s not forget the inevitable dollar catnip bag that Binga always commandeers.

 

She’s also the only one who liked the cheap toy.

I watched all this with annoyance and boredom. When humans are having a hard time, why must they weigh us down with their woes?

 

»July 2005

My human says that Boodie is everything that cat haters complain about. Like, she’s aloof — well, she’s not even aloof. She just runs away and hides from most humans who approach her. And if there’s a hairball hacked up on the floor, it’s a pretty sure bet it is hers. She sheds like mad.

And she’s the laziest cat I’ve ever met. Not to mention the fact that she’s not very bright.

Boodie wound up at the Amanda Foundation because she and her sister were left abandoned in a box at the parking lot of a vet clinic. Usually the Amanda Foundation only rescues animals from the pound, but the vet happened to be one they used a lot, so they got stuck with Boodie and the other cat. They both cringed and hissed at everyone who came near them. They did like to play, though. Boodie still likes to play.

 

Of course nobody wanted to adopt a cringing, hissing kitty. So my human offered to take her home to “socialize” her. (The other cat, amazingly enough, did get adopted eventually.) I think the Amanda Foundation called for Boodie once and then my human never heard from them again. You might say Boodie is the cat that no one wanted.

Well, everybody who hears Boodie’s story feels sorry for her. “That’s because they don’t have to live with her,” says my human. But my human must feel a little sorry for her too, because she decided to have a birthday party for her this year. She doesn’t know the exact date of her birthday, but judging from her age when she first brought her home (estimated to be about nine months), she guessed she was born in May. So Boodie got a really cool birthday gift.

Of course, there was a downside (there always is around here): she had to wear a birthday hat.

That didn’t last very long since Boodie really hates anything sitting on her head. She couldn’t wait to get her paws on her birthday gift.

 

Naturally Binga wanted in. She got a little rough with the toy, though, so my human decided to make her wear the birthday hat.

 

Since I’m such a dainty little thing with such a small but infinitely well-shaped head, the birthday hat was far too big for me. And I wasn’t all that excited about the birthday gift anyway. I know I’ll get something even better for my birthday next month.

But just when I thought I was off the hook, my human pulls out this weird, puffy thing. I thought it was edible, but it wasn’t.

 

Ugh! It was yet another one of those clown collars. Once again, my afternoon was ruined.

Don’t humans realize we cats hate this kind of humiliation? We are fierce creatures with weapons already built in! My human is lucky I choose not to use mine.

»June 2005

Like many months, April started with the changing of the grass.

 

My human has yet to solve the mystery of the open cabinet door. I absolutely swear that it opens all by itself and I have nothing to do with it. But of course once it’s open I have to go look. After all, it’s full of the dog’s food and treats and while I don’t like the dog, her food smells really good.

 

Because it rained so much at the beginning of the year, all the bugs appeared early. Usually we don’t get this many until summer, but lately they’ve been all over the place. What fun!

 

For some reason my human refuses to join me in my bug adventures. In fact she seems rather disgusted by it all, especially when I catch them and eat them. But no matter — it just means more bugs for me!

Boodie likes the bugs too but more often she likes fooling around with inanimate objects and pretending they’re prey. She does this with the cat toys at least once a day — she’ll carry some fuzzy ball or catnip mouse in her mouth and meow like she’s got something special. Sometimes it’s not even a cat toy. The other day she was carrying around a plastic bag of something my human called “hardware.”

Boodie was really proud of catching the hardware. My human thought that this was one of the stupidest things she’s seen her do. I agree  — with all those bugs around the house, why mess around with a bag of junk?

Although my human and I are in agreement about Boodie’s stupidity, I am very mad at her this month! As you know, the Pet Expo always happens in April, and she is supposed to go there and bring home all sorts of new treats and cat toys. Well, guess what?! This year she didn’t go! She said something about having a date with some guy named Mark Victor Hansen instead. (I wonder if her boyfriend knows anything about this?) For three days she was gone from really early in the morning til late at night. But apparently she felt bad about skipping the Pet Expo and having her boyfriend feed us dinner every evening, because she brought us home a “present.” Some present:

 

Like a real cat would ever be caught dead in a pet carrier! My human has brought home dumb plush toys in the past, but this one really blows. This didn’t stop Boodie and Binga from checking it out.

I only examined it with the greatest reluctance. And boredom.

 

In any case, my human has a chance to redeem herself because there is another Pet Expo in June in Pomona. And I don’t want to hear any lame excuses from her about “events” or “deadlines” or whatever. After what she put me through posing with this dumb toy, she’d better straighten up!

»May 2005