13 CAT RULES

1. Whenever you miss the sandbox, cover it up.
Dragging a sock over it helps.

2. If you can't get your way, lay across the keyboard till you do.

3. When you are hungry, meow loudly so they feed you just to shut you up.

4. Always find a good patch of sun to nap in.

5. When you have something important to say, try to say it in the dead of night when you're *sure* everyone's sleeping. There's no better way to get the attention you

6. When in trouble, just purr and look cute.

7. Life is hard, and then you nap.

8. Curiosity never killed anything except maybe a few hours.

9. When in doubt, cop an attitude.

10. Variety is the spice of life.
One day, ignore people; the next day, annoy them.

11.Climb your way to the top, that's why the curtains are there.

12. Make your mark in the world, or at least spray in each corner.

13. Always give generously a bird or rodent, left on the bed tells them,
"I care".

FIRST SUNBATH THIS YEAR

Since a few days the sun is shining and spring settled in. It's unusually warm for March, 16° (61F) ! Kim is happy and rolls herself in the grass.

Kim is always outside, cold, grey or even rainy weather doesn't stop her from sleeping outside. Only when it's raining very heavily, then she would sleep inside. She could never be an indoor cat.

My son had realized that when he had to move from London to Amsterdam into an appartment and had taken Pookie and Kim with him. But Kim became so nervous and unhappy, that she stayed under his bed and didn't want to come out. She even refused to eat. He tried it for 2 weeks but then had to realize that she would be much happier here with us. And as you can see, that's the case !

Arthur too, when he saw the beautiful sunshine, put a paw in the garden and approached.





Then he settled down for a little wash

and finally they took their sunbath together ! Pookie too decided to go out and joined them.

This is not Arthur !

ARTHUR AND THE WEEPING WILLOW

One evening we heard a wailful crying, it sounded like a little baby. But there are no babies around here.

Mr. Gattino got up and checked the garden. The crying came from our weeping willow tree. Approaching in the moonless night he saw a white spot far above him, on a branch.


"Arthur" he shouted "is that you ?" I waited for Arthur's answer responding "yes" but Instead I heard his continuing songs. Mr. Gattino hurried me to look after a pocket lamp as he could see nothing. I ran over to the house and put everything upside down to find the lamp, while I heard Mr. Gattino shouting "Got the lamp ? Where are you ?" as if I had disappearded to the north pole. Finally I found the lamp hidden in a drawer where I hadn't looked in for ages, catched it and returned running. He took the lamp and pointed it to the white spot. Arthur, squinted in the sudden light and stopped singing. He only greated us with a very little "meauw", which made our hearts melt.

He was sitting there on a branch and looked down to us. Mr. Gattino started swearing in his discret opera voice, as usual in italian, when he doesn't like a situation. It was past midnight and the neighbourhood slept. I suggested to take a ladder and try to get Arthur down. What he did, still swearing. It's amazing what Italians have for a treasury of words ! And on top of it, it sounds almost nice and not so ugly as when you swear in another language.

By the time my next neighbor had opened her window and looked out. The scenery must have been worthwhile to watch. Mr Gattino in his pajama, swearing and fumbling around with the ladder, me in my old T-shirt reassuring poor Arthur again singing in the tree.

Finally the ladder was in the right place, Mr. Gattino climbed up and told Athur to jump on his shoulder. Arthur found it very funny that his beloved canopener also wanted to sit in the tree and welcomed him by scratching his nose. The canopener sweared a little louder.

Then Arthur suddenly turned around and jumbed on another branch. No way to catch him. I called Arthur and told the hysterical Mr. Gattino to calm down. By now Arthur had reached the lower branches and like a dart jumped on the grass just besides my legs. Then he sat down and looked up, wondering what his canopener did up there.

Mr. Gattino was still sitting on the ladder in the tree ... and if he didn't climb down he still sits there.

But he finally got down, said "good night" to the neighbor and disappeared with his ladder. Arthur and I returned in the house where he throw himself on a bowl of good catfood.

This story happened two years ago. Since then Arthur is still climbing on his beloved tree, but not so high anymore and he manages also to climb down !

A SUNNY AFTERNOON

Arthur slowly gets back to his old self. Maybe because outside the sun is shining and it's also quite warm for the season.

Yesterday after a long nap besides the cat house, he woke up and saw Pookie who too "suffered" spring feelings and rolled on the carpet from one side to the other.








Suddenly Arthur saw her, got up, waggled with his posteriors and .... jumped on Pookie !

A terrible storm broke out ! Pookie got up like a flash, made a very angry face with flat ears, hissed and gave a nice paw slap on Arthurs ears, then stormed away. Arthur behind, over the chairs the sofa the table while we were sitting there like two statues asking ourselves what happened in this room. It was like a thunderstorm without lightening ! Both had disappeared.

And as usual, after a while, first Pookie came back and jumped on my knees probably to look for some comfort and then came Arthur in all his innocence, jumped on the heating and looked out of the window. He had done his work for the day.

SEXY NAMES FOR MY CATS

Spring is approaching, the birds are starting to sing in the morning and some cats too.
For the moment a lot of Bloggers are curious to find out what their sexy names are. I saw answers on many blogs. Therefore I became curious about Pookie and Arthur. They are in a good age for spring feelings.

Lisa I left out by respect of her high age and Kim I am not sure what she is, male or female ? One thing is sure she is a cat !

The results are quite true !