Category Archives: Cats

Feline Friday is a state holiday!

Well, not exactly. It is Feline Friday, and it is a state holiday. But the holiday happens to commemorate Statehood Day rather than Feline Friday. But I haven’t broken the news to the cats. It would be a letdown.

The only real news is that poor Kiko had the sneezes for several days this week. It started on Sunday or Monday, and continued through Wednesday. Bouts of sneezes. Sometimes one, two, three. Then she would stop, shake her head a bit, and lick her nose. It worried us, but she didn’t have any additional worrying symtoms. No drool from eyes or nose (although each sneeze did spray a little!). No open mouth breathing. So we crossed our fingers that it was just a kitty cold and not a more serious respiratory infection, which can also cause sneezing.

Today it seems to have passed. We’ve been hovering over her most of the day, and I don’t know if she sneezed at all. Suddenly it was gone. Just in time to save her from a precautionary vet visit. Way to go, Kiko!

We do have to be careful because Kinikini has tested positive for Feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV). It means that we have to take any kind of infection seriously and get him to the vet, as infections that would normally be routine could be dangerous for him. He?s been with us for over four years, and so far all is well.

Okay. You’re in luck. It was a good week for photos, and I took a lot of them.

So on with the show!

Feline Friday: We’re back!

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Our flight back from Auckland arrived on schedule right around 8 a.m. Wednesday morning. We already had almost all of Wednesday in Auckland, but got a repeat courtesy of the International Dateline.

By 4:30 Thursday afteroon, I had enough photos for today’s Feline Friday. Usually I can pace the picture taking over the full week, but I got it done.

Yes, it was a busy couple of days. Luckily, the cats cooperated.

As you’ll notice, Kinikini was the most visible. That’s because he is the most isolated while we’re gone. The other three–Kali, Bessie, and Kiko–all cozy up with our catsitter, and enjoy lots of petting, brushing, and extra food treats. Kinikini, true to his training in a cat colony, doesn’t trust anyone except us and stays out of sight while we’re gone.

And that means that when we return, he glues himself to me for 24-36 hours. After that, things get back to normal.

As normal as they can be with four cats.

This photo needs a bit of explaining. Meda had just opened the drawer, and Kali immediately climbed in and dug into the back until she was hidden away among my socks and underwear. You can see her face back there, almost hidden. Click on the photo for a larger version if you have trouble finding her.

She did this when I was leaving for the “No Kings” demonstration on June 14, but that morning I didn’t notice. Several hours later, not long before I got home, Meda heard something in the drawer. She opened it, and there was Kali!

She had been fighting to escape, and managed to rip the drawer’s interior veneer of the drawer, leaving what seemed like hundreds of wooden pieces of varied sizes as she tried to dig her way out.

I might have expected that experience to discourage future repeats, but she dove right in again today and could easily have been shut in the drawer again if we weren’t on alert.

Well, now that you know, here come the cats. It’s a full house of photos, with some settings repeated more than usual. After all, I had less that two days to let the camera do its magic.

Feline Friday: An Encore!

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We are in Auckland, New Zealand, until the middle of next week, which explains the absence of current cat photos for the week.

But not wanting to leave you without the regular Friday cat fix, I decided to go back 20 years to July 2005.

Introducing, in order of appearance.

Harriet, also known as Ms. Harry, the black and white. We rescued Harry and her sister, Lizzie, as kittens about five years earlier. Lizzie wandered, and one day didn’t return. That was hard. But Harry was with us a long time.

Kili, the gold/brown and gray tiger. In her prime, she ruled the house. Rescued from Kahekili Highway after being dumped from a moving car in 1998, if I recall correctly. She became the huntress who gifted us with her prey.

Leo, the gray tiger with white feet. Also found one morning on our walk, clinging to a branch and crying loudly. He like to gnaw fingers and knock things off the table to get attention. He was a talker.

Ms. Annie, dark gray with a white front end. Another morning walk rescue, this time from the beach in Kaaawa.

Silverman and Romeo, nose to nose. Romeo took refuge under our house on New Year?s Eve 2004, and stayed. During his prime, Romeo weighed in at about 19 pounds. Silverman was invited in through the cat door while we were on a trip to Chicago in 1999, and surprised us when we got home.

I should probably return to this and add links to the various stories.

For now, I’ll just let you enjoy this cohort of Lind cats.