Happy St. Patrick's Day

 Spyro: Mom couldn't find the green derby, so we are just plain, but we are happy to be at the party.

 Oja:  Mom caught me nomming, but I'm ready for more.

 Rocio: I'm all rested up and ready to party.

 Bambino: I just woke up from my nap and I'm ready to party, too.

 Horus: I'm not quite finished with my nap, but I'll be there.

Julius: I'm always ready to party.  We left Brody and Cissy at home because they aren't quite ready for a big party.

How We Drive Mom Crazy

 Horus and Spyro:  We try to run outside almost every time Mom opens the screen door.

Spyro:  I like to get up on the door, so I can jump down and out when Mom opens it.

 Spyro, Oja and Rocio:  We like to get up on the computer desk between Mom and the computer monitor.  She has to pay attention to us then, until we feel like moving.

Oja:  You can't really tell, but that's me in the photo.  I like to walk on the keyboard.

 Rocio and Oja:  We like to knock the speakers off the computer desk and watch Mom crawling around under the desk trying to pick them up and get them back on the desk.

Rocio:  I dumped Mom's water over on her desk and it dripped into the keyboard.  Luckily the keyboard survived but some of the keys don't work as well as they used to.

Bambino:  I like to knock books and videos off their shelves.

All:  We all know which food bowls are ours, but we keep switching around which ones we want to eat out of, so Mom never knows if all of us got some Stinky Goodness and L-lysine.

Horus:  I like to annoy Rocio and make him hiss loudly.  We haven't gotten into a real fight yet, but it makes Mom come break it up.

The Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days of Summer

 Spyro:  We have crazy days when the blurpy is visiting.  We have hazy days when the rains come.  Mostly we have lazy days when we stretch out because it's hot.  It doesn't get really hot, hot, hot here, but we don't have air conditioning and it does get up in the eighties or even hit ninety sometimes and this is how we react to that.  I like to stretch out on the floor near the kitchen and let the breeze from the kitchen windows to the living room windows blow over me.

Oja:  I don't like to get down on the floor with the mancats, so I stretch out here on a chair.

 Rocio:  I like to stretch out on my back on the couch.

 Bambino:  I like the same chair as Oja, though not at the same time.

Horus:  I like to stretch out on the floor like Spyro, who photobombed my shot.

What Makes Our Town Special

 Bambino:  What makes our town so special this time of year is window whiffies.  We live up in the mountains of Northern New Mexico and we get open windows all summer long because it never gets hot enough for long enough to need a cold air blowy thingy.

Spyro:  I get my whiffies hanging on the screen door. Don't worry, Mom has a hook-and-eye to keep the door closed so I can't get out.

Karen Jo:  I won't give the name of the town because what makes it so special to humans really turns a lot of people off.  I have had people actually walk away from me when I told them where I was from.  Our little town is situated up in the mountains on the side of a hopefully extinct volcano.  I say hopefully because there are still signs that it hasn't cooled off completely yet.  We have hot springs not far from town along with an area of sulfur mud that was once a spa for people to soak their pains away.  The nickname for our town is The Hill, so our high school teams are the Hilltoppers and their logo is a top hat.  I think that is probably unique.  Lately we have been special for forest fires.  We have one going on right now at the top of the volcano.  It smells like the world's biggest fireplace around here.  That general area has been burned over twice in the last 15 years, so that will help contain it.

Oja:  You forgot to mention the birds.  We have birds year round, so the Bird Channel never goes off the air.  We also have a great animal rescue group called Friends of the Shelter who have connections with not only the local animal shelter, but the one in the next town, too.  They rescued Herman, Spyro and me and sent out Mom's name to Felines & Friends in Santa Fe, so Austin, Rocio, Bambino and Jose could finds homes here, too.

Karen Jo:  Friends of the Shelter is a great group.  Herman's foster Mom takes in the almost impossible to get adopted cats and does what she can to make them more adoptable.  She has two fosters that have been with her for over year.

Our Gotcha Day Stories by Spyro and the Gang

 Spyro:  We aren't all members of the club yet, but we are all tabbies and Mom will join us all up eventually.  All of our Gotcha Day stories really begin with Herman because without him, none of us would be here, so I'll start with him.  Mom was sad and lonely and wanted a cat, but wasn't sure she was ready for one yet.  Then she saw a picture of Herman on a bulletin board with a notice saying that he was a sad and lonely kitty who nobody wanted to adopt because he was FIV+ and FeLV+.  Mom researched his diseases and decided that she could handle his care and adopted him. If Herman had let Mom know that he wanted to stay an only cat, Emma, Oja and I would never have been adopted.  However, Herman let Mom know that he wanted kitty company, so when the phone call came about Emma, she acted immediately and brought her home.  When the phone call came about me, Mom acted immediately again.  My family had decided that they didn't want me any more and took me to the County Shelter, who notified Friends of the Shelter, who notified Mom that I was at the shelter and needed a home as soon as possible or they were going to send me to the Rainbow Bridge for being FeLV+.  The nice man at the shelter offered to show Mom the papers my before family filled out to give me up, but Mom didn't want to know why they didn't want me any more.  She didn't care.  Whatever it was, she could handle it.

Mom put me in the safe room, but I didn't want to stay.  The very first picture Mom took of me was my asking to be let out of the safe room to meet Herman.  We were buddies at first sight.  I have been the greeter cat ever since.  I am always the first kitty to make friends with the newcomers.

 Oja:  This is the first picture Mom took of me.  I am in the safe room, getting ready to jump up in her lap.  Nobody knows where I came from.  The city shelter in Espanola has an drop box for people too embarrassed to admit that they are getting rid of their kitty.  I was dumped in the box one night and the shelter people tested me and spayed me and gave me my shots, then called Friends of the Shelter in Los Alamos, where Mom lives and told them about me.  The person they talked to was Herman's foster Mom and she called our Mom who came and got me that same day.  Wherever I had been it was BAD.  I was terrified and clung to Mom for dear life whenever she came into the safe room for days.  I stayed in the safe room for a month, though Herman came in to visit me daily.  I hissed at him every time and Mom put him out again.  When I finally came out to stay, I still hissed at Herman and Spyro whenever I saw them.  Very gradually I became good friends with both of them, especially Herman.  We would cuddle together and groom each other for hours.  I even started kitty wrestling with Spyro, though not with Herman.  He was just to  big for me to want to wrestle him.

 Rocio:  The first picture Mom took of me isn't very good and you can't see my face, so this is a later one.  In January Mom got a call from Felines & Friends New Mexico saying that Austin's and my foster parent was going to college and couldn't foster us any more.  We needed a foster home and fast.  Mom thought about it for a couple of days, then agreed.  The only reason she hesitated was because Oja doesn't like boycats and she thought twice about inflicting two more of us on her.  We moved into the safe room, but wanted out immediately.  We had seen that there was a lot more house and other kitties to meet, so Mom let us out.  We befriended Spyro immediately, but Oja hissed and hissed at us.  By February, Mom decided  to adopt up permanently because we were so bonded to each other and she couldn't bear the thought of us being adopted separately.  Spyro was also so fond of us that to let someone else adopt us would break his heart again, because he was already heart-broken over Herman's going to the Bridge.  Mom couldn't stand that idea either.  Our adoption was made official in March.  Unfortunately, Austin ran off to the Bridge in April and broke my heart anyway.  I was really glad that I had Spyro when that happened.

 Bambino:  This is a much better picture of me than the first one Mom took.  When Mom emailed Felines & Friends to tell them about Austin, they told her in their reply that I had been waiting for a home for months.  Actually I was the original choice to pair with Rocio, but Austin came along just then and they were only four days apart in age, while I am a month younger.  My Mom said that she would love to have me come and live with her.  I was found as a tiny kitten wandering down a busy street in Santa Fe by my foster Mom, who is a vet tech with other animals, including another cat.  She brought me home with her and cared for me until I was old enough to be fixed.  That's when she discovered that I was FeLV+ and I spent most of the next few months mostly in a play pen, so I wouldn't infect the other cat.  I was delighted to have a whole room to myself, but I wanted out the first day.  It was scarier out there than I expected.  There was a friendly cat, Spyro, but there were two other cats who hissed at me.  I stayed in the safe room for two whole days, then I wanted out to stay.  When Rocio saw how much fun Spyro and I were having together, he stopped hissing at me and joined in the fun.  Oja has mostly stopped hissing at me, but she isn't my friend, either.

Jose:  I am camera shy and don't like to look at the camera, so this is the best picture Mom has of me so far.  A few weeks after Mom told Felines & Friends that she wanted to adopt Bambino, they emailed her about me.  I was in the Santa Fe City Shelter and was doomed unless I found a foster home immediately.  The only other possible foster home was an elderly lady in Albuquerque who already had a houseful.  Mom said the more the merrier and here I am.  I was found wandering around the streets of Santa Fe and picked up by Animal Control.  No one claimed me, so here I am as a foster.  Mom thinks she might officially adopt me, too, if Oja warms up to me and makes friends.  I spent an hour in the safe room, then wanted out to meet the other kitties I had seen upon arrival in my carrier.  I slunk around the living room the first night, just watching and staying under the furniture, out of the way.  The next day, I started playing THoE with the others, except for Oja.  Now I wrestle with Spyro a little, but mostly play chase.  Oja tolerates me near her now and can get really personal smelling me.  I gave her a little whap for that once, because she has a cold wet nose and I am sensitive back there.

New Member: Oja

Hi everybody, I'm Oja and I just joined the club.  I may not look like much of a tabby, but if you look closely at my forehead, you can see most of a tabby M and if you look at the lower right hand side of the photo, you can see the stripes on my tail.  Gracie said that this was enough to get me admitted and I'm glad to join up.  I live with Karen Jo and four brothers.  I have been known to get along with mancats.  Spyro and I get along fine, cuddling and grooming and wrestling.  I used to cuddle with Herman and I loved grooming his long fur.  I think I will get along fine with Jose, in time.  He is just about the same age as I am and he seems like he might know how to treat a lady.  I have no use for those two rambunctious boycats, Rocio and Bambino.  Rocio teases me by popping up by my chair and scaring me into hissing at him.  Bambino wants to pounce me, I just know it.  He pounces every other cat.

I don't remember much about my life before I came to live here, but it was BAD.  I was terrified when I moved in and clung to Mom like she was a lifesaver and I was drowning.  Actually, Mom was my lifesaver because if she (or somebody) hadn't adopted me right away, I would have been put to sleep for being FeLV+.  I calmed down after three or four days and just wanted lots and lots of attention.  I love being petted in Mom's lap.  I stayed in my safe room for a month before I dared come out and really meet Herman and Spyro.  It turned out that they weren't so bad, just bigger than I am.  I was a bit hissed off when Mom started bringing more and more boycats into the house, but I am used to it now.  I only hiss and growl at them now when they annoy me.  Rocio and Bambino can annoy me by getting closer than a foot to me.  Jose doesn't annoy me at all any more.  I was sniffing him all over the day before yesterday and he just stood there and let me until I got really personal with my sniffing.  Then he turned around and whapped me lightly between the ears and I didn't hiss or growl at him at all.  That was a first for me.  I hope to be posting here fairly often, if lazy Mom will let me.  It's great to be a member and thanks for letting me join.