Everyday 'Cat Blogging' -- Southern Ohio Porch Cats & Max

Especially since we don't consider ourselves religious and don't celebrate any so-called holy days as such. But Christmas, however much Shill O'Really screams about it, started out as a pagan holiday and has become one again. If Xtians really want their holy messiah-birth day to be a religious day for them, maybe they should move it to another time of year, or at least another part of December.

S'anyway, looks like we may be weather-bound on the baby Jesus's birthday. I'd like to say we're heartbroken about not having to go through all the doo-dah I posted on Thanksgiving, but we're not especially. We're both off work the following week, so we can go down and visit with all of them on a day when it doesn't dawn ten below zero with two feet of snow on the ground.

Max, I probably don't need to tell you, is ecstatic about the snow. Here's a little Quicktime movie of him flouncing about in it this afternoon -- we've noticed he looks a lot like a float in the Rose Bowl Parade when he moves through, if it's deep enough to be above his legs:

Max flounces about in the snow

In other "news" Gord and Squeek have discovered the joys of camping on the ventilation slits on the top of my computer monitor. I guess they're kinda' screwed if I ever invest in a flatscreen. Here's a shot of Gord enjoying the heat:

He's always been a heat-sink, though. The first winter he was here, he spent a good bit of it lying on the dining room floor directly under a foot-and-a-half high heating vent, stirring himself only to eat and poop. Now, since the floor is cluttered under that particular vent, and the floor now has tile rather than carpet, he crams himself into the gap between two of our bedroom dressers, under one of which is one of the bedroom heater vents.

Tony took this shot -- rather rare, frankly -- of Gord and Tink canoodling on the sofa. Gord had approached Tink and solicited a lengthy grooming, after which they shared the sunny spot on the futon without beating the snot out of each other for some minutes:

Finally, here's the view I frequently get from sitting directly in front of the computer. The small set of drawers is next to the monitor -- presumably, this was on a day when it wasn't cold enough Gord felt he needed the warmth of the monitor parboiling his innards:

Max has been chewing on his leg again -- or, to be more precise, licking it until he licks all the hair off. We've been through this with him before, and we're pretty sure it's idiopathic (nothing tangible or real causing it), though I suppose it's possible a four-year-old dog could have some pain in his leg. He never limps, so I'm guessing the licking thing is just nerves. We've both been home a lot, the past couple of days, and he's used to spending a lot of time under the bed in the master bedroom on the days I work (he goes up there when I go up to take a shower, comes out long enough to take his late-morning constitutional, then gets right back under there until I leave for work and call him down to get in his crate). Maybe he's just unnerved by being out all the time and having us both here, I don't know. It's nervous licking, that much I'm pretty sure of. None of the 'lick-stop' preparations seems to make him stop, so it's obsessive. One of these times, he's not going to stop and he's going to develop a hot spot, and then we're going to have to take him to the vet over it, I'm sure.

Doodle had her teeth cleaned, the other day. Didn't lose any teeth, fortunately, but we need to hit her with the dental gel at least once a day for a week or so, and then make sure we get her once or twice a week. There's no way in hell she'd ever let us brush her teeth every day, she won't even let us touch her head unless she wants us to. We have to put the dental gel on her foot and let her lick it off, she screams like a banshee and tries to bite us if we try to mess with her mouth. Worst of all, she usually manages to eject some 'butt juice' on one or the other of us. If it's butt juice or Doodle becomes a gumby cat, she's gonna have to be a gumby cat.