kolohe came out of the closet...

literally of course... 

the closet was left open and usually he doesn't venture in there... we got ready for bed and i closed the closet as i normally do... i thought he left the room... 

as i was laying in bed, i hear a bang... then again... then again...

i nudge my husband awake and ask him if kolohe left the room... he said he hasn't seen him all night... 

we get up, turn on the light, and i go to open the closet door and out he comes... 

silly cat...

update...

prada has been somewhat good lately... so no crazy stories about her... although i will say i was playing a game with her today... when i make sandwiches, i peel all the crusts off because i don't like the crusts... before i used to feed it to yoshi... now i'll give small pieces to prada... today i was throwing pieces at her, and she'd kind of catch them with her paw in mid-air, knock it to the ground and eat it... i thought it was funny... and she can catch pretty well!

my family has been preoccupied with other things, so my brain cannot fathom to write anything else...

dropping the brat...

cats always land on their four feet... or so they say... 

prada is not a graceful faller... when we carry her and she scrambles to get out of our hold or she tries to bite and scratch and we have to drop her to save ourselves, she does not fall well... she always falls to one side... 

kind of concerning... perhaps she has an old injury and it healed wrong... we'll see what the doctor has to say when we go in for a wellness check-up and they do an orthopedic exam... or if that can even be accomplished with the little devil... 

right now i can hear frogs croaking and possums rustling in the bushes of my backyard... oh, and the husband snoring as well.... gotta love night time noises...

rare moments...

there are rare moments when prada is good and you just want to pick her up and cuddle her... she's not really one to cuddle though... but she may let you hold her and pet her before she decides to bite you...

she is of course charming when she's hungry or wants a treat... she'll look up at you with her big, blue eyes and meow at you... or she'll weave in and out between your legs in the formation of the number eight...

and even sometimes when i'm watching tv, she'll come and cuddle with me... but sometimes i think it's just because i'm using the blanket that she's quite fond of... 

if only she could be more personable and less evil... 

pictures of prada when we first got her...

she looks so tiny and skinny... of course to me she's still tiny... especially compared to kolohe... but what also amazes me about these pictures is how light her fur was... she has darkened up quite a bit... 

natural high...

i've been wondering if prada is on a natural high... her eyes are always dialated, even when there is light... 

she is most feisty in the mornings and at night for a good few hours... right now she is running around and crashing into things.... 

crap, i think she's in the kitchen sink again... i'm off...

upset bellies and other stuff...

last week prada and kolohe killed a spider... well, prada killed it and kolohe ate it... kolohe has a knack for eating spiders... i hate when he does it... it looks so gross.... he has eaten some pretty big ones too... i hate when he only has half of the spider in his mouth and the other half is hanging out, clinging on for dear life, trying not to be devoured.... ugh...

so last week he ate a spider and the next day he had an upset belly... how did i know?  he didn't want to eat... he did not eat most of the day... he even yakked up belly juices with some straw in it... i thought, straw?  he chewed on a broom... i guess he thought it would be the closest thing to grass to help settle his stomach... 

so i went out and bought grass and catnip.... brought it home and he started chomping on it right away... prada likes the grass too, so it was a good thing that i bought two containers of it... kolohe doesn't like to share... 

there was another spider today... prada noticed it at first... i threw my slipper at it and it fell and then she didn't care anymore.... i tried to get kolohe to get it and eat it and he didn't see it either... so i just threw my husband's shoe at it until it got smashed... 

strange spring/summer noises are very alluring to the cats... kolohe spent about fifteen minutes staring out into the darkness, listening to two cats wailing and possibly getting it on... 

nicknames...

in my family we have nicknames... sometimes really strange nicknames... it's a hawaiian thing, i guess... 

kolohe has nicknames: bushy kitty... fat meows... bushy, fat meows... special boy... baby boy... etc... 

prada has nicknames: stop it!... no biting!... get off of there!... you be nice girl!... bratticus... prads... get your toe nails out of that!... and so forth...

today she has received a new one... pooty butt... everytime i have to catch her or scruff her for whatever reasons (today we did a toenail trim), she lets out a stinky fart... i guess she's thinking like a skunk... release the odor and they will run away and leave you alone... and let me tell you, it is mighty stinky for an eight pound cat!

what is prada?

what breed is prada exactly?  the vet believes that she's just a siamese mix... when i showed her to my uncle and his fiancee (who is a competent vet), she said she looked like a ragdoll mix... i took the two breeds into consideration... then i thought maybe a little bit of both because when we pick her up, she goes limp as ragdolls do when you carry them... the only thing is that ragdolls have long fur...

siamese?.... possibly... but she's not as vocal as most siamese cats are... and she's definitely not a modern siamese cat... modern siamese cats look like the naughty siamese duo from disney's "lady and the tramp"... so it is possible that prada could be a traditional siamese....

but then when a friend brought up "snowshoe", we looked it up and it was dead on.... and snowshoes are descendants of the siamese... she also had the characteristics of a snowshoe... high energy, energetic, doesn't like to be left alone, likes to be the center of attention (if we play with kolohe, she'll come along and steal the spotlight), stays loyal to one person (a toss up between my husband and son) and also sweet tempered.... yeeeeeaaaaaah... not prada... that must be the instinctive devil in her... but here's what a snowshoe looks like...

and here's prada...

ding! ding! ding!  i think we have a winner... she has also gotten darker as she has gotten older...

prada's hysterectomy...

prada was spayed back in february... we were fortunately lucky to get in with a clinic who does a certain amount of spays for free... we were waiting for the day for her to get spayed because usually that calms an animal down...

my husband dropped her off at the clinic and told the lady that she can be bad... right away there was a card attached to the carrier with the word "nasty" on it... 

we came back to pick her up and the lady said that prada was a feisty one!  they couldn't believe how tiny she was, yet so strong and wild!  at least they were able to control her and get the procedure done unlike other places i know...

has prada become calmer since then?  eh... a little bit... she may need some pheromone therapy to deal with her moodiness... 

pigeons...

also known as "rats with wings"... 

we used to have pigeons who would make their nests upon our roof... they even somehow got into the room and fell into our furnace closet... i was at work one day and my husband was working from home when he sent me a franctic IM that there was a pigeon in the furnace closet.... i asked him how he knew and he said he heard scratching, opened the door, and he was eye to eye with a pigeon... so i had to come home from work and do a catch and release... birds are always more afraid of you... and a handy pillow case always does the trick to stun them... then you can pick them up and release them outside... 

moving on, our first nesting couple had a baby (possibly more) but it was brutally attacked by some crows... it was sad... i used to be able to hear the baby cry and i peeked on occasion in the nest to see what he looked like... he was maybe a few weeks old and started to grow his feathers when he was attacked... wasn't a pleasant sight to come out of the house and have a dead baby bird at your feet with its back full of peck holes... 

the second nesting couple were kind of dingy... all the eggs that they laid rolled off of the roof and of course perished... 

and now no pigeons this year... i thought i heard some the other day but the nest has been empty for a long time... 

pigeon from 2007:

pigeon from 2008:

empty, lonely nest:

grrrrrr...

that's all we heard from prada today... her growling... don't know why she's in such a bad mood today... i've never known such a moody animal... 

she stole a piece of pizza today and ran off into my son's room... and growled during the whole event...

we gave her some pieces of pulled pork and she acted like a lion during feeding time... so we just flung it at her... her father said not to treat her like a wild animal... can't help if she acts like one!

my first encounter with euthanasia...

even though i've had many pets, i've never actually went to the vet to have them humanely euthanized... i've always said my goodbyes at home...

when i first started working as a vet tech, i encountered a four week old kitten that had both its back legs broken... the family who brought her in didn't know she was behind their car when they backed out and sadly they caught her back legs under the tire... fortunately they were kind enough to bring her in and wanted to help her in any way they could... 

what made the situation hard was that her breaks were up high- near the pelvis... so we had a difficult time trying to make splints that would stay in place... we dubbed her "pants" because after the splinting and bandaging, it looked like she was wearing pants... 

a couple of days later, the family came back with the kitten and said that all the bandaging had come off... me being a tad bit naive and optimistic, i told them that it wouldn't be a problem and that we would just wrap her up again... the father looked at me and told me that the big problem was the bone was sticking out of one of her legs... 

as one of my favorite vets that i worked with looked her over, she sadly said that euthanasia would be the proper thing to do... there was a three thousand dollar surgery option but it was no guarantee and the kitten would spend a lot of time rehabilitating... 

it broke my heart because she was so tiny... so adorable... and as we gave her her last meal, she ate away heartily because, well, she was a happy, healthy kitten despite her broken legs... 

at the time, to me euthanasia meant that the animal was sick and looked sick and it was time for the animal to go... i never thought that i would see a healthy, lively, happy kitten be put to sleep... 

i held the kitten as it meowed at me in her tiny voice and looked up at me with her big, round, grey eyes... and she slowly drifted off to sleep... 

i was mad at myself afterwards because i was wishing so hard that i had the money to pay for the surgery required... that's when the vet told me that surgery was no guarantee and what we did was best for her and that at least she had a good meal, loving strokes, and kind words spoken to her before she left... 

kolohe's fetish...

kolohe has a fetish with string and ribbon... he likes to eat it whole or at least half of it... fortunately he barfs it up before it becomes a problem... a thousand dollar problem... one time my son was really mad at kolohe because he ate the string to his yo-yo... i told him that he couldn't leave stringy stuff around because kolohe finds it too tempting!

a few weeks ago, he wasn't feeling well... he was hiding and just being quiet... he was still eating and drinking though, so i thought him hiding was just because he didn't want to be bothered by prada... 

then one day he barfed... and my husband said that there was something red in it... i thought that it may be blood... he said no... it was like string or ribbon... and i said it couldn't be because i put up his toy that has strings and ribbons attached to it... he's only allowed to play with that toy under supervision... then we thought he was eating easter basket grass... so i grabbed some pink colored grass and showed it to my husband, asking him if that was what he saw... he said that it was darker, like maroon colored... i hadn't the faintest idea of what he could've ate... 

then, we found it... the cats have one of those crinkly tunnels to play in (prada enjoys it way more than kolohe)... and to store it, there are strings to tie it up with... kolohe had eaten almost every one of those strings... 

here is how long the string originally was:

a good shot of all strings half-eaten:

still couldn't believe how much he chewed off and ingested:

one last picture for memories:

i cut off the remaining pieces... hopefully he won't find anything else similar to chew on.... i guess i should start buying him his kitty grass again... 

poor leather couch...

my poor leather couch... raped... shredded... well, i guess it's not so bad, but because i can see the damage and feel the damage, it bothers me so... 

prada cannot jump off of things without extending her claws, therefore, my poor, used to be lovely couch is all scratched up... *sigh*...