For Christmas this year, I thought I’d mention this cool animal shelter we’ve just discovered here in Appleton. Saving Paws is for cats and dogs, and like so many animal shelters, started because one person decided to foster a few cats… and now the organization has 50-75 housed on a regular basis.
If you can, do donate to them.
A very merry Christmas!
I forgot to mention the other day that those stunning photos were by Betty; she’s been taking some amazing photographs of the campus since fall. She’s also taken a few really great ones of our kittoi; this is Aurora on her double-harness deciding that she does not like snow.
And no, it doesn’t amaze me to find out my lovely wife has yet another fantastic skill.
What our apartment will look like as soon as we’ve unpacked some:
More, for your amusement while we’re on the road:
We drive from Brooklyn, NY to a hotel in Elyria, OH today.
For those who have ever had cats who have to be put in carriers:
(Actually, ours just get in them, for the most part. They’re very good cats.)
Our Endymion has a thing for paper bags with those twisty paper handles. He invariably needs to know what’s in the bag and gets his big head & body wrapped up in the handles, leading to him panicking and running with the terrifying bag after him. One year, right after Christmas, the bag he’d stuck his head into had both glass bowl candle holders and wind chimes, which lead to the The Great Wind Chime Incident (about which we do not speak in front of Endymion).
That incident taught him to hate chimes forever, but he apparently learned nothing about sticking his head into paper bags with those twisty handles.
That’s the Big Guns, Endymion, looking out a hotel window in Kenosha on our way to Appleton last year.
He’s got a Buster Keaton thing going on, doesn’t he? I think so, but then I’m a big fan of Buster and of Aeneas. He is not so slothful that all he does is rest himself on the slope – he does, also, sharpen his claws on it.
Found here. This makes me laugh really hard because Betty is extraordinarily funny when talking about the cats’ preferences for where & when they like to sit on her. In her spluttery Lewis Black kind of way. & Maybe because of the priorities of whoever created it.
Jude suggested an LOL Cat treatment of the photo below? Any takers? You don’t have to do the graphics – just provide the text.
Yes, Aeneas is the one with the heart condition, and he tends to startle easily.
When you come home & you get to see this first thing, life just seems a little less sucky.
Sleeping the sleep of the just, Endymion is the cat we call Big Guns. Look at those big legs. (For those of you who don’t know, “guns” is slang for “muscles.”)
Endymion tends to have one eye that doesn’t open for a few minutes after he wakes up from a nap. It’s been that way since he was a kitten, but I’ve never managed to get a photo of it before.
Our big Endymion trying to find the catnip cigar he got for his birthday. (They turn 9 this year.)
April 1st kicks off Prevention of Cruelty to Animals month. I don’t think there’s anything I hate more than the abuse of the goobers who trust us & depend on us. I know there are plenty of people out there “avenging Dusty” but I’d like to suggest we do that in a cool & groovy, pay it forward kind of way instead of in vengeance. (There is definitely a lot of animals out there that need your attention more than that kid does)
During these crap economic times, a lot of people are having to give up their animals, or, at the very least, can’t take care of them for a while in order to pay other bills.
If you have the space, think about fostering an animal or two; our local fostering organization will actually pay you per day to foster, and has a page of other useful information.
You can check in with North Shore Animal League as well, who are another favorite of ours, or the ASPCA (so maybe they can take those heartbreaking ads off TV).
& Here’s Endymion coming out of his favorite corner, between the nightstand, the bedroom window, & the cozy radiator.
My sister made me a lovely blanket for the cold Wisconsin winter – just a small one to curl up with on the couch. The only thing is, Endymion seems to think it’s his.
