Snooze Day

Yep – it’s Snooze Day at my house………….we had all this big hubbub yesterday because it was my Mom and Dad’s anniversary but today – is SAMMY DAY!   I get to sleep as much as I want.  Nobody bugging me…….nobody turning on the TV or the radio or ANYTHING – why?  Because I have the house to myself today!

Every possible surface that I can sleep on will be used today………..

Now that’s what I call a TRULY relaxing day!   I hope you have one too………….we deserve to have a day to catch up on our beauty sleep once in a while…..it’s not easy being this cute 24/7 is it?!!!!!

Love, Sammy the Snoozer

 

More Cupcakes for Silent Sunday

Just a few words….not quite silent….thanks to Misaki for this – I already have it but I wanted to thank her AND say that I’ll pass this on to a baker’s dozen blogs TOMORROW and answer the questions……meanwhile – enjoy a cupcake for breakfast on ME!

Silent Sunday…..Silence is GOLDEN…..!

SILENT HUGS, Sammy 😀

A Friend I Never Met

Happy Sunday Cats, Dogs, Birds, Humans, etc. (you get the picture!)…….

Today I want to tell you about a friend that I never got to meet….how can I call him a friend you ask?  Well, from what I know about him, he would be a wonderful friend – he sure was to my Mom so that means he would have been to ME too!

His name was Eddy.  Eddy was my predecessor.  Here are a couple of pictures of him taken in my parents OLD backyard before they moved here.

Eddy was about eight years old when he came into my Mom’s life.  She and my Dad had seen Eddy “around” the neighborhood occasionally and he even would hop over the chain link fence in their backyard and visit my Mom when she was lying around the pool.  He wore a collar – a very worn brown leather one.  He was very friendly and looked quite well fed and happy.

In October 1992 my Mom’s Dad passed away from a number of health ailments.  The day after he died, my Mom was sitting on the front steps outside the house just thinking about her Dad when up walked Eddy.  He pressed his forehead on Mom’s leg….she of course gave him a pet – he looked into her eyes and meowed, then hopped up into her lap for the first time ever and purred loudly.  He maintained eye contact with her for what she said was an “astonishingly long time”…..When she made a move to go back into the house, Eddy followed close on her heels and moved right in!

That’s when he became part of her family but not before she had canvassed the neighbors and one little boy told her that the cat had been abandoned by a military family that had moved away from the neighborhood some months before.  He said the cat very friendly though and “made his way” by visiting kindly neighbors’ homes and was able to get handouts and hunt thereby surviving.   After learning that, Mom decided Eddy wanted HER house to be HIS.  She named him Eddy (nobody knew his name), kept his old collar but installed a bell on it, took him to the vet for a checkup and shots where she learned his approximate age and health status (good!) and he was instantly happy (so were she and Dad!). 

Mom often tells Eddy’s story to people – and she always says she thinks her Dad sent her Eddy that day to keep her from being sad.  Cats with their “nine lives” reminded my Mom that life goes on……..and that her Dad would ALWAYS be with her.  He knew of her love for cats and knew that she was happiest when she had a cat (at least one!) in her life so who’s to say he didn’t send Eddy?

Eddy lived with my parents in their NEW house here in Warrenton for three happy years before he died.  

When Mom wrote her first mystery novel in 2005 her main character had a cat who ruled the roost……his name was Eddy.   Did I mind? (by then I had been adopted by my parents and was 5 years old) – absolutely not.  Because Eddy was a friend that I never met.

Happy Sunday!

Sammy

Seeing Double?

Happy Saturday!  I’m letting Mom take over again just like I SAID I would earlier this week…….Isobel of IsobelandCat suggested that Mom tell a bit about some of her past kitty cats.  Today, Mom’s going to tell you about someone who looks JUST LIKE ME!!!!!!!!!!!

Hi All….thanks for the intro Sam.   Sam and I were going through photos looking for likely Tuesday Teasers for next week and I came across this photo of a sweet and darling cat named Charli who owned me many years ago.

Sam and Charli would have made a cute couple!

Charli was a cat I who was with me through some big changes in my life.   I adopted her from a home where their cat had a bunch of kittens and the owner was looking for homes for them.  A friend and I each adopted one!

They were VERY tiny little things and Charli was the only red tabby and the most active of the bunch so I took her home.  My husband at the time and I weren’t sure if the kitten was male or female (duh!) so we called it Charlie…….soon thereafter we found out SHE was a SHE so we decided to drop the “e” and just leave it Charli – short for Charlene.  This was back in the mid/early 80s. 

We were living in a rented house at the time – the first house we’d lived in vs. apartments so it was also our first YARD.  We also already had two other cats (I’ll tell about them another time) – Ricky and his sister Linda Sue.  Ricky was ALSO a ginger tabby and he and his sister were around five or six years old.  Both of them had always been indoor cats for obvious reasons living in apartments.

Charli would have NOTHING of being inside all the time……she insisted on exploring outside right from the start.  We had a screened door on the kitchen out into the fenced back yard and she’d climb the screen constantly and just hang there sniffing the smells of outdoors.  We decided to let her out in the yard and she loved it.  She stayed in the yard too amazingly enough.  There was one HUGE and very tall tree in the back yard and she decided to climb it one day – quickly – too quickly for us to catch her – and she climbed almost to the top of it and began screaming to get down.  LOUDLY.  She was way up there too!   My husband and I tried to coax her down over about an hour’s time to no avail.  I was scared to death that she’d just let go and fall and she was WAY up this tree……….she figured out that she could come down to a branch but she would come no further.  My husband climbed the tree – which was tough since there were very few branches…………….but he got her, tucked her into his jacket and down she came – still screaming!

 

She was always very adventurous and that got her into trouble once……..we had eventually moved from that house into another house closer to the hospital where I worked.  Charli wore a bell on her collar and we’d formed the habit of my shaking a bell out the door and she’d respond to the sound by coming home from WHEREVER she was.  She ALWAYS did this – for years.   This house had a higher fence than the last but she figured out a way to climb it and go over the fence and explore the neighborhood. 

 

One day I rang the bell and Charlie didn’t come……and didn’t come……and I went out looking for her with my bell.  I walked everywhere and called her……..nothing……….eventually I posted notices on all the phone poles, in the local library, called the local vets and shelters – NOTHING.  Then about a week later a miracle happened!

 

We had a “cat door” in a window in one of the unused bedrooms that Charli used to come and go.  I was watching television one night when all of a sudden there was Charli.  She hopped up on my legs and just stood there like nothing was wrong – staring at me……!!!  She had a minor limp and I’m thinking she’d been injured somehow and COULDN’T come home or someone took her in to care for her and she “escaped” and came home.  Anyway, I was so happy to see her………she was a very loving, happy, creative, funny, sweet girl and when her time to go to the Rainbow Bridge came, I thought life would never be the same. 

 

We always do, don’t we……….think things will never be the same…..but then we find another little soul to take care of that needs US as much as we need THEM.

 

So that’s the story of little Charli………..who looks so much like Sam it’s amazing!!

Pam (thanks Sammy…..you’re a pal for loaning me your blog space!)

Saturday Stuff

C'mon Mom....time to make breakfast!!

Saturday!  Kind of a day much like any other around here since my Mom and Dad are retired…..it’s not like they “sleep in” because they don’t have to go to work…….in fact they both still get up pre-dawn like they did when they worked!  Mom says some habits are hard to break.  Anyway, the one different thing about Saturday is that Daddy usually likes to have a big breakfast.  That’s OK with me because one of my most favorite treats (and yes I know I probably shouldn’t eat it but I do!) is always on the menu.  BACON!!!!!  I like a little piece of bacon.  That’s all I want – just a little piece – then I’ll walk away and leave my parents alone for the rest of their breakfast. 

But that got me thinking…….I bet we ALL have our little favorite “treats” – some of us are content with regular made-for-kitty treats (which I personally love), but some of us also like stuff that our peeps eat too. 

My particular favorites are:  bacon, butter, flavored yogurt (plain yogurt is yucky I think), once in a while a tiny edge of a piece of salami and I think that’s about it.  Now we’re talking TREATS here…..something you just get once in a while. 

Come on everybody – ‘fess up……what’s it gonna be?  What goodies do you like?  (Human visitors can confess to their favorite sinful treats here too!!!!!).

Hope everybody has a nice Saturday – whether bacon’s on your menu or not!

Your Buddy Sam

p.s.  Monday the Mr. Chirpy caper continues in London with Kozmo from CATFROMHELL – make sure and tune in to my blog AND Kozmo’s!!!!!