You know this is true

I'm sure everyone has seen this by now, but it has to be posted to ensure that cat people far and wide can see it.



Meow indeed.

HRH

Going too far

It's no secret that I love my cat. Like most cat owners, or even pet owners, Zeus is part of my family and a tremendously important part of my life.

I've gotten some flack from readers and friends that I blog too much about my cat. While it makes me pause for a moment, I also get a lot of support and "awww" from other readers and friends. You can never please the masses, so you might as well please yourself.

I try my best to not get silly with my affection for my cat. I don't dress him up or anything silly like that. I take pictures of him, I but him toys, I care for him and pay a lot for food for him. I keep it all pretty sane.

Or at least I try to. I think I may have just crossed the line. I have created a profile for Zeus on catbook, the feline version of facebook. I'm half ashamed and half excited, because I know a few of my friends with cats will do the same thing and Zeus will have friends on his account.

Maybe a little more ashamed than excited.

HRH

Catching up, keeping cool

M and I have been on vacation since Wednesday. We're in Kingston, taking care of 50 pounds of cat (two 20-pound Norwegian Forest Cats and one 10-pound Zeus) and trying to stay warm. We came here to kitty sit while my parents took off on a nice little spring vacation. Our thinking was that we would take this time away from Toronto to go for walks, take lots of photos and I was going to teach M how to run. We thought since spring would be here, it would be the perfect time to get outside.

Needless to say our plans were seriously derailed by all the snow and wind that passed its way through this part of Canada in the last five days. Bird watching was relegated to looking at all the fowl through the windows, and walking, or even running? Humourous.

The weather has been miserable. However, when you're stuck inside, my parent's house is a great place to be and with the company of my favourite person and my favourite cats, it's been a nice break. The crappy weather has meant that M and I have been able to sleep/nap as much as we need to and watch all kinds of movies, TV and DVDs without feeling like we really should be outside.

I had plans to use this time to become physically renewed for spring, but instead I think I've managed to rest away that napping problem I was developing, at at the same time be entertained by some great movies and TV.

We're almost half way through season two of Twin Peaks, which has been more than a treat to watch, esp. here at my parents house, which is surrounded by trees. To be fair, watching it on a 52" plasma TV with a fantastic 5.1 system doesn't hurt the experience either.

To balance out my David Lynch obsession, we've also been watching a lot of Law & Order for M. When we watch a lot of this show we invariably get talking about what our dream team Law & Order team would be. For me, it would be Arthur Branch (Fred Dalton Thompson) as DA, Jack McCoy (Sam Waterson) as Senior Prosecutor, Abbie Carmichael (Angie Harmon) as ADA, Anita Van Buren (S. Epatha Merkerson) as Lieutenant and Lennie Briscoe (Jerry Orbach) and Ed Green (Jesse L. Martin) as detectives. I almost could have had it if Angie Harmon had stuck around for just one more season. Imagine Jack as the moderate. He he.

Our break ends on Tuesday when we have to return to Toronto and the real world. It's been a nice break. Chris and Tash dropped by on their way to and from Ottawa, enabling us to raise a glass of bubbly in honour of Natasha's birthday last Thursday. Hopefully tomorrow the weather will be nice enough for us to get out for a little day trip and get home in time to watch "24" in HD. I hope there are a lot of explosions this week.

HRH

The cat comes back

I promise that when I find time to sit down at my home computer for more than 30 minutes, I will get the vacation photos renamed and captioned then switched to public viewing on flickr. It's been a crazier week than I had anticipated, and while the jet-lag was mostly a non-factor I think it was like that because I simply have not had the time to be tired. Yay for adrenaline.

Today is a very exciting day for me because I will be driving to Port Hope to meet my parents who will be returning my beloved grey kitty back to me. I haven't seen him since October 9 when I left him in Kingston in cat paradise. Something tells me what while I'm sure he'll be happy to be back with M and I, he will very much miss the menagerie of animals that my mother feeds on our deck, the house full of every kitty toy you can imagine, lots of good wood to scratch, two walks outside a day, a play-pal named Aristotle and my parents doting on him with many, many rubs.

I'm sure I'm going to have to double the amount of attention I give him just to get the chance to win back his affection.

HRH

Saviours found

Some of you may remember the trauma of last July when I took Zeus in for his annual round of vaccinations. It was awful, awful, awful. The whole experience left me sour on vets and especially sour on the vet that I'd been seeing.

Thing is, you can't really ensure that you pet has a long and healthy life if you don't have it checked out by a vet or someone who knows about animal health. Pets can't talk. They can't tell you how they're feeling, so you have to rely on the professionals.

Zeus has developed bad breath. Nothing earth shattering, but it can be a sign that there's some gum disease and that he's in need of a dental cleaning. He had his teeth cleaned once in Prague and he has these fantastic looking fangs that I'd like to preserve as long as possible. So it was time to take him in to someone to have a look.

We got a recommendation for a new vet from one of Matej's colleagues. It's not too far from our house and close to a lot of other services we use. While Zeus was less than charming, I was more than impressed by the new vet.

He had no interest in upselling us on teeth cleaning, noting that Zeus is an older cat and we should really be wary of putting him under anesthetic. We really felt like their priority was on Zeus' health and not making as much money as they can.

I can't even express how god I feel about these vets and what a relief that is.

HRH