The Little Ones in 2006

Now Templeton's a thread eater, no question, but he's never swallowed a needle. He's thirteen years old after all, a cat and not a kitten. No chance he swallowed it.

Right?

Wrong. We looked everywhere for the needle and couldn't find it, so we took him to Dove Lewis Emergency Animal Hospital (great folks) and X-rays confirmed his stomach contents: lots of food and one sewing needle.

He had surgery that night to remove the needle, and fortunately a friend was able to keep him in her house while we were gone and keep a close eye on him. Once back at home, he was isolated to the guest bedroom to keep him from running and jumping, with a clear plastic collar around his neck to keep him from pulling out his stitches.

Let this be a lesson for my feline readers out there: eating thread is bad, eating needles is really, really bad.

By the end of the first week of January, life started to return to normal for Templeton, both he and Scout went to the vet and had good reports. Templeton had mended pretty well from his stomach surgery, and since we learned from the experience that he only had one functioning kidney (one of them never properly formed at birth), we switched him to a more kidney-friendly diet.

Templeton was still recuperating when this picture was taken, isolated to the guest bedroom, so I spent the evening with him on the bed while I sorted through some pictures I had taken. I went downstairs to get something and when I came back up, Templeton had moved to where I was sitting and plopped himself down in front of the Powerbook. He likes to take my seat when I get up for reasons I don't quite understand, but it can get a little comical in my office when he steals my seat the moment I get up.

This was also the first day that Scout would be around him, I guess with not being able to regularly clean himself he smelled differently than she expected. Once we were able to keep the collar off for longer periods, he could bathe himself (except in the area around the stitches, where we didn't let him clean).

Psst! Wanna Know a Secret? Templeton and Scout hold a private conversation. I always get nervous when they converse secretly like this, mayhem usually follows with me as its victim, followed then by both cats sitting around looking innocent, like they have no idea what just happened.

I'm Glad She's On My Side There are times when you realize you're not the top predator even in your own household ...

Background Check One of the things I don't like about our backyard is that it isn't a very photogenic place to photograph the cats. We have a wire fence around the yard which is functional yet looks terrible as a background in pictures. We've made some small changes to the yard, mostly just temporary changes until we're ready to make some major improvements. This shot of Scout comes as close to a nice background as I've yet found, with the catnip growing beside her, the purple flowers of the clematis in front of her, and the pink blossoms of the purple coneflower behind her. It'd look even better if the fence and neighbor's garage wasn't visible, but it's progress to be sure. She's such a beautiful little creature, perhaps no one can look away from her golden eyes to check on the background anyway.

	Death From Above! NOTE TO WOULD-BE INTRUDERS: Make sure to look up when you enter our premises, as our security system is just as effective (and deadly) from above as from below.
	Cure for Insomnia I've been a night owl most of my life and have constant trouble adapting to the sleep schedule of an early-bird-gets-the-worm world. I'm insanely jealous of Templeton's ability not only to almost sleep at will, but how he seems in perfect peace when doing it. I'm thinking of wallpapering my office with this picture, to help me on those nights when I need the master's help in drifting off to dreamland.
	The Secret Life of Scout One unusual development this year is that Scout hasn't wanted to be outside much during the supervised time the cats get in the backyard when I get home from work. She's never loved the outdoors as much as Templeton, but she used to like to spend at least an hour or so outside. These days she'll only spend a few minutes if she'll even come out at all. But then I noticed that she did want to come out once the sun set, and then she'd usually stay out until it got dark and I made both cats come inside. Tonight I suddenly realized what's going on. Scout's a werekitten. I'm on to you little one.
	Devotion Portland was gripped with a record-breaking heat wave one weekend. At first I sweated it out in my office on the main floor, figuring the cats would stay in the coolest parts of the house, but they often wanted to be near me and hung out in my office instead. This picture of Scout is from that day, she was up on my bookcase and looking pretty pathetic. This wasn't even her at her worst, I decided not to take the picture when her mouth was hanging open as she looked like she had passed on. For the next few days, I took pity on the little ones and moved my laptop and LCD into my wife's office in the basement, where it stays much cooler. The cats can't quite understand why I don't just control the weather like the old days, and my protests that I was never omnipotent and that the old house just had air conditioning fall on deaf ears. Still, I have to admire their devotion that they'd suffer just to be near me.