august 2, 1998 Its hard to imagine that two years ago last night, we trapped Red into our garage. A totally wild cat, extremely distrusting of humans. Living in the rafters, he would hit and bite at my hand when I tried to pet him. I remember giving him a tranquilizer in his food to try to get him down and how terrified I was when it didn't take effect all the way. His body was tranquilized, but his brain wasn't and he kept trying to walk around, stumbling and tripping, and I was so afraid he would fall to the cement floor below. And I decided I would let him take his time at that point. A week or so after we trapped him, I went onto the AcmePet Cat's Window, a bulletin board, my initial foray into the world of cyberspace, asking for ideas on how to get him down. I got lots of advice, but Red didn't listen to any of it. He came down on his own over a year later. His progress is so slow that its hardly noticable, but when I look back to where we were two years ago, we've come a long way.

And I saw OC last night, eating out front. I hadn't seen him since the first night I put out the food, but he was out there last night at 8:30. The other time he was here after 11, I think. I had seen the black cat, but not OC. I sure hope my plan works.

I guess I'm going to have to do a short page about Feliway. I noticed yesterday that people are referring others to my site about information on Feliway. *sigh*

The catcam tags seem to be a big hit. That's great. I sure wish more people would go to Ben's Den. I found another game yesterday, Battleship. I always thought that was so much fun. I'll probably add it some time today.

It was foggy this morning, but now, at 8:00, its almost all gone. Looks like we are going to have another hot one. I don't understand the cats and this weather. Sometimes they like being out in it, other times I find the majority of them inside, where its air conditioned. I did notice that Lisa will only lay in the catcam chair in the daytime, if the air conditioner is on. Otherwise, it must be too warm for her in the office (we get a lot of sunlight on this side of the house) and she stays in the bedroom. It drives me nuts when I have four or more cats in here and none in the chair. Brats. Guess it just proves that cats do what they want to do.

august 4, 1998 Well, its hot again. Real hot.

I saw OC in a yard across the street Sunday. Just laying there all stretched out. He was over last night before nine to eat dinner. And our front door was open. He scampered off when I said "hi" to him.

I tried something new on the midi pages yesterday. I took all of the tunes that are available on the popup midi player (Music To Go) and split them up, put them on pages to play one song after the other. On my first attempt, I split them into two. Seventy songs a page. Nope, took way too long to load and besides, it crashed the browser. So, then I split them again. Thirty-five to a page. Still crashed my system. Then I split them even more. Now there are seven pages with twenty songs each on them. It takes about an hour a page to play. I noticed that if I don't load them first thing, it still crashes my browser. But it works fine if I load them first. So, I'll split them again and see if that works. I also added the Battleship game to Ben's Den.

I think Maggie is putting on weight. And we have almost all of her matts gone. Either combed out or cut out. She likes it, I can tell. She doesn't like it when I pull on them, though. I can't blame her, I remember when my mom use to pull my hair when I was a kid. She would comb it and yank on the knots that kids get. Ouch. Remember, when I was a kid, there was no such thing as conditioner.

Mickey's fur is getting really bad. I *have* to remember to give him his allergy pill every day. He's had this problem for years and the pills *do* help. If he gets them.

I wonder what brings Sandy's back problems on. I haven't been able to figure out a pattern. Since the medication needs to be given with food, I give the dogs biscuits. Sandy gets more than Junior and Buddy, though. Something else I found out they liked is frozen vegetables. We can get those huge bags and give them handfuls. A nice treat on a hot day.

Well, I have some yard work I would like to get done before its really, really hot. Bushes in the front to need to be cut back so that there is more of a breeze through the front door. And the area where I grow the catnip is really overgrown with weeds. I hate yardwork.

august 5, 1998 What a way to start the morning. I came online, my homepage is my *home* site, the one that comes up when I start. No pictures. What? Why no pictures? And the changes I made aren't there anymore. I had moved the Oscat to the first awards page. And my email address was still the same. Spit. What happened? So, I go into my files. Oh, gee, look, I have about a gazillion files all named index. Looks like I uploaded the wrong one. *sigh*. So, all night long, my site was up with no images. No picture of babylisa. :-( So, I uploaded the right one, did a little tweaking on it, uploaded it again, then deleted the wrong index files. I should have remembered to hit reload.

Got a bunch of stuff trimmed out front. Cut the ficus way back in the entryway and cut some other ugly plants off at the base. I hate those plants, they get bugs and little nasty, dirty white flowers on them. And they grow like a weed. When I had finished, I had this nice little empty area and light bulb went off in my head. And I got the feeding station that Brian had built for Gail when she was feeding the cats. She was worried about the rain getting the food wet, so my sweetie made this little station. A floor and a roof. Not closed in so that the cat(s) wouldn't get frightened. I went over to her house, into the side yard where she had been storing it. She hadn't been using it at all. I brought it home (heavy and bulky), hosed it off. Put it in the spot where the ugly plants had been. Let it dry, cleaned out the feeder and water dispenser that Gail had been using, put a little Sevin dust down around the food dispenser (keeps the ants out of the food) and voila!! I cleaned up the spot where I had been placing the food, on the cement, and hosed all of the Sevin powder off of that area. Now, the cats have food and water and our entry way doesn't look cluttered. Yay.

My left arm is killing me this morning. Around my elbow. I said something to Brian about it, and he asked if it was the same one I hurt last week. I don't remember, that was way last week and the pain's gone. I told him it was my elbow and he said that's good. I asked why and he said because if it was higher, it could be my heart. I said, huh-uh, my heart's in my chest. Geez..... Anyway, I figured out what it was. Its from carrying that food station.

Yesterday, while online, Boney climbed up on my lap (I like to lean back in my chair and put my feet up on the desk) for a really long time. So did Mickey. Mickey actually slept in the catcam chair yesterday. Until I made a new sign and told about his middle name. Mickey has a very sensitive sense of smell and as soon as the vapors from the magic marker hit him, he was gone... I'll know better next time.

Someone on my Educate!! Don't Amputate!! message board yesterday said that they were having their cat declawed that very day. I asked why, we have 18 cats and 3 dogs and we don't have problems with the cats hurting the dogs and she said, well, you have 18 cats, need I say more? Now, I don't understand why the fact that *I* have 18 cats made her get *her* cat declawed. Unless she was saying that I have a mental deficiency, as witnessed by our abundance of animals. And she also called someone else a fanatic. Something that someone pointed out on a newsgroup one time is the fact that many times when someone doesn't have an intelligent answer, they get defensive and start name calling. Looks like that's what happened here. And someone else had their kittens done before nine weeks old!!! Now, that's being proved guilty and being punished before anything wrong is even done!!! Those poor, poor kittens.
[heavy sarcasm]
Judge to human baby: "I know you're only six months old, kid, but your momma is a drug addict and your daddy is in prison. So, that means you're gonna be bad, too, so let's just lock you up now before you do any damage or hurt anybody. And don't worry, we've thrown away the key. You'll never get out. We have to protect society from what you might do."
[/heavy sarcasm]

august 7, 1998 Last night was so nice. There was an almost full moon, a few light clouds...warm summer air.....I went skinny dipping. It was so relaxing!! I just floated on the top of the water and watched the stars and the small clouds move across the moon. *sigh*

OC is getting into a pattern. I think he hears me feeding our resident cats and comes over and waits for his dinner. He's out there within a half hour of me serving the food. And he's getting more secure with me watching him. Not much, but a little. He started to leave, looked up at the front door, saw me, waiting to see what I was going to do. When I just stood there, he went back to eating.

I have ants in the office, I would like to find out where they are coming from. I'll stop em cold. I hate ants. I think its a throwback to my childhood when I begged mom to let me watch the late movie "Them" about gigantic mutant ants.

I did my try to pick up Lonee thing again this morning. I picked her up and held her against me. Her back legs splayed against my chest, her front paws on my shoulder, my right arm under her, supporting her butt. I scratched her with my left hand. And she loved it. She purred. She stretched her head back to meet mine. She purred some more. She talked her little talk to me. She smiled. She purred some more. I rubbed her ears. I tickled her chin. She smiled some more. She didn't resist at all, completely secure in my arms. I put her down before she was ready. She was surprised. It was nice. A wonderful start to my day.

august 10, 1998 Boy, is it muggy. Not even 7 am and the temperature is in the 70s, humidity is 90%. We left the a/c on all night. I turned off the computer early yesterday, because we were having thunder and lightening. Buddy is terrified of the thunder, so I sat out with him for a while, til he calmed down. Thank goodness it didn't last long.

I can't access my webpage this morning. I *can* access Simplenet. This has happened once before, but at least then I was able to access my ftp. I can't even do that this morning.

OC is eating here on a regular basis now. He doesn't eat much. No wonder he is so thin.

That little search program is turning out to be a wise purchase. I got email yesterday addressed to lisaviolet@geocities.com. Having no idea where it was, I did a search for the word GeoCities on my site. Found that mailing address on six pages. Got it changed.

I took some pictures of the sunset last night. I hope I get a couple of good ones. I have two other rolls that I need developed, too.

Georgie peed on the wall in the office under my desk Saturday. I didn't stop him. When he was finished, I used a kleenex to check it out. Bloody. But there was a lot of pee, so I'm not worried about him blocking. I have him back on anti-biotics. Brian asked why he would be stressed and I said maybe because you've been gone. (He was working on a job in Arizona for a couple of days.) Georgie is a real daddy's boy.

Maggie was in the catchair Saturday. Pretty cool. She was in it one other time, when I cleaned the pad and there was only a sheet on the chair. I put an afgan I crocheted on it Saturday, took of the sheet to launder it and Maggie checked it out, kneaded for a couple of minutes, curled up and went to sleep. Ahhh, she's so cute.

august 12, 1998 Ah, the ants are back in here. I hate ants. I have no idea where they are coming in and the smell of the ant spray, as pleasant as it may be, makes me sick. Someplace in this house is a box of little ant traps, but where that box is, is a mystery. *shudder* I hate ants. And there's nothing in this room that's sweet (except me - humor) so I don't know why they are in here.

And....Mickey was on the floor in the TV room, just looked weird. I checked it out. He had a moth the size of a bird. Just what I need this morning. Bugs. I tried to get some pictures of the darn thing. The wing span was at least four inches. He growled at any kitty that came around, but proudly showed off his prize to me. Thanks, Mickey. Good kitty. Now, take your toy OUTTA THE HOUSE!!! Last I saw of it, Mickey was gone and Red was on guard duty, moth not moving, in front of the television.

Maggie sure feels a lot better without those matts. But she has the runs again. ARRGGHHH!!!! I'm sure its because she cleans herself and the fur irritates her colon or bowels or whatever. In a couple of days, she'll be fine.

Georgie peed on the cover of the copier last night and the urine dripped into a little puddle on the newspaper below. I ran and got the HemaCombiStix and dipped it in the puddle. No blood. But there was a little protein in it. So, he did have an infection and the antibiotics are clearing it up. (This is an ongoing problem in our home, so if anybody reading this has a cat with a suspected urinary problem, please, take the cat to the vet, these things can be fatal if not handled properly. I am experienced with *my* cats and I know when the problem is serious. It took me ten years to get that far and I still won't hesitate to get to the vet's ASAP if I'm not sure what's going on. There is no substitute for a good veterinarian.)

Oh, yesterday was a fine day for the catnip addicted. I took both boxes of the dried nip I had from our last two years of harvest and pulled it off of the stalks to put into a bag. The cats were in heaven. I had Mickey, Kirby, Bart, Georgie, Maggie, Boney, Red, Lisa, Lucky, Rusty and Gracie all sitting on the floor around me. As I pulled the leaves and flowers off of the stalks, I let the cats have the stalks. Of course, they did their best to get onto the newspaper where I was catching the best part of the catnip. Georgie made eye contact with Maggie, wanted to rumble. I stopped that. Then he made eye contact with Lucky on the other side of him. I stopped that. Kirby and Bart were rolling on the floor, paws and legs wrapped around each other, I couldn't tell if they were playing or fighting, so I figured I would just let them work it out. Boney kept sneaking up to the box and tried to pull out stalks of nip. Red was tentative about coming into the room, but he smelled that catnip and he knew he wanted some. It didn't take too long for him to join in. Maggie grabbed a leafless, flowerless stalk and was laying on her back, stalk held between her back legs, front paws holding it still while she rubbed her face on it and chomped down on it. Kirby rolled in a pile of stalks. Gracie climbed into the box where I was putting most of the stripped branches and stayed there for a while. When I was done, there was quite a mess and I had to get it cleaned up before Brian got home. The smell of catnip gives him a headache and there was fine catnip dust in the carpet and there were leaf remnants and little catnip flowers. I had to get it vacuumed. A come down for the cats, they hate the vacuum. I still had to put the vacuum away when Brian walked in the door. He said "Catnip?" Hey, its "what's for dinner".

august 14, 1998 Annie has been sleeping with us on a regular basis. She isn't on the middle pillow when we go to bed, but she comes in sometime during the night and stays there til we get up. That's nice. That's much better than her hiding behind the bed all of the time.

The people behind us now have another dog. This one is a cocker spaniel and the cats are able to hold their own against it. It helps that they got it as a puppy and their resident cats stood up to it. But, now, when I feed the strays, that darn dog comes up and eats the food. And catfood isn't good for dogs. Now, I have to figure out when they have the dog indoors. At least, they are treating this dog much better than they did the one that killed Hollywood.

Bobby has been sleeping on the floor, not on the condo. I wonder why? He still gets into the condo, but not as much. I wonder if one of the other cats was smacking him on his way up the little steps. I've seen Pepper do that.

Lucky is in the catcam chair this morning. Lisa went back to bed.

Well, I got the midi thing working. Now there are ten songs to a page, they automatically go on to the next page. And I made a little popup thingy so that the full page doesn't have to come up. And I did part of the pages as an image map, so now on the little radio box, you can click on the hands to go to the previous page of music, or the next page of music. I'm so proud of myself. It was a lot of work, but I did it. Something I wanted months ago. Yay!!!! I call it cathouse radio, station lvch.

I have to clean my bathroom today. The cats have been doing their number in there again.

The soft food I was putting out for OC wasn't getting eaten. Not all of it anyway, and I was throwing out half of it. The black cat hasn't been around. I wonder if he's okay. He has a home, maybe he got hurt and they are keeping him in. (Yeah, right.) I can't help but wonder if he was hit by a car or got caught by a coyote. I sure hope not. OC is okay. He runs, though, when he sees me at the door. Doesn't trust me at all. Can I blame him? Nope. He doesn't know my motives. I can't explain to him that I want to give him a good life, free from cars and coyotes. I tried that when he was living here and he doesn't understand human talk.

The weather has been so humid and hot. We've been sleeping with the air conditioner on. I wish we didn't have to. But when the a/c is set for 75 and it comes on in the middle of the night, well, that's no good. And the humidity has been running around 90 percent. The cats can't seem to decide if they want to be outside or inside during the day. They like the coolness of the cement on the patio. Even Lonee was on the patio yesterday. Bart climbed up into one of the palm tree pots and stayed cool there. He's usually in the house, up in the bay window, where its cool. What amazes me is that I can find at least one cat in the rafters in the garage. It is really hot up there. Red, who lived in the rafters for over a year, now sleeps in the house under the living room coffee table or outside in the grass during the day. No more rafters for him.

Speaking of my Red boy, he has been coming into the office at night and sitting, watching me do what I do. I turn, see him, talk to him. I get on the ground, all fours and he comes up to me, talking, and headbutts me and gives me body rubs. He's such a nice cat.

august 16, 1998 Boy, was Georgie wound up this morning. And not just for a little while. He was running and chasing and fighting for a good hour before I finally had enough. He chased Lisa, he chased Annie, he chased Mickey, he went after Red....I got a clean washcloth out of the hallway closet, spritzed some Feliway on it, and held it a couple of inches away from his nose for a couple of minutes. That usually does the trick. He wasn't very pleased with the entire situation.

Pepper has been much more affectionate lately. She actually crawled into bed with us this morning. Then Mickey, Mr. *this is my mom, you stay away*, tried to bite her and she ran off. I found out a few minutes later, she didn't go far, just to Brian's side of the bed. She's in front of me right now as a matter of fact. Cleaning herself and purring. She's seems to be feeling okay.

I finally got my bathroom cleaned and put down laundered rugs. Of course, the cats like to lay on the clean ones, and the ones I put down are a forest green. Just right for a black cat to blend with at night. I was lucky I didn't step on him. It was Mickey.

I did step on Benny last night. Guess I'm going to have to keep a light on in the living room. I didn't step on him hard, just put my foot down and there was fur. Since I'm always barefoot, I've never had a major accident with the cats. But it would just be easier to turn on a light.

august 18, 1998 Well, I just got the news from hubby that the cats peed all over the kitchen counters (both walls) and hit the coffee pot. *sigh* This is gonna be a great day, I can just tell.

I permed my hair yesterday. When I went to the store for the chemicals, I read the back of every box. Not for use with frosted, streaked or bleached hair. What the heck? I've NEVER read that before. Of course, its been a couple of years since I've done it. Maybe too many women were not following directions (like doing the test curls, I know I never do) and their hair was breaking off. I did finally find one that said if your hair is less than 50% frosted, you can use it, so I did. Of course, I didn't do a test curl. That would have wasted an entire 24 hours. I hate the smell. Lola kept bugging me when I was wrapping it. And since I was sitting on the floor, Bobby kept pawing at me. Meow...paw....meow....paw..... I finally was done after 8 last night. I guess it looks okay, it sure has a lot more body. Then Pepper thinks she wants to lick up the little drips on the bathroom counter from when I put the stuff in. Luckily, I had wiped most of it up, the little that was there was on the bags of the curlers. I put those away. I still have to braid it at night. I braid it because it bugs me sleeping on it. It gets caught behind my back and in my neck when I roll over. Plus, it gets all tangled. (I have really fine hair.) I was putting just one braid in the back, then last week I trimmed it. To trim it, I put it in a ponytail high on my head then cut so much of it off. Gives me a layered look. Then I clip the bottom so it is even. But when I did this, part of it (the top) wasn't long enough to reach the back braid. So, I did two braids, one by each ear. Brian told me I looked dorky. Thanks, honey.

Oh, for those of you curious about my looks, here's a picture, that's a couple of years old, my hair is a lot longer and lighter (more grey and heavens, don't forget the frosting) now.

Brian also informed me this morning that DeeJay has worms. Maybe that's the reason he hasn't seemed himself.

Brian also mentioned that Lisa was getting heavier. So, I pulled up the food feeder in the office. This is where she usually eats and any body that watches the catcam with any regularity knows that she is in that chair most of the time. When she isn't, you can find her at the feeder. If she goes out in the late afternoon or right before its time to bring the cats in, we let her stay out. Hopefully she'll chase some bugs or something. Try as I might to get her to play with me, she loses interest quickly. But we have to do something. As with humans, overweight can be devastating to a cat's (or dog's - Buddy and his pancreatitis) life.

Sunday, Brian put the new screens in the windows that didn't have any. Like the office and the garage. Oh, they are wonderful. The reason it took so long (the new windows have been in since last year) was because he wanted to put steel mesh in them instead of the nylon screens the windows come with. The garage window looks out into the front, at the side of the house in front of the gate. I think Brian didn't realize how easily the cats could rip the screens until OC got out through the office door. Maybe that's why he did the steel on the office window. In case we get OC again.

Lisa is up here talking to me, she wants her food. Too bad. Then here come Boney and Maggie, they want food, too. I guess I can put it down for a little while.

I figured out when to feed the *outback* cats and not be bothered with the dog. I can do it when the pool filter comes on. S/he won't hear me dump the food over. Hopefully. Last Sunday, s/he had one of the cats cornered (just playing, but the cat doesn't know that) and was barking, barking, barking, the kind of barking that gets the shock collar put on Buddy. I went down to the part of the fence where s/he was barking and pounded on the wooden fence. There is a small split in the wood and boy, did that dog run. Heh heh heh......

A Salt Lake newspaper mentioned the catcam in their cybersection yesterday. Pretty neat. I don't know how long it will be up, but here is the link CyberSavvy. I saved the html.

I posted the postcard link on a bunch of bulletin boards yesterday. Also changed the name from Postcards From the Cathouse to Cathouse Cardshoppe. I also made this new little banner. Click on it if you are interested in sending a free email card to someone.

lisaviolet is fifty something, married with no kids, takes care of lots of cats, likes taking photographs, loves Southern California weather and spends altogether too much time avoiding her responsibilities.

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