february 3, 1998 No rain. They keep saying rain. And there hasn't been a drop. Los Angeles has an emergency alert out now. Saw it on KTLA. And nothing (so far) here.

I went outside early this morning, before six, to feed the cats behind us. I don't want them to have to eat in the rain, so I figured I would put it out just in case it started soon. Oh, it was so beautiful this morning. There was an occasional breeze and I love the way it sounds when the leaves rustle. The cats were loving it, too. Georgie was chasing Bart around the yard. Red was on the bank, I walked over to where he was, dropped my head and was rewarded with a headbutt. Then the neighbor's bunny made noise and of course that had to be investigated. I have to go to the bank today and I want to take the film I have taken in to be developed. Five rolls. I guess I should do that early. But then, maybe it will be fun to drive in the rain. Plug in the portable CD player and off I go. That's an idea.

There is a problem pee spot in front of my dresser. Has been for a couple of months now. I have shampooed it, dumped Nature's Miracle on it, sprinkled baby powder on it, even put some of the new ZeoCrystal on it last Thursday after I had shampooed it. Nothing was working because the cats wouldn't let it dry. Sunday, I had an idea. I ripped of a long piece of aluminum foil, folded it over and made a little gutter. Then I placed the aluminum foil along the bottom of the dresser. Wow, no new pee on Monday morning. So, yesterday, I got out the little green clean machine, shampooed the area again, concentrating on the spots that seemed to get the most urine. Then, I put the foil back into place. No new pee, last night or this morning. Whichever cat was doing it, had quit. For the time being anyway. Once it's completely dry, I will put the ZeoCrystal powder on it. I'm crossing my fingers that this works.

I saved another hummingbird Sunday. They fly into our entryway and can't get out because of the skylight. They don't go out the way they come in. We keep a ladder in the entryway, just for this purpose. Ususally, they are pretty easy to catch, but sometimes they won't stay in the same area, keep flying from corner to corner. And I have to climb down from the ladder, move the ladder and climb back up again and they fly to another corner. Somebody asked me once how I catch them. I just try to gently grab them with my hand, being careful of their wings. Then I take them out of the entryway, hold my hand open, lift it to the sky and the bird will fly away. Sometimes it takes a little longer than others for the bird to realize that freedom is just a flutter away. But, when they do fly off, they say thanks as they cruise back into the trees.

Doris (Dorissimo's Domain) is pitting the winners of the Oscat against each other. Problem is, I like those other sites. She has pitted friend against friend and I know she is loving it.

One of the people in the neighborhood, who lets their cats roam, found one dead. It had been hit by a car. Now, she is trying to get speedbumps on the road. Or to close of part of the street so that it isn't a through street. I think that's a good idea, because we have a wide road and nobody parks on the street. It's really easy for people to speed. I think the rule is if you can get 75% of the street residents to agree, you can get speedbumps. We have needed them for quite a while, now. I told Brian about it last night and I said I bet that you and I are the only ones that obey the speed limit. He said, well, Gail and Chris do, and I said, maybe on our street, but have you ever seen them on Royal? Gail flies. And Royal is still a residential street and the speed limit is 25 mph.

later that day Okay, okay. So they were right. It's raining, started a little before nine this morning. It's rained over an inch so far. Lonee is outside in a cathouse. I grabbed the camera, an umbrella, and out I went (barefoot of course), took some pictures of her, Benny came running out, he ran into the cathouse and I got some pictures of him, too.

Cats. Gotta love em.

february 5, 1998 Well, I'll be darned. It rained over three inches in twenty four hours.

Last night, when it was time to get the cats in, I couldn't find Ben, but I could hear him. He was in a tree. How on earth he got up there I don't know, but it was still fairly light out and I ran in and paged Brian with the emergency code and he called, I told him what the problem was. I ran back outside and tried to call Ben down. He just kept crying and crying. At one point he started to climb towards the ends of the branches and I was starting to get a little hysterical. Those branches hang over the neighbor's yard and they have two beagles, and their dogs aren't fond of cats at all. Plus, it was a pretty long drop. Finally, Brian drove up, he came directly into the backyard, I pointed out where Benny was and ran inside to get a bag to put Ben in for the trip back down. Now, keep in mind that the lower branches have been cut off of the tree to keep the cats from climbing and we also have the fencing material up to block their access to higher up. Brian couldn't find a way to start his climb. Benny's crying. Brian finally figured out a way to bend the wire out of the way and I helped hold it down, while he found a foothold on the tree and up he went. Also, the trees are on a steep bank. The little branches cracked, but I didn't know that and I was so afraid he would fall and hurt his back or worse. He finally made it up to where he could grab ahold of Ben. He tried to put Benny in the bag, but the bag was too small. It's a backpack I got at Disneyland and I thought it would be plenty big to hold Ben, but I was obviously wrong. Plus, it is cloth and hard to work with when you're holding onto a tree branch with one hand and a very frightened cat with the other, balancing your weight on a branch. Brian finally got far enough down that he was going to try to hand Benny down to me, but I just didn't have the reach. I was fine where I was standing, but where Benny would be handed down was further down on the bank and I couldn't stretch tall enough. Besides, it was dark by now and tree junk kept falling in my eyes when I looked up. Brian finally said go get a different bag, the one we used for Lisa (she did this a couple of times when she still had her spay stitches) and he handed me the bag he had. I ran inside, found the bag, ran back outside, stretched and handed it up to him. Benny was sitting in Brian's lap at this time, not moving. It took Brian a good 15-20 minutes to get Benny in the bag, but once he was able to, he handed the bag to me, and I set it down, and Benny got out of the bag and ran towards the house. Then Brian got down and pulled the pine needles off of the barrier, and came inside. Benny immediately went to the feeder and started to eat. I fed the other cats, fed Brian, Brian left, has to work on a pharmacy, putting in glass, should be home by nine, he hopes. My neck and back hurt from looking up, my eyes are burning from all of the crap that is in them, my legs hurt from climbing over the fence to get to the trees. (Brian blocked part of the bank off, so that I could grow catnip. He didn't want the dogs ruining the plants. So, to get in there, I have to climb up to where the cathouses are, then I climb on a cathouse, over the fence, then up this bank. My legs definately didn't appreciate it. I'll probably be vowing to start exercising on a regular basis tomorrow. But, I'll get over it. ~VBG~)

So, I feed the other cats and I noticed feathers on the floor. Seems as if Red was able to catch a bird yesterday from the birdfeeder. It's been well over a year and a half since he's had one of those for a snack. But, he did bring it inside and eat in where I feed them at night. Guess he likes eating at the *table*.

I took five rolls of film in yesterday. Hopefully, I can do so updating of the Disney page. Because a lot of pictures were taken at Disneyland. Also, I will be adding to the family album. About time, I say.

february 9, 1998 Forget about the Disney pictures just yet. When I got the film back, there was only one roll from Disneyland, the other four were of the cats and stuff. Having no idea where the other roll might be, the roll with all of the hieroglyphs from Indiana Jones, I started the search. I finally found it in the truck. It had rolled behind the seat, against the passenger wall, in a little dip. Now, I have to get those in.

Benny *wrote* his own take on the adventure he had last Wednesday. Read benny's advenchur-a true life story.

we've been getting alot of rain. When I let the cats out yesterday morning, the rain gauge had almost two and a half inches of rain, the just since Saturday night. There must have been quite a downpour. The weather is calling for every other day storms this week.

We went for a drive up to Julian, a little goldrush town, for breakfast. It was such a pretty drive, the weather hasn't been cold enough for snow, but it was raining a little. We walked through the very short Main street, looking into store windows. It was early and most weren't open yet. One store that caught my interest was named "Cats, cats, cats". It was filled with catstuff. I left my card on the door for lisaviolet's cathouse. I wonder if they will visit. On the way home, we stopped at the Julian Pie Company and got a peach/apple pie.

I ordered the movie "Contact" from pay-per-view, it was on the all day ticket. Which meant that the movie played over an over again for twentyfour hours. We had a little over an hour til the next show, so Brian went out into the backyard to survey the damage done by all of the rain Saturday night. It had rained so hard, it washed dirt out from behind the shop down into the gutters by the pool. He had to dig out the dirt and hosed the gutters out. I guess it was a mess.

We watched the movie. We had seen it at the theater, but still enjoyed it. Afterwards, I went into the living room and Benny was on the shop roof. Oh.......My......Gawd. Not again. He was looking for a way down and looked like he was seriously contemplating the twenty foot drop to the yard. I yelled for Brian, he came running. I went out back and called to Benny to jump down onto the woodpile. Brian got the ladder up and up he went. Benny ran to the other side of the roof. My blood was pumping very quickly by this time. I followed him and he walked back and forth along the edge, looking to jump over onto the fence. But once on the fence, there was no way into the yard, he would have to be in the neighbors' yard with the beagles that don't like cats. I kept telling him, "No, Benny, no, Benny, not there, go to paw" since Brian had brought the ladder over to that side of the shop. But to no avail. Benny jumped down onto the fence. I tried to grab his tail, but I am only 5'1" and the fence is 6'. Into their yard he went. I immediately started running into our house to get some shoes on, to go next door. I hadn't even taken ten steps when Brian said Ben was back in our yard. "How?" I asked. He ran under the fence. I looked for Ben, couldn't find him. Brian found him in the spot under the pool pump. Once Benny wasn't so frightened, he came out. I picked him up and cuddled with him. I carried him and walked around the shop, trying to find how he had gotten on the roof. We have had that shop long before we had Benny and the only cat that had ever been on the roof, was Hollywood. I couldn't see how he had gotten over there. Brian said to take a headcount of cats, to make sure all were on our property. All were. He then filled the hole with dirt. As we have a tendency to do with things we don't understand, I kept thinking about how Benny had gotten on the roof. It finally dawned on me. He had come home very quickly through the hole, which meant he was familiar with it. So, I think that the heavy rain we had Saturday night, washed a lot of dirt away from the fence. Our neighbors' yard is a little higher than ours. Benny was able to get under the fence at the spot where the dirt had been washed away. He climbed the fence from their side, and from there was able to jump onto the roof. Fortunately, nobody else had seen him do this, so nobody else left the yard.

Right now, Monday morning, Benny is out there trying to find a way back into the neighbors' yard. He must really want to catch their bunny.

later in the morning

Because of Ben's latest adventure, I have been checking outside for him every couple of minutes. Anyway, the people behind us have an above ground pool. The only water in it is from the rain we have been getting. I heard a cat crying, and it wasn't in our yard. Then I heard water splashing. I looked over the fence and realized where the crying was coming from. I came running in, told my husband that there was a cat in the pool behind us. He came out, looked over there, went into his shop, grabbed a ladder, used the ladder to get into the next yard, jumped in their pool, was able to get the cat and help it out. The cat flew across the yard, back to where it usually stays. Brian put their pool ladder into the pool, so if this happens again, the cat has a better chance of getting out. The water was at least eight inches deep and the cat couldn't stand, was treading water. Thank God Brian was still home, or there would have been another cat at the bridge. I called and left a message on their machine, about why the ladder was in the pool.

february 10, 1998 "OW!"
*thunk*
"OW!"
*thunk*
"OW!"
*thunk*
"OW!"
*thunk*
"OW!"
*thunk*
"OW!"
*thunk*
"OW!"
That's me hitting my head on the wall. I just can't believe it, I am so frustrated. Yesterday afternoon, Benny and Lisa were looking out the front screen, had their little noses right up against it. Of course, I had to find out what they were looking at. There was a black cat on the other side of the door, it's nose to the screen. I did a double take. It was Kirby!!! I backed the other two cats off and opened the door. "Come on, Kirby, get in here." He came in, said Hi and went to the food bowl. I immediately went outside to find out how he breached the fence. I saw a couple of little dig marks under the fence where Benny had made his second escape, but when I put my hand under as far as it would go, realized that there was no way a cat could have fit. *sigh* I hate this. Brian came home early yesterday and put wood up against the fence where they were digging and covered it in dirt. We needed catfood so we got the cats in early and went shopping. I let the cats out this morning at the regular time. It was barely light and I went out to check to see what the cats were doing. And in this case, it was good that I did. Kirby was circling the tree closest to the fence. Upon closer human inspection, it looked like he had been able to pull down on the barrier (it was heavy with pine needles and wasn't up where it should have been), use it to pull himself up into the tree, use a branch and walk on over to the fence, over the fence barrier. And *voila*. He was out of the yard. Kirby ignored my calls to not do it, so I hosed him, which didn't make him very happy. He came into the house, a very irritated cat. I was still in my jammies (no fancy nightgown for me) and I came into the house and told Brian, who was still warm in bed, about the barrier and tree. He got up, took his shower, got dressed and went outside to fix the tree. He pulled a lot of pine needles off of the barrier, straightened it out and pushed it back up where it belonged, securing it to a small branch. I'll be watching as the cats check this out. Hopefully, it will do the job.

The cat that was in the water looked pretty bad yesterday afternoon. Probably really sore. I tossed some turkey meat over to him. He wasn't moving very quickly, but he was able to get some before the other cats beat him to it. His eyes looked really, really bad. This morning, his eyes looked better, but he was moving even slower. I hope the weather stays dry for a while, to give him time to recuperate. Poor little guy. The neighbors' are leaving the ladder in the pool.

When we were at the pet store, we bought another cat box, this one for the laundry room. A couple of cats would rather use the little ragrugs in there for pooping than go to the garage. So, I told Brian, "We're getting another litter box." He didn't even have to ask where I was going to put it. Got it set up last night and no poops on the rugs in there. YAY!! Hopefully, this will do for the cat with the bloody stool at that end, the same way Annie's new box helped her. No more hard dry stool (from holding it in) to scrape the exit and make the kitty bleed.

I thought for sure that I would have gotten enough GeoPoints this last go round to order the new camera. I was 23 point short, darn it. Oh, well, maybe next time. For anybody reading this, visit all of my pages, pleasepleasepleaseplease??? For every thousand hits to my site, I get 80 points. Don't you want to see cats sleeping? LOL!!!

february 12, 1998 The little spit got out again, darnit. For the life of my, I don't know where he is getting out. Benny is digging to get under the fence, still, I know by those little paw marks in the dirt by the fence. Little does he know that Brian put some 4 x 4s there and piled dirt on them. But Kirby. I walked the length of the fence, there was one part where the iceplant was growing pretty thickly through the fence and it would be easy to use as a foothold. So, I cut that all off. I saw another spot where *maybe* he could jump to the fence. So, when hubby came home, I pointed out the iceplant and looking at it, we both noticed that at this junction, where the fence is joined together, the screws where missing and the fence had been bent in. Brian didn't think that a cat could get through there, I did. We fixed that and Brian attached more fencing to where there was a possible jump spot. He also trimmed some of the smaller branches off of the tree. When I saw Kirby in the other yard yesterday, I ran out the gate and the neighbor was getting ready to leave. She said to go ahead and go into the yard (which I would have done anyway) and I asked if she could lock her dogs inside. So, she graciously did, even though she was running late. We have some great neighbors. I ran into her yard and saw Kirby at the fence. He was at the spot where I thought he could get through, but our dumb dogs were sniffing around there and very excited. This scared him, he was growling and hissing at them. He ran a little way down the fence, jumped onto a big black trash can, hit the fence and was back in our yard in no time. After all of the work we did last night, I still don't trust him, have been watching him very closely. If I can't find him, I start to panic, but so far he has always been here. He hasn't gone near the fence. Hmmmmm......

One of the cats in the yard behind us is really sick. I don't think it's the one that was in the pool. This guy looks injured, he can hardly walk. I wonder if he was hit by a car or attacked by a dog. His fur looks better today, so maybe that's a good sign. I just hope the rain holds off for a while. We aren't supposed to get any until Sunday. Boy, I wish we would win the lottery soon so I could afford to help these cats. I just feel so badly for them.

february 14, 1998 It's Valentine's Day. It's raining. It's rained almost an inch today. Georgie has bloody urine again and it looks like Pepper has a cold. (Upper respiratory infection.) I have Georgie back on the ammonil and amoxicillan, but Monday I am going to call the vet. I want him to look at Georgie, make sure he doesn't have any crystals. If he comes up clean with those, then I guess I'll put him on Elavil. It depends on what the doc says. I started Pepper on baytril today.

I didn't see the sick kitty today at all. :-(

I just heard a gunshot a couple of streets behind us. I hate that. I really, really hate hearing that. Oh, there are the sirens. Well, somebody called the police quickly on that one.

february 17, 1998 It's raining again. It rained over three quarters of an inch last night to this morning when I opened the kitty door.

The cats just hate this rain. Even Benny, who likes the rain, isn't getting tired of it. It's okay when it's just a drizzle and he can walk on the grass without a problem. But our yard is like a soaked sponge, with more being added to it. When you walk on it, mud squishes up between your toes. This morning Benny just sat on the patio and looked out at the yard. When he finally wanted in, he kept following either myself or Brian. I told Brian that Benny wanted to be held. Brian picked him up and Benny was happy. So was Brian, because Benny usually doesn't want to be held by Brian. Maybe he thought by being nice to daddy, that daddy would turn off the water.

Pepper is doing better. I'm glad. I almost thought she was getting worse yesterday. One of her eyes was pretty yucky Sunday, so I put the ointment in it that the vet prescribed for Georgie when we thought we might have a URI. The combination of that and the baytril seems to be doing the trick. I haven't heard her sneeze today.

I'm going to make an appointment for Georgie, Rusty and Sandy. Georgie still has urine problems, Rusty, well, I think age is hitting Rusty. He drinks an awful lot of water and he pees an awful lot. I want to make sure his kidneys aren't starting to fail. And Sandy has this thing that grows on her eyelid. It's been taken off twice now, but it comes back. She also has a lump on her right jaw and she is pretty stiff when she walks, so I think she might have arthritis. Beau Jesse had hip dysplasia and her symptoms aren't even close to what his were. Buddy has been keeping himself in the big doghouse. One thing about the rain, it sure cuts down on the barking. LOL!!

Well, hopefully I'll get notice of my GeoPoints for the first half of this month soon. I need 75. Fifty to pay for GeoPlus and 23 to I can finally order my new camera. I cleaned the mirror yesterday, and am trying to figure out how I can get the most cats to sleep in that area. I'm trying to get hubby to make little *bunkbeds*. I would put blankets in them, hey, maybe even make them *look* like little beds. And the cats can sleep in them. And then the internet can watch my cats sleep. Exciting? Yawn. But I know of two other cameras that have cats in view. One is at a litterbox and the other is by food bowls. And with 18 cats, I'm sure we will have a pretty good chance of at least one cat in the bed.

Speaking of a handy hubby, I still don't have the new cat climber he said he would build for me. He said it was fifty percent done. I said, I want to see it, and he said the fifty percent done was in his head. Yeah, right. I still wanna see.

february 19, 1998 The vet's declawed little MewMew!! Because some lady got her pantyhose snagged by him and they are afraid of somebody suing them. For a kitten's claws!!! Boo hiss!!! Here's five bucks, ya old bag, go buy a new pair of nylons, hey, here's another five bucks, knock yurself out, buy two. Sheesh.

Well, I took Rusty and Georgie to the vet. What a day. The rain started fifteen minutes before my appointment. Then, I had to put them each in a carrier. Georgie was on top of our television entertainment center and I had to climb up on a stool to get him down. I had the two carriers stacked and their was a lot of traffic in the parking lot. I'm choosy about where I park, because I'm not the best at backing up. I'm crummy at judging distance through a mirror. So, I see Elena and she came and took both carriers and I tried to find a parking place that would fit my needs. I pulled into one, parked too close to the car next to me, and was a nervous wreck when I realized I had to do the backup thing. I found a spot that met my specifications and got out of the truck. The darn thing started to roll. Oh, man I left it in gear and I HADN'T SET THE EMERGENCY BREAK!!! What a bonehead. I tried to set the emergency with my hand, but I'm short, the truck is tall and I couldn't get good enough leverage to push it down all of the way. I tried holding the foot brake down and reached up to put the truck in park, but I couldn't reach that enough to push the button on the handle to move it up. So, I did the only thing I could think of. I started yelling. Help!!! Help!!! This young man came running over from the pizza shop and asked what he could do. I asked if he would reach in and put the truck in park. Once he did that, I was able to get into the truck, start it up, pull into the parking space and then, I put it into park. And I stepped on the emergency brake. Sheesh, how careless can you get?

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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