Blogging the Cat

So I hear there's this phenomenon on blogs where, if the blogger is out of ideas on what to write, they just write about the cat. I'm not out of ideas just yet, but I just figured out how to post pictures. So I'm practicing with photos of my kitties.



Here's my oldest, Ringer, who is now 16. This is an early picture because he's still wearing the purple collar he had when we first got him. I was eight when he became part of our family - just in time to help me through some rough spots in my life. He's the one I spent the summer after my graduation nursing back to heath because he had a stroke while having some teeth pulled. He is a blue-point Siamese, and for those who don't know, a Siamese meow is more like a yowl. It sounds like a cross between a crying baby and a sheep. It is incredibly loud, and now that he is deaf, he screams even louder. It is a voice only a Siamese cat lover could love. But look at those baby blues! How can you resist him?



You can tell I spent too much time at the computer, even as a child, because my attention-hungry cat had to resort to spending time with my computer as well.



This is Mark. Mark was a year younger than Ringer and gave him a friend to pal around with when the humans were too busy to play. Here he is in his element - outside. He was an incredibly gifted hunter. Even after we put two bells on his collar, he still brought critters home. December 30, 2000, he was out hunting in the field across the street when he saw our car pull into the driveway. He ran to greet us and forgot to look before crossing the road. R.I.P Mark, Great White Hunter, quiet and loyal.



Here's my little homewrecker- I mean, half-Siamese tourtoise-shell. She joined the family in 1995 at 4 weeks old when Mark and Ringer were 5 and 6. Like I said, she's half Siamese, so she kind of thought Ringer was her mom. That'll mess you up. She took over as queen of the roost and adopted Ringer as her nap buddy. Unfortunately, she didn't like Mark that much, so Ringer and Mark only got to hang out on the rare occassion that Diana was somewhere else. Hence, HOMEWRECKER! In case you can't tell, she's reading The Onion's Our Dumb Century article about the bombing of Pearl Harbor. She is absolutely nuts and thinks we are trying to kill her, but I thinks she is mellowing in her old age. She'll even sit in my lap now!



And, if I haven't used up my bandwidth yet, this is my favorite picture of the three of them. Why? It is the perfect demonstration of their relationship at the time. Poor Mark is alone on one side of the couch. Ringer is sleeping obliviously on the other side, resting his head on the arm of the couch, with Diana wrapping her front leg possessively around him. She's glaring at Mark as if she thinks he might come and steal Ringer away from her. What more could you want?