Foliage Friday

Following a record-setting drought, it has been a rainy week since Mom's return. I've been hanging out in the house a lot. When I'm not cuddling with Mom, I like to look out of one of the big windows to watch cat TV. I can see some of the yellow foliage on our hickory tree out front.

Here is a view of that tree from the street. This year isn't too good for colorful leaves. Many leaves whithered and dropped prematurely. The glorious red maples down the street colored and dropped their leaves within a couple of days. ~Jake
I've mostly been napping with Mom. The gloomy weather doesn't help the mood in this house despite the fact that as a gardener, Mom should rejoice in this rain.

~Bathsheba

We have been overwhelmed with the wonderfully kind and supportive words of our faithful friends in the cat blogosphere. Our dear friends Rosie and Cheeto featured us on their blog, and cheerful Daisy sent out a mission to the lovely Pink Ladies. Thank you all. Mom and Dad had a 13-year relationship, nearly all of Jake's life, so it will take time to sort this out.

Last, but not least, one of our favorite fellow geezers, Rocky the (former) Gutter Cat, bestowed an award on us. It made Mom smile. Thank you, Rocky!

We know that a lot of kitties have already received this award (some multiple times). If you're reading this and have not yet been an official recipient, consider yourself awarded by us. (And we mean it!) We love ALL of the cat blogs. Unfortunately, there isn't enough time in the day for us to visit them all.

~J&B

Desktop Meme

Our friends Eric and Flynn tagged us some days ago for the Desktop Meme. Their family is going to leave them alone for three weeks, so we will try to teleport to England to visit them, and we know that a lot of other cats (like their girlfriends Rosie and Grr) will too.

Here's what you do for this meme:
1) Upon receiving this tag, immediately perform a screen capture of your desktop. It is best that no icons be deleted before the screen capture so as to add to the element of fun. Here’s how to do it: Go to your desktop and press the Print Scrn key (located on the right side of the F12 key).
2.Open a graphics program (like Picture Manager, Paint, or Photoshop) and doing a Paste (CTRL + V). If you wish, you can “edit” the image before saving it. (If you have a Mac, it's different. You just open the Screenshot programme and click on photo and that's it!)

3.Post the picture on your blog. You can also give a short explanation on the look of your desktop if you want. You can explain why you prefer such a look or why it is full of icons. Things like that.

4.Tag five of your friends and ask them to give you a Free View of their desktops as well.

5.Add your name to the list of Free Viewers with a link pointing directly to your Desktop Free View post to promote it to succeeding participants.Others who have played: Francine of La Place de Cherie Chez Francine, Bloggishi, Unchained Melody, LadyJava’s Lounge, Mariuca, Revellian, Dot ComDesktop, Emila’s Illustrated Blog, Spiff, The Spaceman, Rolando, Brown Baron, The Kat House, MAX Mother's Home!, I Was Born2Cree8, Skittles' Place, Faz the Cat, Yoggie,Jimmy Joe, Kellie the Orange cat,Black Cat and us Eric and Flynn.
(We're not so sure about number five because none of them are showing up as links.)

Here is our home desktop. We have never been to this place, but Mom tells us that it is the view from Old Rag Mountain in Shenandoah National Park, about 90 minutes from our house. It's her favorite local mountain hike, and she's hiked it about 15-20 times. She was 15 the first time she hiked it, but now it is so popular that she will only hike it during the week when she has to take a day off from work. There's enough traffic on our roads; she doesn't want to encounter lots of traffic on a mountain hike too. She says it's a fun circuit hike of about 7.5 miles. The first part is up the ridge trail and involves lots of rock scrambles near the top, and the descent is along an easy fire road. Our friend Daisy once hiked it. You can see her posed atop it here. As for its funny name? Well, most of Virginia's mountains are rounded; Old Rag appears jagged (ragged) from a distance.

You may ask why we are not featured on the desktop. Well, Mom says it's because we are right here at home with her. She said that her office at work is a different story. We ARE her desktop there. This is the only picture she has of the two of us together looking at the camera. (Bribes of Temptations played a big part.)

If anyone else would like to participate in this meme, go for it!

~J&B

P.S. Thank you for all the well wishes for our cousin Chelsea. Mom promises to pass them along to Chelsea's family.

Meme Answers on Tabby and Torbie Tuesday

The famous Skeezix tagged us for the Scattergories Meme. RULES: Use the 1st letter of your name to answer each of the following...they have to be real places, names, things...nothing made-up! Try to use different answers if the person in front of you had the same 1st initial. You CAN'T use your name for the boy/girl name question.

We will combine our answers.


What is your name? Jake and Bathsheba


4 letter word: Jerk, Barf


Vehicle: Jaguar, Bentley


TV Show: Jetsons, Bob Newhart Show


City: Jamestown (in honor of its 400th anniversary in Virginia!), Berkeley (in honor of Dad who is in California)


Boy Name: Jeter, Benjamin Fuzz


Girl Name: Justine, Brooke (two of Mom's many nieces)


Alcoholic Drink: Jagertee (I had to look that up on the Internet), Beer

Occupation: Janitor, Butcher (two jobs that could serve us well)


Something you wear: We don't wear anything besides our furs, but people can wear Jeans and a Belt


Celebrity: J-Lo (Is she still called that?), Britney

Food: Jolly Time Pop Corn (I'll share some with you, Daisy), Banana (for Daisy's big sister Pixie)


Something found in a bathroom: Jars, Bathtub (and Bathsheba)


Reason for being late: Just fell asleep,

Because I didn't feel like conforming to someone else's idea of time










Cartoon Character: Jerry (of Tom &), Bill the Cat



Something you shout: Just hand over the food! But I want Temptations NOW!

This was fun. We tag anyone else who would like to give it a try.

~J&B


P.S. The great Jeter was also tagged and I swear that I did not cheat by looking at his answers before posting mine. Mom says that I can compare after we publish this post. ~Jake

One Year Blogoversary and Pawsitive Thoughts for Our Friend Anastasia

Wow! We've started blogging one year ago today! We're up to post 232 so we average about one post every day and half--not too bad considering our secretary always claims to be too busy to let us blog as much as we would like. Our first post was not particularly exciting, but our friends Rosie and Cheeto discovered us right away so that's why they'll always be special to us and appear at the top of our links list. Skeezix also gave us publicity so we'll always be grateful to him.
Mom has been a little worried about me lately because she thinks that I have been grooming myself incessantly.

I think that it's important to be well-groomed.

I like to look good for the ladies - especially my beautiful DaisyMae.

~Jake

Jake, as usual, you are so full of yourself. We need to thank all the wonderful cats who have visited us over this past year. We're very grateful for all the warm friendships we have made. We only wish we had more time to visit everyone and that we had the ability to leave witty comments! Daisy is our idol in the visiting department. The cat blogosphere is a welcoming and nurturing place.

Speaking of the friends we have made, we join our fellow cats in the blogosphere and pledge to send all our positive energy over to the desert southwest at 3 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time for the safe return of our friend Anastasia. She has been missing for several days now and Karl, the maid, and the butler are frantic with worry. Now I know that I worried my mom very much when I ran away from home about ten years ago for two weeks at a time. Let's all hope that Anastasia is just asserting some independence and that she will return on her own unscathed. (Credit to Skeezix for the creation of this great graphic.)

~Bathsheba

We Are Pleased to Announce . . .

that the famous model and movie starlet Daisy the Curly Cat is the WINNER of our 200th blog post contest! We posted our 200th entry yesterday, and Daisy became the winner at 12:24 p.m. today with her words that registered as our 15th comment. As everyone knows, Daisy is the special friend of Skeezix, she is the founder of the Pink Ladies, she's studying to be a doctor, and she somehow makes time to visit everyone's blogs regularly. Daisy, please send us an email (jakeandbathsheba AT yahoo DOT com) with your choice of animal charity and your mailing address so we can send the prizes: a $50 donation to your animal charity and a $25 gift card to Petsmart.


Congratulations to Daisy and thank you to everyone who visited and commented on our blog!


~J&B

UPDATE:

Daisy has chosen the Winn Feline Foundation as the recipient of her prize. It conducts research dedicated to cats' health. She also asked that the donation be specifically earmarked for the Ricky Fund for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, the heart disease that affects her big sister Pixie. We're pleased to give to such a worthy cause. Thank you, Daisy, for bringing this organization to our attention.

Bonnie's Meme - Jake's Turn

Now it's my turn! My Valentine DaisyMae Maus tagged me. (Thanks, DaisyMae.)

A. Name four places you have lived:
1. A townhouse in Centreville, VA where I was born.
2. My house with Mom and Dad.
3. The back deck of my house
4. That’s it! My life has been very stable.

B. Four things I love to watch
1. Birds
2. Squirrels
3. Butterflies in the summer
4. Mom when she's making food.

C. Four places I have been outside my home
1. In the yard and outside our fence!
2. The Vet
3. Grandma and Grandpa’s old house (where Mom grew up)
4. The nursing home where grandma is now.

D. Four websites I visit daily
1. DaisyMae Maus – she’s my lovely Valentine
2. Skeezix
3. Daisy the Curly Cat
4. As many cat blogs as I can

E. Four of my favorite foods.
1. Most flavors of Fancy Feast except some of the sliced varieties (though I will eat them all)
2. Temptations, of course! And I’ve started horning in on Mom’s bedtime Temptation ritual with Bathsheba. I can hear that nightstand drawer and the crinkle of the package from all over the house.
3. Bathsheba’s food or any other crunchy cat food
4. Chicken
Do I have to stop at four? I like SO MANY things.

F. Four places I would rather be right now:
1. Lying on Dad’s legs as he stretches out on the sofa.
2. Lying on my throne in the cat/computer room.
3. In the refrigerator – as long as the lunchmeat and cheese drawer were open.
4. In front of my dish filled with food.

G. Four toys I have owned and played with:
1. Fishing pole toy
2. Crinkle ball
3. Catnip mouse (I need a new one, Mom!)
4. Feathers on a wand.

H. Four nicknames people call me
1. Jakie Boy
2. Little Man (I want to be BIG Man, but that would be Dad.)
3. Jakula
4. “The Baby” (I HATE this. It’s just because I’m the youngest in the house.)

I. Regarding catnip:
***Love it***
It’s nice.
Could take it or leave it.
Don't like it or can't have it.

J. Regarding cat grass:
Love it
It’s nice.
Could take it or leave it
***Don't like it*** or can't have it. (I like the REAL stuff that grows outside, especially those tasty clumps at the edges of the lawn. The crop isn’t very good this time of year, though.)

K. First things I buy after winning the lottery:
1. This is too hard. I would have to let Mom and Dad advise me since I’ve never had any money.

L. Four things I do besides eat sleep and litter box:
1. Cruise the Jake Highway outside.
2. Keep my deck safe from pesky raccoons.
3. Intimidate Bathsheba with just a look or a little pounce on her back.
4. Hang out on the deck with Dad.

M. Four things I want to do this summer:
1. Catch a squirrel.
2. Take a nap in the cool shade of a bush.
3. Hang out on the deck.
4. Visit a certain someone in San Diego.

N. My four most prized possessions that have limited value to anyone else:
1. My dirty cat bed out on the deck. (I don’t like it as much when Mom washes the cover. I also think my scent keeps Bathsheba out of it.)
2. My crinkle ball.
3. My torn up purr pads.
4. My luxuriously soft fur coat.

O. What I am going to do before tomorrow is over:
1. Eat at least two square meals, plus whatever else I can scrounge up or beg.
2. Sleep on top of Dad’s long legs.
3. Bother ‘Sheba.
4. Let Mom kiss and cuddle me and give her some purrs.

P.Which of the following is your favorite place to hide and play:
***paper bags*** (I LOVE empty cat food bags.)
plastic bags
boxes (These are fun too, but I have to go with the paper.)
Other (explain)

Q. Four other pets that Momma has had with me
1. Bathsheba (ugh!)
2. Wonderful Precious, a Maine coon
3. Zoe, Mom’s sister’s cat, who lived with us for a few weeks. She pretty much stayed in one room and didn’t bother us.
4. That’s it!

R. Four furiends I tag to respond:

Bubbles
Cocoa
George of The Crew
Catzee

Bathsheba was right. That was exhausting!

~Jake