hrmph!

first, here's a silly picture of my mommy and me from last halloween:



mommy and daddy left me and my siblings this weekend and went up north to canada. they stayed at a nice hotel, ate yummy food, attended a cool church, and had fun without us. they did have our favorite babysitter come see us to play but i was so mad that i didn't go out to see her. oh well... i'll apologize the next time she comes over.

today, mommy had to go to great falls to the headache doctor. her headache doctor is apparently cooler than my panther doctor because mommy was not dreading her appointment. apparently, it went well because mommy came home in good spirits though not with a cold wet nose. she brought us a paper bag to play with. i like paper bags!

mommy didn't have to go to work today because of her trip to great falls so i got extra time with her this morning to cuddle before she had to get up and shower and get dressed. i don't think she was feeling all that well because she was in black (her black soccer pants and a dark gray shirt). at least she has good fashion sense!

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hiding from the light

here's a picture of me trying to hide:


it fits the theme in our house right now. mommy has a bad migraine -- the kind i think that lasts DAYS instead of just going away. she came home from work yesterday and settled on the couch (where all of us hang out) with a quilt over her head. she slept most of the time from when she got home yesterday until about 2 p.m. today when she finally got up. she's transcribing my meows but i think she just wants to go back to sleep! if she's going back to sleep, i need to go help her sleep by staying with her.

huffle: those are nice claws you have. mine are comparable though that means that mommy is going to trim mine soon. (she'll trim my sister freya's first though -- freya has left marks on mommy's hands!!!)

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home alone

this is me guarding mommy and daddy's celtic studies book collection:



my mommy is in great falls today. her aunt and uncle live there and she is going to see them after she runs errands. she's going to church down there and then going to run errands. she was going to find harry potter stuff for the kids' table at the church dinner and auction but now she has to find different stuff because some of the other people at the church don't like harry potter. she and daddy thought about a camp/outdoors themed table so she is going to find camp food, trail mix, and stuff like that.

daddy has to go teach people about Jesus at his three churches today. he is then going to the nursing home to teach people about Jesus there before he has to go to the court of honor for the boy scouts he works with. he will probably not be home until late.

last night, mommy did a photo shoot and got some new pictures for the blog. i was a good girl and cooperated... sort of. mommy did not get all the shots she wanted but the shots she did get (and kept) are good ones of me.

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saturday adventures

here i am helping mommy sort her yarn box:


aren't i a good helper?

mommy has been working hard on her triathlon. she has biked the last few nights and has come home tired. this morning, i woke her up at 7:30 am and she told me that it was saturday and that i needed to be set on snooze. i came back at 11:00 and cuddled her until she finally got up around noon. i then set my sites on getting love from daddy who loved me up while mommy checked her email upstairs and tried to catechize my sister freya. mommy then left to do errands and i settled in the living room with daddy who was reading the newspapers.

mommy laughed when she saw huffle's comment about playing "thundering herd of elephants" at 3 a.m. apparently, my brothers used to play a game like that and she referred to them as a "thundering horde of cats". now, we just play 3-d tag at 3 a.m. and jump all over the dining room table and furniture.

i also should tell khyra that not all orange cats are bad. my brother cullen is a really nice cat and he's an orange tabby. he's afraid of dogs (well... he's afraid of everything) but he's an example of a good orange cat.

i'm off to help mommy get her steps in today!

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mommy says "game on!"

the picture today is of me and my brother finian when he let me sleep with him on the throne in mommy's office:



mommy said "game on!" to her co-workers challenging her. even though her ankle was a bit swollen and hurting, she still walked yesterday. she came home feeling icky with something called a panic attack and i had to keep her company on the couch as she lay there with a quilt up over her head. she gets these occasionally and i know my job is to love her up and just be a good panther for her.

her ankle was better today and she even went and rode her bike for the first time in 14 years. (daddy went and got it put back together for her.) she only got to ride about 1.75 miles (3 km for huffle) but she is proud of herself. i think she will sleep well tonight.

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music and possible visits from a friend

here's a picture of me helping mommy with a shawl she was making:



aren't i a helpful panther?

mommy was telling daddy that apparently, she's doing so well in the virtual triathlon that her competitors have declared war on her and are trying to beat her next week to win a free casual day. daddy is going to take mommy's bike in to have it fixed so she can get some extra miles riding her bike this week and keep people from beating her. i hope she can do it!

daddy had a funeral today but does not have a council meeting so he has a free night. as soon as i dictate this to mommy, i'm going to go down and help him watch tv. he usually tunes it to a sirius satellite radio channel that plays alternative music. i'm not a fan of it but my sister freya is. i like the stuff mommy listens to better.

huffle is planning a world tour of sorts. i hope she comes to see me in montana. we can stalk trains together and beat up my brother finian for all the times he has beat me up. i'm sure mommy wouldn't mind another black cat in the house. we've even got afghans for huffle to curl up under if she misses her mommy's doona.

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mommy is virtually a triathlete!

here i am on the bed in "the treehouse". (our third floor is two bedrooms. one is mommy's study and the other is a spare room.) mommy's book is on the bed with me.



according to mommy who went and walked at lunchtime, it was very hot today. i wouldn't know because i was in the house with daddy and we were staying cool. there was lots to watch out the window -- i like this weather better than rain. there were lots of trains to stalk and birds to watch.

mommy's work is doing a "virtual" triathlon where people can track what they walk/bike/swim/run. mommy is doing the walking category and she has this red clicky thing on all the time that counts her steps. (jen (edda's mommy)'s note: it's called a pedometer.) i think on her virtual triathlon blog it says that she has walked 43 miles so far. that's a very long way!!! she and daddy have joked about attatching a pedometer to us cats to see how far we walk in a day. i think we'd make that day a nap day!!! mommy's goal is 250 miles. do you think she'll make it???

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embarrassing story time!

this is edda's mommy, jen. these pictures were taken about two and a half years ago.

i was on the second floor when i noticed that the door to the guest room was open.



i went in and saw that there was a lump in the bed. what could it be???



possibly someone who wasn't supposed to be in there??? silly edda!




in my defense, i would like to say that it was nice and private there. freya has her own floor -- i need my own space!

i woke mommy up 30 minutes before her alarm went off and we had snuggle time. i know she would have liked to stay in bed after her alarm went off but she had to shower, eat breakfast, take her yucky pills (jen's note: they're fish oil capsules -- they're pretty yucky), and use the noisy machine to dry her hair. church is now at a farther away building so she was gone a long time today!!! i did get petting time when she came home though.

mommy has been busy on the computer doing her own blogging and downloading things to put on her ipod. it's name is "panimatushka" (jen: "pastor's wife" in ukranian -- all my electronics are named after some title for a pastor's wife) and it's light green. mommy listens to it on her drive to work, when she isn't having to talk to people at work, and on her way home. she likes shows from npr, cbc, and the bbc. she also listens to singers and bands like nickel creek, loreena mckennitt, maire brennan, selah, and simon & garfunkel.

right now, daddy is downstairs watching basketball with my brothers cullen and finian. mommy is going downstairs shortly to finish making dinner. i think i'll go help her.

(to mickey and huffle: i didn't get a special treat for guarding mommy except for extra playtime and cuddle time.)

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rainy nights and drippy mornings

first, the picture:



this is me being an alarm cat for mommy. (huffle, this is another archived picture.)

shortly after mommy pressed the publish button last night, she started hearing lots of noise. a few minutes later, daddy got home and told us that we were getting thunder and lightning and needed to turn the computer off. so... mommy turned the computer off and we all went downstairs except for freya who decided that she wanted to remain upstairs in her lair for awhile longer. (she thinks mommy's study is hers and lets mommy use it occasionally.)

i slept with mommy last night to keep her safe and when she woke up this morning, i was on top of her. we had a nice wake-up snuggle before she got up to get breakfast. afterwards, she and daddy and i watched a show on the history channel about vlad the impaler who i guess is the basis for the character "dracula". he was a nasty person and some of the things he did grossed mommy out.

mommy left to go run errands a little later and reported that the rain had stopped and that it was just kind of drippy outside. while she was gone, i took my noon and early afternoon naps and watched the bunnies, birds, and trains out the window.

mommy is home now and will be cooking things downstairs as soon as daddy finishes making his pizza dough. i hope she's making something i can eat too -- i love helping mommy cook.

no word yet on bartholemew coming home. i'm hoping that mommy isn't right and he hasn't been eaten by coyotes.

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the news from montana

this is me showing off the beautiful light shadows that the door on the 2nd floor makes. (huffle: this is an archived picture.)

mommy and daddy got a sad phone call last night from my grandma (daddy's mommy). bartholemew (who my mom refers to as "the great white" and "the daisy with fangs") hasn't been seen since tuesday morning and they think he might have been eaten by a coyote. please think good thoughts that he comes home and if your humans do it, have them pray for him to come home and for my grandparents and my aunt joanna because they are very sad.

in other news, mommy has been getting down on the floor and playing with me using the feather toy that my other grandma (my mommy's mommy) gave to me and my siblings last year when she and my grandpa came to visit. i love to chase the feather but unfortunately, so do my brothers. mommy has to make sure they are taking naps when she plays with me, otherwise they try to butt in. daddy also tries to play with me when he's working at home like he has been this week. i know that next week will be busy for him because he has a funeral on tuesday to conduct and lots of church things to do.

my mommy's parents are coming in a month and i am excited because my grandma appreciates my beauty. they usually bring us toys and i've given mommy my list of what i want grandma to bring me. grandma likes to get down on the floor and play with me. she also does yoga which i like to help with and only get to do with mommy when she is stretching out after kickboxing. i also get tuna when mommy's parents come because mommy is trying to get us cats out and visible. my siblings are very shy so i just come out and eat their portion of the tuna.

tomorrow is saturday which means that i get extended snuggle time with mommy. i know huffle got coffee time with her mommy this morning but that it was short and her mommy took her off the bed so she could re-make it. my mommy and daddy let us stay on the bed and they just make the bed over us and play "bump" with us while we're under the sheets!

to mama/mr.sippi/carolina: i had my mommy add your link to the side of the blog. i have never been to iowa but i used to live in minnesota which i think is close by. mr.sippi: my mommy thinks you have a cute name.

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wordless wednesday

cat fights on an otherwise quiet day

first, a beautiful picture of me:



aren't my eyes beautiful?

daddy had a vet appointment today so i had the house to myself with my siblings. (mommy was at work.) when daddy got home, he wanted to relax and read the newspapers so i kept him company along with my brother cullen.

mommy gave me a cuddle when she got home. she was very tired and was joking about taking me to work with her because she needed a stressball. i would be a good stressball to pet. i would also be happy to sleep under her desk or behind her computer.

unfortunately, my sister freya did not want me up in the study with her and mommy and attacked me before chasing me out. mommy scolded her for it. freya can be territorial sometimes. she even tries to kick my brother finian out of the chair next to mommy's chair if he's in it. (it used to be his chair before mommy and daddy adopted us because he was mommy's office assistant. freya took it over a few years ago.)

huffle's mommy and daddy are going on a holiday to my part of the world and huffle is not happy about it. i'm not happy either because they might leave huffle with someone who doesn't know how to transcribe her mewing and this means no huffle posts for four weeks. what is this black cat to do?!?!?!?

i'm thankful that mommy and daddy always leave me with a babysitter that i like. they are going away for the weekend at the end of the month and my babysitter drew is going to come to play with me. mommy said that drew is excited to be able to come over and play with me and pet me and i'm excited to have drew time. it almost makes up for mommy and daddy leaving me.

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napping on sunday

first, a picture from the edda archives:



this fits into our theme for today: napping!

i'm a cat so of course i am an expert on napping. i do like to play (and mommy will agree that i play quite ferciously) but i also like to sleep and i've put together a list of my favorite sleepy spots.

[+] the bed: no explanation needed here. it's even better if mommy and daddy forget to make it in the morning and i can get the sheets all furry. they have soft pima cotton flannel sheets so an unmade bed is a soft sleeping spot.

[+] the back of the couch: this works if my brother finian isn't there already. i like it because the place where the couch meets the wall has a little bit of space and forms a little trough for me to lie down in. if mommy or daddy are sitting or lying on the couch, it also creates a place for them to adore me.

[+] the recliner: this is where daddy likes to sit and he has some stuffed foxes by there. i like kneading on the foxes and curling up in the recliner afterwards. it's even better if cullen is there because he lets me take naps with him. daddy also won't move me if i'm there and will instead find another place to sit.

[+] a kitchen chair: this spot works well because i am relatively high in the air and can survey what is happening on the floor. it also hides me from humans who might be walking through the house. my sister freya likes to sleep here as well and mommy calls it the "panther/jaguar in a tree" spot.

[+] the floor: it's not my first choice but you can't beat the floor. it's a nice flat surface and frequently i can find a sunbeam to warm me up. best of all, i can sprawl out and if mommy sees me, she'll pick me up and love me and put me in a much more comfortable sleepy spot, especially if she wants to take a nap.

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my good big brother

huffle is having some issues because her readers feel sorry for salvador even though salvador beats her up and is mean. i can understand huffle. my brother finian beats me up a lot because he's jealous. he was mommy's kitty before they adopted me and i kind of took over some of that territory.

my other brother cullen is wonderful though. here's an archived picture of the two of us:



he's letting me take a nap with him. he's the best cat to nap with because he doesn't mind me cuddling up to him. he also gives me baths if he's around. don't let the picture fool you -- he's a bigger cat than i am. mommy refers to him as her "hip-displacing tabby" because he torques her hips when he sleeps on her (which is almost every night).

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lunacat sillies before the first full moon

first, the pre-requisite archival picture:



mommy has said that we're running low on pictures and she might have to start taking new ones soon. quick! huffle! send her some of you. maybe she won't know the difference!

nice try, princess but no dice! i can tell the two of you apart. love, mommy

oh well.

mommy crashed on the couch to watch tv early last night because she was very tired from her day. i decided that it would be a great time to have my evening crazies so i was doing laps around the living room and jumping off of furniture. i was almost off the couch when mommy reached a hand up and pounced me down just before i jumped. mommy! that wasn't nice! she then proceeded to razz me and play with me. i figured she was probably tired (as i was too at that point) so i settled down to keep her and daddy company. my sister freya was also being silly (except she's silly all the time -- ask mommy!) and she kept jumping up on the back of the chair where daddy was sitting. daddy was complimenting her on her leaping skills. whatever! i leapt onto more furniture than she did!

(mommy was wondering if there was a full moon last night. there wasn't. i was just feeling silly.)

this morning, i decided to be mommy's alarm cat. i stepped on her abdomen and touched my cold nose to hers. that woke her up. unfortunately, she always has to get up and go to the litterbox when i wake her up like that! (note from mommy: that's because your hind paws are on my bladder, sweetheart!) she came back and i snuggled her a little but not too long because she had gotten up and left me. she had to get up after about 15 minutes anyway to go take her shower.

i made up for all of this by following her around until she left for work and then after she got home today. i would purr when she picked me up and she was joking that i was being her black lab puppy. oh well... at least she forgave me.

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nocturnal state and icky weather

as fall seems to be coming quickly here, i thought i would post a picture of one of my favorite activities:

From Blogger Pictures

this is me helping mommy carve pumpkins for halloween. mommy and daddy joke that i am their year-round halloween decoration and that they need to keep me in the window that night. i am a black cat! halloween is my special day!!! i will not stay in the window and be a decoration, especially when mini humans are walking around in costumes!

i was a panther of the night while mommy was trying to sleep last night. i got into a bag from wal-mart that had new socks for her in it; and when she sealed the bag and tied it shut, i continued to rustle it and claw it open, making her get out of bed and put the socks out of reach. i guess i will have to find other socks with which to play "sock gnomes" with my brothers. i also howled at mommy for 10 minutes last night when i managed to find a catnip mouse. she wasn't paying attention because my brother cullen was on top of her purring. when cullen needed to take a food break, mommy came over and told me what a good panther i am. *cat sigh* as it's cullen (who is nice to me unlike my brother finian who doesn't like me and picks fights with me), i'll allow mommy to be distracted from me.

we have had rain go through today and it seems like black clouds keep passing over. mommy and daddy love the rain. i don't like it. all the birds and bunnies go hide when it rains and i have nothing to watch except for the trains that i stalk out of mommy's study window. hmph. what is a black cat to do?!?!?!?!?!?

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sauna time and strange people in the house

here is a picture from the vault:

From Blogger Pictures

i'm on the bed looking at mommy sideways.

after mommy put the flashy thing away, i came back up to have sauna time. this time, i slept on mommy's feet and made them all toasty warm. after she finished on the computer, she picked me up and carried me downstairs and we had snuggle time on the couch while she and daddy watched tv.

mommy didn't want to get up this morning and i had to give her a five minute wake-up snuggle to entice her to get up. she was gone until late today and before she got home, daddy let some strange men into the house. i've seen them before when they've come to fix the water and the furnace but i couldn't remember who they were exactly. thankfully, they stayed in the conference room and office where they met with daddy about church things. we cats aren't allowed in there and the strange humans don't usually come into the living quarters of the house.

when mommy came home, her fur was different -- shorter i think and it smelled weird. why do humans do things with their fur? (a note from edda's mommy jen: i cut an inch or so off my hair. edda noticed because it smells like the shampoo they use where i got it cut.)

mommy is really tired tonight so i am going to go downstairs to snuggle her and help her fall asleep.

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another cold cold wet day

here is the daily archive picture:



it was taken when we were moving from minnesota to montana three years ago. i am on top of the mattress supervising mommy and daddy packing up the bedroom.

it is still raining here in montana. the power went out this morning so i had to stay with mommy to make sure she woke up on time. (i later found out that her alarm clock was turned off anyway.) my brother finian and i kept her company in bed while cullen and freya helped daddy make sure the water was ok and other things were going well. (we have a weird water system because we live out in the country and daddy had to play with it this morning so we could have water until the power came back on. i don't care about this but i guess it is important for mommy and daddy.) mommy got up just as the power came back on.

mommy's study has been the warmest place in the house because she has her space heater on. the warm air goes under her desk so i go under there to hang out because it creates a panther sauna. i stayed under there for awhile last night and i was under there this afternoon when mommy snapped my picture.



i was not amused and skulked off to go where she wouldn't use the flashy thing on me.

my sister freya wanted to find a cat cave to take a nap. unfortunately, she forgot that she needed to completely camouflage herself if she wanted to hide from mommy's flashy thing...



no wonder mommy refers to her as "not one of nature's best camouflage jobs"!

mommy and daddy don't have work today so i will have to have extra love time with both of them as i know they will be gone a lot this week!

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