Oreo of course was laying by my pillow when I went to bed. The blankets were all askew after a night of me turning back and forth, so I set to fixing it. Oreo was on the blankets as I started pulling them down to the foot of the bed, but she slid off. When I pulled the sheets and blanket back up neatly to the pillow, she ended up underneath them. She was so out of it, in fact - whites of her eyes showing as her eyelids fluttered delicately in sleep - that I just pushed her to the side and crawled in beside her.

I rolled over and heard a muffled breathing sound - from underneath my ear. I look up to see she’s shoved her muzzle underneath my pillow. Well, who am I to judge; I laid my head back down. She must have decided it wasn’t very fun, because just then she pulled her head out and stretched, her paws against the pillow, shoving it into my face, her back paws tickling my elbow.

Well, okay then, you settled now? I try to fall asleep. My mind was racing, but I was doing an admirable job of snuggling in. Next thing I know Oreo’s stretching again and I have two paws in my face (literally) and two more pushing against my stomach.

So I’m thinking that sharing a bed with a furry, claw-equipped, restless dog isn’t the best idea. But instead of telling her to get to the foot of the bed? I got back up.

New photos for November 27.

When I snuggle into bed, with Oreo on the bed beside me, and Joey on the floor on the other side, I just feel so blessed. Oreo is truly my heart-dog, and she’s slept beside me pretty much every night since I got her 9 years ago. And Joey, he’s the cat I’ve always wanted - or almost so. I love his sleek, shiny fur, it’s so soft. I love his chattery meows, always letting me know how he feels. And I love how he climbs into his little box to sleep, lol.

Every morning Joey jumps up to purr and say good morning, then when he leaves I roll over and give Oreo some cuddles. It’s a good way to wake up.

More pics posted from today.

I love my little boy.

When I got him I just felt so strongly about him. When he slept on my pillow, or, better yet, curled up against my body to sleep, it was so amazing. I was so incredibly happy to have him.

Getting the email from my mom that I couldn’t bring him with me really devastated me. I was totally heartbroken. Even though she changed her mind when she saw how upset I was, I didn’t really get over it. I was still so hurt from the thought of leaving him behind.

When we got here there was an immediate personality change in Joey. He got very aggressive, and I got bit and scratched and was very frustrated. As well as upset - where was the sweet little boy I had adopted? Had I ended up with yet another cat who would grow to dislike me?

But over time, his old personality came back, and he became a sweet, lovable kitty again. He still has his moments where he gets grumpy, but I just roll my eyes and tell him to cut it out and leave him alone until he snaps out of it. But best of all, he’s still my little shadow. He talks to me all the time. He greets me every morning by jumping on the bed and purring and cuddling up to me. He follows me from one end of the house to the other, even comes when I call. He lays on my desk when I’m working, staying right nearby, purring. What a great pick-me-up that is, when things aren’t going right… I just have to turn and give him a pat and a hug and feel his warm fur against my cheek.

I frequently pick him up to give him a cuddle (setting him back down before he gets upset ). I get down on the floor with him to play and talk. I bring out the feather-toy to watch him run around all crazy-like. He just makes me smile.

Since I can’t get a decent gallery program up, I manually posted a bunch of pictures from the past few months: August - November Pictures. We have odd, odd pets.

I feel like a mother. Doing my daily business around the house usually includes the following: Remove object from Tessa’s mouth. Chase Oreo around for fun (it’s her favorite game). Tell Tessa to stop bugging Oreo. Wait for dogs to move out of my way in the hall before walking to kitchen. Hear Oreo bark and snap at Tessa, who ran into her. Remove Joey from counter-top. Tell Tess to stop chasing the darned cat. Open fridge. Remove Joey from fridge so I can close the door. Prepare food. Remove Joey from counter-top. Wipe Tessa’s slobber off floor. Turn and nearly trip over the dogs who are staring at me, hoping something drops on the floor. Walk back down hall. Trip over Joey, who is winding around my legs hoping for food. Spend meal fending off Joey, under the watchful eyes of at least one of the dogs.

It’s an all-encompassing job.

Joey has been quite the funny little guy lately. He’s been very cuddly and social. The other day when I was on my laptop on the couch, he jumped up on my lap and shoved his head between my arms with a meow. I just had to pet him. Then today he jumped up on the couch beside me and curled up and fell asleep. So I gave him some love and told him what a pretty, cute cat he is.

Joey seems a bit confused about food. He thinks my food is his. First he tried just walking over and eating it, but I wasn’t having any of that. I informed him that this was my food, his was on the other table. When he realized that wasn’t working for him, he laid down non-chalantly beside my plate and pretended to nap. Next thing I see is a paw reaching sneakily for my sandwich. Every time I turned back to the computer, his paw would snake out again. A few times he did manage to pull it closer before I pulled it back. It was so funny!

A picture of him in action:

So then last night I had another plate on my desk, this time of cheese cubes and grapes and some pepperoni. Man, did he want that pepperoni. He snagged a few cheese cubes with a claw before I rescued (and ate) them. But the absolute funniest thing was when I turned to take another bite of something and found him with his mouth clamped down on a slice of pepperoni, trying to run off with it. The problem was that there was saran-wrap covering the plate, so he had grabbed a plastic-wrapped pepperoni piece that he couldn’t remove from the plate! LOL OMG, it was so funny.

I’m so glad I got my cuddly cat back!!

Feeding time here at the house often falls to me, when I’m home (Dad takes the honor of feeding the dogs when I’m not, and I feed the cats when I get home). I actually enjoy it, for some reason; I like the feeling of preparing it all, of caring for all the babies. It makes me feel very motherly.

I prefer to do the feeding assembly-line style. It’s not as easy as you might think, because every single pet in this house (and there’s five of them) gets different food. Yes, you heard me right - all of them get different food. This wasn’t really by design either.

First there’s the dogs. They’re on different food because of their ages: Oreo’s on senior dog food, and Tess is on puppy food (but not for much longer, she’ll be switched to adult food but they’ll still be different). They both get fed twice a day, but Oreo gets canned food and Tess doesn’t.

The cats, three of them, are similar. Tuffy gets senior canned food, because of his very advanced age (he’s 15 now). Angel actually refused to eat canned food before I got here and bought him his own food - I’m not sure if he just didn’t like what Tuffy ate (for the past 5 years) or if he wanted his own dish to eat from or what. Angel still only nibbles at the canned food, so I get him the small cans of food - and I get him special formuly for hairballs, since he’s constantly hacking them up (yuck). Those two cats do share dry food, though, but that’s always available for them.

My cat eats normal adult canned cat food, but man is he a pig. My parents were totally astonished when they saw how much I was feeding the little man - he’s a smaller cat than either Angel or Tuffy, and yet he eats at least three times as much. As a comparison, he gets the same amount of canned food a day that Oreo does (and she’s 42lbs). And he’s constantly yowling for more.

So I dish out all the food in the very different, unique bowls: Tessa gets several cups of dry food in whatever large dish is handy, Oreo gets a carefully measured portion of dry and canned in her purty purple bowl, Tuffy gets his canned food in the plastic fish-shaped bowl that mom bought for him, Angel gets a small dallop of canned food in a normal bowl, and Joey gets his canned food in the cute fish-decorated ceramic bowl I got for him. Tessa gets hers first because, one, she drools horrifically while she’s waiting for her dinner, and two, she tends to shove the other pets out of her way to get whatever food is available. She’s also fed outside because, well, she dives head-first into her bowl and knocks kibble everywhere. She does vacuum it up afterwards, but still, outside she’s out of the way for a few minutes. Then Oreo gets her bowl, which she daintily eats about ten times slower than Tessa. (Actually, Tessa’s usually barking at the door wanting in so she can eat everyone else’s food by the time I put Oreo’s dish on the floor, no lie.) I put down Angel’s dish where the dogs can’t get it and try to shoo Joey away from it, then take Joey’s dish down the hall to my room to where his dishes are all set up. He runs in between my legs the entire time I’m walking, I’ve tripped over him so many times. And the last time I did, he swatted me, the little bugger. Last is usually Tuffy is sometimes fed in the middle, sometimes first, sometimes last. He gets his food outside on the patio table.

And all the pets know when it’s dinner time. Angel’s quickly learning about this new fed-at-one-time deal now that he’s eating canned food. Joey is always yowling for food and giving me dirty looks when I don’t immediately fill up his bowl - and at dinner time when I call him he comes running with many chirps and chidings. The dogs, they are the best time-keepers of all, they will come and stare at you at exactly 6pm. And stare. And stare. The past weekend when we turned our clocks back for daylight savings time, they were both so upset! It always takes them a while to adjust to that.

But even though it’s messy and loud and slobbery, I love it.

:: ::

Another catfight tonight, although it was less of a “fight” and more of Angel freaking out and spitting and growling. So I poked Cory awake and went to investigate. Sure enough Joey’s standing on the table above Angel, looking down, and Angel’s flattened to the floor with his ears pinned back, growling and hissing menacingly. Well, it would be menacingly if his body language didn’t very clearly say, “Don’t touch me! Oh my god, don’t touch me!” Joey has stopped looking even remotely mean when he does this, he’s more like a kitty stalking his favorite toy. His tail swishes, he crouches, he sneaks up, then when caught he looks around like he wasn’t doing anything at all. He gets very easily distracted and runs off if he finds something more fun to do. Too bad Angel can’t be so lighthearted.

So Cory goes over to Angel and pets him and speaks softly to calm him down. You don’t really want to pick up a totally freaking out cat like that, so he moved him by sliding him across the linolium. LOL! It was so funny, Cory just pushes him carefully across the floor, all the while Angel remains in the same position, growling. After a few minutes Cory picked him up to take him away. All I could hear was, “Rrrrrrrrrrr!” as the big grey fuzzball was lifted. But it’s very unlikely Angel would strike out at Cory, even as upset as that. Hasn’t yet. Just makes a lot of noise.

Joey, on the other hand… you just don’t pick up when he’s agitated. Or try… try is as far as I got, last time!