Tag Archives: Calico cats

Meet The Clowder

A few of my cats have made appearances in various posts, but it’s past time to introduce y’all to the whole clowder. So, here they are in all of their furry glory.

  • Name: Molly
  • Age: 16
  • Nicknames: Molly Mayhem, Molly Mae, Girlfriend
  • Notes: Molly is the sister of Desmond; they got their names from the Beatles’ song, Ob-La-Di.
  • Name: Nellie
  • Age: 14
  • Nicknames: Nelliekins, Nellie Girl, Miss Thang
  • Notes: Nellie is the last of our outdoor cats; she made her transition indoors almost a year ago and is doing well.
  • Name: Cricket
  • Age: 13
  • Nicknames: Beaver Butt, Brick, Baroness von Underbite
  • Notes: Cricket is probably the clowder member I worry about the most. She has feline herpes which manifests in her as respiratory issues. The poor girl sneezes constantly and always has a snotty nose. Steroid shots only help for a few days so we deal with it the best we can. As for her nicknames, Beaver Butt is due to the fact that she has a really thick tail. Brick comes from the character of the same name in the television show The Middle. (I love that show.) Brick has a verbal tic of saying “Whoop” and Cricket frequently makes a similar sound.
  • Names: Bob (r) and Tippy (l)
  • Ages: 11
  • Nicknames: Bob the Blob and Tippy Cat
  • Notes: We inherited Bob and Tippy when my dad died in 2016. They are my gaming buddies and insist on lying on my chest while I’m playing video games.
  • Name: Nyx
  • Age: 10
  • Nicknames: None
  • Notes: Nyx has adopted the kitchen as her territory. She’s fairly aloof unless we’re in the kitchen, then she comes in and weaves around our ankles and “talks” constantly. It’s not exactly a nickname, but we call her our house panther with kitchen specialization.
  • Name: Kota
  • Age: 9
  • Nicknames: Floofy Butt, Princess Floofy Britches
  • Notes: Kota’s name is an acronym which stands for Kitten of the Apocalypse. Kenn found her near the storm drain behind our old house and was upset that yet another cat had shown up. I said something to the effect of “Dude, it’s just a kitten. It’s not even the kitten of the apocalypse,” and it stuck.
  • Name: Bear
  • Age: 5
  • Nicknames: Old Man, Baby Bear
  • Notes: Bear has probably made the most appearances in my blog. He’s just an all-around cool guy.
  • Name: Roxie
  • Age: 2
  • Nicknames: Roxie Pants, Bunny Butt
  • Notes: Roxie’s biggest claim to fame is always looking shocked about everything. She also has the quietest meow of all the cats.

Do you have any pets? If so, what kind and how many?

Meowy Catmas?

Y’all know I’m a cat lady and that we have several cats. I’m an old pro at introducing cats to Christmas trees and dealing with the occasional ornament on the floor. All of our ornaments are shatter-proof so, no big deal. Then, Roxie joined our clowder.

The reason we can’t have nice things.

Roxie may look like a Calico, but she’s actually a kleptomaniac. Nothing is safe since she joined the family. I have yet to find half of my fridge magnets. Among the things I have caught her carrying around: a 9mm shell casing, a screwdriver, and a roll of film. I didn’t even know we had any undeveloped film rolls!

Last year, I almost didn’t put up a tree because I didn’t want my ornaments getting lost and/or destroyed. I finally put the tree up a week before Christmas but didn’t put any ornaments on it. That worked okay, but I didn’t want to go that basic again this year.

This year, I decided to start introducing Roxie to the concept of ornaments. To keep from stressing, I’m only using “filler” ornaments – the ones that I won’t be upset about if something happens to them.

So far, things are going about as I expected. Roxie has spent a lot of time in the tree and on the floor swatting at ornaments. At least three ornaments are no longer on the tree, and I have no idea where they are.🤣 As a matter of fact, our tree looks a lot like the ones when our sons were young – most of the ornaments are on the upper half of the tree.

This is my life now.

Those of you with cats – or other pets – do they interact with your tree?