My pal Lisa found a kitten and raised her from a puppy. She’d never had a cat before but took Rocky everywhere the first few months of her life. I met her at the Spank function.
Rocky is now 6 months old and recently had a close encounter with Mr. P, the neighborhood peacock. As you can see it went well.
It’s time for a meeting of the kitty courts update. Della and Paul get along quite well for the most part. There’s still the occasional altercation because he’s a giant kitten and always wants to play whereas she’s entering her dowager countess phase in her 11th year.
It’s PD’s turn in the closeup barrel.
There was a bit of “my box, my box” jostling between Della and Paul before settling down on Dr. A’s “donate to Goodwill” box. Enjoy it while it lasts, y’all.
Paul Drake is a long cat who likes to stretch out, especially when food is involved,
Like any good private eye, Paul Drake likes windows. In this picture, he’s peering out a pane on our front door. I think he’d make a helluva good doorman. Imagine him with a red jacket with epaulets to go along with what Athenae has called his fur beret. It would be a fashion sensation, y’all.
Catblogging tends to expose us as lousy housekeepers. We’re not big on washing windows. In our defense, the interior pane is smudged with feline nose prints and the doorman is there every day. Window washing is futile.
Van Morrison gets the last word with this tidy tune:
The original Della Street and Paul Drake worked a different kind of case. A case of water was all we had.
Here are two pictures of Della Street accepting tribute in the form of grooming from pesky kid brother Paul Drake. Perry Mason is proud of them. Hamilton Burger objects.
Here’s Della Street surveying her domain, which includes pesky kid brother Paul Drake.
Paul Drake is suffering from Carnival withdrawal. A trail of admirers found their way to our house to see PD. He also misses food opportunities such as this one:
Slade:
They’d both rather sleep on a gnarly snagged up blanket in the basement generally, but Slade sometimes condescends to use the ridiculously fancy cat bed I bought him.
A.
Inter-feline relations continue to improve at Adrastos World HQ. There are still a few minor altercations between the cats but peace has broken out. Della remains jealous of her new kid brother but is willing to snuggle since it’s been a chilly winter.
As the kittens grow we’re seeing more and more of their personalities. Slade is basically a dog. He’ll play fetch for HOURS. He’s vocal and tells us when he wants attention and when something’s wrong. The other day he wouldn’t shut up and I figured he was just bitching about his food, but his bowl was full and he’d already snarfed half a can of his disgusting wet food. I tried ignoring him but after a while he started nipping at my ankles so I did a quick round of the house to see if anything was the matter and who do I find but his sister, trapped in a room because I’d closed a door behind her without knowing she was there. So Slade acquired another nickname: Lassie.
Ada’s quieter and more shy. Kick threw a rager of a preschool birthday party last weekend and Ada hid under the dresser the entire time, glaring at all these new people in her house. She prefers cuddling to playtime and loves best to snuggle up under or in something furry. We bought a cheap furry skin-rug from IKEA and she made passionate kitty love to it all afternoon.
She’s also a bread thief. I came downstairs one day to find the half a loaf of bread I’d been planning to use for French toast scattered all over the basement, with Herself looking innocent whilst surrounded by crumbs. We own a breadbox now.
A.
My friend Brett has taken to calling the new kitty Mr. Drake. He’s certainly a dapper chap with his bow tie.
Yeah, it was supposed to be Sunday. Figured we could all use a little kittums before the SOTU tonight.
Ada has that baby thing of falling asleep anywhere, including directly on top of me while I’m trying to write on the Internets.
A.
It’s been a trying and very short Krewe du Vieux season. A saving grace, as always, was Dennie the Den of Muses cat:
Photo by David Tower.
Caption Slade here:
A.
The new kitty is in his second week with us. Before the big freeze, he was content to stay in the guest room. He’s slowly living up to his name and investigating the rest of the house. There are still some minor altercations with Della but we’ve reached the point where they need to work things out between them. It’s going to take some time but I think they’ll get along eventually.
There’s nothing a cat named for a private eye likes more than an unmade bed:
After a brief hiatus of hissing and chasing, Slade and Ada remembered they were brother and sister, and have spent the past couple of weeks tearing through the house after one another, fighting over the same toy even though there are three identical versions of it one foot away from them at all times, and biting me when I try to use the phone or computer.
QUIT WRITING WORDS ON THE INTERNET AND THROW OUR FEATHER TOYS, SLAVE.
They’re settling in well and we’re having a lot of fun with them. Ada’s a bit more shy than her brother. He’ll trot right up to new people and introduce himself, while she likes to hide under a chair for a while. She also holds a grudge; I accidentally stepped on her foot while cleaning one day and she hid under the TV stand for an HOUR until it was time for dinner.
We’ve tried to set ground rules, like having them sleep in the basement where there are ample pet beds and food/water/litterboxes, and not giving them human food, but Kick has already tried to feed them things she doesn’t like without us seeing, and they blew her cover by meowing loudly for MOAR.
Furry little snitches.
A.
We pulled the trigger on a new feline addition to the family. Della Street is still uncertain as to what she thinks of her new kid brother, but she’s bound to be pleased that we stuck to the Perry Mason theme. I told y’all that there was method to my pulp fiction madness yesterday.
Paul Drake was, of course, Perry’s investigator and once described by my late friend Ashley Morris as “the coolest guy in the world.” I cannot resist posting a picture of William Hopper as Paul Drake sitting on Barbara Hale as Della Street’s desk:
I’m sure *our* Paul Drake can sit on a desk. He’s a three year old shelter cat who’s on the shy side but very loving with his humans. He’s spending most of his time in the guest room as we’re slowly introducing the two cats. His shelter name was Charlie but, as he doesn’t respond to it and I had a Charlie for 16 years, we renamed him. I guess that makes me Perry Mason. I’ve got the girth and glower.
We begin with PD’s shelter portrait. He was rescued by a marvelous local group, SpayMart. The bow tie is a nice touch since teevee’s Paul Drake sometimes wore one.
Here he is chilling in his current lair with Dr. A.
Yeah, we’re still lousy housekeepers. What can I tell ya?
Finally, the Perry Mason theme:
