I'm sorry I haven't been able to visit lately but I've been having computer problems...
I thought I had sorted it out but then it all went pear-shaped again. Please keep your paws crossed for me coz Pinky is living it up in Portugal so is not available for computer torturing repairing. He tried to email me some photos to show you but his webmail won't allow attachments. Shame.
I was so touched by all the kind comments on my last post. I thought you would all agree with me that it was rubbish! I will try and catch up with you all over the next few days.
Meanwhile I hope you're all having a better week than I am, lol!
Well I came to the conclusion that there aren't enough cats on this blog, which considering how the majority of the blogs I read are cat or cat-related, seemed a bit, well, remiss! Anyhoo, as it's still too hot to sleep I decided to do a doodle. It's my first try at a floofy cat and I know it's rubbish but I wanted to try out the fur brushes I downloaded the other day. The bean face is rubbish too but oh well, you can all have a good laugh maybe! Perhaps I'll get better with practice...
Babs published a lovely photo of herself when she was 22 on her blog the other day which reminded me that recently Pinky emailed me with a photo he'd come across when I was about the same age, which he entitled "Who is this?". So here it is:
Now why on earth would I have scraped my hair back like that when my forehead is as big as the rest of my face? Well, this was taken on a holiday I went on with my friend Julie and her family. I remember it was hot, much like it is now. I see I liked wine even then! I had a "thing" for the photographer but fortunately woke up to how stupid I was being when he realised I had a "crush" on him and tried to "cash in". My friend Julie had Marfand's Syndrome and died of organ failure a few years after. Before she died she got married to a man who also had health problems. I think the marriage was happy but it wasn't easy.
Jeter Harris was Cat of the Week last week but it was only today that I came across this graphic that Skeezix created which we can put on our blogs to celebrate the occasion.
I love Jeter, he was among the first cat bloggers I met and his blog is so fun. ConCATulations Jeter, you are a worthy winner:) xxx Visit his blog today to see his sensitive side. He has written a great pome!
Hope efurrycat is having a great week so far:) xxx
Show us a photo of the front of your Cold Box and tell us about at least one thing on it and one thing you keep inside of it! Tag your friends and remember to stay COOL!
Here is my fridge-freezer and as you can see, it is pretty well loaded with magnets! The biscuits/cookies, potato, celery stick pen, chocolates and tomato slice I bought in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, on a trip we took there one day when I was staying with Dad in 1995 I think it was. There should be a carrot pen too but that seems to have gone AWOL. The Mickey Mouse was a present from my friend Salad which she bought in Florida. The Wallace, Gromit and Shaun the Sheep were presents from my lovely Mum and the big soft Shaun the Sheep was a present from my friend Jeanette. The teapot was free with Sainsbury's Ceylon tea bags. The pigs are write-on-wipe-off piggies and were given to me by my boss years ago. The little black cat under the calendar was made by one of my cousin H's daughters when she was quite young. I forget who gave me the others I'm ashamed to say!
The calendar was made by my friend Phil. He started doing them last year for friends. I've blanked out his surname and phone numbers in case any spammers stumble across this blog!
Pinky gave me this one. Oh, you know me so well Pinky! You can see part of the potato underneath. It's very realistic. In fact, unnoticed by me, it fell into a box which was beside the fridge which Pinky took home because he wanted boxes to pack stuff in. When he looked in the box, he thought, "Why has Black Cat put a potato in this box?" and it was only when he saw the magnet on the back that he realised what must have happened and brought it back to me next time he came over!
Inside the fridge is cheese, olives, milk, butter and a few other bits and bobs.
Coincidentally, a friend emailed me this the other day:
"Ewwwwww" was my first reaction, but then I noticed the picture was called "Magnet.jpg". In any case, the friend who sent it to me is a cat lover so I knew he wouldn't be having anything to do with getting laughs out of cruelty.
Update to Arte y Pico Award
While I was at Abby's blog I saw she had also been awarded the Arte y Pico award and there are some rules which I missed:
Rules:
You have to pick 5 blogs that you consider deserve this award for their creativity, design, interesting material, and also contribute to the blogger community, regardless of language.
Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to his or her blog to be visited by everyone.
Each award-winner has to show the award and put the name and link to the blog that has given her or him the award itself.
Award-winners and the one who has given the prize have to show the link of "Arte y Pico" blog, so everyone will know the origin of this award.
To show these rules.
By the way, I expect all of you who have Zone Alarm know by now that the latest Windows update conflicts with it. Zone Alarm have issued a critical update but if you can't get onto the innernets, you can't download it (or read this for that matter, lol!). This is what happened to me in the middle of my last post. I got round it by rolling back to the previous System Restore point and then when I heard the next day (from Pinky) about the cause of the problem, I downloaded the Zone Alarm update. Then I allowed Windows to do its update and (fingers crossed) so far so good.
Have a good Sunday and a great week efurrycat:) xxx
I feel so touched and honoured because, “The ‘Arte y Pico’ award was created to be given to bloggers who inspire others with their creative energy and their talents, whether it be writing, artwork in all media. When you receive this award it is considered a ’special honor’. Once you have received this award, you are to pass it on to at least 5 others.”
Castle said, "...and finally I will give this to my friend Black Cat cos she makes us laugh and her blog is very entertaining." Thanks so much Castle! Actually I think my recent posts (specially the last one) may have had rather a "ewwwww" factor, so I apologise if anycat had to yak up as a result of reading it. Suffice it to say that I was in a bit of a "state" even before my Dad's phone call, having had a close encounter with the devil in a dream that morning which was utterly terrifying.
I would like to nominate for this award Beetle because her blogs are always a great read and she is certainly creative, likewise Mosaic Lady, The Opposable Thumbs Woman (who "plays" with strings), the Ballicai Momma who is a great author, Mickey's Mom coz she takes lovely photos of Mickey, Georgia and Tilley and I love Mickey's Thursday Thirteen Expressive Faces, Darling Millie's Mom who makes the World Famous and gorgeous Gizzy quilts and Ann, Maggy and Zoey because - well, I think you all know how sweet and talented they are. There are so many, many more who deserve this award but I have seen it on quite a few blogs so I think it will reach most, if not all, deservees before long:) If you have already received this award - well, you obviously deserve to have it more than once!
INTERMISSION
Windows Update kept nagging me to restart my computer so I eventually gave in (what part of their own question, "Restart later" do they not understand which makes them keep asking, I wonder?). Oh boy, how I wish I hadn't. Several weeks, well hours, well a long time anyway, and many Bad Words later with not being able to connect to anything, despite the interwebby connection being apparently healthily connectified, I resorted to going back to a previous restore point and here I am again, as I'm sure you are delighted to see. I'm getting a tad fed up with Windows updates screwing my computers...
Back to awards. Eric and Flynn gave Stormie the You Make My Day award posthumously coz inspite of her own sufferings she popped by their blog to give purrs to Eric when he was poorly and this made his day. Then Castle found that the Ballicais had given him this award so he has awarded it to all those who went by to wish Storm well on her final journey as he feels this is what she would have wished. Isn't that great?!
I currently have 197 feeds in my Bloglines and you all make my day, even if there aren't enough hours in it to get round to each of you every day. Which reminds me, if you don't see yourself in my blogroll it's because I stopped updating it coz I couldn't stay on top of it and it was getting so big and unwieldy anyway, but if you would like me to add you, let me know and I will:) I'd specially like to pass it to Lee County Clowder because they made my day by giving me the link to Castle's own blog, yay! Castle had told me that he had an award for me but I hadn't realised he'd started his own blog so couldn't find my award, even though I had Googled Castle in hopes of finding that he had started a blog of his own.
The 195th addition to my Bloglines is Wife in the North. I was watching Richard and Judy yesterday afternoon while also reading blogs when I noticed they were featuring a lady who started blogging through loneliness when she and her husband moved from London to the wilds of Northumberland. She has now had a book published about her experiences but she hasn't stopped blogging and it's an interesting blog, so I imagine the book will also be good.
I must just touch on the Ewwwwwy Thing again. I Googled and the first results concerned parasites that are very rare in the U.K., being mainly found in third world countries where the drinking water is often infected, or, for example, pork tape worms have found their way into the brain instead of the gut. "Have I eaten a pie containing dodgy meat?" I asked myself. Possible but unlikely. Google, Google, Google. Ha! Toxoplasmosis. I had forgotten about that one and I wasn't really aware that it's a brain thing. I found several articles and science blogs which were well-written in terms that the layperson can understand. Naturally I failed miserably to make a note of the links, duhr! Now it seemed to me probable that this was what Dad had referred to (it was a bad satellite link and about half of every third word dropped out). Now toxoplasmosis is probably not what you kitties want to even think about, since the preferred host for the parasite that causes it is, erm, the cat, but if it can't find a handy cat about, it will "adopt" another species. The surprising thing is that it infects not hundreds, not thousands, not millions, but billions of human beings all over the world, usually without causing any noticeable symptoms. But wait, I have been uncatted (sadly) for nearly five years, so if the blobs in my brain are toxoplasms (or whatever they're called) it beats me where they've come from, as they weren't there at my previous scan about 18 months ago. Patience Black Cat, just wait for your appointment with the neurologist...
Now I have seen around the blogs that some of you are having computer problems due to the hot weather. I believe the Skeezix household might be one such. The answer might be to build your own computers. This isn't as hard as you might think and can also provide fun employment for bunnies too. Go here for the clear, straightforward instructions.
Sorry this has once again been such a long post - that is if you've managed to get this far without going zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz! :) xxx
... Federer and Nadal are battling it out on Centre Court and it's so close it's edge-of-seat stuff! Wowee cazowee, it's two sets all and Nadal has just gone into the lead at 8 games to 7 in the fifth set. It's 9.12 p.m, 30 all. I'm busting for the human litter box but I can't leave sight of the telly now! Okay, maybe that was just a bit too much information... He's won! Nadal's won! I didn't mind which man won but it sure was a good match!
Okey dokey, enough already, this is not a sports blog. In fact I don't like much sport except tennis and horsey sports (so long as no horse is hurt or injured).
Nor is this a political blog, but I am a tad fed up with our present governent. If Gordon Brown was supposedly such a great Chancellor of the Exchequer, how come he didn't put anything away against a rainy day, such as we are experiencing now? And how come he got away with raiding all our pension funds? And how come this government managed to sneak in the abolishment of the lowest rate tax band without the general populace knowing anything about it until it was a done deal - without, of course, doing anything to compensate the low-paid, who are the only people it affects anyway? So the poor get even poorer. I can only be glad that I don't have children, because the amount of times this government has changed the education system it's a wonder kids manage to learn anything at all and the poor teachers! I don't think they have any idea of what curriculum they are supposed to be teaching from one month to the next. As for the National Health Service, don't get me started!
Cheysuli, in the highly unlikely event you don't get elected as President of the USA, please come over here and stand for Prime Minister at the next election!!! Perhaps you could manage Britain as well as America and Italy?
A friend emailed me a really funny animated .gif which I wanted to put here but it won't animate and as a still picture it is meaningless. Does anycat know how to post an animation to Blogger?
In recent news, THIS has made me pretty mad and I suspect a lot of other people too. Big Brother looms ever nearer!
In other news, I'm overjoyed that Dr. Tweety isn't giving up his blog entirely but is only calling upon da Momee's secretarial services less often during the summer because she is busy with her new business. All the best for great success Fab Five Momee!
While visiting the Fab Five, I discovered that Skeeter, who has just had his sixteenth birthday, is very ill. I'm sure he and his family would appreciate your purrs and prayers. You've probably all been to visit by now anyway and it's just me (as usual!) who is way behind with the news.
I found a link to this site on Oh Dear My Memory Has Failed Me's* blog. I think Jasper McKitten Cat was mentioned though. The site has all sorts of cool things so check it out! I have lots more much-loved family members but the graphics get a bit small if you add too many! I also got my font there so I don't have to keep "poking" the HTML to get the font I like.
Last but by no means least, thank you to everycat who has wished me well with the results of my brain scan. I must admit to being a tad anxious and hope I don't have to wait too long for the appointment with the neurologist. My Dad rang me today (well, yesterday now!) and I described what the scan found as best I could (he doesn't read my blog). He was a bit surprised and said it could be parasites. "WHAT??? In my BRAIN???" "Well, it could be [some long unpronounceable word]." I would have liked to have chatted more about this but he and my stepmum are staying with my sister and her family in Canada so he didn't want to talk for too long at their expense, I guess. He didn't say I was about to drop dead or go even madder than I already am (lol!) anyway, so all I can do is wait and hope for the best. Meanwhile I will email him the graphic I made based on the still picture I downloaded from the interwebby and Google this sort of stuff like crazy!
As I write this I've got the TV on and I'm hearing all the terrible news that's going on in the world, feeling that my problems fade into insignificance by comparison.
I'm a middle-aged woman who loves animals, especially cats, computers, puzzles, reading blogs, watching camstreams and, well, all sorts of things really!
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