Knock Knock!!

Captain Jack: Hey Fagin! Knock knock! Fagin: Captain Jack! You are talking to me! Oh wow!

Captain Jack: Yea yea, whatever. I said Knock knock!

Fagin: Who's here? Is it Aunt Susan?

Captain Jack: No Fagin, I am trying to tell you a joke. When I say "knock knock" you say "who's there."

Fagin: Right! But who is here? Is it Uncle Dave? He used to feed me you know. Maybe he brought me something to eat!

Captain Jack: No no no! Here, sit down and let me explain knock knock jokes to you.

***************************12 Hours Later**************************

Fagin: So you mean Uncle Dave is not here or do you mean that he is here and he didn't bring me any foods?

Captain Jack thinks: I am going to kill the kitten! No, I am going to sleep and when I wake up, this will all have been a very bad dream....

Fagin: I don't get it! Why is people knocking on doors funny? Are they going to be wearing a funny hat or something? I just wanted the foods that they brought. They did brings food didn't they? I so confused now.......

Mostly Wordless Wednesday

Fagin: Please Captain Jack!! Please look at me, please pay attention to me, please play with me, please love me!!! Captain Jack, me loves you!! Will you ever love me?!

Tuxie Tuesday Meme

Samwise was tagged by one of his woofie friend Titus for the six word memoir. Here are the rules:

1) Write your own six word memoir.
2) Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you’d like.
3) Link to the person that tagged you in your post, and to the original post if possible so we can track it as it travels across the blogosphere.
4) Tag at least five more blogs with links.
5) Don’t forget to leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play.
6) Have fun!!

Samwise's 6 word memoir is: Puppy Cat Trains Kittens As Pirates.

Samwise tags anyone for this meme who has not be tagged yet!!!

In other news, we have some friends that need our purrs and purrayers. Please think of these kitties often and send them healing energy too!

Keep fighting and get well soon friends! We are purring and purring for you!

Mancat and Mini-Mancat Monday

Captain Jack here! I want to show you kitties what my weekend was like. As you know, the kitten was hurt and had also gotten his first kitten SHOTS so we all kind of took it easy on him. I agreed not to whap him and hiss at him as I usually do and you will not believe what happened. Here's an example:

Yes, he followed me everywhere!! I jumped up on the table to eat and have a photo session and the little bugger followed me. Everytime I turned around, there he was. Just look!

I could not even take a nap on my own. Sigh. Mommy put my favorite blanket on the couch to protect it from the muddy doggies (it rained all weekend) and could I enjoy it all on my own? No, because HE was there. Sigh.

I think I deserve lots of treats for being such a good big brother! I want tons of extra treats and nummies so I can take my beautiful Lady Boo on a picnic - but the shadow kitten has to stay home!!

Sleepy Sunday

It's been a very sleepy weekend here at the Black Furrball. It's been raining and storming some too so we've been taking it easy. Aunt Susan came over Friday night and gave Fagin his first round of kitten vaccines (Mommy would have gotten pictures but she had to act as Aunt Susan's tech and hold Fagin while she injeccted him) and she looked at his leg too. She doesn't think it is broken but that he probably overextended his wrist landing from a jump. Since he is a kitten, he is playing really rough on the injured leg too - he managed to limp the worse he ever has limped while Aunt Susan was here so she got a good look at him.She asked Mommy to try to keep Fagin as calm and quiet as possible so he can heal. Yesterday was easy because he felt a little icky from his shot. Today he is feeling better and not limping but he really wants to play so Mommy fed him lots of stinky goodness and locked him into his room so he will sleep. We've decided to be lazy and sleep too to show our new little brother that all cats love their naps! Okay, we're going back to sleep now - YAWN! Night kitties!

Finally Friday

It's finally Friday and I am ready to Boogie on my Boogie Mat all weekend long!! Mommy gets a long weekend too - no day hunting for her on Monday so we are even more excited!

We must ask you kitties for something serious though. When Mommy and Daddy came home last night they discovered that the little kitten was limping. It appears that he has somehow injured one of his front legs. Mommy checked Fagin all over, looking for any swelling, etc and then called Aunt Susan. Aunt Susan thinks that he probably just strained something being a silly kitten. She's coming over tonight to check him and to give him his first kitten SHOTS!! We're trying to warn him about SHOTS but he's not listening. So if you kitties could keep Fagin in your purrs that his leg is okay and that the SHOTS go okay, we would appreciate it! We're also going to give Aunt Susan all of the responses to date on the poll for her vet clinic name and see what she thinks! Oh we can't (but Fagin can) wait to see our favorite Aunt tonight!!

Kinda Wordy Wednesay

How many kitties can you spot playing in the new cat cubes in this picture?

Captain Jack says: Keep that kitten away from me or you both get the laser eyes!!

Can You Help to Name the New V-E-T Clinic?!

Now for the Wordy part. As you guys probably already know, our Aunt Susan (who rescued Dante and Fagin) is also Dr. Aunt Susan, our V-E-T. Currently she is working as an emergency vet at a large clinic. Well, we have exciting news. Aunt Susan will be opening her own practice/clinic in the fall! And Aunt Susan needs the blogosphere's help too!!

Aunt Susan is trying to figure out what she should name her new clinic and she has asked us to get all of you involved. The clinic will be in historic Norcross, GA (in the historic downtown section if you google it). So far she has come up with two names and they are:

1. Sherwood Forest Veterinary Clinic

2. Ye Olde Norcross Veterinary Clinic

Now, Aunt Susan is willing to consider any and all suggestions that you have so you can cast your vote for an existing name or recommend an entirely new one! If you recommend a new name and she picks it, she promises to send you a prize package! Mommy says that we may just pick a winner somehow from everyone who enters a vote or suggestion and send them goodies too. We're going to make this a sticky post tommorow and keep the contest going for a few days (we'll find out when she wants to end it) and if you have any questions that we can answer to help you come up with a name, let us know and we will answer. Thanks for your help guys! We know Aunt Susan will appreciate it!

Tuxie Teacher Tuesday

Hey everykitty! Samwise here! I am so excited to get to blog again today. I've been watching how Captain Jack and Dante have been showing you how they are teaching Fagin how to be a big pirate cat. Today I want to show you my piracy attack lessons that I am teaching to the littlest pirate. My first lesson was in the covert attack. I showed Fagin how to hide and attack at just the right time. For this lesson, I let him attack my tail.
This was an attack from above lesson. I had the little guy jump off of the bottom step and attack my tail again so he could figure it out.

The next technique I taught was the face attack. I had Fagin use his claws and his teeth in order to perfect this attack.

Finally, I let Fagin build on the face attack with teeth and claw and added in the back leg kick. In this case, I had him bunnykick my nose to practice hitting the target. These lessons reminded me of the first pirate cat I ever trained almost four years ago. Can you guess who that was?

He certainly was one rowdy little pirate kitten and my best student ever. I love Captain Jack and I couldn't be prouder of how he turned out!

I wonder if Fagin will make me as proud?

PS: We are told that some of you are having problems seeing our bloggie right. We can see it fine so we do not know what is wrong or how to fix it. Anyone have any ideas??

Lessons on Sunday

It's Sunday morning here at Purrageous Pirates, and we were hanging out on our porch, enjoying the spring weather and sunshine when suddenly.......
Dante: Hey Captain Jack! Look!! Do you see what I see? Can you believe it? I thought it would take him longer than this!Captain Jack: Yep, I see it Dante. I guess we choose a quick learner to be our new cabin boy. Maybe soon he'll learn to stop annoying me! Now that would be a miracle!!

What did the Captain and First Mate see this morning? Who are they talking about? We'll give you one guess!!
Look! The kitten figured out how to get on the ledge on the screened porch, just like the big cats!!

He has walking on the ledge down pat already. Now he can window hunt just like the other cats!!

Fagin: I am glad that I have cool big brothers who teach me things every day! Gotta go now! You would not believe all of the cool things I can see from here!!!

Beans Is Weird

Hey everykitty! It's me again, the newest little Purrageous Pirate - Fagin.

Did you kitties know that Mommy told me that some people use my name to insult other people? How could being called me be insulting? I am cute and adorable. I am just a little kitteh and I loves everyone - kitty, woofie, bun, hamster and bean alike! How could something as cute as me ever be a bad thing?

I just do not get why beans have to come up with so many ways to hurt each other. I think maybe beans should try purring at each other more and getting mad at each other less. When I purr, I get snuggles and hugs and kisses. Maybe if beans purred they would get snuggles and hugs and kisses and feel too happy to be mean to each other. What do you kitties think?? Oh, I have to show you guys what my new friends Maggy and Zoey at Zoolatry made for me!! Look!!!

Isn't it wonderful? Mommy said I should have waited until the Zoolatry Mom said we could put in on the bloggie to post it, but I could not wait - I hope that this is okay. It s amazing how I went from just a little orphan kitten who almost died like my real birth siblings to a pirate-in-training with so many wonderful friends!! We love our bloggy friends and thank you again for your loving us back!!!!!!


PS- Bill! Come and play Bill!!! Mommy got new toys for us!! We needs to play!!!!!!

Thoughts on Thursday

Purrageous Mom again. I am not sure where to begin. When I wrote yesterday's post I was hurt and I was angry. This blog was always somewhere that I could go and just have fun. Innocent fun with peole who shared my love for fuzzy, four-footed children. Then reality intruded and something was pointed out to me that while probably meant as helpful, was approached utterly the wrong way....

I had thought about just leaving and not coming back because it left such an incredibly bad taste in my mouth. As the Meowers from Missouri said, my safe harbor was invaded and that was hard to deal with. Knowing that I had done something that could be misconstrued as being antisemitic was painful - no I do not think muffinmidi was implying that I am or was being antisemitic but when I googled "Fagin as a racial slur" up popped this blog. I had this image in my head of some neo-Nazi skinhead looking up their hateful sites and finding this blog. That made me feel physically ill. I choose not to make any decisions about this blog while angry or hurt. The question of changing the kitten's name bothered me all day too. I had an image of me calling him to come to me and screaming out a racial slur. Yeah, that made me cry even harder. Needless to say yesterday was horrible.

Then today, I went shopping. The kitten needed more kitten food (he eats like a pig!) and I was wandering the cat aisle. I was looking at all of the cat toys and saw this giant fish cat bed and thought "Oh, Diamond has one like that!" and I saw a lizard like toy and thought of Daisy and then the idea "I wonder if Mu Shue and company needs anything here" and I realized how much the cat blogs had become a part of my life. You guys had purred and purrayed for Fagin to live and how wrong it would be of me to let one comment take that support base from me.

All of this over the name of a kitten who is not even 8 weeks old and who does not weigh even 5 pounds yet!! I want to thank everyone who cared enough to come by and visit and leave their love and encouragement- some even more than once. PB&J - the poem is wonderful and made me cry when I read it. And all of you anonymous posters - what you guys said mattered and meant a lot. I feel like I "know" the steady cat bloggers but seeing these perfect strangers who posted for maybe the first and only time stop lurking just to tell me how much they love the boys and me meant a heck of a lot. I have more emails than I ever imagined and I will get around to answering them all, I promise!

So yes, the Black Furrball will sail again. I am not saying we will immediately begin posting again, but we will not delete the blog. We have also decided not to change Fagin's name. Heck, even me calling their pirate ship the Black Furball (A play on the Black Pearl) could be considered racist as a pirate ship being referred to as black could be seen as neagtive towards black people (remember the whole Scar issue with the Lion King). I've also decided not to enable comment moderation at this time. I reserve the right to change that, but for now, let's hope that this blog will help to serve as a reclaiming of the name Fagin for something other than prejudice. I always hate it when I hear the phrase "the n-word" because I believe that gives the real word way too much power. Maybe this blog will take some of that prejudice power away from "Fagin" too.

Again, thank you to everyone. I never ever anticipated over 80 comments would be left and all of them but one would be positive. You guys are wonderful and I am grateful to have such good furrends!! Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

I Am Sorry

Purrageous Mom here. We had an entire post that we were going to do today but after reading the comments from yesterday's post, I am very upset. Apparently our newest kitten's name is offensive to some. And it is considered by some to be antisemitic. Reading this made me cry.

First of all, I want to say that I had no knowledge that this name was ever used as a racial slur. We named the kitten after a character that we loved out of a book and a musical. The character was described as having grey hair and beard and since the kitten was grey, we thought it was a good match. Secondly, the idea that some people may think we are antisemitic is really bothersome as I am of Jewish desent and had family that were murdered in concentration camps during World War II. I realize that I could go on and on and try to defend myself, but I also realize that its probably pointless for some. After living in the South all of my life I understand that racism is racism and some people are never going to believe me when I proclaim my ignorance and my innocence. You will think what you will think and that makes me even sadder.

The idea that something that was so fun has now turned a lot less than fun is painful. I will speak to my husband about changing the kitten's name and I may delete this blog as apaprently it is ripe with racial slurs. If I do that I do not know whether I will start another one. I refuse to spend my time and energy on anything where I am known as a racist and an antisemite. This has hit me really hard, just knowing that I, who has always been taught about the horrible things that was done to my family, may now be classified with those monsters. I am not asking for your sympathy, I may just be saying good bye.

Attack Tabby Tuesday

Hello kitties! It's me, Fagin!! Mommy and Dante said I should post again this week so I said ok! I like posting and talking to all of my new friends. Today, I am going to show you the pictures Mommy took of me and my favorite big bro-furr playing. Dante and I play a lot. Mommy says he is teaching me how to fight like an adult kitty but I think Dante just likes to play too!! Look at him in these pictures! Sometimes, when I want to play and Dante is busy, I will attack his tail to get him to play with me. Dante has a fun tail to attack and he doesn't seem to mind that much....really, he doesn't

Sometimes Dante will lay on the floor and let me attack him. Mommy says that these pictures show how much bigger Dante is than me. Do you think one day I will be as big a mancat as Dante?

Sometimes I lie on the floor and Dante whaps me. In this picture I was grabbing for Dante's whiskers and nose. Don't I like vicious and mancatly? Oh I love playing with my bro-furr!!
This is a picture of me giving Dante my mean attack face - do you think I look scary? I want to look scary, like a mean pirate kitty so I can go sail on the Black Furrball and help take the tuna and nip boats just like my bro-furrs do!!

Is it Snow?

Look kitties! What is this? Could it be snow? Do they make snow that falls when flowers are in full bloom? It seems really warm for it to be snowing too - its supposed to be 78 degrees today- but it certainly looks like snow. What could it be?If that is snow, then those are some pretty big snowflakes. If you look really close, you will see that the snow is pink too! Does anyone have any idea what this could possibly be? Here's a hint....we posted a week or so ago with our predictions that this would happen soon....

Remember our pictures of our cherry tree in full bloom? Well, we did say when the blooms began to drop off it would look like it snowed in our front yard and so it does. We sent Mommy out to take these pictures so we could show you!

And here is the flag Mommy bought for the garden in honor of Captain Jack. It shows the Captain relaxing in a hammock.

This part of the spring always makes us sad because our favorite tree will not bloom for another year and Cherry Blossom Time has come to and end. However, our azaleas are blooming more and more each year and we hear that the hummingbirds are coming back to Georgia so Mommy will soon have those feeders out so we'll have more birdies to window hunt soon!!

PS - If you have time, please go and visit Tybalt. His Grandpapa is having emergency eye surgery today and his family could use all of our purrs and purrayers!

Going Orange!!

Every year on April 10, the anniversary date of the founding of the ASPCA in 1866, the ASPCA will be celebrating ASPCA Day and encouraging animal lovers of all ages nationwide to GO ORANGE FOR ANIMALS! Going Orange on ASPCA Day is a tribute to the work of the ASPCA and a celebration of compassion and kindness for all living things everywhere.

Well, when Dante heard this, he decided the best way to go orange today was to do it himself as he is the best orange thing we have on the Black Furrball. Enjoy his orange photo montage!!

My First Tabby Tuesday

Hello. This is Fagin and this is my very first post ever. Mommy is helping me because I am too little to type well. Mommy says that I already have lots of friends in the bloggysphere, so I wanted to tell all of my friends hello. Dante says that Tuesday can be "Tabby Tuesday" on the bloggysphere so I thought for my first ever Tabby Tuesday, that I would show you around my room in my new home!

This is Dante. He is my furry bestest friend and my big brother too! We plays lots and lots and I love him lots too!!

Here is Dante with my blue box! Dante says you kitties call it a PTU. My blue box came with me from Aunt Susan's (I used to call her Food Lady) and Uncle Dave's (I used to call him Food Man) house. Mommy and Aunt Susan put it in my room so I would have something to remind me of my first house. I likes my blue box a lot!

This is my Cheese Chase toy and its lots of fun. I like to whap the balls and make them move. Dante plays this with me too - he sits on one side and I sit on the other and we hit the ball to each other. I really do love Dante.

This is my food and water in my room. Dante says I am a messy eater but I say food is fun to play in!

This is where I sleep in my room. See my blanket and my Cuddles? The blanket came in my blue box with me and smells like my first home. Mommy put it on the big human bed in my room and I love to sleep on it. My Cuddles is wonderful! See him next to my blanket?

Cuddles is mine favorite. I cuddle with him every night when I sleep. Mommy said he is actually a wolf slipper of Uncle Dave's but I say he is my Cuddles. Uncle Dave made sure to bring him to my new home so I would not have to sleep alone. I love mine Cuddles!!And look who is just outside the door of my room. My biggest brother Captain Jack! He has quit hissing and growling at me, and he has started to play with me by whapping me lots. I hope he will like me soon, so we can play!Thank you kitties, for visiting me. Would you like to come over and play? Dante says that bloggy kitties can telyport which means come and play. I wold love to meet you all and I have toys I could share too!!