Mommy Update

Heya friends! We wanted to update you on how our Mommy is doing after her scary experience.

As a reminder, on Thursday the bus Mommy was riding on had an electrical fire and the bus coach filled with very caustic fumes. Mommy is an asthmatic so the fumes caused her (and three others on board) to have an asthma attack. Though she was able to get the emergency symptoms under control (wheezing, gasping for oxygen, not being able to breath, etc) with her rescue inhaler that she always carries with her, she developed a very painful, deep cough that caused Daddy to take her immediately to her V-E-T. She was diagnosed with pulmonary pneumonitis (smoke/chemical inhalation) and the V-E-T put her on lots of meds and sent her home to rest with express instructions not to go anywhere for at least 48 hours or do anything that would cause her to breath in chemicals, etc (the doctor literally told her she was not allowed to clean the house all weekend). She was also warned that because her lungs are inflammed and somewhat burned and bruised, any bacteria or infection that got into her lungs would likely go straight into pneumonia.

Mommy is feeling better which is very good. We've been making sure that one of us is with her at all times. For example, last night she went to sleep with Captain Jack lying on her legs and Samwise lying beside her and woke up with Dante on her ankle and Fagin curled up to her neck. She is still coughing and it hurts very badly, but she is coughing less. She slept for 12 hours last night but we think that she needs to sleep lots so she can heal. She is trying not to think about how bad things could have been (her great uncle died from a bad asthma attack) for her and her fellow passengers but when she does it really scares her. We are taking care of that by purring at her as well as playing together in front of her so she is distracted. Dante is allowing her to brush him too so that she has something to keep her mind off of the scary stuff.

More than anything Mommy and us want to thank you for all our your good wishes and purrs and purrayers for her. Mommy has been moved to tears more than once when she realized how much love the kitties, woofies, buns and beans of the blogosphere were sending to her. We love you all and are grateful for the positive energy and love we have felt from you all. We'll update again soon and hope to get around to see some of our friends as well. Take care everyone and thanks again, truly.

We do have one favor to ask. We would appreciate it if we could all send some of our love and good thoughts to the people on the Gulf Coast who are watching Hurricane Gustav. Uncle Dave is from New Orleans and still has lots of family there. Last night Aunt Susan called and asked if we would be willing to lend our guest rooms to some of Uncle Dave's family that may flee from the Hurricane. Mommy told her to tell them to come on over and to bring their furries too. We purr and purray that everyone is okay and that the bad storm goes away!!

Easy Like Sunday Morning

My twin and I want to thank all of our friends for coming to our party. We had a great birthday celebrating with all of our friends and we hope that you guys enjoyed yourselves too! Thanks everyone!! We may just have to make the joint Dante and Kellie Birthday Celebration an annual event!

Whew! I think its going to take me a week or even longer to recover!! I think I may be a bit hung over from all the niptinis and nip rum so I am just going to take it easy - maybe take a few naps and then take a few more!

Mancat Monday - Piracy Lesson #2

For this Mancat Monday, Captain Jack will continue his lessons in Kitty Piracy. In this case, Captain Jack will demonstrate his daily workout which keeps him sharp, agile, and strong. On board the Black Furrball, these exercises would be performed using the ship's rigging. Since the Captain is currently landlocked in Georgia, he must improvise. In this case, Jack will be using his favorite office chair!

This first exercise, is called "Kitty Hanging Upside Down." As you can see, the Captain has a firm grip on the "ship" while he is hanging upside down - always prepared to attack from above. Attacking from above will allow Jack to surprise his opponents. This exercise should be done daily to keep you from getting a nasty headache when you need to be the most agile and ready to spring into attack.

The next exercise teaches one agility while handling a weapon. If you've seen any pirate films, you know that pirates will often carry knives in their mouths while climbing aboard an enemy ship. Because his Mommy will not allow the Captain to play with knives, Jack once again improvises - this time with a straw! As you can see he maintains the firm grip on the "ship" while he places the straw "knife" in his mouth, ready to attack any enemy pirates who dare stand in his way!

The very last lesson for this week, and the most important, is called attitude. When boarding an enemy ship, a good Pirate Kitty must display the most fearsome, scary, and intimidating attitude that he can. This picture shows the Captain practicing his "pirate attitude," complete with the straw knife in his mouth! Grrrrrrrr!!

That is our piracy lesson for this week. We also wanted to take this time to thank everyone for their well wishes for Daddy's family. Daddy's sister's surgery went well on Friday amd we are hopeful that she will get to come home from the hospital soon. Daddy's father is recovering at home and we are hopeful that he will quit smoking after this cardiac scare. Also, for the kitties who requested pirate badges for their blogs. We are going to work on getting them out to everyone this week. If you do want one, just leave us your pirate name and an email address in the comments and we'll get one to you!