Happy Birthday, Dorothy!

Today Miss Dorothy Hyacinth turns one year old!  To celebrate, I thought I'd show a year of Dorothy in pictures.

January - February:

(pictures taken by Jessica Seiders of www.wickedgoodbulldogges.com)

March:

April:

May:

June:

July:

August:

September:

October:

November:

December:

You've come a long way, Dorothy!  Here's to another great year!

Dear Granny and Grandfather,

Thank you for my new bed!

It is very comfortable, and I like how its colors and pattern match my stripes and spots.

There is only one small problem--a glitch, if you will.  I'm finding it a little small and its size hinders my ability to stretch out.

Maybe we could send it back and replace it with a large?

Love your favorite granddaughter,

Posy.

Christmas on Spruce Street

I have never had a tree in my apartment here, and do not really have any plans to ever do so.  First, it's a small apartment; second, I have two cats who would climb a tree and a bulldogge who would chase them up it; and third, every year my landlord puts up a tree right outside my door:

As you can imagine, Dorothy was very interested in the tree that magically appeared right outside of her front door.  Surprisingly enough, however, she's been interested in a very non-destructive way.  She sniffs the tree as she passes, and if allowed, she would attack the animals and dolls underneath it, but so far she has obeyed my command to "leave it!" whenever she veered too close.

Plum has also come out to inspect the tree.  Posy continues to walk out with me every morning, though, and she also continues to walk straight down the hallway, instead of turning right to explore the tree.  True to her scrooginess about Christmas, Posy is snubbing the tree.

I had less luck with the cats disinterest while wrapping gifts.  They were very much not disinterested, to use a double negative.  They wanted to help with each gift and each rolling out of the wrapping paper.  I didn't even use ribbon this year, but that did not help stanch their interest.

And as the presents slowly came out of the bags and were wrapped and placed elsewhere, the cats went into the bags:

During all this, Dorothy was moping in the bedroom and occasionally whining about how No One Ever Plays With Her and oh! Life Is So Hard.  This was fortuitous, since I was able to wrap Dorothy's gift without her seeing it.

Dorothy is not yet aware of the fun in store for her--a trip in the car, cousins, plates of cookies, wrapping paper, uncles, aunts, grannies and grandfathers, new trails to walk on!  She is in for a lot of merriment, and a whole lot of cheer.  And permit me to mention again:  holiday cookies!

Cats on the Hearth

My living room is generally quite toasty warm, but you wouldn't know this from looking at my cats.  The minute I turn on the light on the table, the cats crowd around it like they were at a much needed campfire.

Posy will spend hours underneath the lamp, and quite often her fur gets very hot to the touch.

Plum, on the other hand, tends to leave after he's warmed up.  He'll stay by the "fire," say, for as long as it takes to cook a s'more.

While the cats are sunbathing, Dorothy will often jump onto the couch to see what they are doing.  She's always worried that they might be eating something which she, Dorothy, should be eating.  Here's a picture I took of such a moment.  In it, you can see Dorothy is looking rather pensive, like she's trying to think what it is she forgot to do....

I'm sure it will come to you eventually, Dorothy!

A Dorothy Xmas, Take Two

I debated getting Dorothy a nice gingerbread man costume to wear for the holidays, but then spotted this and thought it would be the better choice:

Apparently, I thought wrong.

She's supposed to look like a nice, wrapped Christmas gift, but instead looks like she had fisticuffs with a traffic cone and lost.

Oh well, Dorothy!  Perhaps we'll have better luck with my third Dorothy Christmas cheer idea....

Dorothy thinking, please help.

Bah Humbug!

And add to that, a Fa la la la laaaaa, la la la pfffft!

In this next picture, I think Posy's tongue is the equivalent of her flipping me the bird:

Posy is a scrooge!

It's Plum's Turn To Be Festive!

My British Shorthair, Plum, is a cat with dignity.  He's the kind of guy who would choose to wear a pinstriped waistcoat, even on Saturdays and even in the a.m., and perhaps with a bowler hat.  (I admit to trying on several occasions to get my mother to sew him such a weskit, but she, wisely, will have nothing to do with that project, for she knows--that way crazy lies.)

Anyway, prior to tonight's endeavor, I figured Plum would be my pet who would least tolerate wearing Christmas cheer.  But surprisingly, I was wrong about that.  He actually stayed quite still while he was being "dressed," and only gave me cranky ears with perhaps a bit of recrimination around the eyes.  But no wriggling!

Here is the fine gentleman in his Santa Claus necktie.  Behold!

Isn't he handsome!

I also made him try on Posy's santa hat, although I wasn't able to get a very clear picture:

What a cooperative Sir Plum!