Monday, February 21, 2011

Uh-oh! Freya almost lost her spring toy!

Freya writes:

Mommy and I were playing with my favorite green spring, which I use as a fetch toy, when I realized I had to go pee.  I took my spring with me, because I didn't want to have it stolen in the meantime.  Mommy told me, "Don't you DARE put that spring in the box!"  I set it down there anyway.

Then, I went pee next to it.  "Gross, icky!" said Mommy. When I scratched to cover up my pee, I was very careful to not cover up the spring, because she told me if I covered my toy that it was going away and never coming back. I jumped out, then Little Bit came in the room. Bit took one look at the box, turned to Mommy with a "WTF is THAT doing in THERE???" look, and walked out of the room again!

Mommy said she will sanitize my spring and let me play with it again.  Thank you sooo much, Mommy!  I love you, and I love my spring!  Mommy says that it's lucky my spring's plastic, so it's easy to sanitize.

Friday, February 18, 2011

Annual Purrformance Review of 2010


 Review of:  Mommy (aka our typist)
Date:  2/18/2011
Reviewed by:  the PDX pride of Rori, Freya, Heimdall, Carbon, Little Bit, Starla, and Tabby

Quantity of Output:

Mommy increased the quantity of her output this year, and detailed the most important events of our lives, including deaths and adoptions, with many pictures and video alongside the written journals.  She has also posted every one of Tabby's visit diaries from this past year, an improvement over the previous year.  She fell short of a purrfect score in this category because she didn't post every week for us, but we give her a high score anyway.

Score:  3 paws

Quality of Output:

As always, we are quite pleased with Mommy's choices of pictures, videos, and anecdotes written on our blog.  Most of us helped choose the pictures by pawing the ones we wanted when she edited them, and meowed our choices of stories we wanted written, and our meows were heard and accommodated quite nicely.

Score:  4 paws

Client Pawticipation:

Mommy has increased our readership in two ways this past year:  Networked Blogs and Tabby's Facebook page.  Both links are on our sidebar, for those on Facebook.  Networked Blogs posts our blog as an item in our followers' news feeds on Facebook, so they can easily find our newest posts and click through to read them.  Tabby's Facebook page has copies of each of her visit diaries, plus pictures and discussion topics.  Our Networked Blog fans are mostly members of the Cat Blogosphere, and we're very glad to have this additional way to connect to our readership.  We have also gotten more comments on our blog through this method of publicity than we did the previous year.

Tabby's Facebook page really took off this year, by leaps and pounces.  She is very happy that more people are aware of and asking questions about her therapy cat work.  Because of this added publicity, she was featured on Marg's Animals' blog and interviewed on the Canidae company blog, as well as offered a sponsorship from Canidae/Felidae (which she has accepted and will be sending in the paperwork shortly).  Most of her Facebook fans are not members of the Cat Blogosphere, although some are.  As of this date, she has 660 fans subscribed to her twice-monthly visiting diaries and other posts.

Score:  4 paws

Pawticipation (Part II):

We have not been to many of the Cat Blogosphere special events, due to the changes in our household that occurred throughout this past year.  We regret that, but it is not Mommy's fault.  None of us felt like pawticipating much.  However, we wish to thank each and every one of you for your support of all of us throughout our grief and the comments and purrrrayers.  We also wish to thank you for your constant support and encouragement of our adoption of the kittens, who have brought us much joy in the midst of our sadness and continue to be a light in our lives.

Score:  3 paws

Client Satisfaction:

We have recieved so many pawsitive comments and feedback on our blog posts; thank you all very much for all of it.  We love reading what you have to say, and are purry glad that we purrvide interesting blogs for you.

Score:  4 paws

Overall Rating, Comments, Suggestions:

Mommy's overall score is very high this year.  She was attentive to our needs, in speech, photos, and video, and also in silence when we needed to take time away from typing to curl up and purr.  This coming year, we hope to score higher in the area of group pawticipation, but we are quite pleased overall and will continue to guide Mommy so that she purrvides more excellent posts and journals for everyone to read.

Final Purrformance Review Score:  3.6 paws out of 4.  Very good, Mommy!

Love,
the PDX pride.

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Therapy Cat Tales from 2/4/11

Tabby writes:


This may be my last Friday visit to H., because of scheduling conflicts with Mommy's work.  Don't worry; we will still visit!  It'll just be on another day, probably on Wednesdays or possibly on Thursdays.  Mommy says for me to be glad I'm a kitty, that I don't need to worry about things like scheduling conflicts or politics or any of that.  I don't care what my schedule is like, as long as I get to eat, drink water, play, sleep, and see my friends!  :)  >^..^<

It was a sad day on Friday.  Rest in peace, Mrs. E.  :'(  I loved visiting with you, and I wanted to come say goodbye to you, but we didn't want to intrude on your last time with your family.  I don't know if you knew, but they were standing all around your bed, talking to you, with the lights down very low.  One was chanting some kind of a prayer.  We stood outside in the hallway, right outside your door, and I lay down in my stroller while Mommy said a prayer for you and for your family.  Much love to you and yours, and I'll look for you when I eventually cross over the Rainbow Bridge!  I'm sure your furry family and loved ones were there to greet you as you passed.

Another friend may not be there when I visit again in two weeks.  May she rest peacefully in God's arms when it is her time.  That's the sad part of my job; saying goodbye to friends, knowing that they may not be there the next time we visit.  We take comfort in knowing that I did my part to make their lives here a bit more joyful.

The first thing I did when I got up to my floor was greet the new nurse.  I love making new friends!  She was so nice, and gave me ear scritches.  Then, she said that two people were waiting especially for me in the TV room!  Wow!  Sure enough, they had their printouts of the day's schedule, with the part with "Tabby the Cat" folded to show on the top!  That's ME!!!!!  :)  >^..^<  G. wanted me to show off my tricks, but I could feel the sad atmosphere from Mrs. E.'s room and didn't really want to do any of them.  However, after about 5 minutes, I did walk on my leash and everyone smiled and laughed.  After that, I asked Mommy for pets, then sat on G.'s walker seat (she was sitting in a chair at the time, so her walker seat was empty) while she petted me and M. petted me.  Then, we made our rounds through the 10 or so people in the TV room, two of which had wheeled down just to see me because they'd heard I was there.  One lady even got to take her medicine a half hour later because she hadn't yet visited with me!

After the TV room friends, we made our way down each of the hallways on the floor, stopping in to see friends and new people.  One lady, who was there for just a few weeks anyway, was just leaving and going to go back home to her very own kitty!  She had her husband stop pushing her chair so that she could pet me.  I purred and purred for them both!  I was happy to hear that she could go back home to her own kitty.

When we were done, Mommy called Daddy and he came to get me.  He and I drove to go get our friend Erin and her little boy JJ, then came back to pick Mommy up after her work.  Erin and JJ got to spend the weekend with us!