Pls vote for me!

Etsy Challenge, in its own words:

Welcome to The Etsy Challenge. Here Etsians compete in 12 different categories each week. The winners of each category will compete the following week for the Weekly Grand Champion.

This week my Lark's Spicy Footy Salve is taking on all comers! Well, okay, it's up against four other pretty awesome things in the Candles/Bath/Body category.



I'm not gonna win if y'all don't go and vote for me. I can only vote for myself once, after all! Please go here and add to my tally:

http://etsychallenge.blogspot.com/2008/09/929-candlebathbeauty-challenge.html

If I win, next week I'll be in the Weekly Grand Champion challenge, so I'll need your votes again. I'll let you know, and thanks for voting for me!

Patron Saints

A discussion on a mailing list I frequent provoked me into choosing appropriate patron saints for the cats. Am I a dork? Yeah, probably. But it was kinda fun, so there you go.

For Loiosh, who was born on or around April 26: Saint Mark the Evangelist, one of whose signs is a winged tiger.



Chocolate and Samson are brothers. I know they were born in late May but I never did write down the exact date, so I tried to choose the same birthday for the two of them. Saint Simeon Stylites the Younger, May 24, seemed perfect for cranky, isolationist Samson but nobody on that day really felt right for Chocolate.

Birth takes its sweet time; it's entirely possible that Samson was born one day and Chocolate the next. Saint Zenobius of Florence, known for miraculous healings and raising five people from the dead, died the 25th of May in 417. Given Chocolate's illness when he was little (a tale I tell elsewhere) and the fact that I could well have named him Miracle, Zenobius seems a perfect fit.

Thank you to the person who gave me the idea -- you know who you are!

Neglected Kitteh

Not that he'd mind.

In all of my many posts about Loiosh (and the few mentions poor Chocolate has gotten), I don't know that I've ever mentioned Samson at all.



This is Samson. He hates you. He hates everyone in the world*. The Demon Eyes effect is from the flash, but the expression on his face? That's there naturally.

I don't talk about him much, because when I think about him I'm sad and frustrated. Much like Taltos, I never managed to do anything to improve his attitude on life. Unlike Taltos, he's not afraid of much; he just hates everyone in the world*.



* This is not actually true. He quite likes Chocolate, who is his brother. And despite the ongoing and rather loud battles he has with Loiosh, he dearly loves the kitten. But he hates all the other cats in the world, and he hates dogs, and he especially hates humans. This totally includes me. I still think of myself as his Momma, though.

Evidence of Samson liking Loiosh:



If Samson understood the web, had an idea what pictures were, and had any clue that I was admitting to others that he likes the kitten, he would kill me in my sleep. Possibly he wouldn't even wait until I was asleep.

Pets are supposed to teach you about unconditional love. Samson has, in a way -- he hates me, and yet I love him. I worry when I haven't seen him. I greet him every morning (he glares at me). If I can sneak up on him, I'll pet him. It's brief when it happens, though.

I've pretty much given up trying to wean him of his hating. Despite it he's generally a pretty happy and serene cat. Healthy as a horse which is good given how exciting it is getting him to a vet. And really, what more can you ask for?

I could ask for Samson-snuggles, but I'm never gonna get them. And that's okay.

A Guest Post

After several requests I've decided to let Loiosh give his own view of weekend before last. Read on...

--

Hi! I've commented in a couple of people's journals but I never had the nerve to make my own post. It's a lot of work but my Momma said she'd type for me and put in the pictures. I don't really understand pictures but she said they look different to humans. And most of them are of me so that's okay.

Momma calls it the Weekend of Orange, Occasionally Polydactyl Kittens. I'm not polydactyl but the kitten I met was! He lived at the site but came over to play with me for a while.



Momma fed him some, too, but he and I had different food in different bowls. Momma says that's a good idea because we don't know him very well.



That's us playing under Momma's chair. That picture was taken by Tamsin, who's Momma's friend and knows how to give good scritches. She took a lot of pictures of me that weekend.

Momma met some tiny tiny kittens (I didn't). They're only three weeks old but they all already have homes they're going to go to.



I was never that little.

Momma says one of them is polydactyl, too. He peed on her and she was grumpy, but of course he did, she was rubbing his belly!

It was really windy and Momma was pretty stressed, but I've got used to wind and I was okay. I slept a lot.



That's Momma's knee on the left.

I wore my wings almost all weekend, and people made cooing noises a lot. I guess they think it's cute.



That's Auntie Dharma's feet in that picture.

I slept in a lot of weird positions. Momma and Aunt Tamsin call this one Ikea Cat, Assembled without Instructions. I call it pretty comfortable.



I did get up and eat, too. Those are Momma's bright bright blue shoes.



Momma calls this one Praying Angel. She totally put my paws that way. I wouldn't have done that on my own.

But I was asleep, so oh well.



And here are some pictures my Momma thinks are great. I don't know, I'm just sleeping and that's my tongue. So what?







I met a lot of dogs, including a border collie kitten who wanted to play a lot, and a mastiff who was really really big and wanted to play too. I arched up and hissed but he didn't get it and his momma and daddy and my Momma had to sort of sit on him.

There was a bird on someone's shoulder but Momma said I couldn't get too close. I just wanted to play! Momma says it was a cockatiel and that compared to the bird's momma she's a wuss, but I don't get that.

Lots of people petted me and I went for walks and ate lots of bugs and almost caught a baby rabbit. Momma wouldn't let me, though. I just wanted to play with him! He was really really fast.

Auntie Dharma gave me milk with tuna oil in it. It was SO SO GOOD.

Momma wanted to leave early so we did. I wanted to stay but she's the one who drives so I was kinda stuck with it. Oh well -- I had a good time anyway!

Hi to all my furiends who wanted me to write something!