Farewell, Beau

This is another really sad one for me.  I have known Beau for years.  I remember his first blog with the kitty with the moving tail along the top and side.  I remember his great bow ties, which he wore with such flair.  I was with him through the changes in his blog and the changes in his life.  Back when this blog was pretty new, I wrote a limerick for him, which you can find here.  I went through Cathy's illness and death with him and wrote him another limerick when he settled down with Rose and the Royals.  Now we have to say goodbye.  At the end of April, Beau started losing weight and becoming disinterested in eating.  A vet exam showed that he had some cancer indicators in his blood.  Last weekend, he started acting grrr-y with Rose and hiding.  The time had come.  The vet came to the house and helped Beau go to Cathy on May 15th.  Farewell, old friend.  I am sure that you and Cathy are together again and delighted to be with each other.

                                                       Beau was a gentleman cat through and through.
                                                       He loved us all, that much is true.
                                                            But he most loved Mom
                                                            And now he has gone
                                                       To be with her in a life ever new.

Farewell, Scooby

On Sunday, April 1, Scooby of Little Cat Feet suddenly ran off to the Rainbow Bridge.  He had been completely normal earlier in the day and had no health problems.  While his Mom was carrying her laundry basket, Scooby suddenly ran into the wall next to her.  She scooped him up in her arms and he had some kind of seizure, then he was gone.  She held him for a long time, unable to believe that he could pass away so quickly.  His litter mate, Shaggy was nearby and came to see what was the matter.  His Mom feels really bad and shocked by this.  Scooby wanted out to play in the grass in the morning, but she said no and now regrets it.  She shouldn't beat herself up over this.  Scooby is now running and playing in the best grass that there ever was.  I think that Scooby felt something inside of him go terribly wrong and he ran to his Mom, who always gave him love and protection.

I have been reading Little Cat Feet since I first discovered cat blogs and this really makes me sad.  You can find Scooby's happy limerick here.  I am really going to miss him.

                                                      Suddenly Scooby started feeling bad.
                                                      He ran to his Mom, so he wouldn't be sad.
                                                            He passed from her arms,
                                                            Where he felt safe from harm,
                                                      To the Bridge where he's running and playing like mad.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Happy St. Patrick's Day!  This is where Herman thinks the shamrock hat belongs.  I hope you all have a great time today and put on your green.  Herman and I both have ours on.  Well, Herman did have his on for a very short time, but I am wearing mine all day.

Working It Out

Thanks to Max the Psychokitty, I now have a solution to the 168 entry limit on the blog list.  I did find a way to remove extinct blogs from my reader, too.  The help section is useless here.  It says to look for the blue manage button on the dashboard.  There is no such button in this template.  I tried to access a blog that was completely gone from the reader and I got a note that directed me to the manage page.  I bookmarked the page to make sure I could find it again.  The page had a link back to the dashboard, so I started really hunting around the dashboard.  On the same line as the title of the reader there is something that looks like a black gear.  Clicking that will take you to the manage page and there you can stop following blogs.  Whew!  I am on my way to rebuilding my blog list

What to Do?

I really do want to get back to writing Kitty Limericks.  For that I need a fairly comprehensive and up-to-date blog list.  I started to go through my huge blog list to weed out the defunct blogs and found that Blogger would not let me save any changes I made.  I thought that maybe I needed to upgrade my template to make things work right, but that didn't help.  I contacted Blogger twice about the problem and got no response.  I decided that I would have to delete my blog list and start over.  I printed out the old one before I deleted it and have been rebuilding it.  To my disgust, Blogger has arbitrarily decided that 168 entries is the maximum for a blog list.  Once I got to 168, I could no longer add a link.  Now I am going to delete all the blogs I am following from the list and add new ones until I get back up to the maximum.  I don't know if this will be enough.  If it isn't, I will start following the left-over blogs.  I am not very happy with Blogger right now.  By the way, does anyone know of a way to stop following blogs that have been removed or are otherwise unreachable by clicking on their links?

Merry Christmas

I am sorry that this turned out all blurry.  My hand must have shaken as I took the picture.  I finally got my Christmas decorating, such as it is, done today.  I put up this little tree and decorated it with the Christmas cards I received from members of the Cat Blogosphere, got out Herman's stocking and put a couple of things in it and put a Christmas wreath on the front door.  This is the first time I have done any Christmas decorating since my Mother died.  I wish all of you a very Merry Christmas full of love.

Beau

This is Brutus on the left and Gentleman Beau on the right sharing a bed and acting like brothers.  I didn't originally intend to write another limerick for Beau.  I had already written one for him years ago that you can find here.  I did my pick a random blog thing and came up with Jersey Fresh.  I decided to write a limerick for Emily first, then Brutus, then Marigold.  I spent an evening reading the blog and went to bed, thinking about Emily.  As often happens, when I woke up the next morning, I had a limerick in my head, but it wasn't about Emily; it was about Beau.  Not being one to waste an inspiration, I decided to go with it.

Beau lived and blogged happily with his Mom Cathy for many years.  Not too long ago, Cathy got an infection that just wouldn't heal.  She had other health issues as well and she eventually died, leaving Beau all alone.  Arrangements were made to have Beau move to New Jersey to live with a neighbor of Rose and the Royals. At first things seemed to be working out, but Beau had issues that weren't being resolved.  For one thing, the neighbor lived right next door to a large dog and that seemed to be upsetting Beau quite a bit.  Eventually, it was decided that Beau would move in with the Royals.  He was was given a room without other cats at first and was rather shy about the whole thing.  It didn't take him too long to decide that he was in a safe place and he started to come out and let Rose pet him.  Having been an only cat his whole life, he didn't take to the Royals nearly as quickly, but now he and Brutus have become very friendly.  I am thinking that it won't be much longer before they all get along famously.

                                                    Beau came to the Royals sad and afraid,
                                                    But for him cunning plans were laid
                                                                To treat him with care
                                                                So he would come out where
                                                    Welcome to the family he could be made.