The local watering hole

What a pretty little dish of flowers on our dining room table! Sarah painted the dish at one of those pottery places earlier this summer. The inscription inside the bowl spells out her name in Runes.

Try telling that to Elmer.



This is Elmer, who swears the runes spell out E-l-m-e-r.

We have four cats.
Yes, I said four.
No, we don't live on a farm or even in the country. Our four felines all are in-door urban cats.

The feline takeover of house and home has been a gradual process. Elmer and Fern are both 6 years old. Fannie is 4 and Lester is our baby, at almost 1 year.

This is Fannie. She loves to drink out of her bowl. Did you know it says F-a-n-n-i-e in runes inside?
Our lives have become an endless battle against fur tumbleweeds and hairballs and the ever present need to scoop litter boxes. Our cats are quite particular. With the addition of each cat, we added one more litter box than we had cats. Following this formula, we should have 5 litter boxes for 4 cats.

We have 11.
Yes, that's right, 11 litter boxes.
Our babies are particular. The litter boxes must be scooped daily or somebody gets upset. We think we know who, but without videotaped proof, we won't name names for fear of retribution.

This is how Elmer spends most of his time. He's easy going and drools when he kneads your lap. He's variously known as Elmer-aten, Yelmar Myousetranovich and His Gorgeous Organgenous. Most often, we just call him Elmer-pie.

This is Fern. She is a ferocious hunter, having caught chipmunks, giant spiders and, unfortunately, gerbils. Fern is also know as Fernastia, Queen Neferntiti and Furnace. Fern tends to keep to herself, but she sleeps on my feet every night.

Every single night.

Fern is also our most emotionally fragile baby, as really, all royalty is. When feeling benevolent, Fern will grace a lap with her presence and procede to knead said lap with a strength that could prepare bread dough for rising.

Here is Fannie again. Her favorite household tasks are making beds and folding laundry, which probably accounts for why I have to pick the fur off my lips every morning. Fannie spends her life torn between her light side and her dark side.

Most of the time, the dark side wins.

She frequently reminds us that old wive's tales are based in truth. You know the one about cats smothering babies?

Let's just say, Fannie keeps us in line with the knowledge that she could "suck our breath out" at any time.

On her lighter side, Fannie often purrs so hard, she chokes.

And this is Lester, our newest addition.

Lester thinks he's bigger than Elmer and he takes everything his big sister Fannie tells him to heart. He's the only one of our cats that allows us to hold him, though he's not much for laps. He's affectionately known as Lester-pester and Lesterino.

Lester has enjoyed reading the stories of man-eating tigers that Melissa is so fond of and lets us know we are fortunate to still be alive.

He could devour us at any time.

We enjoy being owned by our cats, except for the occasional argument over whose turn it is to scoop the litter boxes.

And we try to keep the fresh water and flowers in the water hole.