It seems that a lot of us have cats - does this mean that those intelligent enough to have cats are intelligent enough to appreciate/enjoy the writings of Mr Fforde? And how do you choose their names?

We've got two cats - Hodge the Podge and Hedwig Pusscat. Hedwig is a long haired tortie who is very shy, very slim and had to have all her teeth removed last year. She looks like an owl, hence the name. Hodge is a fat ginger tom (who adores me!) named after Dr Johnson's cat because he too 'is a fine cat, a very fine cat indeed.'

When I met the Dodo, he had a short haired tortie called Spitfire because she was, lived til she was 20. And until last June we had a lovely black cat called Colditz. We picked her up with Hedwig from the Cats Rescue and she tried to escape - so it was either Colditz or Stalag 13!

Wouldn't be without them - as the Dodo says, a house is not a home without a cat.

No cats for me... no space, conditions to have a pet.
and i've never been used to having them, all we had when i was little was a canary and 2 budgies.

my gran has a cat... and she has chickens as well, and used to have turkey and a mule...

i had a fright with dogs when i was little so that won't be an option, i don't think.

i've got two (they are brother & sister) both almost 2 years old:
ame (pronounced ah-may, japanese for rain) is the little girl who has a few too many toes on her paws. her extra toes are opposable, so she can make a fist when she hits her brother.
sasseen (pronounced as it looks) from a book my fiance was reading at the time- he loves attention and will usually end up knocking things over whilst rubbing up against them.

i knit them their own cat toys, and i'd be happy to make some knitted catnip toys for members of the fforums- just email me your mailing address and give me about a week to get to the post office!

jenn aka neliamne

Nope. No cats for me either. No pets at all in fact.

Well as many of you know I have dogs. Well, they're Claire's dogs, really; Bob the Happy Idiot cavalier and Mia the Knickerthief bolognese. (They're both aristocracy, you know; I recently discovered that Mia's proper kennel name is Angelina .... Diabolica would be more like it).

We never had dogs when I was a child though. The only pet we ever had on a permanent basis was a lost cat we called Moggy ...."she can stay just until we find out where she's from" ... and then she was there the next 20 years.

I'd like a cat. I'm not sure I'm in the majority on that one, though.



- - -
I am very interested in the Universe. I am specialising in the Universe and everything surrounding it. - E. L. Wisty

I am not employed by any cats presently, but my sister used to work for a fairly neurotic burmese cat called Ellie (short for elouise) who liked sleeping on her staff's faces. Inhaling cat hair (still attached to the cat) is not recomended at 2 am, as heart attacks may ensue.
She employed new staff when my sister moved house, as she couldn't take the stress of a cat box. Or a move at all.

We used to have dogs, when we were childeren. And cats. And gerbils. And many other things: chickens, radishes, trees...

I have a yucky story invovling a horrible awakening caused by one old and lovely dog.... let me know if you want to hear it...



My reality check has just bounced again.......

We would probably have cats, but my mother and I are both allergic, so we have birds - a cockatiel named Romana who will be 19 on May 3, three parrotlets (all different species) a conure and a canary.

My brother and his wife have 2 cats.



--------------
"I've often said that the difference between British and American SF TV series is that the British ones have three-dimensional characters and cardboard spaceships, while the Americans do it the other way around."
--Ross Smith

Hi Magda - What's a conure please?

It's a type of south american parakeet (small parrot with long tapered tail). A bunch of species were originally all grouped in the family "conurus", then later split into several separate ones, but aviculturists still refer to them all as conures.

Technically my guy, Jester, would be a maroon bellied parakeet (but here in the states the term 'parakeet' is used to refer to budgies).

He's a very cute parrot (he'll tell you so, in English) about 9 inches long, including the tail, and weighs about 90 grams. You can see pics of my birds here:
[www.geocities.com]

We have 4 cats, as most of you know. I've always had cats ever since I was a little child. I apparently had a knack of getting wild cats to follow me around as if I were the Pied Piper or something.

There's our gray short hair, Scooter, named because he was the runt of his litter but he turned out to be HUGE (he's 17 lbs!). Kind of like naming a really big guy "Tiny".

His sister's name is Crickett. So named because when we first got her our basement was full of crickets and she used to go eat them. Then there's the fact she's smokey black (long hair) and used to hop everywhere. Mostly she looks like a drowned rat/bat hybrid. She's huge too. She's 16 lbs!

Loki was a feral kitten but has adapted extremely well to civilized life in the house. He's a 9.5 lb white long hair with orange/creamsicle splotches in a van pattern. He was named after the Angel Of Death in the movie "Dogma" as well as after the Norse god of Mischief and Evil. He was extremely mischievous as a kitten. He still is to a point, but he'd rather mother Odin.

Odin is my new baby. He's a purebred RagaMuffin, who at just 6 moths old already weighs 10 lbs and is well on his way to being over 20 lbs like many males of his breed. He's named after the Supreme Norse god who was in charge of all of them. Talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy about that one! He's one "large and in charge" type cat! He's funny though.

I need to update my web page soon, but if you'd like to see our babies, you can go to:

[www.geocities.com]

and there are some more current pics of my babies at:
[pub54.ezboard.com]
and
[pub54.ezboard.com]
and
[pub54.ezboard.com]

You know, I think I'm qualified to put "Cat Herder" on my resume and as my occupation on my tax forms!



Post Edited (04-25-03 18:03)

Hello everyone

I've been lurking for about a week, having just found this great website. I am totally addicted to Mr. Ff's books and can't wait for 'The Well of Lost Plots'.

I am also a cat owner, or rather I am owned by a brother and sister, Perry (aka Periwinkle), a rather large ginger and white tabby who didn't know when to stop growing, and his much smaller tortoiseshell sister, Tansy. They have just celebrated their fourth birthday on the 8th April. Both are shorthaired, although you would never guess that if you went by the amount of moulted fur that decorates my carpets every day.

Oh yes, and I really am a Swindonian born and bred - I've lived here all my life, so I just couldn't resist using 'Swindonian' as my user name.

Naomi



Naomi

Welcome Swindonian!

PSD usually does this but I think I may have got in first - only bold enough to do so because of the bottle of Sauvignan inside me!

Welcome to the Fforum! At one stage we set up a Nextaholic's Anonymous, but none of us felt a pressing need for treatment...

The only reason I'm normally first to welcome poeple is because I'm always lurking about looking for an excuse to change the concersation to something random.



PSD

==========

This is the work of an Italian narco-anarchic collective. Don't bother insulting them, they can't read English anyway.

Hey Swindonian, WELCOME!!

Okay PSD - concersation - explain that please

Now watch --- he'll edit his post and pretend not to know what you're talking about......

While he's editing can he repeat the instructions to post a picture within the profile? I can't find it but I've found my picture!

Ta

The picture has to first be uploaded onto the web somewhere linkable. Then you can just edit your profile, and insert the URL (web address) for the photo in the box labeled "Image URL"

For those who don't know, I am owned by a large and mindbogglingly intelligent tabby cat called Minsky who rules benevolently over me and three other cats. Chomsky is Minsky's brother, and although he looks quite like him he is very different in personality; he snaffles any food left unattended, and spends the rest of the time fast asleep on the sofa. The other cats are called Klinsmann and Heidi, originally Klinsmann and Bierhoff, but then Heidi turned out to be a little girl. These two are ginger, and because they're smaller than the tabbies they believe they are still kittens and act accordingly.

Minsky used to post on the old Fforum, but on this one there seems to be no way of getting him his own identity. He finds this rather annoying, but every now and then he swallows his considerable pride and dictates something for me to post under my name. And by the way, he says hallo, and extends his own purrrrrsonal welcome to all new members.



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That which does not kill us makes us stranger.
(Llewelyn the dragon, Ozy and Millie)

Sarah

I don't believe you've ever told us, Sarah, who or what Minsky is named after (and if you ever did I've forgotted). I should be grateful for the explanation (if any).



- - -
I am very interested in the Universe. I am specialising in the Universe and everything surrounding it. - E. L. Wisty