Fun with (near) Alex

Hi everycat,

It's been WAY too long since I last blogged. Sorry. A belated merry Christmas and happy holidays to you all.

We've had a very low-key Christmas. The weather's been warm and we've all been busy adjusting to life with a babybean in the house. As far as I can tell, this has mostly involved hanging out in the living room and watching the cricket (the sport, not the insect) live from Melbourne, Huffle, Gypsy and Tasha's hometown. I've been surprisingly chilled out, and spend a lot of time in my favourite chair:
Kate is 'very proud' of how I'm coping with the arrival of baby Alex. I'm not a big fan of the crying, but I'm not freaked out either. I don't even mind being reasonably close to the action:
... but not too close!


Hope everyone's doing okay. I'll try and visit you all soon, I promise!
Cheers,
--Pabs

Goodbye, sweet friend

You've probably heard the news that my dear friend Monica, founding co-chairfeline of the Pablo Fan Club and dear sister of Phoebe and Joey, had to be helped to the Bridge on Friday. You can read more of the details at their blog. Please stop by and send Monica's family your bestest purrs.

It's a shock to have such a sad thing happen after the excitement of welcoming my babybean brother Alex into the world last week. I guess that's life, huh.

Cheers,
--Pabs

Oh, brother!

Remember how in my last post (like, a month ago) I was worried about having to wear that red suit?

Well, I've got some news. It was actually for this little guy:

Baby Alexander Cosmo came into the world last Friday (4 December) at 3.36am, three weeks before his due date. He weighed 6 lbs 8.5 oz (2.965 kg).

Kate and Nick and Alex are all doing well, even I'm coping ok, joining Kate and Alex in front of the heater in the living room for the mid-night feeds.

He is the noisiest creature I've ever come across. Hendrix, you didn't tell me that they scream like that!

He looks a whole lot better in that suit than I would, anyway.

So sorry we haven't been blogging much, things are a little crazy around here. Hope everycat's doing well, we'll try to keep in touch!

Cheers,
--Pabs

Fashion Friday

Lately, I've noticed that some small fashions have been appearing around the house. Like this one:

There's NO WAY they're getting me into that!
NO WAY.

Cheers,

--Pabs

Dona nobis pacem

Peace in our time, everycat! Imagine that.

(FYI, more about the blogblast for peace here.)

Cheers,
--Pabs

The opposite of cooperation

Some of us were trying to get a photo that captured how well the quilt cover matched my lovely greenyellow eyes...

... but some of us were just trying to get some sleep!

Cheers,
--Pabs

Um...

...it wasn't me?

Man. Looks like I've got some 'splaining to do.

Happy weekend everycat... keep your paws clean!

Cheers,
--Pabs

Still here

You may have noticed that I haven't updated my blog recently.

You may have also noticed that I haven't been leaving many comments on othercats' blogs recently.

That's because recently, Kate has been REALLY slack at helping me blog.

So what that she's still got three weeks' full-time work left before she goes on maternity leave?

So what that she's been 'too tired to help' when she gets home from work?

So what that she keeps forgetting to buy new batteries for the camera?

This blurpy thing hasn't even come out yet and it's ruining my life already.

Sorry, everycat. I'm still here and I still want to hang out with y'all, but my visits might be a bit sporadic until Kate finishes work, at least. I hope you understand.

By the way, Wally, Ernie and Zoey, the fabulous Island Cats, were the winners of the 2009 AWESOME Footy Finals Fever Competition. They predicted that the Geelong Cats would win by 21 points, and the mighty Cats won by 12 points; their second premiership in three years. It was a very close, exciting match. Anyway, we made a $40 donation to the Hobart Cat Centre on behalf of the Island Cats and I'm planning to send a little present their way... but who knows when Kate will get around to helping me with that?

Honestly.

Cheers,
--Pabs

It's on again!

That's right, everycat!

Tomorrow is the Australian Football League's Grand Final for 2009.

This year's top two teams, the Saint Kilda Saints and the Geelong Cats, will face off to see who will be this year's champion.

And YOU can be a winner too! Just join in my AWESOME Footy Finals Fever Competition.

From now until game time, 2pm Australian Eastern Standard Time tomorrow (26 September), every blogging animal of the non-human variety can enter their tip for who will win the game, and predict the winning points margin. To enter, just post your prediction, with your name, in the comments of this post. Like this:

Pablo, Geelong Cats by 999 points (an exaggeration).

Feel free to add a little cheer for your team, but these will not affect the outcome of the contest. The winner will be the blogger who guesses the winning team with the closest points margin to the actual final points margin of the game. In the event of a tie, the blogger who posted their tip first will win. One entry per blogging household. And I can change these rules whenever I want (but I'm not likely to).

A $40 (Australian dollars) donation to the Hobart Cat Centre (my local) will also be made in the winner's name... and I might even send you a little something!

A hint from Pablo: in general, most AFL matches are decided by under 30 points, but it's not unheard of to have a points margin of 100 points or more. In last year's Grand Final, the the Hawthorn Hawks beat the Geelong Cats by 26 points. If you're interested in studying the teams' form, or keeping up with the score during game time, you can visit the AFL's website. Otherwise, just make your bestest guess!

Start tipping... NOW!

Cheers,
--Pabs

Tweet week

Many of you would know that Fin has been celebrating Tweet Week all this week. It's been awesome. I thought I'd contribute by showing you all some tasty Tasmanian tweets. Kate took these photos of parrots when she was home visiting her parents at Easter. Like Fin's parents, Kate isn't so hot on her bird names. The first one is a Rosella parrot; the second one could be too, it just looks a bit different. Oh well, they both look tasty!

We've had a bit of disturbing news on the tweet front in Hobart this week, actually. It turns out that lotsa sparrows in the area are dying from a strain of salmonella (who knew that sparrows ate salmon? But how do they catch them?), and a local cat may have caught it. So Kate's told me to lay off the sparrows for now. Here's hoping I can stay on the wagon!

Cheers,
--Pabs

Loving my recharge pad

Happy Monday, everycat!

Spring has finally sprung down here in Tasmania. Even though we still have some cold days and some dismal days, the sun is now a regular visitor to my domain.

On sunny mornings, when Kate is making breakfast and pottering around in the kitchen before work, I sit just outside the backdoor on what I call my 'recharge pad'. It's the bestest place to catch some early morning rays to charge me up for the day. Mmmmmm.Ok, now I'm all charged up, it's off to cause some trouble, Pablo-style!

Cheers,
--Pabs

The winter of my discontent

A photo from happier times, when the sun actually shone and the grass wasn't a freezing bog.

Hi everycat.

Sorry I haven't been posting much lately. Kate is so tired from brewing a baby bean that she just collapses in front of the TV when she gets home from work. And she has to sit some kind of exam in a few weeks. I think it's a work thing. So she hasn't been available for much blogging help.

Besides, I haven't been up to much lately. The weather is so, so dismal down here, endless days of freezing weather and wind and rain and snow on our mountain*. This morning, I meowed to be let outside about 150 times in the hope that the next time someone opened the door for me, the windy rain would have disappeared. But no. One time, I got so angry that I bit Kate on the foot (well, on the purple fluffy slipper). I was kind of trying to punish her for all this bad weather.

Tomorrow is supposed to be the first day of spring down here. I'll believe it when I see it.

But tomorrow is the first day of September, which can only mean one thing... the Australian Football League finals series! Y'all would know that I usually run an AWESOME Footy Finals Competition each year. I'm currently in negotiations to see if I can run it again this year. Watch this space!

Cheers,
--Pabs


* This is a link to a live webcam of our city, hosted by a local school. We live on the far side of the bridge, on one of those hills in the distance with all the houses on it. Usually this webcam gives you a lovely view of the city and our mountain, Mount Wellington. But the weather is so dismal that when you look at it, the clouds will probably be covering it :(

Blogoversary blossoms

Guess what, everycat? Today is my THIRD blogoversary!

The weather decided to hold an early celebration for my blogoversary yesterday. Poppy Q has been asking me if spring has sprung here in Tasmania yet. Well, until yesterday, it hadn't. We've had dismal, rainy, cold weather for weeks and weeks. But yesterday...

...I could have my first roll of the season! Woo hoo!

Aaaaah. Feeeels gooood.

Check out the lovely blossoms in my backyard! And the blue, blue sky! We haven't seen that in weeks:

And you know what else? All the blossoms in the street decided to have a pink party in honour of my blogoversary:

It's very kind of them. I can't bring myself to tell them that pink is not my favourite colour. It's certainly a great colour for blossoms.

But today, on my actual blogoversary, the weather got it a bit wrong:

Back to dismal winter weather. Kate took this photo at around 9.30am, and you can see from the reflection in the window that it was so dark she had to have the light on.

Oh well. Yesterday was a great reminder that spring is on its way... sometime.

Cheers,
--Pabs

One whisker less Wednesday

Some context:
In order to promote more harmonious sleeping arrangements now that she's got a baby bump to contend with, Kate has put this comfy sweater at the foot of the bed to encourage me to sleep there. (Actually, she put a comfy fleecy old bath robe there, but I barfed on it and so it's going through the wash a few times.)

I like my special spot. But I hafta say I do miss snuggling a little closer on these chilly winter nights.

Cheers,
--Pabs

(P.S. Grammatically, Kate's aware that it should be 'One whisker fewer Wednesday', but went with the more poetic, less correct, version.)

When you don't have your own cat door...

... you gots to improvise!

(Apologies for the darkness of the image. We're not getting a whole lot of sunlight down here at the moment.)

Cheers,
--Pabs

Yawn...

I love a good yawn.
Seriously, is there anything better than a good yawn?
...and that is a good yawn right there.
I'm talking well over 100 degrees of yawnage. Maybe even 120. I don't know, I don't have a protractor handy.

(P.S. How many kitties and peeps yawned while checking out this post? I know someone did when they were helping me write it...)

Cheers,
--Pabs

She's back!

Kate's been back from her trip for over a week now, and life is quickly returning to normal.

This was supposed to be our reunion photo shoot, but what can I say?

I just don't do hugs.

I'm outta here.

Cheers,
--Pabs

While the Kate's away...

...the Pabs will play...

Confession time.

I've been playing Kitty Fight Club outside with my buddies while Kate's been away.

Things got a little out of hand one evening, and I came home with a limp (hey, you should see the other guy!). So the next day, Nick took me you-know-where, and now I'm on 'precautionary antibiotics'. Great.

And Nick won't let me snuggle with him in bed the way that Kate does. Awesome.

Kate, if you're reading this, come home! I, um, need you.

Just a bit.

Cheers,
--Pabs

Bachelor boys

Hi everycat,

Just wanted to let you all know that I'm still alive and actually having a pretty good time at home with Nick while Kate is away. We're enjoying some quality man time together, as you can see: chilling out, eating food, watching DVDs... it's a pretty good life. (BTW, sorry for the poor quality photo... it's from the camera in our Macbook. Of course, Kate has the real camera with her!)

I am missing Kate, and get a bit meowy at night, singing songs that remind me of her. But I'm pleased that she got to visit Faz and her human, and that she could pass on my cat-sized Richmond Tigers football to Faz.

Kate is in Germany now, and is enjoying some lovely summer weather. Her blurp-in-utero is still making her feel pretty sick, and she's done a couple of spectacular voms at two of her hosts' houses. Ew!

Sorry that I haven't been able to visit you all... I'm feeling very cut off from all my blogosphere buddies. I PROMISE I'll visit as normal when Kate returns in a few weeks.

Until then, purrrs to you all!

Cheers,
--Pabs

On paws

...or should that be pause?

Kate is in Europe on holiday with her mum, so I'm out of action for awhile. Hope you're all having an awesome time.

Cheers,
--Pabs

WHO IS THIS???

I've seen these pictures before somewhere. Hendrix, you posted one on your blog a few months back... why have my people got one of these pictures? What does this mean? Who is it?

I don't like the look of it.

I think it looks like trouble.

Cheers,
--Pabs

Still dismal

Oh, hi. I'm just sitting at the back door, checking to see if it's stopped raining yet. Think I might need to take a closer look...

Ugh. Still dismal. It's been raining for, like, a week. Can everycat please send me just a little bit of your sunshines? I've kind of forgotten what the sun looks like.

Cheers,
--Pabs

Dismal

All the leaves are brown (well, most of them are)... and the sky is grey...

Yesterday marked the official first day of winter here in Australia (we go by the calendar, not the solstices and equinoxes. Don't ask me why) and boy, has it been cold. And dismal. Especially last weekend, when these photos were taken.
Kate was going to do some much-needed gardening outside, and I was going to help her. I love helping Kate in the garden. But she said that the weather was 'too dismal'. So I went inside and sulked. I felt like this:

dismal.

Hope things are sunnier where you're at!

Cheers,
--Pabs

Baby remember my name (re-mem-ber, re-mem-ber...)

My geek buddy Jason sent me an email yesterday with this screen shot attached. It's his Google Reader page. He wanted to show me which page came #1 in his top recommendations... mine! Can you see it there? I circled it for you.

Kate tried to tell me it was randomly generated, but I know better.  It's a sign of my super-stardom.

For sure.

Cheers,

--Pabs

Hibernation

Hi everycat.

It's been two weeks since I last posted on this blog. People have been stopping Kate in the street and asking her when she's going to help me post again. Not quite, but people have noticed.

Sorry. (Especially to you, Original Grandma Chris).

We've kind of been in hibernation down here. It's almost winter, and it's cold, dark and rainy. Nick and Kate get home from work when it's dark and I've been spending most of my time in or under the bed.

But that's no excuse. We've missed y'all and will try and be more organised and post more often.

For now, though, it's back to bed.

Cheers,

--Pabs

P.S. Happy wedding day to Adan and Lego's mum, Michico and her almost-husband, Arion! Wishing you double happiness today and always.

Ahhhh...

Chin scritches on my chair from Nick. That's what I'm talking about!

Happy Friday, everycat. (And a BIG happy birthday to my beanfriend Alexander up there in Sydney. I got you a present: Geelong v Melbourne.)

Cheers,
--Pabs

Easy like Sunday morning...

...and afternoon
...and evening.

Hope your Sunday is as snuggly as mine!

Cheers,
--Pabs

Wordless Wednesday

Cheers,
--Pabs

Thanks, Easter Bunny!

Hey, look at what the Easter Bunny left for me at the front door!

Yup, a juicy, fresh, home grown tomato! Thanks, Easter Bunny! I hope that the Easter Bunny left you a delicious, juicy, fresh, home-grown tomato, too...

...hang on, does he normally give tomatoes? Hmmm. Oh well. Happy Easter anyway!

Cheers,

--Pabs
(P.S. Don't worry, I didn't eat the tomato. I know that tomatoes can be very bad for cats and dogs to eat. Like chocolate...)