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.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!  My mother used these china quail each Thanksgiving as decorations on the table, so they always make me think of Thanksgiving.  May you all have lots and lots to be thankful for.

Farewell, Emma

Here's Emma with her nip banana.  I chose this picture for her farewell post because this is the way I want to remember her.  I want to thank all of you for your purrs for Emma.  I really appreciate them.  I buried her in the flower garden near the bird feeder.  If you want to read Emma's story, it is just a few posts down with her happy limerick.  If you want to read about her death, it is over on Herman's Hideaway.  A few of you may wonder why I didn't rush Emma off to the emergency vet when I found her in the litter box, too weak to get out.  The nearest emergency vet is a 45 minute drive from here.  I did consider it, but the stress of moving her would have probably meant that she would have run off to the Rainbow Bridge on the way.  Even if she had survived the trip, there would have been nothing that they could have done for her.  She exhibited all the symptoms of Feline Leukemia that Herman did, but they were much worse.  I thought it best to just let her go here at home in her room where she felt most comfortable.  I will miss her terribly and I think that Herman will miss her, too.  I let Herman see her and smell her and touch her before I buried her, but I don't know if he understands why she didn't respond to him.  I hope so.

                                                 Goodbye, Emma, my sweet little one.
                                                 It's all too soon that you are gone.
                                                           You fly away free,
                                                           But for Herman and me
                                                 It's a sad time here all alone.