Wednesday, January 30, 2019

Napping Blanket Joke

WAFFLES:  Boss! Look at the cool box Glogirly got from her NYC girlfriend! It's like Christmas in January! 


KATIE:  Pretty sure the present is INSIDE the box, Waffles. Not the actual box


WAFFLES:  What's it say, Boss?  What's it say?

KATIE:  "Glogirly's Official Napping Blanket. No kitties allowed, sorry."


WAFFLES:  No kitties allowed, SORRY??? But it's a napping blanket. And we're CATS.


WAFFLES:  And it comes in this cool BAG! 


WAFFLES:  That's just my size.


KATIE:  Perhaps the whole "no kitties allowed" thing is just a joke. 


WAFFLES:  A joke? A gushy, soft napping blanket with it's own gushy, soft bag is NO joke.



 About Today's Blog Post
Glogirly and her NYC bestie have a tradition of sending each other belated Christmas and birthday gifts. Sometimes it's Christmas in July, sometimes it's Glogirly's July birthday in October. Neither of them have any idea when a fun gift might arrive, which makes it even MORE fun.

And in case you're still wondering about the whole "no kitties allowed, sorry" thing...it's totally a joke. Glogirly's girlfriend is every bit as much a Cat Lady as she is. MEOW!

Monday, January 28, 2019

Battle at the Cat Scratcher

WAFFLES:  Hey Boss, what are you doing?


KATIE:  What does it look like I'm doing? I'm lounging.


WAFFLES:  How come you're lounging? 

KATIE:  What do you mean, how come I'm lounging? I'm just lounging. Do I have to have a reason to lounge?

WAFFLES:  Uh, yes?

KATIE:  Ok fine. I'm lounging because I'm a CAT. How's that?

WAFFLES:  I'M a cat too! 

KATIE:  *sigh* Well I'm glad we have that cleared up.

WAFFLES:  So how about we lounge together? You know, on account of we're both cats and all.

KATIE:  Waffles, we've been down this road before. And trust me, it doesn't end well.


WAFFLES:  Your end looks just fine, Boss. 

KATIE:  #@*$!  WAFFLES!


WAFFLES:  I'm KING OF THE WORLD! I'm KING OF THE WORLD!

KATIE:  Yeah? Well, things didn't turn out too well for that guy on the Titanic either.


Townhouse Memories
Today's photos are from 2015 when we were living in our downtown Minneapolis townhouse. That would make Waffles only 3 years old. 

Now that we're living in our Colorado mountain house and Waffles is approaching 7 years old, very little has changed when it comes to scratcher wars. 

Whatever Katie has, Waffles wants. 

Wherever Katie is, Waffles is right behind her.

Whatever Katie is eating...well, you get the idea.

Oh, Waffles.


Friday, January 25, 2019

Friday True Love Forever Flashback

Every once in a while, we look back in time to our past blog posts. Sometimes for inspiration, sometimes for an idea to write about, and sometimes just to see what was happening in our lives 2, 3, 4, or 5 years ago. Glogirly went back to 2015 and clicked on the first thing she saw. Not even remembering what it was about.

Just a couple of lines into it, she was getting all sentimental and leaky eyed. We knew right away, it was meant to be our blog post today.

We hope you enjoy our Friday Flashback about our first true loves.

~Katie and Waffles


Waffles @ 12 weeks old
WAFFLES:  Before I fell in love with chickens, and even my new "Boss," my first true love was a grey mouse.

KATIE:  So what happened to the mouse?

WAFFLES:  Well first I ate her tail. Then her eyes fell off. And she got really skinny because every time we played, she'd lose a little more of her straw stuff. But I still loved her. Who was your first true love, Boss?


Katie@ 3 months old
KATIE:  My first true love was Glogirly. I think we knew from the moment we met we had something really special. 

WAFFLES:  Well it's a good thing you didn't eat her tail, Boss. And she's still got her eyes, so that's good too. But she doesn't really get any skinnier when we play. 

KATIE:  Well the skinny thing probably has more to do with jelly beans than anything else. But even if she lost her eyes or her hair fell out, she'd still be our girl. And we'd still love her. That's what it's all about, Waffles. That's what it means to have a forever home and a forever family.


WAFFLES:  Forever? That's a really long time, right?  


KATIE:  The longest, Waffles. 


Wednesday, January 23, 2019

Riddle Me This

WAFFLES:  Hey Boss! I have a riddle for you. Why does a chicken coop only have two doors?


KATIE:  I don't know, Waffles. And frankly, I'm not sure why I'd even care.  


WAFFLES:  Because if it had four doors it would be a chicken SEDAN!!!


WAFFLES:  Bwahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!!


About Today's Blog Post
You know that friend who likes to laugh at their own jokes? If they were a cat, they'd be Waffles!

The 1973 Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight,  a.k.a. "El Gallo Grande" (the Big Chicken) is owned by Tommy Kendall, a retired race car driver. He bought the car at a police auction about 20 years ago. Better not tell him that Waffles is behind the wheel.


This post is one of our throwback greatest hits. It was originally published in March 2015 and has been edited.

Monday, January 21, 2019

Catnap Lap Parking Rules

WAFFLES:  Hey Boss, where's Glogirly's big camera? How come she's taking pictures of us with her iPhone? 

KATIE:  Perhaps because she's trapped under that blanket you've parked yourself on.


WAFFLES:  What, is Glogirly's lap a no parking zone??? Since when?


KATIE:  Well there are limits to how long you can stay parked in the same spot. You don't want to get a ticket, do you?

WAFFLES:  Ticket? Like to a rock concert? Who's playing?

KATIE:  Not that kind of ticket, Waffles. Anyway, it's a good thing you moved out of that spot. Better to be safe than sorry.




About Today's iPhone Photos
We don't often post iPhone photos since Glogirly usually has her big camera within easy reach. But Sunday was a Netflixing under the gushy blanket kind of day and with Waffles firmly parked on her lap, she was trapped. When she made even a subtle move, like she was going to get up, Waffles pushed even more firmly into lap position.

Her phone was an arm's length away, so she did the best she could. Desperate times call for desparate measures.

Friday, January 18, 2019

Laptop Admiration

WAFFLES:  Hey Boss, have you seen how handsome I am on our blog? Like SUPER handsome. Like SOOOOOO hand–


KATIE: Purr-sonally, I think the view is much better from here. 


WAFFLES:  But you can't even see me, Boss.

KATIE:  Exactly.

About Today's Photos
Since Glogirly's laptop is powered up pretty much ALL the time, it tends to radiate just enough heat to make it an enticing cat magnet. So much so, it's a wonder she can type up our blog posts. Thankfully, spellcheck always comes to the rescue.

Wednesday, January 16, 2019

Cats by the Fire - Our 2-Year Mountain Anniversary

WAFFLES:  Is the snow melted yet, Boss?


KATIE:  What do you care, Waffles. It's not like you're going outside. 


WAFFLES:  Yeah, but Glogirly's been outside ALL weekend. What am I supposed to do? 


KATIE:  You're doing it, Waffles.


Mountain Milestones for our Girl
Glogirly thought she'd be a city girl forever. But two years ago this weekend, she and her Gloman closed on the sale of our Minneapolis townhouse and the purchase of our Rocky Mountain forever home. It was a leap of faith (on Friday the 13th no less) that has become an adventure, a whole new way of life, and a magical, beautiful dream come true.

Glogirly has learned a LOT over the past two years.

  • She learned how to build a fire to keep us warm. 
  • She's stacked 100s of pounds of firewood. 
  • She knows how to keep the toilets flushing with melted snow if the power goes out. 
  • She planted her first ever high elevation perennial garden. 
  • She built a flagstone pathway. 
  • She learned how to make nectar for our hummingbirds. 
  • She's seen and photographed deer, fox, chipmunks, squirrels, hummingbirds, and BEARS right here by our house.

And she's learned what it means to live in a place where wildfires and a very real and serious risk.

Last fall she began a large fire mitigation project. Fire mitigation involves performing a variety of tasks, big and small, to ensure our home, our family and neighbors, and our beautiful canyon is as safe as possible from the unthinkable. The goal for us was to create a safe zone around our home that in the event of a wildfire, could potentially stop or redirect the fire from reaching our house. Part of this involved weed whacking 50 feet out from our house, removing young trees from the same area to keep the forest from encroaching on our home, removing large pine trees that were too close to our house, thinning other large groups of trees, and limbing-up trees (removing branches 6-8' up from the ground).

All of the tree work left us with what's called "slash." Slash consists of branches with needles, limbs, and smaller trunks of the trees we took down. Many people haul this stuff off to recycling and sort yards to dispose of it or have it chipped into mulch. Because the majority of our property is on a very steep slope, that wasn't an option for us. So we created what are called "burn piles" of our slash. Once we get a burn permit from our county and we have at least 6" of a snow base, we can burn off our piles. Last Friday we got almost 15" of fresh snow!

These are what burn piles look like. They measure about 6' x 6' x 6'. In addition to these four, we had about 24 more.

It sounds scary, but it's actually a very natural and ecologically responsible way of getting rid the slash created by our mitigation. Fire is, after all, a natural and necessary way of forest regeneration.


TOP LEFTt:  Lighting up our first burn pile.
TOP RIGHT: What it looks like after some piles have completely burned.
MIDDLE: The view from the trail that runs around our house and where we stacked the burn piles.
LOWER LEFT: Lighting a pile with a drip torch.
LOWER RIGHT: Glogirly's first snowshoe experience

Don't worry, Glogirly didn't go outside with her box of matches and start lighting everything up. She hired professional help. Our fire mitigation and tree specialist is also a certified firefighter for our local volunteer fire department. He lives here in our canyon and is passionate about keeping our forest, wildlife, and the people and pets who live here safe. He did the heavy lifting. Glogirly did assist though. She worked alongside him, but at a safe distance, to make sure the piles kept burning, add more debris when necessary, and help to completely snuff them out with snow when the day was done.

AND she got to do it all while wearing snowshoes for the very first time!



This concludes your Mountain Living 101 class for the day.


Monday, January 14, 2019

Meeting of the Minds

KATIE:  You're late, Waffles. 


WAFFLES:  Late for what, Boss? Are we having a party or something?


KATIE:  You're late for our meeting. It's time for your year-end purr-formance review.

WAFFLES:  But it's New Years, Boss. How can it be over already? 


KATIE:  Fiscal year end, Waffles. Are you ready?

WAFFLES:  Fiscal? You mean like a physical? We're not going to the vet, are we?


KATIE:  So I'm giving you a score of 70.5 which puts you at the low end of Meets Expectations. The dangerously low end of it. 

WAFFLES:  Meats expectations? Do you mean like Chicken Expectations? Turkey? Beef Expectations? Maybe ribs and hot dogs. That sounds good, I'll have that.

KATIE:  I said MEETS, not MEATS. 

WAFFLES:  But meats IS meats. 

KATIE:  Not that kind of meats.


WAFFLES: This meeting is so not MEAT-ing my expectations. 


About Today's Photos
Wherever Glogirly goes in the house, so too do Katie and Waffles. That is if they're not sleeping. So when she was on the phone with Gloman today and wat down in the office, it took only a minute or so before she had two office mates joining her.

It's pretty rare for Katie and Waffles to sit or lay down really close to one another. But that's exactly what they did in those last two photos. Glogirly had to put Gloman on hold so she could grab a couple of pics with her iPhone.

From behind, they SO looked like they were having a meeting. She got up and walked around to the other side of them to get a photo of them from the front. The expression on Waffles' face reminded her of many a corporate meeting. Kind of like that look when you realize the meeting is going long no one remembered to bring the donuts.

Friday, January 11, 2019

Invasion of the Robot Vacuum

WAFFLES:  Help me, Boss! I'm trapped! 


KATIE:  What do you mean, you're trapped???


WAFFLES:  The Mr. Robot Roomba guy is chasing me. Look! He's got me cornered!


KATIE:  He's not chasing you. He's just cleaning up after the big mess you made by the litterbox.


WAFFLES:  Well he better hurry up on account of I think I need to make another mess.


About Today's Photos
Glogirly got a new robot vacuum for Christmas and she's been trying to teach how to navigate through the house. For some reason, it likes to spend a LOT of time in the bathroom. Perhaps because that's where Waffles and Katie's preferred litterbox sits.

Oh, and in case you're wondering...Glogirly LOVES the new vacuum. It's not perfect, but overall it's doing a very good job in-between deep cleanings. And she giggles every time she claims to be vacuuming and doing anything but cleaning at the same time. 


Wednesday, January 9, 2019

There's a Squatter in our Birdbath!

WAFFLES:  Hey Boss! The neighbors are using Glogirly's birdbath again! 


KATIE:  Waffles, it's not polite to watch the neighbors. Especially with binoculars.



WAFFLES:  Yeah, but this time it looks like they're doing more than just drinking out of it.

KATIE:  Well, that's what birds do, Waffles.

WAFFLES:  Uh, Boss? I don't know, but these are pretty funny-looking birds.



Mr. Fox:  Funny-looking? Who are you calling funny-looking? I'll show you funny-looking.



WAFFLES:  Boss! The funny-looking bird-neighbor is staring at me!

KATIE:  Maybe you shouldn't be calling him funny-looking.

A Morning Visit from Mr. (and Mrs.?) Fox
While Katie and Waffles were anxiously awaiting the morning meal service, Glogirly was whipping around the house in her cat pajamas looking for her giant lens to put on her camera. She still had sleep in her eye when she spotted TWO foxes right outside the front of our house.


There are likely many foxes in our canyon, but they are quite elusive and very shy. Glogirly knew better than to try sneaking outside. She took these photos right through the window. She only got off a few shots before she accidentally bumped the window with her lens hood. That was it for the foxes. They took off down our trail and into the forest.

Needless to say, breakfast was LATE.

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