Morning Report, June 27, 2011

Mandarin, Rosenquist, Nico, Lloyd Trinidad, Honey Bunny, Horsey, Felix and Pickles were present for feeding this morning.

We're officially in summer now and it continues to be very hot each day. Surprisingly, we got a good rain storm last week that may have given us more than one inch of rain. I thought we might not see any rain until October - glad to be wrong about that.

Mandarin after breakfast.

Morning Report, June 2, 2011

Mandarin, Rosenquist, Nico, Trinidad, Honey Bunny, Horsey, Felix and Pickles ate this morning.

Rosy went to the Vet today for an exam and vaccinations. He checked out OK, yay!! Negative for FIV, FeLV and heartworm. He got rabies and FeLV vaccinations and a check of his blood cell count. His gums were kind of pale & Dr. B. wanted to make sure he wasn't anemic.

Chaos in Tejas started today, actually it sort of started last night. I didn't go out last night much as I wanted to see Women In Prison. It was going to be a hard day at work today and the bands playing last night are playing later this week. At my advanced age, I gotta manage my fun to stay outta trouble at home and work. Women In Prison play Saturday afternoon. Should be a riot.

Women In Prison - "Suicidal Exit" and "Strange Waves"

Punk rock is your friend.
=^..^=

Morning Report, May 31, 2011

Mandarin, Rosenquist, Nico, Trinidad, Honey Bunny, Horsey, Felix and Pickles ate this morning. It has been hot in the recent days, hot. And dry . . . water hauling season has begun I guess. I don't anticipate any rain happening until next October or November.

The outdoor gang is fully into their Summer routine, lounging or sleeping wherever they can find shade and a cool surface. We freshen their water a few times a day and try to make sure it stays in the shade which is always moving.

Chaos In Tejas this week, rock n roll overdose approaching.
=^..^=

Morning Report, May 24, 2011

Mandarin, Rosenquist, Nico, Trinidad, Honey Bunny, Horsey, Felix and Pickles ate this morning.

The heat and humidity are building. There is only a very brief period of time in the morning that is what I'd call comfortable, and I'm comfortable with that. It's sticky and that's how it's supposed to be this time of year. Summer is pretty much here already even though the Solstice is about a month away.

And we have a bee hive, apparently. A large unused flower/plant pot was left upside down in the back yard after some Spring yard cleaning weekend before last, and it looks like a colony of Honeybees has moved into it. Hopefully, these are not Africanized Honeybees. We’re cool with them being there but are a little concerned about the outside cats being attacked or possibly the neighbors’ dogs. Both our next door neighbors and the neighbors in the house adjacent to our back yard have dogs. This may be the same hive that lived under a nearby storm drain cover last year who have relocated to a space more conducive for their needs. It’s a larger space and is in the shade. We’ll see what happens.
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Morning Report, May 18, 2011

Mandarin, Rosenquist, Nico, Lloyd Trinidad, Honey Bunny, Horsey, Felix and Pickles showed up to eat this morning. Summer is fast approaching but it's still relatively nice for a few hours in the morning.

Aleksei and Little Brother died since I last wrote. Aleksei suddenly got very sick in early March and ultimately was diagnosed with leukemia. We escorted him across the day after we got the news, March 16. He could barely move by that time, his energy was so depleted. He’d always been the robust picture of health until these weird subcutaneous bumps started appearing all over his body in December or January. We always get our guys tested when we adopt them but somehow the FeLV virus was hidden or missed when he first joined our gang.

Little Brother crossed a few weeks later, April 7, we believe of a cancerous tumor he had in or around his small intestine. Little Brother was an older kitty, at least thirteen years based on the information we had from his former humans (or subhumans) Melissa and Dean, former neighbors who’d pretty much abandoned him for a few years after they had their first child. He’d had a large tumor on his shoulder that was untreated for a couple of years before we adopted him. I don’t know if this melanoma was related to his intestinal tumor. Little Brother had a good long life for a street kitty, spending many days in our yard and cruising up and down our block before we brought him inside full-time.

Several of the other indoor cats have been tested since Aleksei passed and everyone is negative for FeLV so far (yea!). Everyone will get tested over the next year or sooner during their regular exams.

We're still heartbroken about Aleksei and Little Brother leaving and miss them both dearly. I am thankful they came into our lives though, and feel blessed to have been able to commune with a couple of the sweetest boys we've ever known.
=^..^=

Morning Report, November 18, 2010

Mandarin, Rosenquist, Nico, Fuji, Trinidad, Felix, Honey Bunny, Horsey and Pickles ate this morning.

Pickles is a new cat that is actually not a street cat. She lives across the street with some new neighbors, but I guess she likes the food we put out. She's a pretty cat - a Manx with a silver-gray coat and a pleasant and playful disposition. I think she's pretty young, less than two years I'd say.

And Buster came to eat yesterday evening. He was waiting under a neighbor's truck when I got home from work. I don't know if he's been back at our house to eat for several weeks. He's been eating regularly at Pat's house around the corner and we hadn't seen him at our house. It was nice seeing Buster again. He looked good!

Overnight Lows Kick Ass

Overnight Lows at the Parlor during SXSW 2009. These guys don't travel down to Austin often enough and I need a fix. I may have to take a road trip to their parts soon. If you give a rat's ass about rock n roll, go see them if they play your town, buy their records, CDs and t-shirts and buy them a beer or two or three.

Morning Report, October 2, 2010

Mandarin, Rosenquist, Nico, Trinidad, Honey Bunny, Horsey, Felix and the new guy, we’re calling Buster for now, showed up for feeding this morning. It’s super nice outside right now, with temperatures in the low to mid 60°s. We made it through another summer. I brought Fuji in so Anne could give her medicine to her. She stayed out last night for the first time in a few days. She does not like being inside, but didn’t seem to mind too much when I brought her in. She ate and went directly to sleep.

Buster’s name may change if we can come up with another good one, assuming he keeps coming by regularly. Another feral boy, Bronx, disappeared after being pretty regular for about a month earlier this year. We got him neutered, checked out and had him vaccinated back in April. He continued to come by to eat for about a week after we released him after his procedure, then he disappeared. We had just lost Bucky (I'm still heartbroken about him) and were a bit distraught about Bronx vanishing too. We did see him about a week later and he looked OK, but not since then. Fortunately, I came home for lunch about a week ago and saw Bronx about a block and a half away, just hanging out in the parking lot of a nearby apartment complex. I was ecstatic! One of the residents there takes care of a number of cats and he may have joined that crew. He looked good – his coat is in good shape and he was moving well, so yeah!

More Chaos from Tejas

Here are some more clips from Chaos In Tejas this past May. Another vid from the Marked Men show at Emo's and one from later that same evening, the Riverboat Gamblers down the street at Beerland:

"Someday" and "Fix My Brain"

"I can't get these thoughts out of my head"

Gamblers kickin' it old school . . . three songs from Something To Crow About

"I think we're gonna need a bigger boat"

Amazing to think we got to see both of these bands on the same night. Holy shit boys and girls, I don't if the stars have ever aligned with such cosmic rock n roll power as on that night. It was, to say the least, an unforgettable evening. I am one lucky mother fucker.

Chaos in Tejas

Chaos in Tejas last week. Marked Men are always amazing.



Infuckingcredible.

Morning Report, May 4, 2010

Honey Bunny

Mandarin, Little Brother, Rosenquist, Nico, Fuji, Trinidad, Honey Bunny, Horsey and Bronx ate this morning.  It was good to see Bronx again - we hadn't seen him since we released him from our care last Wednesday evening after his vaccinations and neutering.  Brooklyn also came by at some point as I saw him walking off from our driveway and yard. 

Still no sign of Bucky.  The food in the storm drains was gone, which is good.

Bucky Boy

Still no sign of Bucky Boy.  We'll continue putting food and water in the storm drains where he would go and are still hopeful he's alive somewhere.  The food is getting eaten, but this could be raccoons, possums or other cats.  We're trying to stay optimistic, but I have resigned myself to the possibility that we might not see him again - and I'm heartbroken about it. 

But I'm still hopeful . . .

What happened to you big boy? 
♥♥♥♥ forever, Sweetie.

 

Hang in there, Bucky

Bucky got into some kind of trouble last Saturday or Saturday night, possibly a bad fight. He was acting a little odd at evening feeding that night and then didn't show up all day on Sunday. We found him hunkering down in a nearby storm drain Monday evening and dropped some food and water into it. I saw him the next morning (Tuesday) walking stiffly across the street, where he went into the storm drain on our side of the street.

Bucky was putting weight on all of his legs, but he was moving with some difficulty. He had no visible or obvious wounds or external injuries that I could see, but a bite wound is hard to see unless you can get real close or they lose hair around the injured area.

We've been putting food and water in the storm drain where we first saw him and the food is gone each day. It could be raccoons or other cats eating the food, but Bucky could be eating it if he is still hiding the drain while he heals (hopefully he's healing). We haven't found him anywhere else yet and have looked just about everywhere he could be.

Hang in there, Bucky.

Morning Report, February 23, 2010

Mandarin, Little Brother, Rosenquist, Nico, Fuji, Trinidad, Honey Bunny, Felix and Horsey ate this morning. Bucky didn't show and he may be laying low until it dries up a bit or until he gets hungrier. He doesn't like cold, wet weather. He was present along with everyone else yesterday evening.

Speaking of cold, wet weather, it snowed briefly this morning. Big flakes too. It's too warm to stick now, but we may get more later today. Everyone's ready to freak out about it.

Rock rock rock!

Gerard Cosloy and Matador Records recently organized a big event in Austin that took place at my second home Beerland, Casual Victim Pile. The showcases featured mostly local (but not exclusively Austin) bands that he and they think are interesting and worthy of attention. "Casual Victim Pile" is an anagram of the phrase "live music capital" that is sometimes used in conjunction with mentions about ATX.

Here's a couple of clips from nights #1 and #3 of the CVP shows, Follow That Bird! (Austin) and Bad Sports (Denton/Austin):

Follow That Bird! is doing some great stuff these days - more clips of them on the way.


Oh my friggin' gawd! These guys tear the shit up! More outrageous vids from this show and another BS did this past Friday (2/19) coming soon.

Whooooaaaa! And I don't mean stop.