so quiet

sweet:



i really need to go buy this album and stop trolling their blog all the time. although i wouldn't have found carolina's little gem that way...

you're beautiful

a beautiful surprise


close to home


palm trees in chinatown


sunshine in snow


my own private christo

it finally snowed. i don't think we have seen any on the ground for a couple of years. kids got an extra day off; i had to work anyways. i was restless and bored, but it was lovely. it will probably be gone by tomorrow.

lil' beans

so, i pretty much suck at making regular blog posts (i have no idea how so many people manage to do it daily), but here is the news: tigerlily and jabari are getting along swimmingly!
there were some rough patches in the beginning, i.e. lots of growling, hissing and keeping of distances. but they moved pretty quickly onto the wrastlin' mania stage and they are now wrestling for play. there is a common fascination with water and an affinity towards all things feathery.
jabari started out as more of the aggressor/instigator, but lily has gotten more confidant and the tides have turned. jabari was initially being somewhat territorial and chasing lily out of the bedroom. he is still quite a bit bigger than lily, but she is standing her ground now and they are both sleeping on the bottom of the bed at night.
jabari is also such a boy! he plays quite differently than tigerlily and looks generally like a bit of a doofus in comparison. lily is very patient, she quietly stalks, then sneaks up on her prey and "kills" it quite thoroughly, finally carting it back to her "den" (the bathroom, i have no idea why). jabari doesn't really stalk anything--he just goes for it. sliding around on the hardwood floors, skidding into the rug (and rearranging the furniture a bit), then clamping on to the toy with his powerful jaw, ripping off a few feathers (or whatever) and then he calls it good. he walks off satisfied only to come skittering back the moment it starts to move again. he is a bull and hilarious to watch!
i have been claiming victories with jabari in small steps: first trimming a few toenails at a time (they were soooo long), then applying some "soft claws" because he thinks my couch is a giant scratching post (he refuses to scratch the post, or the new catnip scratcher we got for him--this is probably one of the reasons his previous owner decided he was destructive and couldn't handle him) and finally giving him ear drops to treat mites.
overall, he is a great cat--very sweet and funny. it is kind of fun to have a big goofball of a cat bulldozing his way around and i think lily is really enjoying having a companion. my biggest concern right now is that i seem to be much more allergic to jabari than lily (which was basically my motivation behind getting a bengal in the first place), but i think i will adjust and build up a bit of an immunity (fingers crossed). they are a lot of fun and i am enjoying their company.

meet jabari!

here's the exciting news: we got our second bengal this weekend! i wasn't sure if it was going to happen until the last minute, there were a couple of other possible adoptees that didn't happen, so i didn't want to get my hopes up. but it worked this time and now i can make a post about it. the new kitty, "jabari", comes from the same breeder as tigerlily (that's how we found out that he needed a new home), but he was living up in seattle. karl and i got off of work on saturday night and drove up to his parents place near yelm to crash for the night. jabari's old daddy was on a tight schedule, so he wanted to meet us as early on sunday morning as possible. we agreed to meet at 7:30 am at the space needle. karl and i got up early and hit the road at about 5:45; we are both night people, so this was not a pretty sight. our saving grace was a nice selection of drive-thru espresso stands.
there was no traffic to speak of and we made it to the space needle by 7:15. the sky was still completely dark and i got some wonderful, if blurry (no tripod, as always), pictures of the needle lit up in the pre-dawn. we met jabari and his dad and drove back to portland. the road was quiet and jabari was quite good in the car. i got a couple of shots of mount st. helens when we stopped for gas.
we arrived home by about 10:30, which is about the time we would be getting up on a sunday morning (or later...ahem), so lily didn't get the chance to miss us too much. we set jabari up in the bedroom with a full set of kitty accouterments (hence the lovely new litter box featured in the following pictures...not my idea of a picturesque background) and lily stayed in the rest of our apartment.
jabari is gorgeous! he is a silver marble (his sides are spotty, but his back is marbled) bengal, so his pattern and color are different from tigerlily's--i think he looks like a little snow leopard:) we are not 100% sure if we are keeping his name (i'm not sure if i am spelling it right either...javari? jafari?). if he was named "snowball" or something like that we would definitely change it, but i like "jabari" pretty well. karl is not convinced (last night he tried out "manfred"--i shut that one down fast).
we let the kitties growl at each other briefly from a distance a couple of times on sunday and yesterday we left the door open most of the day. they are doing pretty well. there has been lots of growling, chasing and foxy boxing. but there has also been sniffing and playfulness between the two of them.they seem to be getting used to each other pretty quickly and the aggression is minimal. jabari is quite a bit bigger than lily and she is generally being more submissive, but whenever he turns to walk away, she runs up and swats him in the butt. it is highly entertaining. they are both trying to act tough and it is very cute.these pictures are of jabari on sunday night, he seemed tired out from the long day. he didn't want to eat and i think he missed his other people. he is very playful and has demolished one of those sparkle wand toys already (he is a really good jumper). he likes different toys than lily does, which is handy because we had quite a few things that she ignored and he loves.lily is currently stalking around behind him wherever he goes--he turns around and chases her off and when he turns away again she is swatting at his behind. quite a show. i will try to get some shots of them in action. so anyhow, there he is!