Skoda, Happy 4th Anniversary!

Times flies. Today, 29 October marks Skoda's annual anniversary at the Cove. This girl has got both beauty and brains, to-die-for curves (yup, some 6.5kg of them) and loads of character :)

Four years on, Skoda still plays her cards well in holding the strings to Grimlock's heart. She responds so tenderly to his calling of her name (she is not as responsive when I'm the one calling her name :( leh...).

Her intelligence never fail to amaze us. She pulls down my kitchen tea cloths at least twice everyday, without fail. And before doing so, she would meow away - just so we must know she has done it again. And at times after getting the cloth off the handle (usually when we're around), she would hold it in her mouth and drop it off at the kitchen entrance (where we can see her).

Skoda has a place where she keeps away her personal "favourites", ie small objects which she had stuffed into the waterhole in the kitchen. Her stash to-date includes at least three fridge magnets and one small box of dental floss. We suspect the two small mouse toys that had mysteriously vanished, are in there as well. Now, we keep things that can fit into the waterhole away from her reach.

Skoda loves our bedroom very much. Recently she has developed a liking for sleeping on my chest or stomach. Well, she is not light but the feeling of her resting on me is almost magical; she feels nicely warm and I can feel her purring away and the rhythm of her breathing. And oh yes, before she settles down on me, she'll knead away and then pucker up to me for a kiss or two, aawwww... Of the three, she is the only one who is spontaneous to exchanging kisses. At times when the mood is so right, Skoda will want to give me a taste of her grooming, ie lick my face and nib at my hair. Her tongue feels quite rough and ticklish which gets me breaking out in giggles and then I'll try to dodge her advances (hahaha). She doesn't do any of these to Grimlock (Yes! hee hee)

It definitely didn't take her long to register that one needs to turn the door knob in order to get into a room when the door is closed. When she desperately wants in, she'll leap upwards and have a go at turning the door knob.

I can go on and on about Skoda; her ways, charms, her seeking of attention and wanting of human touch/contact...well, she is altogether lovely. I'll leave these other tales for some other time.

I thought yesterday was 29 October so for dinner yesterday, I gave Skoda Fussie Cat tuna as a special treat - she doesn't mind this wet food (and of course Braun and Mikki had their share too). And she alone got to snuggle up to us in bed yesterday. I've no idea how I could get the day of the week wrong when I had marked 29 October down prominently on my calendar.

Finally, to my Skoda love: Rock on, babe!

I think I published this collage some time back. It is one of my favourite visuals which captures a multi-faceted Skoda. As I've said so a few times, gratification comes just by looking at her.

The Science of Cooking

I quite enjoy cooking because it is like carrying out a science experiment; following through a recipe step-by-step, bringing all the ingredients together and then wait-and-see what you get. At times, even though you follow the recipe as instructed, the end result may not turn out to be as expected OR sometimes, you choose to follow your gut-feel and the result turns out to be not too bad afterall. Cooking can be therapatic as such, but I've to say the washing-up part is a killer.

Now and then when Grimlock has certain cravings, he would search the Internet for recipes and try them out. Here are some stuff that we each recently whipped up...

I had my favourite, an Oreo cheesecake for my birthday (by Grimlock):


A three-course dinner for Grimlock's birthday (by Mousie); fish chowder, angel hair with mushrooms and bacon strips and lychee sorbet:


The goodness from a recipe on chicken rice that was "plucked off" the Internet (by Grimlock):


A friend of ours came over to our place so we had for tea, a chocolate brownie cake topped with Haagen-Daz ice cream (by Mousie - her maiden baking exploit).

The brownie cake is also Grimlock's favourite. The recipe is idiot proof (you can click on the link for the recipe). I forgot to add in the snickers bar (which might have made the cake too sweet if I had added these). Instead of peanuts, I used cashew nuts (prefer this over peanuts).

Let's see what we'll dish out next from our kitchen...

"Got to Pull Em' Down!"

Skoda has a fettish with pulling down cloths and getting certain ones out of her way. One evening when I got home from work, I saw a trail of cloths on the floor which I knew instantly was of her doing...

We see here the defendent going on a walk-through of the trail of evidence with Detective Mousie. Item no. 1 is the kitchen tea cloth (you've got to give it to Skoda for pulling down the tea cloth and then bringing it all the way here). Item no. 2 is a small rug (with drawings of cats on it) that is placed on the printer/scanner (Mousie's idea of making that popular sun-tanning spot more cosy). Item no. 3 is the cushion for the Chrysantheum Throne.

Mighty Mikki comes along to check out the commotion. More of Skoda's doing coming up...

Defendent Skoda had also relocated the Chrysantheum Throne from its usual corner (right at the corner of the wall, ie where arrow is pointing to) to the edge of the study table. She also 'decided' the cloth for the Throne cushion was better off on the floor.

Defendent Skoda emerged guilty as charged! It is only she who has such a habit...

Mousie cannot grasp what it is about removing cloths from their original locations that so intrigues Skoda, for her to keep at doing this. Maybe it is like a game to Skoda. The fun part for her is not getting caught yet in the act on film (to this, Mousie swears perseverance) and having Mousie pick up after her. Woe to the beans for having a cat who doesn't think she ought to be one...

From my cat calendar:
"I have noticed that what cats most appreciate in a human being is not the ability to produce food, which they take for granted - but his or her entertainment value." - Geoffrey Household

Project S (XII)

I scheduled my 7th round of trapping on 8 Sept - was targeting two newbies and one female white/grey. The newbies, ie one all-black (male) and one cream-coloured (female), were spotted a week before that. I estimate them both to be about a year-old. They are semi-long haired (I think they are Siamese mixed) and in good physical condition. The black one is very cautious; we had to stay away a good distance from the food before he would touch it. The cream-coloured one is slightly less cautious and very pretty. The white/grey has been around for some time - lovely girl she is; after eating, she would bump herself against our legs and do her circles of '8' around our legs. We only managed to round up the white/grey for spaying on 8 Sept - by then, she was in a somewhat advanced stage of pregnancy. The black and cream-coloured cats were nowhere to be seen.

Boarded her for a few more days with V so that she could duly recover. After her release, she seemed a little disoriented initially but she didn't run off. We gave her some wet food and it was good to see her eating away heartily. She still was friendly to us (no hard feelings :) ).

After releasing the white/grey (14 Sept), we were getting ready to make a move and then we spotted a target - a female tabby who was on heat. We saw her too during the last trip with a tom hot on her heels and we were unsuccessful in trapping them then. I also think she was the one who got away during one of the previous trapping rounds so she remembers the trap. This time, V used a net and managed to haul her in. She put up a big fight. She was still howling away after her spaying so V had to put up with the noise while she was boarded at his place.

The Noisy One (round #8). She made so much noise, right up to her release. With her, the tally now stands at 23 cats being sterilised (16 females and seven males).

Some of the kitties who hang out at Site X - top (left) clockwise: Tux Boy, 'Orh-Choo-Bee' (black glutinous rice) or Ah Bee in short, Moo-Moo Cow (named after the unique patchwork-pattern on her back) and one of the white-grey's. Moo-Moo will run to us while Ah Bee can be heard yowling away from a distance when they see us ("Yay, the food source is here!"). At times, Ah Bee will walk with us for a short distance after she had her fill. She has a very lovely face (black around the nose area) and shiny, expressive eyes.

More photos... The one in the centre is one of the latest additions, a kitten about 5-6 months old. She is the only kitten we see of late at Site X so I think she should be a dumping case. Will wait for her to grow a little bigger in size.

Spotted the cream-coloured cat during our last visit. And two newbies - one whitish (with grey streaks) cat who didn't look too well, and one white/grey cat - both unsterilised. There are several brown tabbies at Site X so I can't tell most of them apart. Now for sure, I'm confused over how many white/greys there are.

Drinking Fountain - the Proper Way to Cleaning It

The girls have got two drinking fountains. About a month ago, water was not flowing out over the dome of one of them, even after we re-fitted the parts and adjusted the position of the fountain a few times. The fountain is not cheap so I was very reluctant to put it into "retirement". I thought of getting a replacement pump so I googled online to look for the supplier but I couldn't find the particular model. I then looked up the Hagen website (manufacturer of the DogIt/CatIt drinking fountain) and almost wanted to send in an enquiry on getting a replacement pump until I came across the user's guide. Under the FAQ section in the guide, the troubleshooting method to getting the fountain to work again is to dismantle the outer section of the pump and do a thorough cleaning to remove the build-up of minerals that have accumulated over time. I followed the instructions and viola, the dome was working again. I also cleaned up the other fountain and the water flow was better than before. Such thorough cleaning should be done once every two weeks.

When I pulled out 'A' from 'B' and looked inside 'B', there were some bits of gunk in 'B' which I cleaned out with a toothbrush.

This is the side of the pump with the wire. Only the cover can be removed so you can give the surface a good scrub with the toothbrush.

This is the other side of the pump. Previously, our cleaning ended with scrubbing this side and the corners with the toothbrush.

From the user's guide, I discovered the cover can actually be removed. I was taken aback by the amount of gunk that have accumulated both on the pump (photo on the left - this is the view after the cover has been removed) and the inner of the cover (photo on the right). It was quite disgusting :(

The centre part of the pump (circled in red in photo on left) can be pulled out, ie the bullet-looking thing in the photo on right (circled in red). There was also gunk on it. The guide says to gently wash it (I rinsed it under a running tap).

So the trick in getting the pump to be working optimally again is to clean these three parts:

I'm glad the domes are working optimally again. I can't find the user's guide that came with the fountain when we bought it. I felt quite bad on the neglience on our/my part. I shuddered at the thought of the amount of gunk. I've taken and posted detailed photos here so if you've got a similar drinking fountain/dome, I'd strongly recommend that you do the same thorough cleaning (once every two weeks).