Joey our cat relaxing while I work on the computer.

Apparently, getting your photo taken isn't all that exciting.

This fall our cat Joey of unknown years, maybe about 13ish, developed goopy eyes. He'd always had crud in the corner of his eyes so when it got a little more prevalent, I didn't think too much of it. Then, one of Joey's eyes started to get cloudy and we took him to the vet.

After oral and topical medications, Joey's eye infection cleared up but not before he developed a full blown cataract in one eye.

Other than losing vision in one eye, Joey's now doing fine. At first he was a just a little bit off when jumping onto things, but he quickly adapted and is back to following me around the house, sleeping the day away and taking occasional breaks to complain about his food.

On the day before Easter, we spotted Mama, Daddy and Baby bunnies in our backyard. We are pretty sure they were scoping out places to hide Easter Eggs to report back to the Easter Bunny for his visit tomorrow.

Joey our cat. He's about 11 years old maybe. He had a tough life as a stray in Chandler, Oklahoma, surviving on his own in the wild before he adopted us. Now he lives the life of leisure, sleeping all day and following me from room to room in the evenings. He really loves to help out with the computer sitting between me and the keyboard. Two more closer ups after the jump.

The other day I was sitting on the couch while Will and Drew were playing nearby. Our cat Joey was sitting near Will watching our littlest mess-maker do his thing. I noticed Will lay a bag, just emptied of toys, against Joey's head but Joey didn't flinch. He didn't blink or even bat an ear. I continued to watch with a little concern as Joey, with bag leaning against the side of his face just stared ahead without the slightest indication of life. Surely, Joey hadn't expired on us, quietly slipping off to kitty heaven without a sound or even closing his eyes. Too lazy to get off the couch myself, I called out, "Drew...go move the bag off of Joey, please." Drew moved the bag and Joey stood, stretched and sauntered off.

During dinner we spotted one of our bunnies.

A close up reveals he's almost certainly related to the ones we've seen in 2006 and 2007.

Our cat Joseph, Joey for short, is the best tempered cat in the world. He used to be a wild outdoor cat in the country before he adopted us. He was quite the brave kitty never hesitating to take on all kinds of wild beasts. In the evenings, I'd dig out engorged ticks hidden underneath his long fur. Despite jabbing and poking with tweezers and a knife, Joey would just lay on my lap purring. Joey used to follow us on walks and would come running when our car drove into the neighborhood.

When we moved to the city, we brought Joey with us and he became an indoor cat. Now he follows me around the house like a dog and always wants to be a part of the action. There's never been a better cat for children. He has never once hissed or struck out against anyone and doesn't even mind being used as a pillow.

A couple of months ago, Drew was wearing his Incredibles pajamas and demonstrating his best impression of Dashiell "Dash" Parr. Drew was running up and down the hall so fast we could hardly see him. Joey just sat in the middle of it all, taking it all in, in his typical fashion. A better cat there has never been. (YouTube version after the jump.)

Joey is not a fan of the sun (or flash) interrupting his napping. The poor thing only gets twenty-two hours of sleep a day, no wonder he's always exhausted.

Will and Joey in a serious stare down. Two equally pitted rivals. Joey commands unparalleled speed and agility but deep down under lurks a fraidy cat. Will is fearless and has no comprehension of boundaries (or ability to read labels). A battle of the ages...who will assert control of the food dish.

Drew and Joey enjoying the afternoon view.

I haven't been at my desktop computer for three weeks due to my graphics card going out. The minute I get it fixed and sit down to do a little computing...I have a partner. Even Dogbert didn't scare him away.

Today we picked out our Christmas tree. I squatted down for a picture with Drew and he squatted down with me. We are both wearing our University of Illinois hats. Go Illini!

Now, you'd think all the commotion associated with bringing a ten foot Christmas tree into the house would scare away Joey our cat, otherwise known as Mr. Run-Cowering-Under-The-
Bed-At-The-Slightest-Sound-Of-Distant-Thunder. However, to say he was very interested would be an understatement. Immediately, upon dropping the tree down into its holder, he was underneath sniffing and...mapping a route up!

Click "continue reading" to see what happened next [updated].

Joey worked his way about six feet up and laid his head down just as happy as he could be. He used to be an outdoor cat in the middle of nowhere and tree climbing was one of his favorite activities. It wasn't uncommon to see him race 20 or 30 feet up a tree, sniff around a little, climb down, sprint across the ground to another tree and repeat the process. Now, he's afraid to stay outside more then five minutes at a time before he's crying at the door to be let back in. I'll bet the tree brought back great memories for him. I just hope he's gotten the need to climb this one out of his system. (The picture quality is low because it is a video frame.)

After we hung lights on the top of the tree using a ladder, we put the ladder aside, and Joey took the opportunity to use it as a perch for watching our activities. We've had a tree with Joey around before but it's been a few years due to a number of circumstances. I'm sure things will calm down and the tree and cat will get along fine...*fingers crossed*.

[Update] Joey has not thought about climbing the tree since we put the lights on. He's happy just to sit under it and dream about the treats and toys that Santa will bring him.

When I tell you our cat is just a big ball of fur...I'm not exaggerating.

Much to the enjoyment of Drew and to the consternation of our cat, our backyard has become the home to a four-legged good luck charm.

Anybody got a good stew recipe?

A pat on the head...a little CPR...test it out...and, ahhhh, time for a nap. Now that's a good kitty.

My sister called this week to tell me that she had to put her nineteen year old cat, Chin-Lee, to sleep. It's unbelievable that he'd been around since 1985...the Soviet Union was still an Evil Empire, New Coke came out followed closely by Coke Classic, the Titanic was located, we watched Breakfast Club and Back to the Future while listening to Band Aid's Do They Know It's Christmas and USA for Africa's We Are The World...and I was a lifeguard and freshman in college. Chin-Lee was a great cat. One of the five fastest land animals in his youth and one of the orneriest cats in his old age.

One of the funniest stories was one time when my sister got Chin-Lee a new cat pan. He proceeded to stand in it, stare at my sister, put his butt over the edge and poop on the carpet...making it abundantly clear that he didn't approve of the new pan. This continued until my sister retrieved the old pan from the garbage. Eventually, she solved the dilemma by putting old filthy poop-filled litter in the new pan and slowly changing out the old litter for new over the course of a few days. Chin-Lee will certainly be missed.

[Update: Yes, I realize

While creating the prior post, I played the video a number of times while clipping excess footage from the front and back ends and converting it from avi to wmv which reduced the file size by 75%. As is often the case when I'm working on the computer, my cat, Joey, was in the room napping. Joey is incredibly good natured. In fact his vet, who specializes in cats, said that Joey was the best tempered cat he had ever seen.

While I was upstairs editing the video, Joey jumped up on the table between me and the monitor, which he has never done before, and poked his head around the sides of the monitor looking for the growling cat. I picked him up and put him down on the floor and that was the end of that.

Later that night while I downstairs, I heard Joey meowing repeatedly and continuously. I don't remember him ever doing this before and I assumed he had gotten locked in a closet or something and wanted out. I went upstairs where the meowing was coming from and there he was, standing on the computer table meowing at the dark silent monitor. Obviously, the video had some impact on him!

My sister has a nineteen year old Siamese cat named Chin Lee. Despite being hard of hearing with poor vision and arthritic, he has managed to maintain a his wonderful disposition as you can see in his video if you click on the nice kitty below.