Creature: seemly content but wanting to crawl inside the fridge or go out in the snowstorm, and a bit miffed she can do neither.

Moi: reached that final level of acceptance in a sense. And life goes on.

Zooey looks up at me and meows to say "Are you abandoning me yet again? How much more can I stand?" as I leave to go to the gym.

The adorable Aussie dog: Very cuddly. Puttng some polish on his tricks, e.g. perfect bell ringing to go outside. Very vigilant about the threat of other dogs walking past our home.

The orange and white female cat: As usual, scared of everything but my Bear, to whom she clngs like a limpet.

The big long haired black and white cat: Playful, affectionate, and interested in frequent snacking. Also keeps a vigilant eye on the Aussie.

The elderly male tabby with the short, expressive tail: the King of the Kitties despite some eyesight and hearing challenges. Warm soft places comfort his aging bones. Loves his pets, expressed by biting the petting hand.

The elderly tall skinny black and white short haired female cat: As always, curious, demanding, highly intelligent, histrionic. I stepped on her extraordinarily long tail this AM and she burned a hole in me with her reproachful yellow eyes.

And we humans are fine too, thanks.

My calico kitty seems very content that I am sick and therefore stuck on the couch. It cuts down on the time she has to follow me around the house with the "Make a lap for me now, human" exasperated look on her face.

Anubis was super cuddly this morning and luckily did not do his form of grooming my head in order to wake me up. When I left, he was hanging out on his cat tree.

Lucy is sitting beside me on the sofa. Her tummy is full of her favourite food, which looks disgusting, a kind of grey mush, but she inhales it and would eat it for every meal if she could.

I'm fine too.

Lucy is such a pretty kitty.

My kitty cat is asleep next to me on the couch. Given that and the fact I woke up with a cat paw on my face this morning, I think she missed me while we were gone. Dog pup is asleep at my feet and girl pup is asleep next to him.

Like occhiblu, I'm sick (thanks so much, (not so) little brother). So my day has consisted of attempting to concentrate on work stuff, drinking many large mugs of hot tea, eating a popcorn tin, and listening to the cold rain while giving thanks it's not snow.

This was my first Christmas in 20 years without any cats.

Lacey: Crotchety, incontinent, but otherwise fine. Rymadil has made this possible (her still walking around). The incontinence is very wearing, though. We have blue camp tarps everywhere and it is not a very good way (for humans) to live.

Tito: Our 14 yo cat hates up but loves anyone who is not responsible for her care and feeding. Really, people on the block come up to him and fawn over him and when he deigns to come in the house, all we get is irritation and resentment. When people say how much they like him, we always offer him to them but get no takers. Very "kneady."

Melissa: Our young cat. Indoors, due to extreme ditziness. Sweet, but will hide from everyone but us, so no one else sees her and we have to say, yes, we have another cat but she's hiding. Very good lap-sitter - settles right down, no kneading.

Sookie is a bit spooked by the automatic AirWick dispenser. It has an aerosol can inside and sounds like a cat hiss.

We have a six month old kitten, residing with us for about a week, while her owner is out of town. We already have three cats. Our oldest (biggest and grumpiest) has ignored the visiting kitten completely. I wasn't even sure he's seen her, but she popped up her head at him while he was sleeping in my lap, and he made an odd noise before rolling back over to sleep. Our black cat (the middle cat, in size, age and length of time we've had him) wanted to be the kitten's friend immediately and has been cautiously letting her chase him around for a little while. Our littlest cat (the only female, about two years old) remains displeased and hasn't eaten since the kitten arrived yesterday. Our girl hisses at the visiting girl and growls a bit, but they haven't tussled and the visiting kitten keeps trying to touch noses.

Humans in the house are fine.

Guinness the cat is doing well, but still is eating almost nothing and not moving around much. (Though when he DOES move, he can get around fine on level surfaces and the occasional couch-level jump.) The vet prescribed something to stimulate his appetite, which I'm just about to go pick up right now, actually.

We got our beagle a new pack-mate. He had seemed awfully sad since our old dachshund died back in the spring. He and the new shi-tzu are great friends. It's good to see them chasing each other around the furniture and dog-wrestling when they aren't being completely lazy in front of the fireplace.

The people in the house have all been healthy through the entire Christmas season. I can't imagine how we pulled that off.

Kenda the Wonder Dog has a tummyache. We were at a friend Beth's house for supper last night when we noticed it was eerily quiet. "Where's Kenda? For that matter, where's Conor?" Conor, our friend's five year old son, was discovered in the mudroom feeding Kenda biscuit after biscuit, stuffing her completely. She's been, um, fragrant today.

We bipeds are just fine, though.

Mr. Kitty really likes the single serving 'mini-moos' creamer packs. Seems ok; and has a healthy winter coat going on.

The cats are lap magnets, spoiled by our being home & lazy several days in a row. They got new toys for xmas that are awesome: little golfball sized rubber molecule looking balls that bounce in crazy directions. Between those & wrestling/racing, they are content kittehs.

The dogs are best buds & sleep/romp/eat together. Gator (the newish to us pooch - 5 y.o. female) has finally learned to jump into the car right behind Otto (almost 4 y.o yellow lab) so she's getting less bribery these days.

Humans are fine & doing our best to take a slower pace.

Coya's great, thanks. She's getting a long overdue dentistry tomorrow though, for which I'm sure she's not prepared. I'm not going to do it myself (or even be there for it), just 'cos I don't want to see my own baby knocked under (or the grogginess as she comes out of it). I'm entrusting her to co-workers for that.

Out of pre-guilt, I took her for a ride in the car while I ran some errands earlier. It's only happened at a place or two, but she seems to think *every* window teller will have a dog biscuit for her. Thanks for nothing, Walgreens.

Fanty is still plotting to take over the world one lap at a time.

Mingo is still the same dim yet lovable doofus.

Oliver will never grow out of his needy hyperness and I have the scratches to prove it.

Abigail remains aloof yet affectionate as ever (I don't know how she combines the two, but she does).

And as long as Kaylee has the mister and an occasional treat - she's a happy dog.

This morning, we left O'Brien, Daphne, G.B. and Herbie at my boyfriend's parents' place in order to return to the airport with his mother. I am very sad to be leaving those awesome cats who didn't make me sneeze too much and kept me company while reading. My boyfriend gave O'Brien a lot of love before he left because the kitty is 20 years old, and it could be the last for him.

I wanna kitty now.

Yes, yes you do.