Musings/Mewsings

Barbara Florio Graham

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Q.T. (Penny) Teakettle
the first female spokescat for Simon Teakettle Ink

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The FAN CLUB

The MEWSical Society

This is a diary, not a blog, so the latest entries are at the bottom.
But we've started adding new photos closer to the top.

Penny was born February 3, 2014, and adopted from the Aylmer SPCA on February 4, 2015. Her name was already Penny, but we added Q. T. (for Quattro Teakettle) because she's the fourth  Teakettle, and since Simon Teakettle III was called  Terzo, we felt we should continue the Latin tradition. It helps that when you say Q.T.Penny it sounds like "Cutie Penny" which fits her PURRfectly. She's grey and white, with very uneven markings,  as you'll see as you scroll through the photos on this page. Q.T. has already taken over the blog, but Terzo continues to head the MEWSical Society.  This is not unlike his taking over promotion for the Mewsings/Musings, the book written by Simon Teakettle II (Tiki) and featuring a centrefold of the first Simon Teakettle.

Penny was asked to write an article for The Daily Mews in the U.K.
telling the story of Simon Teakettle Ink. It's in the January newsletter
and also on the Daily Mews site. Read it HERE.

Penny's interview with Sneaky, the Library Cat:   https://sneakylibrarycat.wordpress.com/2016/10/09/interview-with-penny- 
Tiny URL: http://tinyurl.com/huyzpyv

Bobbi loved it when I cross my paws, and recently took a photo of me with my paws crossed over my tail!

This fountain has been sitting beside Penny's food tray since she arrived, in February of 2015. She has ignored it despite Bobbi's urgings, until recently, when she decided to have a drink.

Penny isn't sure she needs these sunglasses.

To the right, Penny examines the book Crafting with Cat Hair, as well as hair from the most recent brushing.

I'm pretending to hold the purple mouse, while hiding the red one!

Princess likes to share the couch with me.

I now have TWO special ball toys to play with! I love them both!

		This sequence shows how I grab the spring with my paw, then my teeth, and play with it until it drops on the floor, at which point I beg Bobbi to give me another one!

For some reason, I really like this little pink mouse.

I hold it in my paws and cuddle it.

I also like to hold this lobster. Bobbi says he's not like a real lobster, which is evidently hard and has prickly claws.

Snuggling up against our Simon Teakettle pillow, making sure Teddy is also comfortable.

This chair is my private jungle gym.

Every so often, Bobbi buys me a New Toy. This one is a little metal cage with a tiny mouse inside. Here I am, holding it with my paw, but I've also picked it up in my mouth and carried it around the house to play with in different rooms. No matter what I do, the mouse doesn't want to come out! As you can see on the right, I've even tried to bite it. That leopard blanket is what Bobbi puts over her legs in the den, so in these photos I'm on her lap.

Tazi and I are trying to decide how long Bobbi will leave this dress on the bed before she realizes that I am NOT going to put it on?

Tazi has become My Pal. He usually stays on the guest room bed,  (which has become My Bed). He's a Great Pal because he doesn't  eat my food!

Sometimes I use Tazi as a pillow! He doesn't seem to mind.

We caught Penny with her paws crossed, and then holding onto the bunny ears, which she still doesn't want to wear. More about the bunny ears below:

Here, finally, are photos of me doing the trick I've been perfecting since Christmas. In order to have a treat, I have to do two things, in order. First, I have to hold a pen in my paw. What you can't see in this photo is that I have to curl my paw around it. Then, I have to give Bobbi my paw. lifting it by myself.

Here I am with Valentine things, and looking over my shoulder at my pal who is wearing a sweater that says: I Love Hugs. I decided I didn't want to put it on, so let her wear it.

I like to play with this red straw while I'm on Bobbi's lap. I grab it with my paws, sometimes even using my back paws to hold it.  When she gets out the iPad to take a photo, I look up to see what she's doing.

This is how I Spend my Time: I Sleep (at night) I Nap (during the day) I Wash (many times a day) I Eat I Play I look out one of four Windows I do a few Tricks to earn Treats I Hide Toys under low furniture or inside Closets (like Terzo did) Sometimes I watch TV.   The photo at the right shows me Watching Animal Planet.

I'm not sure this is supposed to be a Toy, so I'm checking with Bobbi to make sure it's Okay for me to play with.

My cousin, Milo Russo, likes to snatch Helen's chair when she leaves the room.  He has a heart-shaped tag on his collar. Mine is on my harness, which I don't wear all the time because it gets in my way when I wash!

Here I am on Bobbi's chair in the kitchen. You can see that I'm looking at her as she stands by the stove, saying, "You mean you want to sit here now? I thought you were going to feed me first."

I decided this Ho Ho Ho robe makes a great pillow.

I can't believe I received all these gifts!

Here I am approaching the felt fish containing tiny bags of treats, a gift from June Coxon.

How about my face on a billboard in this winter scene? A good way to announce my 2nd birthday, on Feb. 3.

Here's the Christmas coat Bobbi wants me to| put on. I'm trying to figure out if it will fit This little guy isn't really a mouse, but more of a friendly, fuzzy rat. I'm not sure how much I want to cuddle up to him, but he does seem pretty harmless. I like to play with this toy by squeezing under the chest and reaching for the ball with my paw. Bobbi moved my bed into this corner of her office for the winter, so I can nap while she works. I have a few toys within reach, in case I wake up!

And here is my teddy (bearing significant battle scars from Tiki and Terzo),   wearing his Santa hat.  Do you think Bobbi would like this pretty locket as her Christmas gift?  I love my tunnel, and play here every day.

I've been learning some of the tricks Terzo used to do. Here I am touching the pen before Bobbi opens the treat jar, and then giving her my paw for a treat. We asked Simon Quesnel to take these photos.

Q.T. Penny's Diary Hi. My name is Q.T. Penny but what I hear when Bobbi calls me is "Cutie Penny," and she sometimes even calls me "Cutie Pie." As you'll see, she even found a box with my name on it for Valentine's Day! The blue box on the rug contains my Treats (yum!) which I only get once in a while. This is not a blog, but a diary. It's the story of how I came to live here, what I've learned, and how things are going, week by week. So you'll have to scroll down to read new entries. I've learned a lot in this first month, including to come when I'm called, to Get Down! if I climb up somewhere I'm not allowed, and to Stay when she closes the door to the den/bedroom/bathroom, both at night when we go to bed and when she goes out. Bobbi won a Special Award for her article on training, so she's already helped me get used to having my nails clipped (it doesn't hurt!), having my ears cleaned, and to let her sleep as late as she wants to in the morning. That works because I don't get my Favorite Food (Fancy Feast) until lunch time, but I have Munchie Crunchies in my dish in the bathroom to snack on, so I'm not ravenous in the morning. She put on my collar the first week, which felt a bit strange at first, but we also tried out the leash, which I'd rather play with than anything else. But that's the only way I was allowed to explore the rest of the main floor. My license from the Gatineau SPCA just arrived, so it doesn't appear on my collar until some of the later photos. I really like the Window in the dining room, which overlooks the back yard. There's not very much activity there, but I've seen the occasional bird and Bobbi tells me there will be many Birds and Squirrels once spring arrives. You'll notice that I insist that Bobbi capitalize Important Words in this diary, just as Terzo used to do when he wrote the blog. I think it's important to carry on Meaningful Traditions!

As I mentioned in one of my first blog posts, I don't know how to use the Computer yet, so I "dictate" my thoughts to Bobbi. I did try the Keyboard one day recently, but it made a Strange Noise and I figured out I must have done something Wrong. I do enjoy sitting on the desk watching her, and also like to watch TV sometimes, when I'm on her Lap in the den. But I have a really important job, as SpokesCat for Simon Teakettle Ink, which involves contributing to the blog, maintaining the Fan Club, and adding to the Pinterest Board. Now that I've been here a Full Month, I've discovered there are carpeted shelves in The Office and even in the Guest Room, where I can sit to look out the window. This gives me my first look at the Front Yard, which I couldn't see before because of the Snow. I also inherited (from Terzo) a fabulous tunnel, where I love to play. As I begin my second month in this lovely house, I've discovered a few more Comfy Spots to sleep, including a black "fur" circular cushion in the office, which Bobbi tells me was a Favorite Place where Terzo liked to curl up. I've also been allowed Full Access to the Main Floor when Bobbi goes out, which is a Great Privilege I'm not about to abuse. I know where I'm not supposed to Climb or Scratch, and what Things I'm not supposed to Touch. It's really important to me to be Good Girl! One thing puzzles me. I love to play with a Mouse on the floor, but don't understand why there are several Mice hanging from strings. I'll play with a Ball or other Toy handing from a string, but since my Background is feral, I know that you can't have any Fun with a mouse that's dangling, because it's Already Dead! Here I am in my new Special Place in the office. When I don't feel like looking out the window, I curl up for a nap in this lovely round bed that fits me Perfectly. When this photo was taken, I had brought the Long Grey Felt mouse into bed with me. We just celebrated the beginning of my Third Month as Official Spokecat and Resident Feline for Simon Teakettle Ink. It's a great honor which I'm taking Very Seriously. Bobbi took me in my carrier, and at first I was quite anxious, worrying where she was taking me. I hoped she wasn't giving me away! Here I am retrieving a treat, a neat way for her to get me to go into the carrier. I can sit upright in this really comfortable place, which rolls around when she pulls the handle! After a short drive, she took me out and we sat in the waiting room for a bit. A man came in with a really nice little dog who seemed to like me. He kept coming up to the carrier, wanting to lick me and make friends. I'm not afraid of dogs, having spent so much time at the SPCA. My veterinarian is a very nice lady with a lovely young assistant who petted me a lot. They both fussed over me, and I didn't mind at all. Still, I was happy to come home again.  I'm delighted to see all the signs of spring from the windows where I look out every day. I jump up on the bedroom window in the morning as soon as she opens the curtains, then spend some time in the dining room window in the morning, and in the office in the afternoon. That's the best view, because the bird feeder hangs close by! I'm learning to bring balls back to Bobbi after she throws them for me. Then she can throw them again! But I won't do that with mice. I like to keep all my mice in different rooms where I can be surprised when I find them again.   Here I'm lounging in the dining room window, but I usually sit, facing out, to watch the birds and squirrels in the back yard.  Bobbi said I should create a Priority List,  so here we are: CUDDLE EAT PLAY WASH SLEEP and Lily Fry, another MEWSical Society member, thinks we should have a reading contest. She prefers the Sports section of the newspaper. Here's my new Globe Ball, which will let me see all six continents where my Fan Club members reside. We now have 43 species in the Fan Club, from 26 countries, and more keep arriving every few weeks. We just received a flock of flamingos and a cat from southern France. Our friend, Zach Reisman, a talented artist and budding graphic designer who lives in Montreal, befriended this stray dog in Cuba, and sent us this photo:          Bobbi bought me this pretty t-shirt.  Making sure my toys are nearby before my nap.

Bobbi caught me with my tongue out. I look as if I'm washing my license!   Stanley Haskins, one of our MEWSical Society members, competing with me in the  "stretched out on your back" contest. I'm trying to steal a few spring accessories  from Princess, but then I decide we're really not in competition, so I curl up beside her for a nap. This baby squirrel was so busy feasting on seed the  birds dropped, that he/she doesn't even know I was close by, watching intently. Sometimes I sleep on the Far Couch in the living room, where my Favorite Lion can watch over me.  I was told I'm supposed to Figure Out how to use this little drum, in order to fill Terzo's Big Paws as Percussionist in the MEWSical Society. Rosie came across the street to help me brush my teeth. I can't hold the toothbrush by myself. A big yawn, as I tire of reading on the IPad. Did you know that female cats tend to be right pawed, while male cats are more often left pawed?  I'm the exception to the rule, because I'm definitely left-pawed.