Animal House

We would like to thank all of our friends who traveled to Italy to help us celebrate our birthday. We had so much fun with you and can't wait to do it again next year.

The first guests to knock on our door were Annie, Bill, Shefarra, Tunk, Lola and Dubs, who traveled all the way from Indiana to be with us.


Our friends Derby and Sophine were the next to make the trip across the pond. Derby brought so many suitcases, that we thought (and hoped) he was moving in with us. Sophie left her suitcases at home, but she did bring her very own sleeping bag just in case she needed a nap.

Derby's bags and Derby singing "Happy Birthday"

Zippy, Sadie and Speedy, also mid-western cats, traveled to be with us on our birthday. They were so excited to be able to try all the different types of pasta. We hope they come back again soon and eat some more good meals with us.

Just as the party was getting started, our new friends Smeagol, Strider, Mystery and Gizmo knocked on the door. We were so happy to meet them for the very first time in person (I mean, in animal). Thats Mystery in the photo on the left.

Smeagol and Strider sleeping off their jet lag, while Gimzo steps outside for some freshair.



We were so happy when our old friend, Fat Eric, arrived from England. He's a good old chap who is always great for a laugh or two! He is also the only living cat who can eat more cake and ice cream than us. Don't worry, he doesn't have a belly ache in this photo. He is just resting up for the next round.

Soon we were joined by all of our friends from the House of Mostly Black Cats. Sanjee, Boni Maroni, Mini, Gree and Pepi got the party off to a great start with a really cool cat dance. Soon the whole crowd was line dancing right alongside them all!

Just when thought it couldn't get any better, all of our friends from "The Zoo" arrived. It was so nice of them to come to our little party. They didn't waste anytime and quickly joined all us all on the dance floor.

Our friends from "The Zoo

Warming up the paws before hitting the dance floor and
resting the paws after hitting the dance floor.

Samantha and Tigger went right to work on playing when they arrived at the party. These two really are a couple fun, party animals!

Then our friend Karen Jo, from Kitty Limericks, showed up. She has a great blog where she write limericks about blogging cats. I think she found a lot of inspiration at our party!


They say that a picture is worth a thousand words and we couldn't agree more. Just look at this character! You had better believe us when we tell you that Karl was the life of the party! We are just sorry that we don't have a bigger picture of this cool cat. Someone keep this guy far from the cat nip!



The beautiful and exotic Tara arrived at our party in the company of her brother, Kavan. Tara looked like a model in her cool tunnel while Kavan impatiently waited for the cake to be served.

Talk about your international parties! Not only did we have friends come from America and England, but we even had guests travel from Germany! Our female human was really excited about this as she has a bit of German heitage (though she really is just a mut, but don't tell her that). Luna, Frieda and Luzie us all taught to say meow in German. "Miau!"

Of course the best thing about our birthday was that our family from America was able to come and spend the day with us. Our grandparents along with their vagabond cat, Buddy, and also our cousin, Panther, danced, ate and slept the day away with us. We were so happy that we couldn't stop puring. Grandma and Grandpa even got dressed up for the celebration!

Buddy opts for exercise while Panter tries to "sleep it off"

We would have written about the party sooner, but we had so much fun that we have been sleeping ever since! Thank you so much for making our birthday such a special day. Please come to back Italy soon!

Love,

Opus and Roscoe

(photos of the party guests were borrowed from their own blogs. If anyone wishes to have their photos removed, just please leave a comment and it will be done)

Happy Birthday to US!

Today we are celebrating our birthday. The humans would have you believe that we are a couple of pimply-faced-twelve-year-olds, but the fact is that we are really senior citizens in cat years. We won't let a little thing like that keep from throwing a party though. Everyone is invited to join us for a party at our house tonight. RSVP by leaving a comment in our box and we will write a post about all the fun we have.

We know it is sort of last minute, but we are cats (and its our birthday) and that is just how we are. Hope you can join us!

Opus and Roscoe

The Nerve

What does a cat have to do to get some peace and quiet around here? I was sleeping in our human's bed, dreaming of chasing field mice, when I was rudely awaken. Something (or rather someone) was tickling my nose with a feather duster. I carefully opened my eyes and came face to tail with Roscoe! He was sleeping with his rump in my face and tickling my nose with the end of his tail! How rude!

I would have moved away from him, but that would have been way too much work. Besides, I was there first!

Opus

Grandma's Blog

We wanted to introduce you to our Grandma. She is a sweet woman who is always willing to hold us, pet us and sneak us cat treats. When we lived in the States, she often came to our house for a visit. We really enjoyed napping with her on our over-stuffed-couch. It has been over a year since she came to see us in Italy and we really miss her. We hope that she will come again soon.

Recently Grandma started her own blog. Stop in and check it out!

Did we mention that she is very strong?

Dr. Feelgood

Fear not friends of Cat Naps in Italy, Opus and I are back! Both of us were feeling a little under the weather and have spent the last month sleeping our way back to good health.

Our humans noticed that there was something wrong with us; Opus had missing fur under his right eye while I had some nasty stuff clogging my ears. We tried our best to hide the symptoms, but the humans were not fooled. They dragged us both off to the vet not once, but twice in the period of two weeks! I mean really how much can a cat take?

Just in case you didn't know, the word vet is an acronym for Vicious and Extreme Torture. And the humans wonder why we run and hide at the sight of our traveling cage!

Opus escaped without too much torture. The vet cleaned his eye, which had a slight infection. She also checked his ears which were fine. I, on the other hand, didn't fare as well. I was given the complete bumper to bumper inspection, IF you know what I mean. The nasty woman started with my ears (both infected), moved onto my mouth where she scraped my teeth with a sharp metal object AND noticed that I had a gum infection above one of my teeth. Then she kept going on down. I will spare you the nasty details, but lets just say that she poked around my unmentionables. And she did all of this right on front of our humans! How inhumane!

So after many weeks of medicine and plenty of rest, Opus and I are back to good health and back to blogging.

Thanks to all of our friends who have been checking in on us!

Roscoe

Giorno del Gatto

We really like living in Italy, they sure do know how to treat a cat around here! How many other countries have a "Day of the Cat"?

Even though it is an Italian holiday, we think our feline friends should celebrate no matter where in the world they live.

It is Cat Day! Make sure your humans spoil you even more than normal! Make sure you get fresh fish for dinner! Make sure you get a nice bowl of warm milk to wash it all down with! Pick the best, warmest seat in the house and curl up in it for a long nap! Make sure your humans treat you like the feline kings and queens that you are!

We are cats and they are lucky to have US!

Happy Cat Day!

Love,
Opus and Roscoe

**Painting by Monica Richards**

The Colts Win the Super Bowl

Roscoe and I have spent the entire week celebrating! Can you believe that our hometown, Indianapolis, WON the Super Bowl?????

Thanks to all of our friends who were able to come to our Super Bowl party. We hope you had as much fun as we did! Our humans think it is time to put the blue wigs away, but we think we should keep them on for AT LEAST one more week.

What do you think?

The Animals are Taking Over the Party!

Our humans are having a Virtual Super Bowl Party and they said that we could invite all of our friends. Send your picture to americanmedusa@yahoo.com to sign up. The game is on Sunday and we would love see you guys after being gone for so long. We don't really know what all the fuss is about. The female is happy because her hometown made it to the game this year (the Indianapolis Colts). We would be more excited if the team was called the Indianapolis Felines!


Be sure to join us and make you sure you state which team you are cheering on! See you at the game!

Love,
Opus and Roscoe

A Christmas Story

We know most of you think that we are just a couple of lazy cats because we neglect our blog so often. Normally you wouldn't be wrong, after all we ARE cats. We have a good excuse this time, we have been out of town again. Just after sending out our Christmas greetings, we ran into Santa. He was in our town square with eight tiny reindeer who were exhausted from being over worked on Christmas Eve. It was a sad sight: each reindeer was sprawled across the pavement with their legs pointing in each direction, bellies on the ground, heads down, tongues hanging out their mouths. Poor Rudolph's nose wouldn't even light up anymore. You get the picture, they were really exhausted.

The good news was that the crew had hung in there right until the end. All the presents were delivered to the good little children all over the world. It was on their return home that the boys ran out of gas. That is when they made a crash landing and came tumbling down right into the center of our town square.

Santa looked like he was about to start crying. He was tired and just wanted to get home. Opus and I knew we had to help, but what could we do? We are just a pair of regular American cats. Well, we offered the reindeer's some fresh carrots and water. We brought Santa a hot plate of pasta a glass of red wine. Everyone enjoyed the "refill" but it still wasn't enough to get the reindeer back their feet.

"If only there was something else we could do to help", Opus said. Santa's eyes lit up and that old sparkle returned at once. "Actually," he said with a hint of hope in his voice" there is something you could do, but it would be a lot hard of work". Well, how could we refuse? I mean, come on guys, it was SANTA!

So the reindeer, all eight of them, piled into the sleigh. You should have seen it, they looked like a stack cheerleaders trying to make a pyramid. Santa placed the sleigh belts around our bellies and tightened them tight. I was starting to worry that he was expecting us to drag them all the way back to the North Pole, when he took a small velvet sack out of his pocket. He reach inside and pulled out a handful of glitter and sprinkled it across my brother and I. It wasn't just any old glitter, it was magic glitter! The next thing we knew, we started to lift right off of the ground!

I got scared when our town grew small beneath our feet, but not Opus. He was saying "look over there Roscoe" and "look down there Roscoe". Once I relaxed it started to become fun. We flew over Italy with medieval castles looking like miniature home beneath us. It was a lot of hard work, but a lot of fun.

Once we got Santa and the crew safety back to the North Pole, we couldn't just leave. So we spent the last month hanging out with Santa. We drank eggnog every day and played with the elves. Of course our humans knew where we were.



It was so much, but soon we began to miss the pasta in Italy, our soft beds in front the radiator but mostly we missed our humans. So a few days ago we asked the man in red to give us a lift back home.

Before Santa left, he asked if Opus and I would like be honorary reindeer and to work for him next Christmas. We thanked him for the offer, but explained that we are cats and that it would just be too much work. We told him that we would rather just curl up somewhere warm and let the reindeers do the work!

-Roscoe

Meowie Catmas!

It has been over three months since our birthday party and last post. You won't believe where we have been! We will save that post for another day, but let's just say that the story involves too much champagne, a box, a boat and a deserted island.

Thank goodness that we made back to Italy just in time wish all of our friends and loved ones a very Merry Christmas. Hope that Santa Paws came to your house last night and brought you all kinds of goodies.

As they say here in Italy, Buon Natale!

Love,
Opus and Roscoe

Our Purrday Party

Thank you all so much for the wonderful day! You really made our 11th birthday something special. We hope that you had as much fun as we did.

The party started with the arrival of our first guests, Grandma and Grandpa. They came with a stack full of goodies and even brought their own party hats! After that, it was a steady stream of guests arriving at our home in Italy. Thank you all for making the long trip!

Once everyone arrived safe and sound, it was time to "let the games begin". We started by breaking the group down into teams for a scavenger hunt. Here is the list of the items we were searching for:

1-ball of yarn

2- one white mouse with black spots (alive)

3- a dog bone

4- three feathers from a bird (also alive)

and

5- one can of sardines (NOT eaten)

The Diva Kitty Team won. On that team was Diva Kitty, the bunnies: Fiona & Orlando, Panther, Derby, Bob and Richard Simmons. They were the first ones to return back to our home with the list completed. Not an easy thing to accomplish when you consider the fact that no one around here speaks much English! Congrats to you all for a job well done!

Next on the list was pin the tail of the human. Mom thought it would be fun to put a spin on the the old "donkey tail" game by using a picture of her! Roscoe got confused while playing and ended up pining the tail ON our mom! Ouch! He says it was accident, since he was blind folded and Mom was just standing too close to the poster. I don't think it was an accident, but it sure was funny! Eric was the winner on that game when he got the tail square on the bum of the human! Good job Eric!

After that, we all went outside to take turns hitting the pinata. We laughed when we saw a giant papermache doberman pincher hanging from the tree! It was just for fun and not meant to offend our only canine guest. We took turns hitting it until Mini hit it so hard that it split open. Kitty treats showed down upon our heads like candy from heaven.

When it was over, Mom thought it would be a good time to eat lunch. But you know how cats can be after eating a few treats. We took a vote and decided that we should all have a nice long nap. So we all snuggled up (with the exception of the humans) on the outside terrace and took a long nice nap under the Italian sun.

Lunch was great, when we finally woke up to eat (long after noon). Mom had a veggie spread for the bunnies, Orlando and Fiona, and steak for Shefarra and the humans. The rest of us filled our big bellies with all kinds of fresh sea food. We ate until we were stuffed like turkeys on Thanksgiving day. Then what did we do? Well the cats took a bath (a lick bath NOT a tub bath) and then we all snuggled down for our second nap of the day. Of course Richard Simmons wanted us all to exercise after such a big meal, but we hissed a little and he left us alone to sleep.

Later our Mom had a prize contest. The winner were as follows:


Most Tolerant Guest- Shefarra, for being the only dog in a sea of cats.

Best Dressed- Gigolo Kitty, he always looks his best and is never caught naked. A role model to all cats.

Bravest Guest- Little Fiona and Orlando Bun for trusting that none of the cats would eat them.

Best Humans- Bob, Lisa, Grandma and Grandpa for spending the day in the animal house

Each of the winners recived a giant, fresh, sea bass. But Mom said that everyone who came to our party is a winner and so every guest went home with a romote controlled mouse!

Thank you all so much for the wonderful day!
Love,
Opus and Roscoe

****Will post some pictures when Blogger will allow it*****

Even More Guests Have Arrived!

Toby

Tilly

Zippy

Speed

Sadie




Orlando Bun & Fiona Bun

Diva Kitty

Bonnie

Victor

Sophie

Gigolo Kitty (not pictured, awaiting photo)