Tomorrow's the Big Day.

No real news today, I'm afraid. I've only ventured out into the bright AZ sun once today and there was only one orange cat around, and he was unwilling to be photographed. From my balcony, a few hours later, I can see that the normal number of cats are milling around (probably looking for food, and being confused that there isn't any in the normal spots.) Alas, I'm suffering from a nasty headache, and don't really feel up to heading back into the sunlight (or leaving my flat at all, frankly.)

But, tomorrow is THE BIG DAY. Most importantly, we'll start trapping the cats. The volunteer from AzCATs will be here, as will two friends of mine. I anticipate much waiting around, much smelling of tuuuuna and much anxiety (on my part) whenever a trap goes off. Eek.

Tomorrow is *also* the last day to buy Raffle Tickets. So, purchase now! :) Winners will be announced at some point on Monday 5/12. (Between cat-nabbing and other commitments I can't be more precise about when I'll be contacting winners, sorry.) Remember, tickets are only a dollar ($10=11 tickets, $20=25 tickets) and some items still only have 1 person bidding on them, which means you have an excellent chance at winning some of the fantastic prizes.

Lastly, and very importantly, you should know that Tamnonlinear is, even as I type, currently making The Brownies.

Oops!

If you went to the Flickr Set yesterday looking for the new pictures, you probably didn't find them. For some reason I didn't manage to get them into the Set, only the Photostream. Anyway, they're there now, so you can see them if'n y'like. :)

Brief Update

I didn't get home this evening until around 9pm. I came charging up the stairs, not expecting any kitties to be eating because there had been food on the first floor. Apparently Little Orange and Crooked-Kitteh prefer to eat upstairs because I came face to face with two startled kitties, only about 2 feet from them. I backed away, not wanting to make them go hurtling over the third floor only to run down the flights of stairs on the other side. It makes me irrationally pleased, though, that they didn't seem to mind, after a moment, that I was so close, and that they prefer to eat upstairs.

But what makes me sad is that now we don't feed the kitties again 'til we trap them. It's going to be very hard to see them tomorrow being all, "So, where's our foods?"

Otherwise, not much to update on. I saw Miss Calico today, though, which was good-- I hadn't for a while and was getting worried. A few pictures uploaded to the Flickr Set. (15 pictures.)

The Raffle ends Sunday! Don't forget! Tell your friends! Buy raffle tickets for your mother for Mother's Day!

BROWNIES!!

If you have bid on the brownies in The Project-Cat Raffle, then please, please head over to tamnonlinear's journal and vote in the Brownie Poll. This is only relevant to you if you have actually bid on brownies. :) She would like to get started on this prizes sooner rather than later as she's already going to be slaving away for hours on these wonderful chocolaty concoctions.

Crooked-Kitteh compels you to vote in the poll. And to visit The Raffle.

Another step forward

First, just a reminder that The Raffle ends on Sunday evening. I mention this first and foremost here because I suspect that this is the last post you'll read before The Raffle ends, for most of you. (Y'know, what with it being Friday and all.) [Cat Updates are below the lines, scroll down.]

Goooo toooo the Raffle! Buuuuuy tickets!! In one of my more odd moments (read: hours), I drew the first page of Hamlet in case you wanted a taste of what Stick Figure Theatre was like before you put tickets on a Stick Figure Theatre Shakespeare Play of Your Choice (#18). Click the picture to see it bigger... In retrospect, I'm not sure that by posting this I'm doing anything to further anyone wanting my 'art', although I'm pleased by the skull in 'Hamlet'... :)

My silly stick figure doodlings aside, don't forget that there's real art to be won on the raffle. Beautiful photography (#5 & #34), a kitty print (#23), framed origami (#24), incredible jewelry. Heck, I don't even wear jewelry 99% of the time, but I drool over the work of Kythryne at Wyrding Studios. How could you possibly *not* want a $50 Gift Certificate for custom jewelry?!?! (#6) It's just inconceivable to me. If fine wire art jewelry isn't quite your thing, consider the copper and bead bracelet (#32) by Medusa's Mirror, or the custom collage pendant by Shadesong.

For those of you with little girls in your lives, don't forget the fabulous prizes for them: #27 is any one item from Carlykins Boutique! And #16 the gently worn Hanna Andersson long-sleeved playdress.

If you haven't read Shayara, you should. If you haven't read the fiction in Shadesong's journal, you should (I recommend the non-fiction, too.) Now's your chance to have this accomplished writer create a custom story or poem just for you. How incredibly awesome is that? #10.

Arts and Crafts people should also remember to check out the duckie stitch markers (so! cute! #8) and the bag of scrap-booking materials (#14). 4 33 36

And, of course, there are those odd assortment of stickers (#4, #33, #36)... quite frankly, who doesn't want wandering womb stickers??

Check out ALL the prizes on The Raffle. And remember to tell me when you buy tickets, or via email, which prizes you want your tickets to go to. There are still some people who haven't told me, and I don't know what to do about that. And tell everyone else to buy tickets, too! If you have an online journal, post about this site! And/or link to the specific Raffle Page!

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While out walking this afternoon I came across one of the apartment manger-types, and she recognized me and was very nice and asked after the cats. I really have become that cat-lady. Wheee. I also put up notes on many of the neighbors' doors asking them not to feed the cats during the 48 hours before we trap, and gave this website, and I do believe that a neighbor has already visited (she left a comment on an earlier post.) So this was all good.

Oh! I usually feed the kitties between floors 2 and 3 of my building, but I've also started feeding them down on the 1st floor where the neighbor-lady fed them. Even so, when I first left my flat this morning Gremlin was up on the third floor, lying down, watching my door as if to say, 'So, the food's coming when?' It was very cute, and the first time I've seen a cat up here on the 3rd floor. :)

I saw a number of kitties today, as well. When I first went out the sprinklers were on, watering the lawn in the area where the drainage tunnels are. A number of cats (including LGG, Bozo, Bessie, Gremlin and #4) seemed to be irritated by this, lurking around the edges of the grass. Almost as soon as the watering stopped, they all dashed into the tunnels. Better yet, at one point LGG got spooked and dashed across the grass, even though the sprinklers were going. She ran int his odd zig-zag pattern that suggested she was avoiding at least the worst of the spray and that she had done this before. One of the Oranges (Gandolf?) didn't fare so well when some school-kids walked past his bush and scared him. I'm not sure I've ever seen a cat run so fast-- but he ran right through the sprinklers to get into the *farthest* tunnel. (I saw him later on in the evening, though, so he's none the worse for wear!)

The AzCATs volunteer whom I'd mentioned before also stopped by tonight. (Drat, I should have asked if I could use his name here. Oh well, we'll just call him The Volunteer.) I showed him a bunch of the cats (he got here around 7, which is when they tend to just congregate on the grass.) He showed me how to use the traps, the covers, etc. and went over everything for Sunday night's trapping extravaganza. He also showed me pictures of the kittens he's currently raising-- 4 widdle fwuffy orange kitty-babies!! Okay, so I melt when faced with that much cuteness.

I met a new cat tonight, but while I *am* worried about him, he doesn't actually fall under the category of Project-Cat, methinks. He's quite clearly tame-- he let me pet him all over and I'm pretty sure I could have picked him up had I wanted to. He's hanging around one specific building (not mine), so that while he followed me for a while, he wouldn't go too far. I think, I *hope* he belongs to someone in that building and that by now he's back inside where he should be and that his owners start by getting him a collar and some identification, and an id chip and don't let him outside again! ::grumph:: When someone on the second floor opened a door, he ran up there, but it was apparently not his people. If he's around tomorrow I guess I'll be starting another project: finding his people. (I need another project like I need a hole in the head, but what can you do.)

Right. Well, that's that, methinks. The Flickr Set is updated (or, really, about to be, but it's midnight AZtime, so you're probably reading this sometime Friday morning, which means by the time you read this, the set is updated.) Pictures today are a mainly of Little Orange, Little Grey Girl, and various Moo-Cow kitties. I actually saw a lot more cats today than I could photograph, especially as I saw many of them once it got too dark to get any sort of usable photos.

Total list of cats seen today, I think: Gremlin, Mysterious Mister Mestophilis, Dilute Tortie, Daisy, Bessie, Mustache, Cyrano, #4 and #5 (so that's all 5 moo-cows seen), Bozo, Gandolf, Another Orange, Little Orange, Crooked-Kitteh*, Little Grey Girl and Pigpen. That might actually be a new record for number of cats seen in one day. And I think I'm missing some... I haven't seen the other Calico around in a few days, I wonder why. Haven't seen Splotch in a long while, either. ::worries::

Right. Well then. More when ... well, when there's more. :) Go buy Raffle Tickets.
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*Crooked-Kitteh now has a sponsor!! Hurrah! Thank you Emily!
Bozo does now, too. My mom had claimed him a while ago, but it's all official now. Yay sponsors!

Crooked Kitty, New Kitty, and General Update

Let's just pretend that I update so late in the evening so that wonderful people can read the new posts first thing in the morning. :)

First off, The Raffle still has a few days!! ('Til Sunday evening, in fact.) Tickets = $1, $10 gets you 11 tickets, $20 gets you 25!! Buy now! Seriously, there are some awesome prizes on this list. BOSTON LOCALS, no one has yet bought tickets for the Boston-only prizes.

Next, I spoke with the office management again today, to remind them about this weekend's trapping, and to ask that if traps are set out early (and left open, unset, but with food in) that maintenance won't touch them. Wonderfully, the staff now seems pleased with my project. In fact, the person I spoke with today wanted to see this site, and offered to put a post about it in June's complex newsletter. Hurrah! I'm just glad that I'm not thought of as "That annoying girl here about the cats. Again."

I was out and about a number of times today, and got some new pictures. They are, as always, up on the Flickr Set. I saw more cats than I could get photos of, however. One of those that I could only get a mediocre picture of was a cat I'd only seen here once before, a black cat with white socks and a white chin and chest. I also got a whole bunch of pictures of the Crooked Kitty. His ears are not even matched and his face looks a bit squishy. (Honestly, I think he's beautiful.) As far as I can tell, though, he acts perfectly normally. He climbs stairs, runs, was playing with Little Orange. They're often seen together, actually, and my guess is that neither is full grown and that they're from the same litter. Just a guess, though.

Aaaand, that's all the news for now. Remember to spread the word about The Raffle for the rest of the week!!

No news.

Just an update to tell you I won't be updating today. (Yeah, ponder that sentence!) I'm uber stressed, so my only interaction with the colony today was to feed them and spot a few from my balcony (an orange, LGG, and Bessie).

We'll return to our regularly scheduled broadcast tomorrow!

Cyrano, mostly

Not much news today, but I did get some close pictures of Cyrano.

Just a reminder, the raffle goes until Sunday, May 11th. You can buy tickets until midnight, US Eastern time (9pm AZ time.) Winners will be announced at some point on Monday, May 12th.

As I'm sure you're wondering, the Brownies have 257 tickets to their name at this point. Just 43 more and Tamnonlinear will make a third batch (meaning 3 more prizes for a total of 9.)

New pictures up on the Flickr Set, too.

::blink:: I just figured out how much money we've raised. I mentioned a few days ago that we had surpassed the $1000 goal, but people have continued to be exceptionally generous, knowing that all donations will go to the continuing care of these beautiful cats.

We have raised (are you sitting down??) $1903.78.

(Um, no one has donated pocket change or anything, it's just PayPal fees that give the change.)

That's not just raffle ticket purchases, of course, that's total. (That includes hitting up family members and making sad faces at my coworkers. It also includes several incredibly generous donations.)

When we started, I didn't honestly think we'd make it to $1000. Instead, we've made almost twice that.

Wanna break $2000? ;o)

There are two things I cannot stress enough. The first is *thank you* for your incredible generosity. Thank you thank you thank you. Every dollar has helped us reach and surpass this goal.

The second is that even though we have surpassed the minimum donation necessary to trap and spay/neuter these cats, all donations above and beyond will absolutely still go to the cats. As you know, I'm not entirely certain how many cats there are, so there is the potential for more spay/neuter costs. When we take them to the vet this coming week, there could be other unforeseen costs. Then there's the continued maintenance of the cats, the basics. (They go through an 18 pound bag of cat chow roughly every 5 days-- and that's with other neighbors feeding them! That means that food alone costs me $72/month. So, yeah, I'm *really* glad we've surpassed the minimum goal!!)

I... yeah... just, thank you.

Five moo-cow kitties. Five. At least. The two at right are the ones without any kind of name. The one in profile is the one that has the black chin in the picture below. After popping up out of the tunnel and spotting me, the one with the splotch on his nose disappeared pretty darn quick and I didn't see him again today.

I saw another three moo-cows beneath their usual bush, too, all lined up. I spotted Mustache first, which was a nice surprise as he's usually pretty scarce. As I was trying (and failing) to get his picture, I realized I'd startled Cyrano into running beneath a different bush. Bessie was there, too, although at first I wasn't sure it wasn't her and I irritated her until she moved enough that I could see the white spot in the black spot on her back. So, 5 moo-cow kitties, at least.

So! Many! Moo-Cows!

I spotted five different moo-cow kitties in my five minute walk around my building today. I *think*, I *hope* that's all of them: Bessie, Cyrano, Mustache, the one who's the first picture in the first post here, and a 5th I would normally have confused with the 4th, but I saw them together today. Hopefully this solves the question of "How many moo-cows?" but the question of "How many oranges?" still stands. I'll try to 'illustrate' these problems later on, but now I return to the circulation of plays in 16th Century London, and how they become commoditized and valued via their trajectories.

... I'd rather take pictures of the kitties!