The death of Ratty Williams

When I got home from the game, I found Diamond pawing through her wardrobe bag. "You want to get dressed up?" I ask her, when suddenly a little head popped out. It seemed a rat - a pretty big one too - had taken refuge in it.

She'd already gotten it, as it's back had been broken and it's back legs were paralyzed, but it still managed to scoot out of the bag to under my computer desk, where she got her jaws on it and took it into the bathroom, her preferred killing ground.



This was done with the "Not Guilty" kit from Scrap Girls. If you look close in evidence photo #1, you might notice an incriminating tail....

Brainball and Chairman Mao

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Brainball reminds me a lion. A big floofy lion, but a lion none the less.

A 9-year old Domestic long hair, his real name is Calamity Jake, but this big 16 pound mancat is also known as "Itty Bitty Widdy Kitty", "King Leonidas" and "Ol' Boy". He was abandoned when the family that he lived with moved away, and the Ballicus Cats took him in. He's the Alpha cat, and takes his position seriously. He loves to play with coffee stirrers, nap on the bed or in a pile of clean laundry or on his mom's feet or dad's lap.

He's an outstanding role model to the other cats at Ballicus - kind, benevolet, and strong. Sort of like a lion, right?

You can find him, along with Chairman Mao, DoryDoo and sometimes Marilyn at The Ballicus Blog.


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Chairman Mao is a Seal Point Siamese/Snowshoe mix. At just one year old, he's the baby of the bunch. He enjoys playing, running round, talking and generally going spaztic around the place. He considers the whole house one great big kitty toy and tries to play with everything.

He showed up as a stray and lived in the garage for while before he was brought into the Ballicus Household proper. He's a good Diplocat and gets along with everyone, even Dory Doo, who can be a bit moody. He loves Brainball and tries to emulate his older brother.

The Chairman does most of the talking over at Ballicus, not surprising for one of Siamese Ancestry.

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I used Scrap Girl's African Beat mega-kit for Brainball's layout, because well...I needed something Safari-ish. Mao's was done using Retrodiva's Fresh Start kit, perhaps appropriate for a young, active mancat.

The White Lion

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Reptar is Lynn's (not Bobby's) cat, a 7-year-old domestic short hair male. He was named for the fictional dinosaur in the animated Rugrats series.

Much like his humans, Reptar is a baseball fan and has been coming to Fort Myers Miracle baseball games since he was a 6-month-old kitten.

He was from a litter that the female who lived with the owner of a store Lynn was working at at the time had. He has two other white brothers that look exactly like him, and there was also a black and white female in the litter. Lynn occasionally still sees his brothers.


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Lynn has at least two other cats. She seemed pleased with these pieces so she's supposed to send me pictures of the others.

Reptar's really a well behaved cat and not really a dinosaur at all. And yes, he can hear perfectly well - the noise at the ballgames bothers him quite a bit.

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I used the African Beat kit from Scrap Girls on the top piece. Originally I had the feather under his paw and it looked like he as eating something, but I didn't have him laying on anything. So I changed it so he was on the letters.

The second piece uses the Bohemian Love Affair kit from Retrodiva, in part because I love working in black and white.

Rutgers

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Rutgers was the former Mascot of the Fort Myers Miracle. He was "traded" at the end of the 2004 season to Hudson Valley Renegades of the New York Penn League and more or less retired from mascoting in favor of a person in a smelly, furry suit.

He was named for Rutger's University, his owner's alma mater, and he was the fourth in the line of Goldies the Miracle used as mascots starting in 1992 with the legendary Jericho, who was Rutger's great, great grandsire.

You can find more about Rutgers on Diamond's Blog which was the reason I did this piece in the first place.

This was done using Scrap Girl's Afican Beat Collection for no better reason than because I'd just purchased the kit and wanted to use it. I might have to redo it because I see a few errors, and I need to rescan the big pictures of Rut, so they are not so grainy. It's a little hard, working on the smaller screen at home to see what I'm doing.