Chat Aux Sphynx

Frootbat Friday

2008-10-10T07:45:00.002+02:00

Thanks to everyone who wished our humans good luck in their marathon! We'll be purring hard for them on Sunday when they run.

(Yes, our mom needs to clean the window that's in front of Merlin's Gizzy quilt. You can see our nose and pawprints on the glass in Dragonheart's photo!)

Thursday Thirteen: The Marathon

2008-10-09T08:54:00.002+02:00

Our humans are running the Munich Marathon on Sunday. In honour of this fact, we bring you:

13 Things About the Marathon

A Marathon is 26.2 miles / 42.2 kilometres. Other races may call themselves "marathons" but an official marathon race is this distance.
This will be our humans' third marathon together. They ran their first in the Fall of 2005, the Prince Edward County Marathon, their second was the Hamburg Marathon in April 2007. Our dad has also run one marathon by himself, the Munich Marathon last October (2007).
The name, "marathon", comes from the legend of Pheidippides, a Greek soldier, who was sent from the town of Marathon to Athens to announce that the Persians had been miraculously defeated in the Battle of Marathon. It is said that he ran the entire distance without stopping, but moments after proclaiming his message to the city he collapsed dead from exhaustion.
The modern marathon was first run during the first modern Olympic Games in 1896 in Athens. This first Olympic marathon was 40 km (24.85 miles). It was an Olympic race for men only until 1984.
The women's marathon was introduced at the 1984 Summer Olympics (Los Angeles, USA).
The length of a marathon was at first not fixed since all that was important was that all athletes competed on the same course. The exact length of an Olympic marathon varied depending on the route established for each venue so the choice of distance was somewhat arbitrary.
The marathon at the 1908 Olympic Games in London was set to measure exactly 26 miles and to start on ‘The Long Walk’ – a magnificent avenue in the grounds of Windsor Castle. At his own request it was scheduled to be started by King Edward VII personally. It was only on the day before the race that it was extended by 385 yards from its set 26 miles so that the King could start the race in the Great Courtyard of the Castle (385 yards up the hill) and so that the runners would cross the finish line in front of his wife Queen Alexandra in the Royal family's viewing box in the Olympic Arena - so the length became 42.195 km (26 miles 385 yards).
A fixed distance of 42.195 km was adopted in 1921 by the International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF) as the official marathon distance.
The world record time for men over the distance is 2 hours 3 minutes and 59 seconds, set in the Berlin Marathon by by Haile Gebrselassie of Ethiopia on September 28, 2008.
The world record for women was set by Paula Radcliffe of United Kingdom in the London Marathon on 13 April 2003, in 2 hours 15 minutes and 25 seconds.
In 2007, in the U.S.A. (the only country we could find statistics for) there were more than 407,000 marathon finishers.
0ver 12,000 runners are expected to participate in the Munich Marathon this year.
We wish our humans all the best on Sunday! Good luck mom and dad!

Meezer Rule Wednesday: Tails

2008-10-08T09:01:00.003+02:00

Merlin: My Meezer Rule for today: Tails make excellent toys! It is perfectly acceptable to play with your tail if there is no other toy available. Grooming your tail first, and then playing with it, is a lot of fun! (As demonstrated in the video below)

Cats on Tuesday: Toesday

2008-10-07T08:14:00.004+02:00

We Sphynx have unique toes! They are long, with thick paw pads. If you look closely (and click to enlarge) you can see the bit of "peach fuzz" hair on our toes!

Dragonheart's Toes:

Merlin's Toes:

Meezer & Mancat Movie Monday: Round and Round

2008-10-06T08:45:00.003+02:00

Merlin: Ball tracks are lots of fun to play with! Here I am enjoying one of ours. You can see Dragonheart watching me in the background.

Frootbat Friday Fun!

2008-10-03T10:30:00.003+02:00

We both love to play with our butterfly toy! It's lots of fun! It is definitely our favourite toy.

Dragonheart: I get excited every time it is brought out and start chittering! I love to play with it!

Merlin: I like to grab hold of it in my mouth and pull it out of my mom's hands! She then takes it back because she doesn't want me eating the little beads on the end.

Thursday Thirteen: Photos

2008-10-02T09:32:00.005+02:00

13 Recent Photos of Us!

(If you missed Merlin's masterpiece yesterday, be sure to scroll down and check it out)

Meezer Rule Wednesday: Art

2008-10-01T08:42:00.004+02:00

Merlin: My Meezer Rule for today: Let your creative side show whenever you want! In the photos below, you can see the artistic masterpieces that I created with toilet paper. For some strange reason, my humans weren't too happy with my creations. Humans are weird.

Cats on Tuesday: Burrow

2008-09-30T08:34:00.003+02:00

We both love to burrow under the covers. We are lucky - our humans leave the futon in the family room open all the time for us, and there are plenty of nice fleece blankets on the futon for us to curl up in and burrow underneath. Now that autumn is here, along with cooler weather, we love to burrow under the fleece blankets and get cozy next to each other. When our mom is sitting on the futon, we usually curl up on our mom's lap - she puts a fleece blanket on her lap for us to get cozy and comfy on and under.

Mancat & Meezer Monday: Cuddles

2008-09-29T07:49:00.002+02:00

We both love to curl up in a human lap when one is available. However, when there isn't a human around, we love to curl up and cuddle with each other.

Frootbat Friday

2008-09-26T08:08:00.003+02:00

In these photos, you can see the very cool way that the sun shines through our ears. :) You can also see our highly-desirable wrinkles, and the colour of our eyes.

Thursday Thirteen: Oktoberfest!

2008-09-25T09:24:00.005+02:00

Since Oktoberfest started last Saturday here in Munich, we thought that this week we would bring you:

13 Things About Oktoberfest

Oktoberfest is a sixteen-day festival held each year in Munich, Bavaria, Germany during late September and running to early October.
Oktoberfest 2008 runs from September 20th to October 5th.
Oktoberfest called "Oktober"-fest when it actually begins in September for historical reasons. The first Oktoberfest was held in the year 1810 in honor of the Bavarian Crown Prince Ludwig’s marriage to Princess Therese von Sachsen-Hildburghausen. The festivities began on October 12, 1810 and ended on October 17th with a horse race. In the following years, the celebrations were repeated and, later, the festival was prolonged and moved forward into September.

By moving the festivities up, it allowed for better weather conditions. Because the September nights were warmer, the visitors were able to enjoy the gardens outside the tents and the stroll over “die Wiesen” or the fields much longer without feeling chilly. Historically, the last Oktoberfest weekend was in October and this tradition continues into present times.
Oktoberfest is held on an the Theresienwiese (field, or meadow, of Therese, the princess mentioned above), often called d’ Wiesn for short.
Oktoberfestbiers are the beers that have been served at the event in Munich since 1818, and are supplied by 6 Munich breweries known as the Big Six: Spaten, Löwenbräu, Augustiner, Hofbräu, Paulaner and Hacker-Pschorr.
Beer is typically served as a Maß, which is one litre (or 2 pints).
There are 14 main beer tents, with ownership split across the 6 breweries mentioned above from Munich.
(Food served during Oktoberfest is mostly traditional Bavarian fare such as Hendlchicken), Schweinsbraten (roast pork), Haxn (knuckle of pork), Steckerlfisch (grilled fish on a stick), Würstel (sausages) along with Brezel (Pretzel), Knödeln (potato or bread dumplings), Käsespätzle (cheese noodles), Reiberdatschi (potato pancakes), Sauerkraut or Blaukraut (red cabbage) along with such Bavarian delicacies as Obatzda (a fatty, spiced cheese-butter concoction) and Weisswurst (a white sausage).
Many Bavarian visitors to Oktoberfest wear Trachten - traditional Bavarian clothes: Lederhosen for men, and Dirndl for women. A Dirndl consists of a top and blouse, wide skirt and a colourful apron.
There is more to Oktoberfest than just beer and food. There are carnival rides, parades, and live music.
In 2007, there were 6.2 million visitors to Oktoberfest.
In 2007, appoximately 69.406 hl of beer were served, along with 1.269 hl of non-alcoholic beer.
Oktoberfest is a lot of fun, and is the largest fair in the world.

Meezer Rule Wednesday: Tunnels

2008-09-24T08:59:00.002+02:00

Merlin: My Meezer Rule for today: If you have a tunnel, you can use it any way you want, including lying halfway out of the side tunnel to lie in the sun. If your sibling makes fun of you for lying that way, just get back at them by winning a wrestling match, after you've finished sunbathing. And if your humans laugh at you, just ignore them. What do humans know?

Cats on Tuesday: Cardboard Craze

2008-09-23T07:52:00.005+02:00

Merlin: I LOVE carboard boxes! They are so much fun to play in, and cardboard is so much fun to chew! I love destroying anything made of cardboard. Here you can see I am doing a good job of destroying this cardboard box.

Meezer and Mancat Movie Monday: Grooming

2008-09-22T09:08:00.004+02:00

Grooming your sibling is lots of fun! And it often leads to wrestling matches! Enjoy the video below!

We are sorry that we haven't been around to visit our friends as much as usual recently. Our humans are running the Munich Marathon in three weeks, and then they'll be running the Dublin Marathon two weeks after that, so they've been very busy training hard! The past two weeks have been the peak of their training mileage. We can't wait for the marathons to be over and done with, so our humans will have more time for us again!

Meow Like a Pirate Day!

2008-09-18T08:33:00.005+02:00

Arr! Today be Meow like a Pirate Day, me hearties!

Here be our Pirate Names, yarr!

Dragonheart and Merlin are:

Captain Roger Bonney

Even though there's no legal rank on a pirate ship, everyone recognizes you're the one in charge. You can be a little bit unpredictable, but a pirate's life is far from full of certainties, so that fits in pretty well. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com.

Dragonheart's Pirate Name Is...

Dirty Jack of the Baltic

What's Your Pirate Name?

Merlin's Pirate Name Is...

Cannibal Sultan of Timor

What's Your Pirate Name?

Meow Like a Pirate Day!

2008-09-18T08:33:00.004+02:00

Arr! Today be Meow like a Pirate Day, me hearties!

Here be our Pirate Names, yarr!

Dragonheart and Merlin are:
Captain Roger Bonney

Dragonheart's Pirate Name Is...

Dirty Jack of the Baltic

What's Your Pirate Name?

Merlin's Pirate Name Is...

Cannibal Sultan of Timor

What's Your Pirate Name?

Thursday Thirteen: Things We Don't Like to Hear

2008-09-18T08:33:00.003+02:00

13 Things We Don't Like to Hear

Merlin, NO! (when Merlin is doing anything he's not supposed to)
Merlin, GET DOWN! (when Merlin is up on the table, or the treadmill, or other places he shouldn't be)
Merlin, Stop That! (again, when Merlin is doing anything he's not supposed to)
OUT! Get out, Boys! (when we're in the bathroom or the Bowflex/Comic book room, when our humans are going to close the door)
It's too early for crunchies (we only get crunchies at bedtime)
We're all out of fishy treats (Dragonheart likes to have dried fish cubes crushed and sprinkled over his stinky goodness)
Dragonheart, is your brother being a bad influence? (when Dragonheart, normally the "good boy," does something naughty, like Merlin would do)
Get off the laptop! (gee, we're just trying to blog and visit our friends)
You're supposed to be an obligate carnivore! (when Merlin tries to eat people food, like animal crackers, cheese, etc.)
Merlin, we're trying to eat. Leave us alone. (when Merlin climbs all over our humans when they are trying to eat)
It's human alone time (we aren't sure why humans need time alone apart from us)
Not right now, Merlin (when Merlin tries to climb all over our dad, and cuddle on his chest, when our dad is trying to do something)
Bath time (no explanation needed!)

Meezer Rule Wednesday: Sharing

2008-09-17T09:18:00.003+02:00

Merlin: My Meezer Rule for today: Even when you are grown, you can still share your mom's lap. If you are feeling generous, you can even let your sibling sit on the actual lap, and you can get comfy on her extended legs. This also applies to other humans' laps as well, as long as their legs are stretched out.

Of course, when I was still a little kitten, and not a fully-grown Mancat, we could both fit on the lap part of the lap, as seen in the photo below, from January 2008.

Cats on Tuesday: Eyes

2008-09-16T07:51:00.003+02:00

Dragonheart

Merlin

Mancat & Meezer Monday: The Old Switcheroo

2008-09-15T07:52:00.004+02:00

We both love to lie in the sun, it feels so good on our skin! Our living room gets the afternoon sun, and it shines in through the huge windows that take up one entire wall in our living room. We love lying on our nice comfy quilts/fleece/beds in the sun.

On occasion, we also like to change places! It's fun to switch spots!

Frootbat Friday

2008-09-12T08:32:00.003+02:00

We both love the sun! And don't we have fabulous ears?

Thursday Thirteen: Nicknames

2008-09-11T12:38:00.004+02:00

Here are thirteen nicknames that our humans call us, in addition to our regular names (Dragonheart and Merlin). Dragonheart's nicknames are followed by a D, Merlin's by an M, and ones that apply to both of us with a D and an M.

Dude (D, M)
Dragon-Dude (D)
Four-legged stomach (M)
Mommy's Good Boy, Good Boy (D)
Handsome, Handsome Boy (D, M)
El Destructo (M)
Purr Meister (M)
Purr Machine (M)
Crazy Cat (D, M)
Psycho, Psycho Kitty (D, M)
Silly, Silly Boy (D)
Little$h!t (M)
Adorable Little $h!t (M)

Gee, from those nicknames, can you tell who's the well-behaved one, and who's the trouble-maker? ;)