Daily Photo: The Neighbor’s Cat is in My Viewscape
Mariposa says her viewscape is her territory, and the neighbor’s cat is in it even though he’s in his own house looking out that window that’s right between her ears. What’s a viewscape? That’s everything you can see from where you are. I don’t know where she picked up that word, it could be I said it out loud about my viewscape out the windows and she thought it was a cool word. Mariposa likes new things, so she’d be the type to pick it up. But she’s right about it, new word or not. Stanley felt the same way years ago, if he saw a cat anywhere outside it was in his territory. Maybe it’s a tabby and white thing.
More recently I was alerted to that cat in the neighbor’s window being actually outdoors on his front porch, then exploring around and in the nextdoor neighbor’s yard because Mariposa was staring with laser eyes from the dining room, Sienna out the front door, and Hamlet from his basket out the office window. I followed their stares and saw the tabby and white walking and sniffing around the front porch, then stepping off. Sometimes they’ll take him outside when one of the humans is out there with him, but I didn’t see anyone. Then one of the humans came outside quickly moving around with a flashlight and I knew he wasn’t supposed to be out there. The human told me the front door doesn’t always latch so they are careful with it but there’s always that one time. I told her where I had seen him because my cats were watching. My cats were still watching but relaxed and he was nowhere to be seen; the human walked around to the back yard. Then they all perked up and the tabby and white was on the porch, so I ran outside and yelled for the human that “he is on the porch!!” Another human opened the door and the tabby and white hurried in, then the other human came back around to the front porch and said her brother had texted her that he was inside, he had heard me calling her. I told her we all had my vigilant cats to thank because I may not have noticed. Yay, kitties! And your viewscape theory.
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From Instagram
from 2024 when my websites were still offline from the malware intrusion
MARCH 11, 2025
When you’re short you have to get up on all sorts of things. Sometimes Mariposa hangs out on the top of the chair back just because she can.
I haven’t been posting on social media or my other websites for a few weeks, but I started posting on a couple of my other sites yesterday. I’ve been trying to keep myself from staying up too late, a bad habit that literally makes my blood pressure rise. So I’m training myself to adjust what I want to do to the time I have, which is roughly midnight, and I can get to bed by 1:00. I hope to get myself under control with this and still share all the things I want to, which is still going to be too many, I’m sure!
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From the Back Yard and Beyond
Abstract Art in Shapes, Lines and Transparency
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From Paths I Have Walked
On Planting Peas, Because It’s Time
From around this date in past years
Mariposa is Looking Up, 2024
Mariposa is looking up, literally! And she plans on jumping up too, just as soon as her back feels nice and toasty from soaking up the morning sun at the casement window. Her fur adds another texture to all the other textures in the composition, and her upright posture builds that upward energy. A great thought for the first day of spring.
It’s the first day of spring?! I had no idea, so I can tell how deep into my thoughts I’ve been. I usually have things growing in the garden by this time, but this morning we actually had snow overnight.
This photo is from March 2023, before any of the renovations, when the old casement was still there, this was a favorite windowsill for just about every cat who ever spent time in this house. I took dozens of photos of Mariposa and Sienna enjoying this morning around this window, so you’ll be seeing them for some time to come.
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From Instagram
Yesterday morning: It was clear and sunny first thing this morning, just enough time for Basil to have a sun bath before breakfast. Then it was like a blanket got pulled over the world, and then it snowed. Just flurries all day. Good day for napping though, apparently, judging by the activity level in the household today.
From around this date in past years
Someone Here is Innocent, 2023
Someone in this photo is innocent and the other one is a likely perpetrator. Can you guess which one is which?
I had to laugh. Mariposa is so pleased with herself getting up on the shelves and she always has a thoroughly innocent expression on her face when she’s doing something she feels might not be acceptable. Hamlet often looks like he’s expecting someone to get him from some angle, especially when Mariposa’s around.
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From Instagram
Supurrvisor sleeps with one eye open.
From a perch high atop the cat tree the mighty hunter spies an unsuspecting squirrel. Lucky squirrel there’s a window in between.
Maybe this will get her attention.
Since he couldn’t get the squirrel. Morty is doing well.
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From the Garden and Beyond
Not Finished
From around this date in past years
Hurry Up, I Need My Beauty Sleep, 2022
Mariposa has been napping in one of the sleeping baskets on my desk, and is adorable as she can be. Her whiskers were just everywhere when I called to her to look at me, causing the first photo, above.
Well, of course I wouldn’t want to deprive my sweet lil bunny of her beauty sleep! I let her relax and drift off, but there were those whiskers again, and I couldn’t help myself, I just had to capture that fluffy softness and all those whiskers around that sweet tabby sleep, drifting off to sleep.
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From Instagram
None until tomorrow!
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From the Garden and Beyond
From One Pattern Many
All this wonderful sunshine we’ve been having is touching things that haven’t been illuminated since last year.
From around this date in past years
Bella’s Imitation Outdoors, 2021
Bella is the purrfect meowdel when it comes to sun and leafy things! Look at that precious face!
The angle of the sun is finally coming around to the dining room window. Kitties find it in the late afternoon and enjoy the warmth, as I get to enjoy, and share, their loveliness. So Bella is looking up!
There’s an asparagus fern up there. But there are luscious leaves down here. Bella and everyone else have tried the geranium leaves. They are okay in a pinch, but are really not a favorite. For that, I’m glad! And now I can plant some cat grass that will finally get enough sun.
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From Instagram
March 9: That darned Mimi! She chased our buddy Ebby, one of our friendly community cats who thinks he belongs in the house of black cats, out of our back yard and clear across the street!
In this first photo, you see three cats, but not all of them actually live here. As I was hanging out my laundry, Mewsette and Mimi came with me. Mewsette had her harness and leash, but I had forgotten to put Mimi’s on her. As I walked around to put it on her, I saw, to my surprise, another black cat on the steps! He’s watching me.
That cat is Ebby, who I’ve featured here before. He’s one of our more friendly community cats who we recently neutered and vaccinated and are actually looking for a home for him. He shows up here almost daily, as if this is the house with all the black cats and one of these days I’ll realize he actually belongs here.
Usually when Mimi and I come outside he’ll take off or keep a distance. Today, I guess he decided he’d try his luck at making friends. Mewsette looked up and saw him and wasn’t particularly concerned, then Mimi looked up and saw him, and decided to say hello. I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of 6 lb. 17-year-old Mimi mixing it up with a husky young male three times her size and moved faster.
All went well until apparently he didn’t understand he needed to move for her majesty to pass. Mimi then puffed up and hissed and he backed up, then fell backward off the edge of the step. I didn’t get a picture of that, because I went after Mimi.
He ran under the deck with Mimi chasing him, then out the side and out to the street running for his life. Mimi followed him to the sidewalk, then stopped. She was pretty pleased with herself. I don’t think we’ll try that again though. Nor will I forget her harness again! Mimi was unimpressed with my concern.
Mariposa says, “Way to go, Mimi!” Mariposa is the most concerned family member when Ebby comes to visit.
Birds singing, breeze blowing, sun shining, dishtowels drying on the line, feels like spring to me. Let me know how sharing these Instagram videos works for you. I love to add little videos to my YouTube account, but this saves me some time.
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From around this date in past years
Kitchen Cat, 2020
Saturday morning kitchen, getting ready to set a pot of vegetable bean chili to simmer, and soak the henna for my hair treatment. Bella wants to know why I never make anything she likes. This was not arranged, I randomly set things on the cabinet and Bella came to sit behind them. She has such a sense of composition.
It’s been a busy few days, and I really needed to stop and clean my house and do some serious cooking. How could I expect to get anything done without a serious supurrvisorcat? I never get caught up, but at least I’m in better shape now as I prepare for a month of vendor events (COVID-19 permitting).
Here are a few photos from last week and over the weekend.
Mimi in a mirror in a mirror. I took a photo of her reflection(s) in the mirror on my bathroom door, dancing in the sun.
Chessy and Missy, two of my neighbor’s #eartipped #communitycats , enjoy the sun on a warmish day. They see me fairly frequently and finally Missy decided I’m not going to try to kill her (really, cats worry about that all the time, especially community cats), but she was leery until Chessy told her to chill. They kept an eye on me, though. I missed a good photo of the gray tabby sitting on the corner of the wall; my camera wouldn’t focus in time, darn it.
Some pretty things Mimi and I found out in the yard.
I’ll have more updates in coming days as I catch up, once again!
Photos from around this date in previous years
Sleepy Studio Cats, 2019
Sunshine can often be found with Bella twined around him somehow. They snuggle, and Bella always has interesting sleeping positions, including dangling a limb off a nearby edge. Lately the blanket I keep on my work table for sleeping cats to attract—I’ll just be honest here—to trap sleepy kitties and their errant furs in a spot that works for me. One of the reasons this spot works for me is that I can reach out and pet them at any time, and I can easily take their photo…and it keeps them from sleeping in my project boxes where I have upcoming things sorted out. I love when they come up and share my studio.
Bella awoke and asked me if I really needed to make all that noise. Well, I guess not.
Mariposa is feeling better!
You didn’t know she was feeling bad, right? Well, last night she had one of those unexpected but brief kitty things and needed some treatment. After dinner she vomited up all her food. She eats fast and sometimes she eats too much, despite my efforts to slow her down, and she’d been playing hard all day. She’s never vomited, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she did one day. However, when she vomited up liquid a short while later I put her in the bathroom for observation. Then she was vomiting a little bit of fluid every half hour or so.
Thank goodness I can rely on Pittsburgh C.A.T. to provide veterinary care for my fosters, even late at night, after midnight. I drove to our clinic in Tarentum to meet with Lindsay, our vet tech, who examined her and fixed her up with fluids and some medications, and all went well, which was not the case the last time Mariposa met with Lindsay, and it’s a testament to how Mariposa has socialized. When I took her for her foster check a few days after she arrived here, I could barely get her in a carrier, she was near an angry cat who growled and while she was already defensive that really set her off, no doubt remembering her days in the feral colony. Lindsay couldn’t even begin her exam, Mariposa bit Margo, who was helping Lindsay, then little Mariposa ended up across the room in a corner scowling and growling, but Lindsay managed to get a dose of gabapentin into her so the exam and vaccines and microchipping could continue.
This time I put Mariposa right into her carrier, we took her right out when we got there, Lindsay lifted and turned and palpated, opened her mouth and pulled out her tongue, then set Mariposa down and put a needle for fluids into her skin above her shoulder blades. Mariposa looked a little uncertain, as you see, but she stayed put and didn’t give anyone a fight. She was a model kitty.
Mariposa came home with me after that. She escaped the bathroom when we came home and ran to her favorite fountain to have a long drink of her favorite water. Then I carried her back upstairs and watched her relax in the warmth, absorbing her fluids while I soaked in the tub.
This morning she was ready for action. There was one spot of liquid vomit on the floor, but that was all, and the medication would not have taken effect yet. She has eaten mild digestive food and had water and her meds. We are only waiting for her to make a deposit in the litterbox before she can have her freedom.
Earlier yesterday Giuseppe had some loose stool, which is not like him, and I’d noticed he was kind of growly in the belly, so it might all be a little virus going around. I do my best to be careful when managing stray and feral cats, but it’s likely something that came from one of them in the past few days.
From Facebook
Lots of floof and toe beans and big purr, I am too distracted to work with a happy Basil on my lap.
Photos from years past.
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Ready for Spring, 2018
The daffodils and Mimi and I are all ready for spring.
We had a nice visit to the back yard on a sunny afternoon. The weather has been very March-like, undecided, suddenly very cold, with unexpected snow, then a mild day. The daffodils are making the best of the good times. I can’t wait until they bloom. Mimi can’t wait until I turn my back so she can run into the neighbor’s yard. I am grateful she has been feeling very good lately. Adequate flea medications, regular raw and cooked foods as well as some canned, and Dr. Michelle’s care have done wonders. Visits to the outdoors are also essential to keep us both grounded. We’ll both be glad when we are hanging out laundry again!
Other Daily Photos From This Date
Click the title or the photo to go to the original post.
Morning Thoughts, 2013
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Two Curious Cats, One Brave Stinkbug, 2013
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Mimi in Green, 2012
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All images and text used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission, although links to your site are more than welcome and are shared. Please ask if you are interested in using and image or story in a print or internet publication. If you are interested in purchasing a print of an image or a product including it, check my animal and nature website Portraits of Animals to see if I have it available already. If you don’t find it there, visit Ordering Custom Artwork for more information on a custom greeting card, print or other item.
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