The three Siamese cats that I had in my spare bathroom recovering from a sneezing problem have recovered and are back in the store for adoption. They are so much fun, the adult male, Mongo, is the greatest cat. He lets the kittens climb all over him, lay on him, pounce on him -- you get the picture. The adult female, Sky, is tolerant but not as easy-going as Mongo. The little flamepoint kitten, Snowfire, loves to cuddle. I can't believe they lasted the week in the store, I thought they would go out quickly because they are beautiful, nice cats.

This weekend we had "Santa" at the store for pictures with pets. PetsMart keeps part of the money and part of the money is given to the non-profit involved. Because it is so close to Christmas and I have bizillion things to get done -- JoAnne had to twist my arm a little bit to have me go in for a two hour shift to take pictures. What a blast - I will remember how much fun it was and schedule time next year! Our first two customers were actually kids. Since we are back in the corner and it is fairly quiet (because it is easier to take pictures if the animals are calm, of course) there was no commotion and no lines. One of the first Mom's said that she brings her kid to PetsMart every year because it is a much nicer experience than the mall stores. Certainly, our Santa had time to talk with him. That kid was clutching a piece of paper in his hand. On the paper the child had glued pictures of what he wanted for Christmas. He showed each one to Santa and described them in detail. Santa was VERY attentive and then said "I'll give this directly to the elves so that we will be ready to visit your house Christmas Eve". Mission Accomplished. The child shook Santa's hand as he got ready to leave. We actually had a lot of kids come by - and some really nice dogs as well. Only one picture that I took was just of the dog - most of the pictures included everyone in the family as well as the dog. It was fun but sometimes there were so many people that I had to step back and soon the Christmas backdrop wasn't big enough. I kept telling people "it looks like we're going to get some of the cat trees in the background - is that OK?" People were really nice and I had a good time taking the pictures. Thank goodness the person who was actually printing the pictures and putting them in the frames knew what he was doing and was able to fix the camera when it got stuck.

Now I have Patches in my spare bathroom. A beautiful callico, Patches was scared spitless in the store. I suspect that she is another one that will need to be adopted from the website and go to a quiet home. Her Mom lost her job, housing and decided to move back home across the country and couldn't take Patches with her. Patches has been sitting in basically one spot every time I've gone in to visit with her; I hope she starts feeling comfortable soon! At least she is eating and using the litter box so it can't be all bad.