Holiday Catblogging Extravaganza

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I asked for festive cats, I got festive cats.  So here they are.  Here on the front page we have the usual suspects: Domino on the left, sporting a festive Yuletide ribbon, and Inkblot on the right, hanging out under the Christmas tree waiting for Santa to deliver a case of cat food. But there are loads more cats below the fold. Just click here to see them all.

Left: Luna. “He was not thrilled, but tolerated the interruption to his long, long nap.” Right: Pudgy Mewler. “She really does have eyes.”

Left: Gately Claus says “Lots of Kibble to All and to All a Good Nap!” Right: Sam puts up with his holiday bow tie. 

Left: Spitfire. Right: Fiona.  “When I bought the basket, a marital debate ensued about whether she’d actually use it.  Good kitty.  She came through.”

Left: Oliver My Heart Throb. Goes by Ollie. Right: Arod. “It’s complicated.” Both are from the author of Cat Tales: A Love Story.

Left: Lily Right: Ditto. These are two of my mother’s cats. I assume you can all figure out how Ditto got his name?

Left: Maybelle, aka Butterball. Right: Leo, “parking himself in the middle of the Christmas village we set up around the tree every year.”

Left: Tiggy Winkle, Lucie and Woody. Right: Pluto.

Left: Milo (in the tree) and Otis (watching). Right: Nikki.

Left: Kellie. Right: Donna. “They are sisters and littermates; I got them at the San Francisco SPCA a year and  a half ago, when they were three years old.”

Left: A photo taken nineteen years ago. “The kittens are two of three born to a stray who temporarily adopted us, just to give birth and leave.  Wusslet, had a short, but happy life, and Ginger, the black cat lived until just a few weeks ago.  Sadly, she didn’t quite make it long enough to enjoy the tree this year.” Right: From the same family, Schroedinger, “who adopted us between Christmas and New Year’s Day seven years ago.  It was right before a major cold snap, and she was so skinny at the time we didn’t think she would make it in the outside weather.  The whole house smelled like the Christmas tree when she moved in with us, so every year when we set up the tree, she sticks her nose into the tree and inhales deeply for the first hour or so, and beds down under the tree whenever she can.”

And finally, two last minute entrants. Left: Magic, “an overly intelligent (and slightly pudgy) character who’s been hanging out with me for over 9 years. I’m not sure that she’s aware of your blog, but she’s certainly been on my lap (and my keyboard) plenty of times while I’ve been reading it. As you can see, every Christmas brings her a new exciting waterbowl (tree stand) and many new play toys (bags, ribbon, and wrapping paper).” Right: “the imperial Coco,” captured among the Christmas lights by an iPhone.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

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