My favorite subject

I took this picture of Tonto last night.  I love to photograph him.  He has such an expressive face!

Weekend in PA

This past weekend the cats and I took a road trip to Pennsylvania and spent the weekend with my good friend Joan. I was hopeful that the cats would travel well, and I was glad to see that they did exceptionally well, including being right at home in Joan's guest bedroom. I particpated in Joan's Stampin' Up club party Friday night. We also watched several movies, including Paranormal Activity (don't bother) , The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (not as good as the first two in the series) and Moon (a bit different, but we both liked it). We shopped at a couple of bead stores and I also brought home some Amish goodies for the office.

Farpoint Convention

On February 19, 2011 I went to the Farpoint Convention in Timonium MD. It was such a nice, laid back convention. The guests, which included Tahmoh Penniket, Laurie Holden and Bonita Friedericy could be found in the atrium signing autographs throughout the day. They were all very fan friendly and allowed pictures to be taken with them.

I attended the panels for both Tahmoh and Laurie and they were awesome. I just recently watched Battlestar Galactica for the first time, and am also totally hooked on The Walking Dead. So the guests were right up my alley!  I am sorry I missed Bonita's panel.  I heard it was a hoot.  She called her husband, John Billingsly who was home sick apparently.  I would have loved to have heard that phone call!

It was also nice to visit with my geek friends. I learned and played Pirate Fluxx although I wasn't very good at it! Farpoint was so much fun. I definitely plan to attend next year.

The meaning behind Taelcat

I just realized that if you stumble upon this blog, you have no idea what or who "Taelcat" is. Taelcat is the cattery name that I bred and showed Maine Coon Cats under. "Tael" is a word that was used as a form of weighing currency. Since Maine Coons are often judged by their weight, I thought Tael + cat would be an excellent cattery name, and a little play on words. I bred cats with a cattery partner. She housed the females and I housed the males. I did most of the showing of the cats. It worked well. We specialized in silvers, with or without white.

I liked to name my cats after dead actors. Some of my cats were Spencer Tracy, Humphrey Bogart, Errol Flynn, Buster Keaton and Gilda Radner. Tonto's registered name is Mainette Jay Silverheels of Taelcat. Of course, this is the actor who played Tonto, hence his call name.

I showed and bred cats for about 20 years. I quit 6 years ago when I moved into my condo. Gilda was one of the kittens born in the very last litter of Maine Coons that we had.

I've shown many cats to Grand Champion status in ACFA, CFA and TICA. I have become friends with many of my kitten buyers. I have one famous buyer. The creators and writers of the HBO hit series "Big Love" bought a cat from us about 15 years ago.

Tonto

This is Tonto. He is a Silver Classic Tabby Maine Coon Cat. He is 6 years old. He used to be a show cat and was a Supreme Grand Champion and a Regional Winner in TICA in 2006. He has long since retired from the show circuit, as have I. But he still, to me is one of the best looking Maine Coon cats that I've ever seen. I know, I'm biased. But you have to admit... he is kind of cute!

I won a very cool Ebay Auction

I saw this auction on ebay to meet Alan Ball and visit the sets of HBO's True Blood. This was something that I would love to do. I watched the auction and had in my mind a set limit of what I was willing to pay. A fury of bids were placed in the last few hours of the auction. I waited until about 4 minutes before the auction went off and placed a bid. My heart was pounding in my chest with anticaption of winning, and the horror of actually bidding that much money to win this. No airfare or hotel room was included.

To my surprise, I won the auction. I called my sister minutes after I won the auction and invited her to go with me to L.A. A week or so after the auction I heard from Alan Ball's assistant and we exchanged email information. I forwarded to her dates that worked for us to fly to L.A. Fortunately, our dates work for Alan Ball, so look for me to blog about my visit to the sets of True Blood and meeting Alan Ball in the not too distant future!

Meeting Alan Ball is going to be fantastic. Now, if I can meet Stephen Moyer as well, I'll be the happiest fang girl in the world! We shall see!

Taelcat Gilda Radner

Taelcat Gilda Radner

On October 18, 2010 I lost Gilda to... I'm not sure what. She had many things going wrong. The most minor of them was that she was limping. She had a sore in the back of her mouth that would not heal. She was on antibiotics and prednisone and nothing was helping. She was having a terrible allergic reaction to food. And she was being fed hypoallergenic food. She eventually stopped eating and I was force feeding her. It wasn't working for either of us. And the kindest thing to do was to let her go. It was not an easy decision, but I think it was the right one. She is very much missed. She would have been 10 years old on February 19th.