A Birthday Coming Up: Caturday Art and Sunday Selfies With - Queen Trixie!

Hallo again, Effurrybody!

As promised last week, here I am again, Queen Trixie that is - Furrst of My Name, Empurress of Jerusalem, Israel and the Entire Middle East, Queen of Hearts, Guardian of the Boudoir, Alpha-Kitty Extraordinaire.  And why am I here, for the second week in a row, leading the J-Cats as We join the weekend blog hops - the Caturday Art blog hop, hosted by the Wise and Beautiful Athena and her HuMum, Marie, and the Sunday Selfies blog hop, hosted by the Deliciously and Predictably Unpredictable Kitties Blue and their HuMom, Janet?

Two reasons. One - my Pesky Brofurs photobombed Me last week, and Mummy promised me Compensation (I would have settled for a plate of salmon mousse, Mummy). And two - next Shabbat, August 12th, is My Birthday. Being a well brought-up Ladycat, I will not, of course, reveal My Age - though you could purrobably make an educated guess if you read About Me in the right hand sidebar.

Anyway, you know what birthdays mean, don't you, dear anipals?

That's right! A Pawty! (It's been quite a few weeks since We had one of those, hasn't it?)

As usual, We will be celebrating this most Auspicious Day next Shabbat afternoon, at 4 PM, up in the Enchanted Forest, overlooking the Old City of Jerusalem.  We look forward to seeing you all there. There will be Mewsic and Dancing and lots and lots and lots of Noms. And, also as usual, if anyone feels like arriving a bit early to help set up the Bar - Welcome. We can always do with a helping Paw!

Okay, now to business!

We found it hard to pick out just one Selfie, so here are FOUR to choose from - each with a different LunaPic artification. Tell Us which one you like best in the comments section below.

Furrst of all, a beautiful selfie which displays My floofy tummy, and you can also glimpse My Purrfect Fangs:

We artified this with Splash, at 30%:

The next picture shows a bit more of My Fangs - well, quite a lot more, in fact (mol):

This one was artified, using the Art Nouveau effect at 40%:

Next up is My Purrsonal Favourite, which We artified using LunaPic's Floating filter at 55%:

Here is the artsy-fartsy version:

Mummy and I like that one purrticularly, because of the way it emphasises My Eyes.

And last, but not least, a selfie which turned out a bit blurred, but which, for that reason,  lent itself well to artification with Renoir, set to 80%:

And now, here are the blog hop badges:

        

In other news, Mummy did blog about the situation here in Israel, as She hinted She might. Mummy says She found it emotionally exhausting to write about, and She felt quite drained by the time She finished.  She tried furry hard to be objective, but it is hard to escape the Obvious Conclusion, which is that Humans cannot be trusted to govern themselves and that the World would be a much better place if it was ruled by Cats - as Nature intended!!!

Well, that is all for now, dear furriends. We look forward to seeing you at the Pawty on Shabbat afternoon.

Till then - be well. Be safe. We love you all.

Photobomb! Caturday Art and Sunday Selfies With - the Three of Us

Greetings, Effurrybody!

Today, it was supposed to be My Turn to lead my fursibs on this weekend's blog hops - the Caturday Art blog hop, hosted by the Wise and Beautiful Athena and her HuMum, Marie, and the Sunday Selfies blog hop, hosted by the Delicious and Predictably Unpredictable Kitties Blue and their HuMom, Janet.

However, as you will see, things didn't quite turn out as planned!

I got photobombed by those pesky mancats, My Brofurs!

I wanted Mummy to retake the photo - or else to use one of the many photo editing apps available to simply vanish them from My Pawtrait, but Mummy had other ideas. She said that I would, instead, lead the blog hops next week, for My Birthday, and that She would turn this - PHOTO FAIL - into a beautiful, artsy-fartsy Ussie.

Well, since I am, at least, in the foreground and all eyes are naturally drawn to Me, I yielded gracefully - and here are the results.

Artification no. #1 - using LunaPic's Bridge art effect at 78%: 

Artification no. #2 - using a new (for Mummy) effect called Submarine, at 51%:

And finally, no. #3, using a combination of Flowers (38%) and Sadness (25%):

Mummy is, in fact, feeling a good deal of sadness this weekend, over the deep rift in Israeli society because of the battle over the plan for judicial reform, which you might have read or heard about in the media (although probably skewed in such a way as to show Israel in the worst pawssible light). You know kitties, yesterday, July 29th, was the 49th anniversary of her immigration to Israel. How could She have imagined, all those years ago, on the eve of such an Adventure, and full of Hope, what the Future would hold? 

But We are not going to write about that now, because it makes Mummy so furry sad even to think about it. Maybe She will write about it in her own bloggie, but then again, maybe not - because, as We said, it breaks her heart even to think about it. 

Instead, We are going to introduce you to two more members of Mummy's Collection, and tell you about the wonderful Oneg Shabbat We had on Furriday night.

Please welcome Selena and Algernon!

Selena and Algernon are classically trained caterwaulers, who have appeared on the stages of the world's greatest shrines to Mewsic - such as the Metro-paw-litan Opurra of Mew York, Claw-vent Garden in London and the Purris Opurra. They gave Us a most enlightening talk on the History of Opurra and and then treated Us to a recital of famous arias and duets. We finished up with a few rousing opurra choruses, which they taught Us.

Now, it is time to put up the blog hop badges:

        

And that's all for this week, dear furriends. We hope to catch you later as We hop those blogs. 

Be well. Be safe. We love you all.

Heatwave! Caturday Art and Sunday Selfies with Shimshi

Greetings, Effurrybuddies!

Yes, once again, it is I, the Mighty Shimshon (Shimshi for short) aka The Little Purrince, Furrst of My Name, Master of the Queen's Mischiefs and Captain of the Guard, here to repurresent my fellow J-Cats in this weekend's blog hops - the Caturday Art blog hop, hosted by the Wise and Beautiful Athena and her HuMum, Marie, and the Sunday Selfies blog hop, hosted by those oh-so-Delightful and  Predictably Unpredictable Kitties Blue and their HuMom, Janet.

And before I fur-get (as the extreme heat is making My Head go all Fuzzy), here are the blog hop badges:

                                    

        

Kitties, when I said "extreme heat", I was not kidding! No, sirree!

We are expecting tempurratures in the mid to upper 30s Celsius (the 90s, Fahrenheit) to continue till next weekend at least. Now, it's not unusual for Jerusalem to expurrience tempurratures in the 30s during the summer. What is unusual is for them to continue unabated for several weeks at a stretch, instead of dropping back after 3 or 4 days to a more comfortable 28 or 29 or even 30. What we are getting here is day after day of what the Israeli Meteorological Service calls "Extremely Heavy Heat Load".

In other words - it's TOO DARNED HOT!  

It's lucky We don't live in Eilat!!! The tempurrature there is in the 40s!!!

And the Air Conditioning is still on the blink.
Try getting a A/C technician when EVERYONE needs their services.

We kitties find that lying in the shade, on the uncarpeted part of the floor is quite a good solution:

Mummy can't do that, of course - the floor is too hard for her aged bones.

Fortunately, she also has ceiling fans in the bedroom and guest room plus a couple of furry effective floor and table fans.

We have heard that most of Europe, and much of North America, is also expurriencing extreme tempurratures. How do You (and your Humans) keep cool in this weather?

Mummy artified all of the above photos with the help of LunaPic. The closeup shot, which serves for today's Sunday Selfie, was left almost unchanged. All We did was blur the background somewhat (90%) and add a frame. The only trouble is, it seems also to have blurred my whiskers on one side!

The next artification used the Waves filter at 60%, overlaid with the Water filter at 45%:

Last, but most certainly not least, the picture of Me by My Cubby was enhanced using the Surreal Painting effect, topped with Dreaming at 20%:

Which do you like best?

Time for lunch now (We don't have that much of an appetite in this heat, to tell the truth. Nor does Mummy.)

And afterwards, We shall set off on Our blog-hopping.

Till next time then!

Be well. Be safe. We love you all.

Caspurr Being Cute: Caturday Art and Sunday Selfies

Hallo again, Effurryone!

Yes! I'm back again - the Courageous Sir Caspurr the Caspicatious, Furrst of My Name, the Snuggle Bug, Commander-in-Chief of the Impurrial Forces, King of the Tigger-Tabbies!

And once again, it is both My Purr-ivilege and My Pleasure to lead My Fellow J-Cats on this weekend's blog hops - the Caturday Art blog hop, hosted by the Wise and Beautiful Athena and her HuMum, Marie, and the Sunday Selfies blog hop, hosted by those oh-so-Delightful and  Predictably Unpredictable Kitties Blue and their HuMom, Janet.

Here are the blog hop badges, before I fur-get:

        

And here are the artsy-fartsy versions of My Selfie:

For this fursst one, all We did was use LunaPic's Borders setting to turn the Original Photo into a vignette.

For the second artification, We filtered the photo with Nouveau at 47% and then added a blurred border:

Do you have a favourite?

Kitties, We were furry remiss last week in failing to point out that Friday the 14th of July would have been Angel Pixie's birthday. 

Now, as you may recall, although Pixie was a Stay-At-Home kitty, She always loved to hear about faraway, exotic places, so she would have loved Our Oneg Shabbat on Friday evening.  It was both fun and educational.  Of course, We dedicated it to Angel Pixie. And also to Angel Grandpaw, who would have been 96 years old the day before, July 13th. Do you think they celebrate birthdays at the Rainbow Bridge? If they do, We are sure Grandpaw was celebrating with a great, big, cinnamon cake made by his own Mummy. It was his favourite cake when he was a little boy, only none of Us knew exactly how to make it.

Anyway, to get back to the Oneg Shabbat. We had an Azerbaijani evening. We started off with a lecture and slide show all about Azerbaijani culture and history. Then We had an Azerbaijani-themed supper, followed by Azeri songs and dances purr-formed by two more of Mummy's Collection - Lala and Ismail:

Mummy brought Lala and Ismail back with her when She visited Azerbaijan five years ago. They were a pair of star-crossed lovers, you see. They were in love but their families wanted them to marry other people. Mummy has a soft spot for star-crossed lovers so She asked them if they would like to come with her to Israel, where they could be together, and of course, they said "Yes!".

If you would like to read more about Azerbaijan and Mummy's visit there, you can do so here.  

And now it is time to sign off so that I can get back to my favourite activity - Napping (mol). Indeed, at 37 degrees Celsius, and with no sign of a drop in tempurratures in the next ten days, what else is a kitty to do?!

See you again next week then.

Be well. Be safe. We love you all.

A Beautiful Package: Trixie's Caturday Art and Sunday Selfie

Hallo there, Effurrybody!

Here I am again, Queen Trixie, Furrst of My Name, Empurress of Jerusalem, Israel and the Entire Middle East, Queen of Hearts, Guardian of the Boudoir, Alpha-Kitty Extraordinaire.  It is MY Turn to lead My Fellow J-Cats on this weekend's blog hops - the Caturday Art blog hop, hosted by the Divinely Wise and Beautiful Athena and her HuMum, Marie, and the Sunday Selfies blog hop, hosted by the Deliciously and Predictably Unpredictable Kitties Blue and their HuMom, Janet.

We received several new Boxes this past week. Mummy's Cleaning Lady, Ms. M. brings them especially for Us. She understands how impawtant it is for Us to have a Regular Supply, as it takes Us Shimshi barely a heartbeat to rip them to pieces with his sharp, sharp, little claws! He is such a Destructive (not so) little Mancat!

(I say, Sis, that's not fair. Those boxes are expressly designed for Us to give Our claws a workout - unlike the living room sofa which you single-pawedly retextured! - Shimshi)

Not just destructive - but a Telltale to boot!  And you should see what he has done to the wooden framework of the Bed!  

Anyway, I digress. When Ms. M. brought last week's batch of boxes, I immediately laid claim to one of them:

And, of course, Mummy quickly whipped out her phone and took a picture, to preserve My Beauty in Purr-petuity.

So, this is My Selfie for this week.

We had some difficulty artifying it, because for the past few days, two of Our favourite photo editing sites - PicResize and LunaPic - have been acting up and timing out before We manage to edit Our Pictures. That's why there is only one Artsy-Fartsy LunaPic version of the pawtrait:

We used the Landscape art effect from LunaPic, at 60% and added the Vignette border with the edges faded, plus a regular picture frame.

After several attempts at using other filters, which kept timing out, We went over to another favourite site, PhotoFunia, to prepurr the pawtrait for its appearance in the Israel Museum, where it will be on display all summer.

And here are the blog hop badges, before We fur-get:

        

Mummy's Caterwauling Club is now in Summer Recess till September, so this evening, instead of leaving Us all alone to go off to Caterwauling Purr-actice, maybe She will finally finish writing up her own bloggie, on which She has been working for several days. She has a couple of Bible archaeology field trips and no fewer than three concerts to write about and She has actually written most of it, but things kept on happening - like a couple of terrorist attacks - even as She was writing. Not to mention all the action on the pawlitical front.

So She begs your indulgence and hopes (but no promises, okay?) to post her own blog either tomorrow or the day after. (Yeah, We know. You've heard that before.)

In the meantime, here is a puzzle to keep you busy.

 96

********

Till next week then.

Be well. Be safe. We love you all.

Shimshi's Caturday Art and Sunday Selfies

Hallo again, Effurrybuddies!

Once more, it falls to Me to lead My Fellow J-Cats on the weekend blog hops - the Caturday Art blog hop, hosted by the Divinely Wise and Beautiful Athena and her HuMum, Marie, and the Sunday Selfies blog hop, hosted by the Deliciously and Predictably Unpredictable Kitties Blue and their HuMom, Janet.

I could not choose between these two selfies, so you must tell Me which you prefurr.

Furrst up, here I am chilling out in front of the Tee Vee with Mummy. That is to say - Mummy was watching Tee Vee - and I was keeping an eye (just one - MOL) on Mummy!

Now, you see the box on the kitchen floor in the background?

And you remember the old adage - If it fits, I sits - don't you?

We prepurred three different artifications for each of these selfies, all using filters from LunaPic.  

Let's start with Me chilling out with Mummy in front of the TV:

The furrst one uses the Connections filter at 60%, with a fairly heavy overlay of Sadness at 40%. We don't often use Sadness because it's - well, Sad, you know. But in this case, I was sad. Why, I hear you asking. Well, because Mummy is being too strict about My Diet! She says if I don't lose weight, I won't stand a chance in the World Pole-Dancing Championships later this year! So not only has She cut My Rations, but She won't let Me scoff what Trixie leaves over.

(I don't "leave over" anything. I like to take My Time over MY Meals, and to be able to take a break and then come back to them without greedy mancats stealing them while I'm not looking! - Trixie)

Next, We used another one of Mummy's favourite combinations - the Surreal Painting effect with an overlay of Tuscany at 75%:

And last, but not least, We tried a combination of Waves at 55% washed over (most suitably, as We don't want another repeat of the Titanic disaster) with Floating, at 35%:

Do you have a favourite among these three?

We also artified My Boxy Picture - furrst of all with Frida (one of Our Favourites) at 85%:

Our next version used Van Gogh at 65%:

For Our Final Artification of the day, We used Sketch3 (a black and white filter) but only at 40%, thus leaving just a hint of colour:

Now, since Mummy is appearing in a concert this evening with her Caterwauling Club, in which She has a So-Low, We will finish up now and let her get some rest. Well, lots of rest, because last night, she only managed to get about 3 or 4 hours sleep. She just couldn't drop off (and no, it wasn't Our Fault!!!).

She has another concert tomorrow evening too, and since only She has the Computer Passwords (and the Opposing Thumbs which are so necessary for typing), We might not be able to visit as many of you this week as We usually do - but, of course, We'll do Our Best.

Meanwhile, here are the blog hop badges:

     

That's all for now then, Dear Furriends. See you next week!

Be well. Be safe. We love you all.

Caspurr Being Adorable: Caturday Art and Sunday Selfie

Hallo there, Effurryone!

Mummy had no hesitation whatsoever in picking out the Best Picture of Me for this weekend's blog hops - the Caturday Art blog hop, hosted by the Wise and Beautiful Athena and her HuMum, Marie, and the Sunday Selfies blog hop, hosted by the Deliciously and Predictably Unpredictable Kitties Blue and their HuMom, Janet.

Nor did choosing suitable artifications take as much time as usual!

Using Our favourite photo editing site (LunaPic, of course!), it was quite easy to choose suitable filters. 
Tell Us in the Comments section which is your Favourite!

This furrst one uses the Grey filter,  at 85%:

Our second choice uses the Floating filter, at 60%:

And last - but certainly not least - Sketch2, which is basically black and white but to which We added the faintest hint of colour by using it at 80% only:

All three of these can be seen in the Kitty Cat Pawtrait Gallery, in the Enchanted Forest.

Now, before We forget, here are the blog hop badges:

        

Mummy was furry busy last week because She appeared in a concert with her Caterwauling Club and She even had a So-Low. She had been meaning to write about it on her Own Blog later in the week, but you know what they say about the best laid plans of Mice and Men, don't you?  (Why do they say that? Why MICE?)  Any way, something truly horrible happened last Tuesday, so Mummy felt She had to write about that instead. Hopefully, She will find time this coming week to write about the concert and also about the last two Bible-themed field trips She took.

She has another concert (and another So-Low) in a week's time, so We shall let her have a nice, long afternoon Nap (just like a Cat!) before this evening's rehearsal.

Be well. Be safe. We love you all.