Meet the cats - in which I forget passwords.

I've been feeling bad about the cats, having written quite extensively about the dogs. I am a cat person after all, so it seems only fair that they should have some of the attention.

I should also say that Brian was not a cat person when I first met him. Oh, he had a cat alright, he had taken in a stray he felt sorry for. Her name was Squinty, she was the saddest cat you ever saw, quite shy and with no attitude at all. She also peed all over the hotplate - and eventually ran away to live with the vet (have you ever?)

Anyway, now that I have that out of my system.

I am a firm believer in having cats in odd numbers, you should have at least 3. As anyone who has seen Cats The Musical knows, you are fully entitled to change a cat's name. I have 3 girl cats - all very different in nature

I am also a bit of a sexist in cat ownership, having learned the hard way that boy cats tend to get into fights and pee everywhere to mark their territory (Squinty was a girl, but she was clearly traumatised, so it doesn't count)

Ming-Li is the "firstborn" of the family, she's dignified and aloof and has a king-sized bed in the master bedroom which she very kindly shares with us at night.Ming-Li's kitten name was Shenzi after my mother's Seal-Point Siamese and long before the Lion King. When she reached cathood I re-named her, which caused some confusion in the house ("Who's Ming-Li?")

Clearly Ming-Li is of royal descent; as such it is beneath her dignity to chase vermin or appear to do anything else reserved for peasants. She's extremely elegant, and I'm pretty sure she holds her breath when she jumps onto the bed - we don't feel a thing. She is a cat who can walk across the dressing-table at night without knocking things over (unlike Storm - more on that later)

She doesn't like the children much, having been around when they were little and I think the Scientist may have either dragged her around by the tail or perhaps dressed her in some doll's clothes. All denied, of course, but mothers know.

I once managed to catch her rolling over on command on video

Ming Li rolls over

I have to say I would have embedded the video - the how to section is quite breezy about this, "select the film strip icon on your edit toolbar and upload your video".  It would appear I don't have a filmstrip icon. I consulted the help forum, no answer. I checked all the settings. Nothing about filmstrips.

Not to be put off I explored other options. This required uploading the video to YouTube so that I could provide a link. That required a YouTube account. I followed all the instructions and then was horrified to see my name in lights on YouTube. I immediately deleted the video and deleted the account. Take 2. Only it wouldn't let me in, it appears I committed a cardinal sin by uploading and then deleting. YOUR ACCOUNT HAS BEEN PERMANENTLY DISABLED (BAD PERSON) No problem, create a new account. Oh, you silly silly naive person - OH NO YOU DON'T. YOUR ACCOUNT HAS BEEN PERMANENTLY DISABLED. Nothing I did could change its mind - and there seems to be no way to erase its memory. Aha - try from another computer! This seemed to work until I forgot my spam email password (you know, the email account you set up to avoid giving your real address to marketers or the gym?) which required me requesting a new password. It has taken me 9 days to get around all the security questions and Captcha codes (what's with that anyway?) and involved 4 computers, deleting cookies and email addresses I had forgotten about. I'm probably on a watch list by now. SO WATCH THE VIDEO!

*calms self down*

Ming-Li is getting on a bit, she is 15 years old now and she mostly spends her days lying in the sun. Once I'm over the trauma of uploading video via YouTube, and if I can remember the wretched password I will introduce the Burmese cats - Milkshake and Storm