Gingerale's new photo gallery has finally opened! Click the link to visit the gallery where you can view the thumbnail photos and read the captions. You can also click on any photo in the gallery to see a full-size version.
Feline Fotos (the original large files) Another Cat Photo Gallery
Welcome to my website.
I am Gingerale. I am a Balinese puddytat.
I want to tell you a little bit about myself and the rest of my family. I was born in May, 2000, under the front porch of sweet little Briana’s house in the nowhere land of Cedar Creek, Texas. I lived there where I was constantly chased by the pigs next door until my new human mommy insisted that I be caught, put into some awful puddytat carrier where I had to spend several hours before I could be brought to my new home. Eventually I arrived at my new abode in Austin, Texas. Wow, did my life change! Little did I know that I would have a momma and daddy who would love me so much and would give me so many toys to play with but that I would now be the youngest in an enormous family and I would have to learn to put up with lots of brothers and sisters all around me. At first, some of the clan welcomed me, some simply ignored me, and some hissed or barked and swat their paws at me. I was soooooooooooooo shy. I spent my first six months hiding under the bed or in the back corner of a closet. Slowly, oh ever so slowly, I began to peep out to see exactly what was going on. I was not accustomed to having such comfortable surroundings. I thought life consisted of always being chased by pigs! Anyway, it took me almost one full year to get over my shyness and the thought of the pigs but now I live the best life in the whole wide world. I am my momma’s kitty. I am Gingerale. My real name is Ginger but my momma lovingly calls me Gingerale. You remember Ginger on Gillian’s Island? I’m so sweet and wonderful like she was that my momma and daddy made me her name sake. One of my sisters is named Mary Ann. You probably remember her, also. Both of us came to live with our momma and daddy about the same time during that summer of 2000. I have really grown up now. I am no longer that shy little puddytat that spent months hiding from my own shadow. I have gained my proper place in the hierarchy of the rest of the clan. No one hisses, spats, or barks at me. You can usually find me curled up next to my momma or, if she does not happen to be home at the moment, I will usually be asleep on the top of our wonderfully comfortable recliners in the living room. I do lead the life of Riley.
This is my family:
Tabitha
Tabitha, the oldest, is the Queen of the Puddytats in my four-legged family. She was born in October, 1990, in Picayune, Mississippi. She was a Christmas present to my daddy from his sister, Bea, and her family. Tabitha is a Sealpoint Balinese whereas I am a Bluepoint Balinese. If you want to know what we look like, we are two varieties of a long-haired Siamese. Balinese is just a fancy name for long-haired Siamese Puddytats. Tabitha is a lovey-dovey sweetheart who has a bewitchingly piercing gaze. Do you have any idea where her name came from? I’ll give you one guess. Today, due to Tabitha's advancing age, she spends most of her time curled up sleeping. She likes my momma and daddy's bed the best. I guess she feels very safe and secure there. At night she likes to sleep on top of my momma or daddy's stomach or face. She always stays very close to them.
Arnold Ziffel is a plain, scraggly, dirty-white, hobo pig of a cat with a mind of his own. He got his name from his coloring and attitude. He comes and goes as he chooses, sometimes not being seen for months at a time. He is truly a rootin’ tootin’ puddytat. He can make Tabitha and everyone else pull out their gas masks from twenty feet away! He was extremely easy to name due to his close likeness to a certain famous pig we all remember on a well known TV sitcom. There truly is a close resemblance.
The next in line is Maynard, otherwise known as Big M or King. He is the king and he knows he is the king, at least of this house anyway. No one but no one will ever take that title away from him – at least not while he is still alive! He sits around all day, usually in a box in the hall that he has claimed as his throne, and sleeps, and sleeps, and eats, and eats, and comes and begs my momma and daddy to scratch his back instead of doing their work on the computers. He is a real sweet heart, even to me, little ole Gingerale. In January, 1995, before I was even thought of, my daddy rescued him out of a huge parking lot where he had survived for several months on scraps and junk left by humans. He was just a baby then, and like mine, his life really changed when he came to our house.
Ernest T. Bass was a poor little homeless kitty who took up residence with my daddy while he still lived in Buda before he and my momma got married. For several weeks before being officially adopted by my daddy, he would stand under the house windows and cry and cry from hunger. He was a scrappy, scrawny, little puddytat who had obviously spent the first number of months of his little life having to fight for anything and everything he put in his little hungry belly. Since my daddy had just rescued Manyard from the awful parking lot, it did not take long for Ernest T. Bass, who because of his attitude and behavior soon acquired the name of Boss, to learn where my daddy kept Maynard’s food bowl. Promptly the scraggly, scrawny, bossy, tattered and torn puddytat decided he now had a home – a good home where a full food bowl was always available. All he had to do was move Maynard G. Krebs away from that food bowl and then it would be his. For the next year or so, his main occupation was bullying Maynard and chowing down at that food bowl. To Boss’ surprise, Maynard G. Krebs began to grow from being a young kitten who was easy to harass to developing into a large loveable but very stocky he-man puddytat who was not going to be pushed around by Boss or Arnold any longer! Boss had lost his status as king of the pack. Now he comes and goes according to his mood and, like Arnold, leads the life of a hobo. But he always knows where the food bowl is and he knows it will always be full and he knows how to get to it whenever he chooses.
Sabrina
Sabrina, a short-haired black and white kitty who was born in the spring of 2000, is really a very sweet kitty who never wants to bother anyone. My momma and daddy found her, along with about 15 other kitties, abandoned at a house with no water anywhere to be found and only one small bowl of food which was covered with a least a million flies. Over a period of several days, this tiny black and white kitty kept coming to my momma and daddy purring and rubbing against their legs. It was almost as if she was asking them to take her home. After determining that no one was around to care for the kitties, my momma and daddy put Sabrina in a carrier and brought her home to meet the rest of the family. For some reason that I really do not understand, some of the older kitties feel it is their right, duty, and obligation to pick on her and make her life more difficult than it needs to be. For example, I frequently see Big M playing opossum by the door where the food bowl is located. It's amazing how all of us except Sabrina can easily access the food bowl any time we want to and Big M pays us no attention but if Sabrina wants to eat he amazingly "wakes up" to cause her trouble. Sabrina has a favorite toy called the Bop-Cat. It is a toy that hangs from a door on a long piece of elastic string that almost reaches the floor and has a cute, colorful toy tied to the end of it. Sabrina will spend hours swatting and chasing that thing as it swings through the air.
Gidget
Gidget is also one of the babies found in the same group of abandoned puddytats as Sabrina. Gidget, however, had the distinct advantage of good looks. She is a soft, fluffy, grey and white puddytat who has some characteristics of the persian variety. While my momma and daddy were deciding to take Sabrina home, Gidget came down out of the tree and acted as though she, too, wanted to go with Sabrina. Not wanting Sabrina to grow up alone, Gidget was put into the puddytat carrier with Sabrina and brought to her new home in the great capital city of Texas. We live in an area of Austin that has many old trees - some getting close to one hundred years old. With all of these trees come birds and it did not take long for Gidget to acquire the name Birdkiller! After stuffing herself with so many birds, she became so roly-poly that she had to be given a new name -- Butterball. She continues to keep that name and title today.
Mary Ann
My sister, Mary Ann, is probably the luckiest kitty in the whole wide world. All of us kitties marvel at the miracle of how she was found and rescued by my momma and daddy. It all started back about the time I, too, was a baby kitten, but I didn't know Mary Ann yet. I was still living in nowhere Cedar Creek, Texas, and had not been brought to my new house near the University of Texas campus in Austin, Texas. One day in late July, 2000, in the midst of a very severe draught that had lowered Lake Travis to the point that no one could launch a boat at the boat ramp, my momma and daddy were driving along Highway 281 after pulling their boat out of Lake LBJ, where they had spent several hours just trying to get the boat to start. Both of them were very disgusted by their failed attempt to spend the day on the lake involved in pleasurable boating activities. Suddenly my daddy saw a scrawny, scared-to-death, short-haired, baby grey tabby kitten running across the highway. She ran and hid somewhere in the tall grass in the median of the highway. It was so hot and dry that day in the 100+ degrees and there certainly was no water to be found anywhere for a hot, dehydrated, baby puddytat to drink. My daddy pulled over to the side of the road to stop the truck. My momma and daddy left the truck and boat at the side of the road and started looking for that baby. After looking around for awhile my daddy said he needed to turn the truck and boat around and go a quarter or half a mile back toward Marble Falls to look some more. They found the petrified baby kitten huddled next to a big electric pole hidden by some tall grass that looked like it should have been mowed three or four weeks earlier. They nursed that baby back to health with lots of love, good food, plenty of good clean water to drink, and a trip to the veterinarian. Finding this baby puddytat who could not have survived the rest of that hot miserable day without some water to drink really turned a dismal skunk of a day into a wonderful one. Mary Ann turned out to be the silver lining in the otherwise tattered and torn coat lining. It did not take long for Mary Ann, named after someone we all know in the T.V. sitcom Gillian's Island, to become known as Waterkitty. For the first year of her life in our family, she was the puddytat who LOVED playing in the water. Now I wonder why that is? She never minded getting wet. The bathroom sink became known as her playground. Even today, she is the only feline I know of who really loves the water!
Ginger
Here I am - me, Gingerale Puddytat. Age-wise this is my place in the hierarchy of my family. Because of my young age and attitude, I love to play with Buffy and Jody. I don't know why, but I am the only one who enjoys having them around. I think everyone else thinks they have the kitten cooties.
Buffy
Buffy and Jody are the babies of our family. They were both born in late 2001. When they were about six weeks old their original human family moved to New Mexico and left them behind. That family took a second boy puddytat who had also been born in the same litter. He was by far the cutest of the three and thus had no problem finding a permanent family. After the two remaining babies, who according to my momma, make up for their lack of good looks with their character and loving personalities, scrounged for food and water for almost a week, momma and daddy found they had been left behind. Both babies were immediately adopted and brought home to live with the rest of our clan. Buffy is a very short-haired tabby kitty with an unusually long tail. So far, she appears to be a little more mature and independent than Jody; however, I am sure he will catch up soon. My sister Buffy loves to play chase and wrestle with me. She really is an O.K. puddytat.
Jody
Jody is a loveable little jet black puddytat with army green eyes who was born in the same litter as Buffy. My momma sometimes calls him Prince Jody Sunshine. He is the only boy in our family except for Big M, Daddy, and Whiskas. He is really sweet and he would not hurt a flea. In fact he is a little bit of a cry baby. He has a weird little meow and he really does not like to be left by himself. I guess all of this is just because he is still a baby and that he will grow up soon enough. He's lots of fun to play with. We play chase, tag, wrestle, chase puddytat balls, climb in our puddytat playhouse, and have lots of fun together. I'm glad Jody is my little brother.
Little Miss Cotton
Little Miss Cotton, a Bichon Frise, who was born in August, 1993, is the only DOG in my family. I’m going to tell you a secret. Pssssst, she does not know that she is a dog. She thinks she is a puddytat like me. She plays with all of us cats and all of our toys. She doesn’t know that dogs are not supposed to like puddytats. Just like Theodore Cleaver, she does not answer to the name Little Miss Cotton. To fit in with the rest of the crowd, her stage name is Huckleberry Hound Dog. At least she is here to guard our house and to let my momma and daddy know whenever we have a human or canine visitor.
Whiskas Wabbit, owiginally named Sabrina before my momma and daddy found out he was a boy, was born in our living room Sunday night or in the wee hours of Monday morning just before Thanksgiving in 1997. His momma and daddy bunny lived in my human momma’s third grade classroom. You see, she was one of those elementary teachers. Anyway, Harry, a Netherlands Dwarf wabbit who was a very small solid white bunny with very tiny little white ears that stuck straight up on the top of his head was Whiskas’ bunny’s daddy. Samantha, a much larger very fluffy tan and white Holland Lop bunny with large, floppy ears, was his bunny momma. Every Monday morning my human momma would take the bunny momma and daddy to school where they would live until Friday afternoon when she would bring them home for the weekend. They had large cages in both locations and traveled back ‘n forth quite nicely in a puddytat carrier. My human momma definitely did not plan for Whiskas and his two brothers to be born. In fact, two or three weeks before their surprise birth, Harry Wabbit had had a little visit to the veterinarian. I bet you can guess what happened to him while he was there! Anyway, I want to finish this strange and unusual story. Sometime while my momma and daddy were asleep, these baby wabbits were born in our living room and my momma and daddy did not even know they were there! Before daylight that Monday morning, without turning on the lights because my daddy was still asleep, my momma picked Harry and Samantha up out of their cage and put them in the little puddytat carrier for their usual ride to school. As you can guess, Samantha, threw the fit of the century. But remember, she and Harry were the only ones that knew baby bunnies, each one slightly more than ½ inch long, were in the cage. Samantha had done a great job of preparing a nest – so good of a job that my momma and daddy did not know the baby bunnies were there until Maynard discovered them sometime Tuesday morning. The loud commotion that Maynard caused quickly got my daddy’s attention. Upon discovering the babies, my daddy flew to my momma’s school to get momma Samantha and bring her home to take care of her babies. When they were old enough, two of the baby bunnies were given to a lady at my momma’s school but Whiskas Wabbit, originally called Sabrina until my momma took him to the vet and found out he was a boy, still lives with us. His huge cage sits in our living room close to the front door. Even though his bunny momma and daddy are no longer with us, Whiskas is a happy healthy wabbit. He is about the same size as his bunny momma, Samantha, and he has very large, strange-looking ears that stick straight up on the top of his head. He really is a good bunny brother even though I don’t pay him very much attention except to look at him and sniff him when he is out of his cage.
Special Kitties from Earlier Years:
Callie Creamy Snowball
01/24/07