Melba the Mini Cat

 

Hi, my name is Melba, and I'm a gremlin who is up for adoption! I'm a video star! See me here.I'm a full-grown 2-year-old mini cat, weighing only 3.2kgs, so my face is extra cute and small. The only thing that's growing is my fur and whiskers, which were a bit damaged from fleas (you can see lighter patches which are filling in with darker brown).

I was abandoned 3-4 months ago, and living rough was not my favourite. Luckily, I'm now fostered, sterilized, FIV/FELV negative, de-wormed/de-flead, microchipped, vaccinated and healthy. I'm litter trained and I know how to walk on a leash.

I really love to play and I love to cuddle - chin scratches are the best! I'm very smart, and my favourite toy is my tunnel. I'm not scared of new people, even small ones, and I even let kids carry me. I never use my claws and I'm very patient, although I sometimes ask for scratches and plays with my little gremlin meow.

I got sterilized, and do not like the cone of shame. It makes me walk backwards like Michael Jackson, but that's ok. I'm neutral on catnip and fairly easy going on food, but love fresh water, ideally from a human glass.

I have very soft fur and great big yellow eyes, with a twisty tail.

Would you like to adopt me? Please reach out to @laura_slamdoozle if you are interested in adopting Donut. Standard CWS guidelines apply.

---

Davillas in Singapore Part 2

We spent some time in the jungle with the Davillas. Above is the tree with the house inside.

They were quite good at jungling.

Although at one point, Mark seemed a bit scared of the "Avatar Trees".

Tammie found secret overgrown stairs.

We saw the Colugos, including a baby inside the mother's patagium. You can see the patagium being lifted here on the left, and now I've succeeded in using the word patagium three times.

Tammie tried durian, and I would share the face she made, except that shockingly, she liked it, so here is a picture of some durian.

We went to Haw Par Villa to learn some moral lessons and teachings. The Davillas enjoyed emaciated Buddha, even though he has a tree growing from his feet and appears to be sitting on dentures.

There were no moral lessons discouraging sumo belly touching.

16 years later, and I still haven't fully mastered the Thai dancing pose, but I think I did better than Tammie.

The Haw Par Villa hells have reopened, and they remain gruesome. Some of the "sins" for which you can be punished have been altered. "Stealing of Library Books" has expanded to all "Mistreatment of Books", to my dismay.

My favourite many-headed deity welcomed us as visitors. All twelve faces look calm, despite surely being very uncomfortable.

Here's Mark, with a temple lion.

Here's the Sakya Muni Buddha, and we went inside his bum, since you can. But we nearly got stuck in there by a praying man.

After all of this, the Davillas became slightly more Buddhist, I think.

And definitely more Asian. Here is Tammie picking up individual sesame seeds with chopsticks.

---

Davillas in Singapore Part 1

The Davillas came to Singapore, so we helped them to get oriented.

We introduced them to our friends, and took them to Chinatown.

We made sure that they had enough to eat, because jetlag can make you hungry.

We took them to visit 12-pack guy, whose abs are only overshadowed by his eyebrows.

He lives in this beautiful Buddha Tooth Relic temple.

There, we posed with our horoscope animals. This is how Barry chose to do so. 

See if you can spot us here in front of the glowy dragon.

There were dragons everywhere.Including in the sky! This is the drone show, which I'm hoping happens again!

We got many pretty pictures for Chinese New year.

As usual, I was especially photogenic.

Since I still don't know where to look for selfies, Tammie's kids would call us Boomers, even though we're clearly Gen X.

Tammie became a bigtime of Maneki-neko and imitated the cat but with only 1 of her arms.

Speaking of booming, here Tammie shows why you can't use panorama mode when there are people walking.

---

Mosques, Forts, Amusement and Corn

The mosques of Muscat are best photographed at night. Fun fact, the Grand Mosque, above, lets non-Muslims in, which is a rarety.

Outside of Muscat, we saw different styles of Mosque. This one, called Jamea Al Islam, inspired George Lucas, I believe.

Low-key town mosque.

Shorter Mountain Mosque.

Speaking of small towns, most of them have forts!

Some were in better conditions than others.

We mostly couldn't go inside, but I bet the best parties happen down here.

They seemed to be restoring this one. Tricky.

I like fort ruins, but one thing I love is an abandoned amusement park!We found this one by accident, and struggled to know if it was abandoned 2 or 30 years ago.

But we did learn that Omanis eat corn at amusement parks. Not popcorn, but seasoned corn.

---