Rosie

Tabs recognized that good pet assistants were hard to come by, and he was a firm believer in starting one’s training early, ideally before the age of one.

When Connor was accepted into the Tabs the Cat School for Junior Pet Assistants, it was a great honor. She got to work with the maestro himself, learning the ins and outs of the pet assisting business, including developing good listening skills, proper petting, pampering, structured play time and meal preparation.

Connor graduated summa cum laude, and Tabs was kind enough to give her a glowing letter of recommendation. She was all set for her first real job as a junior pet assistant.

Rosie

When she saw Rosie’s job posting for a pet assistant, Connor applied and made it through all six interviews. She got the job! And now she’s in year two of her new career.

Rosie has been a great cat to work for. She can be tough, but she’s kind and listens. She treats her employees well.

It’s always nice when you have a great boss. 🙂

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

Our boy Tabs was a big cat with an even BIGGER heart. He liked to maintain his reputation as a self-centered diva, but if you knew the real Tabs, you knew that he was actually very giving and sweet and had a soft spot for underprivileged cats.

As much as he loved publicity, we often did things under the radar, like, every year we hosted several bake sales in conjunction with Bouchon Bakery in Yountville, California, and between you and me…each of those events pulled in big bucks for various cat charities and worthy causes, including Camp Catnip, a nonprofit Tabs started to help young kittens in need.

That was just the tip of the iceberg, though. Tabs also hosted elite annual fundraisers all around the world from Milan to Paris, Monaco, Barcelona, Rio and Tokyo. Yes, those were long days and nights, but I didn’t mind at all because I knew they were for the kittens.

The only trip he didn’t take me on was the charity concert he hosted on the moon (!). His engineering team, in conjunction with NASA, terraformed 200 acres of lunar landscape!

Yeah! I know! I was secretly relieved when he told me that I had to remain at home base to water his plants…

Rosie

To this day, Rosie is deeply envious of that famous moon concert project Tabs put on all those years ago, but she does what she can. Like, to help cats and kittens in the North Bay Area who are interested in science, Rosie started hosting monthly bake sales.

They raise good money. Plus, she finds the scientific aspects of baking fascinating.

And then this last weekend I assisted Rosie with a community fun run for cats in coding. As you can imagine, it was a big success.

Yup, never a dull moment around here. 🙂

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

Tabby Targaryen, first of his name… You know, I’ve often wondered how my tabby boy got his start. He was such a magnificent beast, such a unique creation under the stars.

I know a little. Like, I know he was a stray at one point, because a nice lady in our old neighborhood told me once that he found her one day. She said he was still a small kitten at the time. She was leaving bowls of food outside in her backyard for the neighborhood strays, and one day this little tabby came walking out of the brush toward the food. He was a little worse for wear, wearing an tight collar he’d clearly outgrown.

She removed the collar, gave him a once over, and let him eat his fill. He kept coming around after that, and it didn’t take her long to realize that he was a special guy with a one-of-a-kind personality.

Fast forward some months, or maybe a year, and Tabs, who was still a stray at the time, started exploring further and further around the neighborhood, wooing ladies and breaking hearts (like mine!).

We eventually became friends, but not before he’d already made a name for himself. Yup, before Tabs ever walked a runway, he’d already won the Kitty Super Bowl. In fact, he’d already retired from professional cat football.

Football was his first career, and it’s where he got introduced to big business and brand marketing.

By the time I came into his life, Tabs was already a successful kitty model specializing in athletic apparel and catalog work.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Rosie

Rosie’s origin story was, let’s just say…less dramatic, although not altogether bereft of intrigue.

I don’t know much about it, but I do know that she was something of a boss lady at her foster family’s house, especially when it came to the family’s dogs, and this makes a lot of sense to me based on how she acts outdoors.

I mean, Rosie Pose has two different personalities. Inside the house, she all purrs of lurvies, but outside when we go for her walks? She’s a tyrant! She growls, hisses and bares her claws any time she catches another cat’s scent.

She’s all business outside.

That cat does not mess around.

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

Tabs always got a kick out of the phrase “the dog days of summer,” to which he’d add, “why don’t we have a cat days of summer?”

Good question, but I’d always tell him not to think too deeply about it…

When I think of Tabs in his prime, I think of him as a summer cat. Lounging on the hot sand at a tropical beach somewhere was one of this favorite activities. Occasionally, he’d even get on a surfboard when he was in the mood, and he was actually an excellent cat surfer.

But I digress…

At the peak of summer, when it was at its hottest like it is now, Tabs would always find a way to look glamorous, while the rest of us would be sweaty and stinky and borderline gross. Didn’t matter. No matter how hot and humid it was, he’d always be chic and sleek and put together.

Like I said, he was a summer cat.

Around this time of year, Tabs would often host a friendly neighborhood get together and invite the local dogs. The marketing team would try to push to call it something nondenominational and subtle, but sometimes Tabs liked a hard sell. The fete was usually called “The Annual Dog Days of Summer Celebration,” which he thought of as an olive branch to his canine cousins.

Boy, it was quite a party too! Imagine hundreds of cats and dogs barking all night long. It was cray!

Rosie

Rosie’s been busy this summer so far. Lots of projects inspired by the sweltering heat, like, she’s working on a sprayable cat fur sunscreen and studying global warming and its effect on cats who sleep in windows.

In other news, she normally isn’t interested in the things I’m working on, but lately we’ve been talking about perhaps adding a canine member to the family, and she’s been unusually interested in my thoughts on it.

Rosie’s quite familiar with animals of the canine persuasion because, in her previous foster home, she lived with three dogs, and I’ve been told by her foster mom that by the time Rosie’s kittens were weaned and ready to go, she was showing all of the dogs in the house who was boss.

I’m guessing she thinks that if she were to get a dog companion, she’d be able to persuade him or her into becoming her assistant.

I can see that happening from a mile away. 😹

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

Tabs was a workaholic, it’s true, but one thing he was really good about was setting his boundaries. He knew when it was time to take a break, and his breaks? They were epic. I’m talking month-long stays at the highest end spas all over the world. I’d often get Facetime calls poolside. I’d say, “Boss, you look so relaxed,” and then he’d start meowing out a whole list of things for me to do, because, you know, empires don’t run themselves. 😉

And if he ever heard just one hint of a sigh from me on the other end of the line, I’d get a reminder about how close I am to greatness, and how most people don’t have the privilege of witnessing history in action, yadda, yadda, yadda… I got good at making a poker face real quick.

Oh, my gosh! One time, I got one of his Facetime calls, and I picked up expecting to have him rattle off a list of 20 things to do in the next hour, but instead, I see him and Oprah Winfrey chilling together at the Fairmont on the Big Island in Hawaii. They both had what appeared to be some sort of healthy juice, but it had an umbrella in it. I don’t know what was going on there…

Rosie

I don’t think Rosie quite understands what it means to chillax. Like Tabs, she too is a workaholic. I think the girl’s spa day Connor and I had last week inspired her to try something new.

Chances are she read something in Psychology Today about the mental benefits of relaxation, and she’s probably doing it as part of a self-hacking experiment.

I can see it now… “Boost your mental capacity through relaxation: a primer for high-achieving cats.” 🙂

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

Tabs had a special connection to flowers, and I’m not just referring to how he nibbled on my snapdragons and gerbera daisies.

He loved the colors, the fragrances — oh, the fragrances! You know, just before he headed over the Rainbow Bridge, we redid his 10-year business plan, and it included developing the fragrance notes from his favorite flowers into a line of candles for the home. That was then going to translate into an entire home decor line, which would then allow him to springboard into becoming the Martha Stewart of cats.

I gotta hand it to my little buddy; he always dreamt big. 🙂

He would never admit this, because he always wanted to be his own cat, but his favorite floral scent was the same as mine — violets.

Rosie

I’ve asked Rosie if roses are indeed her favorite flowers, but I generally get a noncommittal answer. She goes on and on about the different hybrid varieties of roses and the technical aspects of growing them, but she’s never actually sat down and said, “mrow,” which translated means “I like how roses smell.”

I found her pawing through Tabs’ old business notes today and perusing his plans to launch a fragrance/home empire, and I think that got her wheels a’turning. I’ve been finding books about perfumery and the science behind scent, so she might be cooking up something new.

I’m gonna keep my fingers crossed that it’s related to beauty. 😉

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

Tabs and Rosie have wildly different personalities, but one thing they do have in common is their absolute love for alone time, a.k.a. meow time.

Both cats, without any prompting, have abruptly shuttled us out of the house so they could spend time by themselves.

Tabs cherished his quiet time in large part because of his hectic schedule. His weekends spent alone were few and far between due to the demands of celebrity, but when he did have a quiet weekend, he did some of his best career planning and creative thinking.

He was really good at refilling his well. When he felt tapped out, he made sure to take a 15-hour nap.

Rosie

When Rosie’s alone, I want to believe she’s napping, because she’s also a workaholic and tends to come at things, even relaxation, with intensity.

When she kicks us out of the house like she did this weekend, I hope she doesn’t spend the whole time calculating and formulating and science-ing the heck out of everything. I hope she takes a cue from Tabs and chills out a bit.

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

Tabs

Summertime is adventure time! That’s one thing I learned from Tabs.

(Oh, that’s one of many things I learned from Tabs.)

He was never one to laise about during summer, even though it typically wasn’t his busiest season in terms of his fashion and modeling careers. Still, he kept his summers packed with activity. Water sports, beach sports, field sports, anything that would help keep him fit and his physique glorious.

He was surprisingly graceful in the water. I think the U.S. Olympic Synchronized Swim Team tried to recruit him.

He thought about joining, but their practice schedule didn’t work for him.

Rosie

Rosie isn’t so much into water sports.

She prefers to do light stretching and an occasional gymnastics-inspired move while she’s exploring the neighborhood.

Today she ventured out onto the big grassy area in front of the company headquarters. The management just installed a new swing for our younger cat assistants, and Rosie was very busy working out the physics behind the swinging motion.

You know Rosie. You can’t keep her away from science for too long.

I did convince her to spend some time just basking in the sun, and for once she actually listened. 🙂

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen