templeparlor

Queenie and Aphrodite at the Portland TICA Show 2009

2009-11-02T10:35:00.001-08:00

Queenie and Aphrodite enjoy the shows, Queenie won in stiff competition total count up to 80 kittens.

But it's Aphrodite that gets talked about the most because of her beautiful color one judge called her a Chimera after the greek word for a being half lion and half eagle because she caries both sets of color genes. Both girls showed beautifully and really love the extra attention they get, they are just beginning at five months this is their second show weekend! Thanks to all the lovely cat show friends and their support Roma Anthony, Phyllis, and Pam Barrett!

On Safari - Portland World class cat show - by Pam Barrett!

2009-11-01T22:11:00.000-08:00

the much talked about Aphrodite kitten here in her basket on the grooming table in Portland, she was always third but the most talked about exotic shorthair at the show. her sister Queenie won Best Kitten under the wonderful judge Elaine Weitz! and many other final placements... more to come about on safari in Portland...

for the record: my new favorite judges for the list are Steven Savant a fellow Southerner who presented Queenie second best kitten with this speechless awe and finally said, "Yes! She's all that! what more can I say!"
Well,I'm from the South too so I love this Louisianian man, it feels like home sitting beside his ring!
And Pascal Remy - the educational, informative: he gave me advice on my breeding program, and he's witty, funny, handsome and well dressed too! Thanks to Pascal for giving Queenie a fourth best and ninth best kitten in the finals! Also thanks to Laura Cunningham who placed her fifth but there was a steward mistake and so I didn't find out until the next morning on the way down the hall in the hotel from the steward! Thanks Laura you are so gentle with the kittens! Many Thanks to Alice Rhea for being so sweet with the kittens and loving every one she handled - she placed Queenie sixth best, and thanks to Ellen Crockett who placed her eighth best!
Most of all Thanks to Pam and the Portland club for a great show! Thanks dear friend Patricia Ridenour for being such a cool, smart, funny, cute, photographer friend and my personal paparazzi!
And last but certainly not least thanks to David Brunn aka D'Funn for being D'Mann and keeping us in style!

Judge Pascale Portelas places Queenie first and Aphrodite fourth best kitten!

2009-10-23T13:02:00.000-07:00

Sassy Queenie and
sweet Aphrodite!

Templeparlor Beauregard winning Seventh Best Kitten Judge heather Roberts with his new owner gabrielle Moore!

2009-10-23T12:56:00.000-07:00

Tukwilla Show 2009 Champion Marie Antoinette!

2009-10-23T12:47:00.000-07:00

Beat Kitten in Show Again! Alice Rhea!!

2009-10-23T12:42:00.000-07:00

Templeparlor Alexander the Great sixth best Kitten Judge Pat Harding with his new owner Patricia Ridenour

2009-10-23T12:32:00.000-07:00

The Bling!

2009-10-23T12:26:00.000-07:00

More winning! Heather Roberts finaled both Queenie First best Kitten and Aphrodite nineth!

2009-10-23T12:05:00.000-07:00

Heather Roberts said she wanted all four of my kittens in her finals but settled for two! Thanks Heather!

TempleparlorQueen Hatshepset winning Third Best Kitten under Breeder Judge Yvonne Patrick

2009-10-23T11:58:00.000-07:00

Yvonne fell in love with my girl!

Templeparlor Queen Hatshepset winning Third Best Kitten under Pamella Barrett

2009-10-23T08:40:00.000-07:00

Some thirds feel like firsts, when it's Pam Barrett giving the award and this was one of them !

Champion Vita Nove Marie Antoinette

2009-10-22T22:40:00.000-07:00

Lovely Marie finished her Championship under Pat Harding with a finals placement of ninth! So I promised Marie she could retire to her chaise lounge by the window to watch the birdies! Yea! Marie Antoinette!

Templeparlor Queen Hatshepset - Best kitten with Judge: Monika Dany

2009-10-22T22:24:00.000-07:00

This is My Little Queenie's first Best Kitten and mine too! I wanted to hug Monika but restrained my self, we are two happy cat women!

alexander on the way to the show

2009-10-22T21:58:00.000-07:00

Templeparlor Alexander the Great placed 6th in the Finals under Judge Pat Harding, and won two Best of breeds! Go go Alexander!

Templeparlor Beauregard goes to his new home on Whidbey Island

2009-10-17T21:02:00.000-07:00

Here is Handsome Beau-Beau in his new home with Gabrielle Moore and family. What a lucky boy to find a loving show home, I love this sweet sweet boy! I will miss his polar bear hugs around my neck. His older sister, Coco Channel misses playing rough with him they were best buddies and chased around a lot, she's pouting now and all last week - she's the one who always sees to be the most emotional about when a friend leaves, so I'm trying to spoil her with treats.
Beau-Beau, Beau Beau-licious he's so delicious!

The Tukwilla Cat Show October 2009

2009-10-16T09:39:00.000-07:00

Well I am so honored to have my Kittens be recognized for their quality and I want to thank all the Judges and exhibitors and stewards for tolerating the Team Templeparlor, as we are new to the cat show world and got very excited and emotional!
Special thanks to: Pamela Barrett for being so generous with her knowledge these past three years I've been sitting at her ringside: for her time and words of encouragement and education!

Thanks to Yvonne Patrick for loving my girl Queenie and placing her 3rd in the finals and loving her so much she wanted to take her home then and there!

Big thanks! to Monika Dany who spoted her Torbie red and helped me get the color right on my girl giving Queenie hers and my first Best Kitten award I've ever received ever! And for a kitten of my own breeding! I wanted to hug her!

More Big thanks! to Alice Rhea who gave Queenie another Best Kitten award - I was crying by then.
And forgive my gushing but More big thanks to both Sue Becknell and Pascale Portelas who gave Queenie Best kitten awards. The generosity of Pascale Portelas who gave Queenie's sister Aphrodite a placement of 6th best kitten from second best of breed!

Special Thanks to Heather Roberts who also brought Aphrodite from second best of breed to the finals with a 10th best kitten award and her half brother Beauregard placed 7th in the same final!

And Great thanks to Pat Harding for placing the handsome sweet brother of Queenie and Aphrodite - Alexander 6th best kitten and making my day by finishing Marie Antoinette!

I love you all! This was my first experience of having a great show!

Special thanks to Roma Anthony for the grooming lesson last year, and the encouragement to keep my first winner and enjoy the experience, thank you Roma!

I know we all clean the litter boxes, bathe the kitties, sweep the stray litter, brush and nurse our cats and kittens and then sometimes...... we win! This was my third show and third litter and Team TempleParlor Kittens Rocked the Cat Show! And we had sooo much fun! Thanks to my friends and neighbors: Patricia Ridenour, David Brunn and Don Romine for their support this day and every day of my life.

Our kittens placed as follows:
Queenie/ Pasha: won four - Best Kitten awards, four 3rd Best Kitten awards, one 9th Best Kitten
Aphrodite: won one 4th Best Kitten award, and 0ne 9th Best Kitten award
Alexander: won one 6th Best Kitten award
Beauregard: won one 7th Best Kitten award and went to his new home with Gaby Moore
Ch. VitaNova Marie Antoinette: finished her championship under Pat Harding with a 9th best Cat in Show award. Thank You Pat!
Patricia Ridenour photographer extraordinair, who now owns Alexander, wrote our story with humor and flair to our mutual friend Kathleen Hunt, see below:
I will post photos as soon as I get them from Patricia!
all the best,
Kitty Wittkower
206 380 0290

--- On Mon, 10/12/09, patridenour@aol.com wrote:

Kitty, wow, I know you were there, but not always with me, so I thought this might be fun for you to read too. Put it on your blog if you like, I am uploading pics right now for you.

The show was incredible, every kitten and cat of Kitty's won a final Best of show award. Queenie/Pasha was the biggest winner of the whole show, she won 3 first place finals, 3 second place finals, and one 9th place final. The only 3 final show rings she did not get into were because Alexander won two of them and Beau-Beau won 1. Aphrodite won 2 in the same final rings that Queenie was in, which is very rare, 2 kittens of the same breed in the final. Kitty's kittens were so incredible that some best of breeds didn't make it into the finals because they chose 2 of Kitty's Exotics. One judge said she wanted all 4 of them in her final ring.

One of the judges offered to buy Queenie to breed to her very elite lines. Kitty decided not to sell her even though it was a great honor and Kitty was passing up on a lot of money. Another woman, Gaby, who was showing a Bengal bought Beau-Beau and is going to show him and also let Kitty breed the kittens back to her cats. Gaby took her wild Bengal out of the show rings because he was so feral and then became part of Team Temple Parlor which included Don, David Funn myself, Kitty, and then Gaby. She carried Beau-Beau to all his rings and she was beside herself when he won his final.

By the middle of Sunday we were being stared at by the others at the show. One of the top judges took Kitty and me aside and told us what we needed to do is get Queenie Best Kitten in the nation and International Best Kitten, Queenie shows spectacularly, except she likes to play "Bite the Judges." Honestly she just lost her canines! I think that was why she did not win more. We worked as a team with David and Don circling the rings to keep an eye out for who was up. When all the kittens and Marie Antoinette, were showing, and they were being called back for their finals while they were in other final rings, we would spread out and each of us would take notes at each ring, tell the other judges that the kitten was on its way, groom them, feed them. play with them, be a kitten sitter when there was time just to hang with the babies.

Kitty got emotional, nervous, angry when Don screwed up, cried like she had won the academy award for best picture, best director best leading actress, best leading actor, best supporting actress, best supporting actor, best cinematography, and best styling, which basically she did. We were told by one judge how great our grooming was. We were given a nickname by someone we don't know who was also showing, and so people started calling us The Zot Pack, like Zot is short for exotic and then blended with Rat Pack (Sinatra and his gang).

I went vicious on the cat show photographer when I asked him to take a photo of Team Temple Parlor and our winners using my camera. He did a sucky job and when I tried to get him to do things to improve it he refused and then I said, "Give me my camera back!" and he refused. I walked over and grabbed it out of his hand and told him to go away. Then I asked a judge to take a couple pics and she did a great job by listening to my directions. Kitty kept saying, "She's a photography teacher and she is very picky."

The whole weekend was a gas. Don and David, or as we called them "The Boys" were funny, delightful, helpful, took great direction from Kitty and me. They would wink at the judges to get them to give our kittys the ribbons. When we had a male judge David did a little muscle flex and Alexander won best of breed in that ring because of that flex. David also went around to the judges before the rings opened and was our ambassador.

I figured out the system for judging, and=20counts, and how to figure out the final count for each kitten. I am not 100% on figuring it out for cats yet. Don was also keeping notes and count, but then figured out that I was doing it much better. So he copied down my notes. My sheet was very messy, because no one showed me how to do it, so I wrote in the wrong places and then someone would show me where it should be written and I would scratch it out and write over it. One judge laughed at my attempt and helped me figure it out more. A breeder came by and saw how messy my forms were and she laughed and said, "New to the shows?" and I laughed, "Kind of messy isn't it? But it makes sense to me." David who was a math major couldn't make sense of the system and I tried to explain it to him. I taught Don how to figure it out and he started doing math with me.

I would say, "Let's go do the math, let's figure out the total counts for the kittens and Marie."

He would say, "This is really interesting." We had fun doing math together.

I finally couldn't take the math any more after a few glasses of wine, and decided to save the final few counts for another day. I was also taking photos the whole time. Shooting Kitty with the judges, ribbons and winning kitten or kittens in each ring. My god I am exhausted. But it was like a rock show with all of us actually running from ring to ring, with different kittens and Marie, me doing grooming, feeding, taking charge of Alexander, keeping an eye on the rings and who needed to be where, doing the math, and doing the photography. It was soooo much fun though.

I would see a number up in a ring and start running to the cage to get that cat and then I would see Kitty had seen it too and was running to get the cat, but she was much closer, I would run anyway just to make sure it was the same cat I was going for because they were showing all over the place. Kitty and I ran from ring to ring with our glitter cat toys that look like pom poms and we cheered the cats on. We were trying to keep the kittens playful so they would show well. One judge told me to stop it, so of course I did and apologized for not knowing I was a disturbance.

We need to cultivate the judges, even the ones who pass our kittens by, There was only one judge who did not show any Temple Parlor kittens in his final ring. I walked over to the ring to see which kitten would be winning a final and none of their numbers were up. I thought to myself, this does not make any sense, I must be going dyslexic, and would stare at the numbers again for a long time, but alas there were none of our numbers up. The judge would look at me as I stood there in disbelief. I ran back to the final ring that Queenie and Aphrodite were in and told our team and we just shook our heads and I said, "That is just wrong."

Don got confused at one point and put Beau-Beau, a male kitten, into the ring Marie Antoinette was suppose to be in as a female cat. That would be a real shocker for the judge. "This female cat has furry balls!" Kitty went to get Marie for that ring, and Beau-Beau was missing, so she thought someone had left the cage door open and that Beau-Beau was running loose around the show, so she had them lock the doors, and announce on the loud speaker, "There is a white cat on the loose, if you find it return it to the main desk." I was sitting in another ring with David. Three of our kittens were in it, Beau-Beau was eventually going to be in it too, but had not been called yet, and after I heard the announcement on the loud speaker I looked at David and said, "Do you think that's one of our whities?" Meanwhile, Kitty ran Marie Antoinette to the ring that Beau-Beau was impostering in as her. She was an emotional wreck at that point. Don felt so bad. Kitty said, "Just come and get me next time, just come and get me."

So even with our great team work, we were human and had our moments. I have to say, Beau-Beau looks so much like Marie, his mother I sometimes get them confused if I look at them separately without paying close attention. I commented early on the first day how much Beau-Beau was looking like Marie and Kitty said "This is Marie." I have them figured out now after those two days of show fervor. I learned an incredible amount, and would not have ever had this experience if it was not for my friendship to Kitty. Don, David, and I all agreed that this was an experience none of us would have had if not for Kitty, and we thanked her for that. What a whirlwind. Next show is Portland,

xox Patrizia

Alexander a beautiful sweet blue Panda bear goes to his new home with dear friend Patricia Ridenour!

2009-08-04T13:25:00.000-07:00

Look at this handsome boy, he's as sweet as he looks. We all hate to see this boy go, so I admit to being a little reluctant to let him go. I could carry around this boy all day and he would purr and snuggle into my neck, we wouldn't get much done though! For Pet or Show home. Patricia Ridenour and Dolly have adopted Alexander the Great! lucky boy!

Cairo Waves good-bye as he goes to his new home!

2009-08-04T13:24:00.000-07:00

Cairo now named Biff Lee after his new owner's Laura's late lover and friend. Baby Biff is busy helping to heal Laura's heart; we will all miss Lee and are saddened by his loss after his sudden death of a heart attack. So now Baby Biff the kitten will remind us of our memories of Lee. Evidently Baby Biff is getting acquainted with his new pet siblings Misty the Somali and Soleil the chocolate Pomeranian, much to Laura's delight!

Atlas to Bainbridge Island his new home

2009-07-30T14:06:00.000-07:00

Atlas' new parents picked him up to go to his new home across the sound, he took a ride on the ferry, and lucky for him they have air-conditioning! Best of luck Jo and Adson with your new kitten! xo to Atlas!

Cairo 10 weeks from Cleo and Ceaser

2009-07-27T15:30:00.000-07:00

Aphrodite 10 weeks, Cleo and Ceaser's girl

2009-07-27T15:25:00.000-07:00

Queenie, the new name for (Pasha)

2009-07-27T15:17:00.000-07:00

Alexander 10 weeks

2009-07-27T15:09:00.000-07:00

Cleo and Caeser's boy

Kittens on the roof Atlas!

2009-07-27T15:04:00.003-07:00

Handsome Atlas

Kittens on the roof top deck June 26 2009, Beau

2009-07-27T14:53:00.001-07:00