Settling In

You know that you are actually "there" when the night lights (without which a sleepwalking mommy would fall down the stairs) are finally properly positioned to provide a dim floor level glow throughout the house.

We are finally getting settled.  We now have three working, properly elevated shower heads (which means that our bathroom is no longer clogged with extra razors, makeup, hairdryers, and towels).  When we moved in, one shower was set up so that spray would hit a normally sized person somewhere around waist level; another released a stream of water designed to dampen the tile but incapable, for example, of rinsing soap off of a body... The only shower head capable of producing an acceptable shower was the one in the master bedroom. That is all fixed now and we are discovering more about the "new" house.

The most troublesome thing, the thing that we did not anticipate causing trouble, is that the kitchen is centrally located - surrounded by the bedrooms. This is only a problem if, as in our house, you have two people who arise at (the ungodly hour of) 4 AM each morning - showering, making lunches, slicing bananas and eating cereal; one who crawls from bed and begins to shower at 6 AM; and another who does not have classes before 2 PM. Yesterday's comment from Stubble was, "Oh, it's YOU making all the racket." I was, at the time, measuring coffee into the coffee pot. Not exactly a noisy activity. In our former house, the kitchen was well separated from all bedroom areas and morning activity or lack thereof was not an issue.

The other issue of gravity facing us is the garbage disposal. I completely understand that MOST people have one largish side of the sink in which to wash cooking pans and one smaller side of the sink that contains the garbage disposal. We have, for the last many years, had one HUGE sink with a garbage disposal right in the middle of it. Therefore, we must learn to rinse pots into the smaller disposal portion of the sink before washing them. Something that, for us apparently, is very difficult. I spent a great deal of time this morning bailing beans and carrots out of the large side of sink so that it would drain.

There are many excellent things about this new house:

• The stars. That should probably be: STARS! We live on a small private drive that has no street lights and the improvement in star viewing is nothing short of amazing.  On the other hand, the lack of surrounding lights and the presence of coyotes can be un-nerving.
• The garden. The previous owners left a partial row of onions in their vegetable garden, whether by accident or design. I have discovered that there is nothing better on a hamburger than an onion pulled from the garden, washed off, and immediately sliced.  On the other hand, there are seeds to be planted, soil to till, weeds to be pulled, shrubs to be trimmed.  Oh, and did I mention the weeds to be pulled?  And then there is the fact that one of the neighbors came by Sunday with a picture guide to local snakes to show us which ones to not kill.
• The laundry room. Which is now separate from the cat's litter boxes. There was nothing quite like surprising a kitty in mid litter box activity with the buzzer of the dryer.  It accounted for some alarming noises issuing from the area behind the kitchen.  And some interesting clean ups.  On the other hand - there is no "other hand" here - we now also don't need to be concerned about clean sheets dropping onto scattered bits of clay.
• The "Family Room". Or as my family chooses to call it, "The Living Room" because you can only "live" where there is TV. Right? At any rate, we now have one family/living room (the upstairs room with couches and chairs and side tables) where I can read unmolested by television programs about cars, airplanes, or large machines that 'make things'.  The "other" family/living room is downstairs and contains couches and chairs and side tables and is the room where I can watch Modern Family, Gray's Anatomy, The Good Wife, and (best of all) Blue Bloods (with Tom Selleck*). Those are the (few) hours of the week when I evict the rest of the family from the vicinity of the (large) television and take it over as they scatter to other areas of the house.  The exception would be Ms. Flippers, who occasionally watches Gray's Anatomy with me.
• The Bonus Room.  AKA "The Gaming Room".  Originally a storage area off of the garage, it is now panelled, carpeted, and drop ceilinged.  It now houses all x-boxes, ps-whatevers, Wii's and gaming computers and their assorted monitors, speakers, 3 easy chairs and a couch.  The mini fridge left by the previous owners resides just a few steps away outside of the door.  I do not go there.  Ever.
• The kitty tower.  It is now accessible to the kitties.  Formerly it was locked away in the Family/Gaming Room which had been taken over by people under the age of 30 who left lots of power cords lying around.  Power cords that would attract the teeth of kitties who were attracted to the bits of food stuck to them.  It became not so much a Family Room as a No Parent's and Kitties Land.

Combine the last three bullet points and you will know exactly what attracted us to this particular house...

* About Tom Selleck.  He was gorgeous years ago when I was first married and he has certainly aged well.  I do enjoy being able to look at him watch him in a weekly television show again.  Note:  The Bearded One has aged well also.

Katsu loves us and is always thinking of us...

Katsu may not be much of a lap cat, but she is "the smart one".  She is the one who will remove her furry butt from the counter when you give her a look and say, "Kaaatsuuuu" in a low menacing voice.  Her brother and sister just sit there looking at you until you physically remove them.  She is the cat who will look to see if her brother's fur and bits of clay are in the water before she drinks.  She is the one who will sniff something BEFORE she eats it...

Last night The Bearded One was topping off the litter in the cat boxes.  When he does this, he always closes the laundry room door so that he doesn't attract "helpers".  Last night, both Stubble and I opened the door to the laundry room while he was absorbed in the task at hand and he didn't notice when Katsu entered.  To be completely honest, Stubble and I didn't notice either until Katsu approached the pail of unused litter.  She daintily and delicately climbed into the pail, arranged herself appropriately, and peed.  Entirely within the pail.  After all, what is a little cat to do when a big person is completely blocking her access to the litter.  Then she daintily and delicately burried her business.  Stubble and I were laughing so hard that we couldn't do anything about it, not that we wanted to disturb her before she was completely finished.  The Bearded One was less amused, "Why didn't you keep the door closed?  Then this would never have happened!"

Stubble and I continued to laugh, using the door jamb and the walls respectively, to hold ourselves up.  The Bearded One just compressed his lips and continued with his task, replacing the covers on the litter boxes.

Time passed.  It was now bedtime.

Katsu is not known for her delicate tummy.  That honor would belong to her sister, Kimiko.  But last night, she felt a little disturbance and rather than messing up the carpet, she (daintily and delicately) climbed into the laundry basket full of the clean whites that I had just finished drying and folding.  Then she threw up more kibble that one could have expected to fit into a little cat stomach.  It was gross and disgusting.  On the other hand, it was not on the carpet and it is easier by far to dump a laundry basket full of socks and underwear back into the washing machine than it is to clean the carpet.

Katsu loves us and is always thinking of us...

Kimi-Cat's Attic Adventure

Curiosity being what it is, the cats have long hankered to get into the attic.  We have a pull-down staircase/ladder that leads up and all three of them have, at one time or another, tried to investigate while the ladder was down.

Rufus has been known to wedge himself between rungs of the ladder to resist removal.  Kimi has been known to grab onto rungs and hang on for dear life as we try to pry her loose.  Katsu, who is our smallest cat and champion leaper, has managed to get 2/3 of the way up to the attic opening in one bound...

Last night Kimi was the first cat to reach the far reaches of the attic, where no cat has gone before (and never will again if we have anything to say about it).

I was getting my Christmas embroidery project out of one of the plastic tubs in the attic.  It is a Christmas project that has been in progress for about 25 years and will someday be completed but not for a long time as I only work on it for 2 weeks out of the year.

I had very carefully made sure that the electric fireplace in our bedroom was turned on - an event guaranteed to draw all cats to it's vicinity.  It is on the other side of the house from the attic opening and I was certain that all three fuzzbutts were toasting themselves in the warmth of the artificial flames...

I went into the attic (very quietly) and began rummaging in the two clear plastic tubs with the red (locking) handles that we purchased last year when the last of our decrepit cardboard boxes died.

Suddenly something furry brushed past my leg and headed for the darkened corner of the attic where the roof met the floor...the only part of the attic that has flooring is the center 8 feet under the ridge of the roof...Kimi was escaping onto insulation (luckily for her, batting).

She, of course, refused to come when I called and began to skulk along the edge of the roof by the outside vents.  After a minute of fruitless calling and cadjoling, I yelled for Stubble.

He ran up from the family room where he had been either saving the galaxy from aliens or racing around the well known tracks of the world in a fast car and immediately dove into the attic once I had assurred him that the cat was indeed up there.

With his sharp young eyes, he could see the miscreant at the far end of the attic.  With his young knees and flexible back he was able to bend double and sprint after the cat, scooping her up, spinning around and making it back to the opening in the time that it took me to climb up and stick my head through the opening into the attic space.

He repeatedly told Kimi what a bad girl she was as he brought her out of the attic.  Words she soundly ignored as she turned right around and ran up the ladder and into the attic again.  With both of us trying to grab her before she entered.  This time he caught up with her just inside the top of the ladder.

I can only hope that she doesn't tell Rufus and Katsu about the wonders of the dark corners of the attic space and the joys of tormenting the woman who buys their food..,.,

Oh, Tannenbaum!

Last year we had a little problem with our cats, who were 3 months new to the house at the time.  I put up the tree.  They climbed it and crushed it.  No one little cat could have done all of that damage.  All three had to have been involved simultaneously.  The big tree went back into its box and back into the attic.  A HEAVY patio table entered the living room and a 4 foot tree was gaffer taped to it so as not to fall over should a kitten investigate...

Our first few Christmases together were as boyfriend and girlfriend and The Bearded One (yes, he was bearded, even then - if he wanted to leave without a trace, all he would need to do is to shave) was more than willing to indulge my Christmas silliness by driving to tree farms all over Southeast Michigan looking for a tree to cut.  After our marriage and a neighbor's disastrous Christmas Tree related apartment fire, we went artificial.  It didn't really feel right, but we were doing our bit to keep our neighbors safe during the holiday season.

Then we bought our first house (six years later).  On our first Christmas in the house, I came home from an evening shift to find a gorgeous LARGE Christmas tree in the dining area of the living room.  We had double high ceilings and the tree filled every inch of space allotted to it.  It was absolutely lovely.  The next year another tree appeared, this time a balsam that you could smell practically from the garage.  When the holiday was over the balsam was stripped of it's lights and ornaments and lugged to the curb for collection.  Leaving every single solitary needle in our white shag carpet (yes, we are that old).

Every time that we ran the vacuum that year, the scent of balsam permeated the entire house.  It got so that we hated the smell.  The following Thanksgiving, instead of travelling to visit family, we chose to stay home and paint the living room during the four day weekend.  Every time that one or the other of us stepped off of a ladder, we received balsam needles in the sole of the foot.  After the fourth or fifth time, The Bearded One firmly stated, "That does it, no move live, dead trees!"  I was in total agreement.

We hied ourselves off to the nearest nursery and decoration shop where we picked the biggest, fullest artificial tree that we could find.  It served us for many years.  When we moved to California (20 years ago), it quickly became evident that the tall, full, gorgeous tree was WAY too big for our new living room.  Off it went to charity and we found a "slim" tree that would better fit the available space.  In the interval between huge tree #1 and slim tree #2, quality was way down and prices were way up.  But it seemed that artificial was still the way to go as in Southern California, "fresh" trees were cut months ago and are dry as all heck.  There really isn't anywhere close by where you can go and cut your own tree on a lot so that you actually know the date on which it parted from its stump.  And even then, you don't know how much watering was done throughout the year.  Many years and many trees later, each one lasting just a few years less than the one that came before and costing just a few dollars more than its predecessor, we have a tree that is partially crushed and with lights on top that will  not come on. " Let's go buy a new tree," says The Bearded One.  "Yeah, there was this really great one with pine cones and snow at Home Depot!" says Ms. Flippers.  "Yeah, that one was awesome,!" says Stubble.

Except that tree is almost $300.  And there is tuition to pay and books to buy and cars to repair.

I decide that we will get ONE more year out of the old tree.  The Bearded One purchases a small string of 20 lights that we will use at the darkened top of the tree.  And while I am just beginning to string the new lights, a miracle occurs...the lights at the top of the old tree come on again.

I have The Bearded One bend the crushed branches back into place.  The tree is fluffed, decorated, and has one cat hiding under the tree skirt and another snoozing at the back of the tree, looking angelic with colored lights making patterns on the white parts of his fur.  The tree is, I think, happy to serve us for another year.  Or maybe two.

Dish...(es)

I may have mentioned previously that our cats love water.  That is a bit of an understatement.  Kimi-Cat,  as a kitten, actually fell into the toilet when she was watching the water swirl down the drain - and it didn't upset her.  Katsu sleeps in wet sinks - she waits until you are done washing your face or brushing your teeth and then curls up.  Wet showers with dripping water are wonderful places to relax or play depending on your kitty mood.  Barring those sources of water, the kitchen sink is a good spot to get wet.

Rufus particularly loves getting the kitchen floor soaking wet by playing in his water dish. When he drank, he used to put one foot in the water no doubt holding the water dish still so it wouldn't run away. When the kittens got bigger,  we got a bigger dish and he began putting both feet into the water dish.  We started to suspect that he was trying to wash his feet after using the litter box - which would explain why his sisters would go thirsty until we rinsed and refilled the water bowl. After all, who wants to drink water with litter at the bottom and your brother's fur floating at the top?

From "washing his feet" he graduated to pushing the water around with his paws, batting at it to  make waves.   He seemed to never tire of it.  It came to be routine to pick him up for a cuddle and wind up with two very wet kitty feet on your chest.


 Then the large puddles began to appear.  At first we thought it was an accident.  Then we noticed that prior to the floor becoming wet there were ominous thumping sounds coming from the kitchen.  It was Rufus rocking the water bowl...up onto the edge of the tray, back down onto the tray - oh the splashing of the water was wonderful!  We got a bigger heavier bowl.  The thumping got louder as he figured out how to get the dish completely off of the tray and onto the floor.
 
We got a water bowl with no lip on it so that he could not get his paws underneath the bowl.  This did not deter him.  Rufus is nothing if not determined, especially when it comes to water and to strawberry ice cream.  It was more difficult for him to move the  bowl, but he could do it, sadly swamping the food tray as well as the floor.  This meant that if he played with the water bowl early in the morning, there was the potential for three cats to be without drinking water (or food) for the entire day.
 
Last weekend we purchased a "spill proof bowl" that has a cover on it with just a little hole in the middle for the cat to access the water - no space for standing in the water while drinking, no space for playing in the water...  this would WORK we thought excitedly.  Somebody with a cat like Rufus had come up with a solution - NOT.
 
Within the first hour, he had figured out how to lift the bowl by it's cover and dump it upside down on the floor...
 
We got a large ceramic (heavy) bowl.  It is quite ugly, but has the advantage of weighing a ton (well, probably 2 pounds).  And Rufus doesn't appear to be able to move the bowl.  Unfortunately the glazed interior has a black pattern on the bowl's bottom that stands out beautifully against its white background.
 
And for the last two days, Rufus has dilligently been trying to remove the pattern from the bottom of the bowl.  first with one paw, then with the other.
 
I give up.

Of Cats and creepy-crawlies

Or in this case, Flying Things That Hang Out At The Ceiling.

Rufus is an intrepid hunter - for an exclusively indoor cat. All of the behaviors are there: The creeping along the carpet, the fixed gaze, the twitching muscles just before the pounce...and then, there he goes -

Along the back of the (leather) couch (what was I thinking?), to the top of the first stereo speaker, to the second (higher) stereo speaker (the Bearded One has surround sound), to the top of the flatscreen TV (where he RUNS along it's 1.5 inch width) and toward the lamp in the corner where he can see the menace hovering. I am always afraid that he will jump to the top of the lamp in his zeal.

Last night the lone victim of his hunt was a rack of remote controls for the various electronic components that inhabit the room. What it lacked in lethality with regard to the moth, it more than made up for in noise as the (8) remotes crashed to the ground.

Poor kitty. He just didn't understand why I didn't let him savor the victory.

CRASH!

It happened the night before last...
Rufus the Unhinged tried to make  leap onto the bookcase (5.5 feet) from a standing start.  He almost made it - getting his front paws on top of the case and scrambling valiantly with his hind claws.  He was undone by the placemat under the metal alligator sculpture which crashed down on top of him in all of it's purple, pink, and lime green glory.  The alligator (an inheritance from my cousin who collected modern art) survived undamaged.  Not so Rufus who seems to be sporting a bruised hip and tail, and the floor which now has a quarter inch deep gouge where the sculpture ultmately landed.  Rufus will probably heal if he is allowed to live, we'll repair the floor eventually.
What will not recover is our collective nerves as this event happened at 10 PM when we had all gone to sleep early and which was heard by the entire household all of whom came running to find out what had happened.

Dang Cat!

If Looks Could Kill

Katsu sat by the litter box, shoulders hunched, head slightly down, a glare on her little kitty face. I  was the one who put her cone back on last night!  If she had her way, I would be a dead mouse lying stiff on the laundry room floor.  And then she would eat my carcas.  And leave what little was left for The Bearded One to find - just as a warning.

Katsu is NOT happy about her post-surgical cone.  The Bearded One and Stubble are also upset about the cone but for different reasons.  Stubble's bath mat has been marked two or three times.  She fits into the litter box cone and all, but that isn't REVENGE.  And Stubble is the one who drove her to the Vet on that fateful day.

The Bearded One cares more about the livingroom accent rug than the bathmat and she is systematically destroying the corners.  She started doing this (chewing on the rust colorred accent rug) as a small kitten but since last week's surgery she seems to feel that if she can't run around with her brother and sister, she may as well lay there and chew.

Stubble and  The Bearded One  have tried everything imaginable to get her out of the cone.  They started with an ace bandage wrapped around her torso  - which just slid off over her "hips" as she walked.  We finally ended up with the old standby  - the newborn "onesie" - which is fine until she sits down and slouches and her belly (and stitches) hang out below the t-shirt hem.

 Last night I bought a slightly largter onesie (0-3 month size), removed her cone and put her in the t-shirt with the "through the legs snapping exentsion" over her tail... and that worked out fine as long as she was right with us where we could see if she tried to disembowl herself by pulling out stitches.   She very happily groomed every inch of herself that was not covered by  onesie, ate, used the litter box, and then fell asleep in her donut bed for the rest of the evening.  Getting her back into the cone when I went to bed at 11 PM required assistance from Stubble (who apologised up and down to a very indignant Katsu).

"Why not just leave her in the t-shirt all night?" he asked.

Because I'm not willing to take her to the vet tomorrow and explain why the stitches are gone and her guts and hanging out,  that's why.


Which brings us to this morning's evil stare.  I did not just come downstairs and remove the cone.....I am a very bad person and deserve everything that she dishes out to me.  Duly noted.

Cat in Heat

The problem is that she has been spayed.  I understand from reliable internet sources that these things happen sometimes.  A little left over ovarian tissue is all it takes.

At first we thought that she was just being more cuddly than usual.  Then Stubble noticed the "butt up, tail in the air" pose.  Then we all noticed the "vocalization".  Last night she marked Stubble's bathroom by the open window to let the neighborhood Toms know that she is both available and willing...

Tomorrow she has an appointment at Prod-Your-Pet Veterinary Hospital for evaluation and (probably) additional surgery.

Poor little Katsu!

Food O'Clock (credit for title to Darby Conley of "Get Fuzzy")

As the kitties have gotten larger they have, as most kitties will, begun to take issue with the manufacturer's recommendations for daily food allowance.  Unfortunately for us, they begin to take issue at 3 AM.  Their usual time for expressing their displeasure used to be 4 AM which is the time that we get up anyway so it wasn't a problem, but now that their rumbling little tummies wake them earlier, the game is on.

First they began to play "attack that toe".  A game that I taught them when they were cute little monsters and I was suitably armored in layers of blankets.  Now that Summer approaches, that game has quickly lost it's appeal for me as the layers of protection have diminished.  When they attacked HIS feet, my husband unceremoniously dumped them off of the bed.  Then they began to race across the bed playing the "thundering herd of elephants" game of Psychokitty fame.  After a few mighty slams into the bedroom wall, The Bearded One ejected them from the bedroom.  Unfortunately for us, Kimiko is aware that our doors do not fit the doorjams tightly and has learned how to "knock" on the door by throwing her furry little 9 pound body into it...
I think that we're going to lose this battle.

He Likes Ice Cream

Strawberry Ice  Cream to be exact.  To be even more "exacter":  Blue Bunny Double Strawberry - No Sugar Added, Lower Fat Ice Cream sweetened with Splenda.

Yes, our loveable but dense tuxedo cat, Rufus, is an ice cream lover and a serious mooch.
If someone (say, for the sake of argument, ME) is sitting with a bowl (or the entire carton) of the treat, Mr. Cat will approach looking hopeful.  Of course nothing is forthcoming so he gets vocal about the kitty abuse that you are perpetrating.  After a few reproachful howls, he will leap into your lap and approach your face (the better to lick your lips for any lingering traces of frozen goodness).

He then tries to stick his head into carton or bowl, whichever is handy.  Last night I went to push him off my lap and on his way down he made it a point to land his right front paw directly in the carton,

"Yeah Lady, you KNOW I've been in the litter box!  Enjoy your ice cream."

Well, I figured I have a good immune system so I kept eating.  He got me though.  I had left the lid to the carton on the kitchen counter and when I went to put the carton back into the freezer, he was calmly polishing off the melted ice cream on the inside of the lid.

Dang Cat!

Protect Wildlife - Please Crush...

Rufus the Unhinged, my furry little tuxedo cat, helped me clean the litter boxes this morning.  We keep our litter scoop in a cut down half-gallon milk jug.  While Rufus was "helping" he went to sniff the bottom of the milk jug.  Then he stuck his head all the way in, no doubt to get a better sniff...and got stuck.

I couldn't help him right away and he blundered around the laundry room shaking his head.  His sister Kimi couldn't figure out what was happening to her brother although she tried to help by backing him into the corner by the pantry.  As I was going to release him from his HDPE 2 prison, Rufus gave his head a mighty shake and the jug came off.  That he got stuck at all was surprising as the entire top half of the jug is removed.  Trust Rufus to figure out how.

On a really serious note:  As I was shaking my head and smiling over the cat, it occurred to me that while I was fine with waiting until I had finished scooping the litter and no permanent harm would befall the little fuzzball, in a "wild" setting, this would really be a problem.  I hereby resolve to crush all of my Yoplait containers even it it gets yogurt splashes on my floor.

She's Baaaaaack!

I have not been a well person for awhile. I am much better now: "Every day in every way, better and better".

I'm happy to be back and happy to be writing again. It actually took a couple of months before I could string two thoughts together into one coherent sentence. I could only do the simplest tasks like cleaning out a closet or sweeping a floor...nothing complex like writing...

During the time I've been away the holidays have come and gone, Spring is here, and Rufus and the Ninja Sisters will be one year old next week.

They are all grown up now and have developed some interesting talents. Kimiko (now known as Kimi-Cat) can turn on the bedroom lights (touch sensitive ones) and has been known to do so in the middle of the night. She can also open doors that are not completelty latched by jumping up and hitting them with her front paws in the vicinity of the latch. She finds this especially handy for bathroom doors. She also has a very real talent for sneaking into places if you give her half a chance - like closets and pantries (and the DRYER!) - where she plays (or sleeps) happily until you miss her and find her.

Katsu (who has now become "CAT-Su") is the tiniest and (we believe) the smartest. She is the one who will do all sorts of "forbidden" things in order to get attention, but she does it with "flair".  For example, she will climb on the counter tops, but instead of chewing on things or knocking things over, she just sits there looking cute and waits for you to pick her up for a cuddle.  Now after you have picked her up, she doesn't want to stay cuddled, but she will have pulled your attention from the other furry ones.

 Rufus (now known as "MR. CAT!" or "Rufus the Unhinged") is a very "elemental" cat. He is a big bully when it comes to his sisters (or us) and a champion "leaper" able to jump to great heights from a standing start. We believe that Rufus suffered some brain damage at birth because, while he manages to eat, drink, and use the litter box appropriately, he seems to exist at the most basic level -he purrs and sleeps, but appears to have no understanding of language at all.  He doesn't exhibit the curiosity of his sisters, or the ingenuity, but he is loving, sheds profusely, and will eat anything semi edible.

Rufus and The Ninja Sisters

Note: The post below was written on 8/30/10. I just found it and am now publishing it. There have been many changes since this was written.

Why do we have 3 kittens when we agreed to adopt 2? When one of the adoptive families fell through, we were asked would we possibly be able to take 3. We have had 3 cats at times in the past and The Bearded One had finished a glass of Cabernet…..and he LOVES cats.

Rufus got his name from the lead character in the movie “ffolkes”. Stubble and his friends decided that the two female cats were “little cat ninjas” because of their stalking and pouncing (on each other and on their brother and on us). We googled “female ninja names” and came up with Katsu and Kimiko.

How quickly one forgets what kittens are like. Well, it maybe isn’t so unexpected when you consider that we have been cat free for nearly 2 years and that our cats are complete house cats and so tend to live long healthy lives. We have many years of living with adult cats who are more, um, sedate than rough and tumble kittens. The night before last, in the middle of the night, at least two of them pounced on my toes and began chewing…little monsters. I wound up putting on my thick Thorlos socks and they went away. No doubt because it isn’t as much fun to chew on me when I’m not screaming in pain.

They arrived on Saturday and proceeded to attempt to eat the carpet and attack the furniture until The Bearded One had the happy thought of moving their climbing tower into the living room. It doesn’t provide any additional ambience, but it has so far saved the furniture. The mini-blinds and verticals are permanently closed so that the kittens can’t get to the screens; they managed to badly damage one of the screens in the dining room before we figured out what they were up to. Stubble’s shower curtain is also a victim of climbing kitties. His shower curtain is a loose weave, though, so I should be able to “massage” the fabric back into shape. His bathroom door is staying closed, however.

Sunday night, the climbing tower got a little too close to the living room slider and before you could say, “wait, stop, don’t do that”, Rufus was on the top rail of the verticals “walking the parapet”. Stubble couldn’t reach him to get him down and when we finally got something for him to stand on, the kitten would just happily walk to the other end of the rail and laugh at us. He finally decided to get down on his own and jumped right onto the climbing tower – which is now in the middle of the room rather than by the window.

There have been the inevitable accidents when kittens didn’t find the litter box in time. They are in a new house that is bigger than the house that they came from and to be fair, they really don’t know their way around yet. So when we aren’t around to catch accidents immediately, into the laundry room they will go. At least for the next little while.

Their first vet visit is tonight. I will be taking Stubble as back up to help keep all three of them in play and out of trouble (if that is in fact possible). Because we were so late in getting possession of them, spaying and neutering isn’t far off. Maybe only a week or two. I’m not looking forward to the expense of two spays and a neuter, but the alternative is unthinkable, so we’ll just have to make do. It will be at least another 20 years before I can handle any more kittens!

Follow up: We quickly discovered that the only way to get sleep at night was to keep the kitties in the laundry room. They didn't seem to mind at all. Just last week we were able to release the kittens from their laundry room when we are not in the house. Of course, now they won't go into the laundry room at night any more and are sleeping with us, but being a little older, they are now perfectly fine bedmates.

Setting Myself Up For an Epic Fail

After making my intentions clear to all and sundry that I will be blogging daily during the month of November, I have already blown that promise. Usually November is my "slow" month at work and I can have "real" lunches where I can get out my memory stick and write for an uninterrupted half hour. Then when I get home, all I would need to do is edit and voila! A new entry (or another couple of hundred NaNo words). At least last year it worked that way. This year for some reason I am busier than I have ever been. I guess the stars or the planets or whatever are out of alignment.

I have to find somebody to blame (other than myself) so it is going to be the kittens. Feeding them, playing with them, cleaning the litter box, playing with them, etc. all of it involving the kittens. Yeah, that works for me.

In reality the probable cause is putting the house back together. When we went to the storage unit and liberated our books we also brought a box of "wall decoration": wooden Orcas, ceramic masks, family photos...it is a VERY big box. And it is calling to me, "Please unpack me - forget about that stupid laptop! We have been packed away for YEARS! You OWE it to us!" The objects in the box are very vocal and very emphatic. So as soon as this posts, I will try to ignore the voices while I watch MythBusters.

Ah, Discovery Channel - the REAL reason.

They're HERE!

Rufus and Katsu with the tower

Rufus the Mellow...

and

The Ninja Sisters

Kimiko

and

Katsu

The True Value of an EngiNerd

Many, many years ago we lived in a lovely apartment with beautiful views or over an undeveloped valley and with 1200 square feet of living space. I worked nights and The Bearded One worked days. We lived in a part of the country where summer storms were both the norm and spectacular in one way or another.

One afternoon while I was home alone except for two black cats a storm came up. Before the sirens went off, announcing the severity of the weather system, I had noticed water spraying into the apartment from around the slider that opened to the deck. Being of sound mind, my first action was to move the stereo speakers away from the window and out of danger of being soaked. With the sirens still going off I grabbed both cats and a blanket and headed toward the entrance way under the stairs (and away from potential flying glass and as close to a basement as I could get). I was well clawed as I told my terrified kitties that I was just trying to keep them safe and it would all be over soon. They either didn’t listen, or didn’t believe me.

When the storm ended trees and power lines were down all over our part of the state. For 5 days. Or was it 6? We managed to get enough ice into our cooler that we could keep most of our food safe, but I do remember one meal that consisted of everything from the freezer cooked over the charcoal grill.

Living by candle light can be romantic when it is done for the right reasons and for one evening, but we quickly graduated to getting out the camping lantern and the Coleman Stove so that there was light to read by and a way to heat water for coffee. Finally on day 4 The Bearded One had enough. He brought in a car battery and hooked it up to one pole lamp. WE HAD LIGHT! It was a large capacity battery and had a full charge. I was enjoying the light of one electric lamp but lamented that I was missing the Friday night baseball game. Within a few minutes a small black and white TV set was also attached to the battery….

Our upstairs neighbor was a divorced father of two who happened to have both children with him that electricity free weekend. There was a knock on our apartment door and when The Bearded One answered it, our caller was that neighbor. He was there to prove to his number one child that “There wasn’t any TV at The Bearded One’s apartment either…” HAH!

Number one child to father: "Dad, I KNEW the "The Bearded One" would have TV!"

There is something to be said for being married to a living, breathing episode of “How Things Work”.

Hurrying Up

We are the slowest possible remodelers. Well, there are probably folks who are slower than we are but we are certainly in the lowest portion of the 25th percentile. Partly it is because we “enjoy” doing things ourselves. As The Bearded One says, “I get such a wonderful feeling of satisfaction when we finish.”

Yes, that is true, but when the whole house fan is already 2 years off warranty when it is finally installed – there is something wrong. The first thing that is wrong is that we are busy people who have other things going on in life in addition to home improvement. We occasionally take a vacation, or meet friends, or go shopping, or oddly enough just want to enjoy a day at the beach. The other problem is that we aren’t getting any younger. If we work constantly on the house for long days, we would be permanently crippled. When we were younger we could tote and haul and strain for days on end, now after 4 or 5 or 10 floor tiles, The Bearded One’s back is screaming for mercy and Advil. If I have been sanding and scraping and sanding yet again, my hands and forearms will be completely useless for a day when it comes to things like removing jar lids or holding heavy objects like milk jugs.

But now we have a reason to move ahead swiftly. We have adoptive kitties waiting for the OK to come live at our house. One of Stubble’s friends has a cat that got out of the house before it could be spayed, with predictable results. The family doesn’t want to just drop the kitties off at the Humane Society. They would like to personally approve the adoptive families. We have been a ‘cat free home” for almost 2 years now and it is tough when you are feeling under the weather not to have a purring cat plastered to your back (or head, or feet). We readily agreed to accept two of the kittens. We just needed to get the floors done (old carpet ripped out, subflooring repaired and sealed).

Last weekend we rented a dumpster and Stubble and two of his friends and I removed all of the old carpet. We discovered less damage than we had expected, but need to remove 2 of the stairway landings. The first one was removed last Sunday and when the wood was removed an empty beer bottle dating back to 1971 was discovered – which explains SO MUCH about the things we find in our house as we remodel. Like the subflooring that completely missed a joist (but that is another story).

The family from whom we are adopting has graciously kept “our” kittens until the floor can be sealed but the kittens were ready to come to our house several weeks ago. And the temperatures are getting hotter. And the work we have to do must be done with the windows open. And The Bearded One had the temerity to suggest that maybe we should close up the house and turn on the air conditioning and just forget about paint this weekend….
So I am taking a vacation day tomorrow so that I can begin sealing the floors with Kilz at 6 AM…I can get a couple of coats on before we need to chill the house!

Orphans of the Storm

He was a little sable kitty, sitting in the rain under the tailpipe of a motorcycle. “Meow,” he mepped as the rainwater dripped on his head. The Bearded One and I were in college and had met living as neighbors in the same apartment complex. The Bearded One is a “cat person”.
“How did you get out here, little kitty?” he asked as he picked the little guy up. As he headed back into the building, another little sable kitten dragged herself out from under the apartment steps, she was dry but dragging her right rear leg. The Bearded One picked her up as well.
I was surprised to hear the doorbell ring at that hour of the morning. I was even more surprised to see The Bearded One in motorcycle leathers with a tiny kitten in the palm of each gauntlet.
“Here take them. I’ll give you $20 and you can go to the corner store and get litter and cat food. Then find a vet because one of them is hurt.”
At the vet that evening, shots were given to both and an x-ray was taken of the little girl with the limp. The Bearded One was assured that it was a broken hip, but that if we cut down a litter box for her and kept her quiet, nothing was displaced and she’d heal up just fine in a few weeks.
The Humane Society, however, said, “We’ll take the male, but we’ll have to put the female down.”
The Bearded One explained that he had a vet’s report that said that the female would be just fine and she had her first shots.
“We’d have to put her down.”
The Bearded One said, “F##k you,” and slammed down the phone. We now had two cats. Which was probably what the Humane Society planned on: What college student pays for shots and x-rays for stray kittens? A good adoptive cat parent, that’s who.
As I could keep animals in my apartment building but he couldn’t in his, I assumed custody. I sometimes wonder if that is why our relationship lasted – I had “his” cats.