Have Yourself a Meezer Little Christmas

Mittens is still missing.  Auntie Di says that we may have to wait for Spring when it's warm enough to sit out all night again to catch her.

In the course of looking for Mittens, we found two Meezer Mixes that needed homes and adopted them.  Cocoa is a seal-point daughter of a Meezer tom and a black, feral queen.  She doesn't like to be picked up or carried around, but she will come and sit by us on the couch and let us pet her.

Finn mac Cool is a seal-point with green eyes.  He has an upper respiratory infection for which he is on a new set of drugs and seems to be doing much better.  He's about 4 months old.  Once he started eating and perking up again, he has done wonders for the household.  Before he came, Cocoa spent most of her time in her room, and Fred was getting decidedly lazy except for wanting to go out.  Now they both play Meezer Tag with Finn, Fred doesn't fuss so much to be let out, and Cocoa has gotten more social.

We have two little Christmas trees in pots, one I bought at Target that doesn't have anything on it, and the other is a little decorated pine that my Mom sent me.  It has little red & white glass balls on it and little white flocked bears filled with styrofoam.  Within about 10 minutes of that little tree being brought into the house, Cocoa had one of the bears off and chewed its little head off!

Next year should be a better Christmas because I won't have Convention coming right on its heels.  Right now the trees are the closest we have to decorating the house because we've both been so busy.

One Still Missing and a New Kitten

Mittens is still missing after six weeks.  We've set out food and set up a little "kitty house" made of a microwave oven box taped shut with a door cut in the side, wrapped the whole thing in an old sleeping bag and lined it with "purr pads" and old towels.  I can't tell if anyone has used it, but the local strays are devouring the food.  Diane and I sat out in the car watching for several nights and saw about half-a-dozen different cats, but no Mittens.

Meanwhile, we have adopeted a 6-month-old Meezer mix from Four Paws.  I brought her home on Wednesday night, and she has spent most of the time hiding under the daybed except when Diane or I pull her out to try to socialize her.  Her mother is feral, and her father is a Siamese tom whose people don't keep him inside.  The people who fostered her called her Cocoa.  We were going to change the name, but then one of us started calling her Cocoa-Nut, and it seems to have stuck.  She's a beautiful kitty, but very shy, and Freddie and Romana both hissed at her, so when we're not actively with her, she lives in the middle room with the door closed.  The people at Four Paws said it might be a couple of weeks before she starts to hang out with us of her own accord.  I guess we'll just have to be patient with her, though it's not a strong suit for either of us.

I wish Mittens would come home.  There's a possibility someone has found her and decided to keep her.  If so, we'll have to track them down and take her back.

I WANT MY FRINKIN' MITTENS!!!!!!

Day 14

My Mittens is still missing.  We have posters up all over the area, two cat traps, we go out looking, but still no Mittens.  Yesterday, someone who saw me checking one of the traps said he had seen her nearby at 3:30 that morning.  I told him if he sees her again to call me, no matter what time it is.  Other people have seen her peeking into windows at a nearby complex we didn't think she could get to because there's a fence.

Last night, one of our traps caught a black-and-white tuxedo cat, and he wasn't half pissed!  He was using the most disgraceful language and shredding the newspapers I'd put on the bottom of the trap.  When I opened the trap, he was off like a shot!

I wish Mittens would come home.  I WANT MY FRINKIN' KITTEN BACK!

Missing Mittens

My little Mittens has been missing now for more than a week.  Late last Wednesday night, when Auntie Di got home from work, we took her and Freddie out on their leashes.  While we were out, something spooked Mittens, and she bolted.  Since we were almost ready to go back inside, I wasn't expecting it and lost my grip on her leash.  She wound up high in the crab-apple tree in front of our balcony, and we couldn't get her down.  Since it was the middle of the night, the answering service wouldn't even page Maintenance, so we called the fire department.  While they were getting her out of the tree, her harness came unfastened somehow, and she hit the ground running and dashed off into the night.  There have been calls from people since who have seen her, but nobody's been able to catch up to her.  We've done all the things we're supposed to do -- called all the shelters, put up flyers all over the place with her picture, and rented a cat trap from Animal Control.  The first day, we caught a raccoon, who was rather indignant at being caught.  The night before last, we caught a tuxedo cat whom I'd seen before on someone else's patio.  He had eaten all the food and gone to sleep, and was a little miffed at being awakened.  Last night, we caught a tortie tabby, who did not like being caught at all.  He hadn't eaten any of the food, and was putting all his energy on trying to figure out how to get out.

Diane says we've got to have patience, that she'll come home eventually, but even she has to admit that neither of us has patience in any great supply!

Growing Up

My little Mittens is growing up.  Last Saturday, Sept. 24, she turned 6 months.  On Monday evening, she went into heat for the first time.  So she's spent the past several days alternately walking around crying until she tires herself out, then sleeping.  The only problem is that she seems to do a lot of the walking-about-crying part in the middle of the night, so the rest of us are getting seriously sleep-deprived.  We're planning to spay her, but the contract specifies between 7 and 8 months, so we have to wait until November.  I've already requested vacation time in between proofing deadlines so I can stay home and keep her from untying her stitches.

For now, though, it's time to take Freddie for his walk, and then play with Mittens and try to wear her out.  I can't neglect Freddie and Romana just because Mittens needs a little extra attention.

No one ever said being a mom is easy.

Trapped

Poor Freddie!  I finally got maintenance to replace the torn screen.  He can't get out through the hole any more.  The question is, how long until he makes another one?  I had the cats locked in the bedroom while the maintenance guy was here because we have 3 cats and we're only supposed to have 2.  Also, I didn't want Freddie taking advantage or Mitten getting hurt by her own curiosity.  He has to come back tomorrow morning because he was also trying to fix the cabinet under the sink and needs "a machine" to finish.  I think the entire cabinet face may need replacing.

Romana and Mitten just conspired to drop the calendar from the wall back behind the green chair.  I suppose I'll have to retrieve it.  Cats!  Gotta love 'em!

Siamese Smarts

Here's another example of how smart a Meezer can be.  Yesterday, Nittany turned off the living-room light.  We have a little stand next to the door that has a basket on top of it that we use for outgoing mail and such.  I was talking to Diane and happened to look down the hall in time to see her standing on her hind legs in the outgoing basket, stretching her front paws up against the wall.  As I watched, she reached up and pulled the light switch down, turning off the light.  She then proceded to sit down in the basket looking immensely pleased with herself.

She's also had her first outside adventure, going outside yesterday with Freddie.  At one point, she took a running jump over the flower bed in front of the building.

Speaking of Freddie, he made an absolute nuisance of himself all Saturday night, yowing constantly, picking fights with Romana, and generally keeping us all awake all night.  He behaved much better on Sunday.

Diane has observed that when he tries to pick on Nittany, she ignores him, so he doesn't do it very often.  However, when he picks on Romana, she reacts in what must be (to Fred) a most gratifying manner, so he picks on her more often.

The New Girl

Some journal-keeper I'm turning out to be

We brought the new kitten home on Saturday, and it has taken Freddie only 3 days to mostly accept her.  We're calling her Nittany, after the Penn State Nittany Lion, because Auntie Di and I both went to Penn State and we bought her from a cattery in Pennsylvania (it actually ended up being closer to us than the cattery in Virginia from which we got her predecessors).  She seems a lot healthier than Jasmyne was.  Hopefully, she will live a lot longer than Jasmyne or Galadriel.  We expect to have all three of our furkids around for a good many years to come.

Romana accepted Nittany fairly quickly.  My guess is that she's as old as Romana's kittens are, the ones she had before we met her and after which she was spayed.  Either that or she just likes her because she's a kitten.  Freddie took a little longer, but this morning he and Nittany were playing Meezer Tag around the apartment, with no snarls or snaps.  They aren't snuggling yet, but he seems to be getting used to her being around.

The weather in Northern Virginia today has been severely hot.  I had taken off from work for a couple of days to look after the new kitten, and I took Freddie out for his walk this morning while it was still relatively cool.  An hour later when I finally persuaded him to come in and let me have my tea, the heat index was already up to 91.  According to News 4, the high temperature (not counting heat index) was 99, but that was at National, and Weather bug shows it as hitting 100 here in Falls Church at the high school just up the road.  Tomorrow looks to start out with more of the same, but we're supposed to get thunderstorms in the evening ahead of a cold front, which should cool it down to "only" the 80's for Thursday!  Gotta love summer in DC.  The heat index is still in the mid-90's at this hour of the evening.  I don't think Freddie's going to go "wowt" this evening.  It's still going to be too hot.

Two Days and Counting

This may be a strange way to start a journal, but if you want to know the whole backstory, you'll have to buy the book I'm writing.  Since I just discovered this, I figured it's as good a way as any to keep track of what's going on now so that I don't forget by the time I reach these chapters of the book.

In two days (on Saturday), Diane and I are going to PA to meet a Siamese kitten we hope will be a playmate for Freddie and will stick around longer than our previous two Siamese girls.  Maybe then he'll stop picking on Romana so much.