Can We Please Have a Boring Week Now?

As far as my brood is concerned, it's bad enough that we wake them up early so that we can abandon them and go to work every day.  But do we have to throw earthquakes and hurricanes into the mix?  Of course, when Tuesday's quake hit, Di was home, and both of us were home during the hurricane, but that doesn't matter.  Both of them were obviously our fault and (in a properly run universe) would not have inconvenienced them so. 

Diane's description of the quake included the information that when they first heard the rumbling, all of them glared at her, then bushed out their tails and vanished to their favorite hiding places (mostly under beds, but Mittens prefers inside the love seat).  Finn came out a while later, but he heard the newscaster mention the possibility of aftershocks and went straight back under the daybed.  Mittens didn't come out of hiding until I got home four and a half hours later.  We think Wabble felt one of the aftershocks Tuesday night because he launched himself off the climber onto my stomach and into a nutsoid rampage around the bedroom in the middle of the night for no apparent reason.

Just when they'd all calmed down from the quake, the storm warnings started coming out and Diane was suddenly taking detours on the way home during the week to get our usual weekend shopping done so we wouldn't have to slog it in from the car in the rain on Saturday.  And she brought in extra batteries and bottled water (which we don't normally use).  None of our current group was with us for Isabelle, although Fred and Romana are both old enough to remember it, but it was clear that something else was about to disrupt their world.  In the event, we didn't lose power, and the storm didn't produce thunder or lightning or bring down any trees where we were, but the balcony was all disarranged as I took down the bird feeders and brought the plants in close to the wall where the brickwork would shield them just in case.  Not to mention the fact that our (and therefore the cats') weekend schedule was completely disrupted.  How's a cat supposed to get a proper nap, when he has to supervise our watching the storm coverage all day Saturday?

This morning, Puff stared at me in amazement when she realized I was actually going to swan off to work instead of staying home with her to help her get over the trauma she's been through.  She then went off to sulk for the rest of the morning.

In the past year, we've had a blizzard (Snowmageddon) that meant I wasn't home on time to feed them; a tornado going through the woods behind the building (and incidentally driving rain so far through the window in the middle of the night that Freddie got wet); an earthquake; and a hurricane.  What's next, a volcano?

We're all ready for a nice, normal, boring week now.

Here There Be Dragon(flie)s

I have finally seen a flying bug too formidable even for Wabble.  Weekday mornings when Diane goes off to work at 5:45, Wabble and Toogs go out into the hall to chase down any moths or other flying critters that get in through the outer doors.  This morning, we heard a tremendous buzzing as soon as we stepped into the hall.  It was an enormous dragonfly that had got in and was unable to find its way out.  It kept flying into the wall at the end of the hall.  Toogie went right back inside, but Wabble sat down to watch, trying to figure out what it was (still keeping his distance).  Diane and I decided we didn't want Wabble to take it on, as he has a tendency to eat his kills and we'd rather the dragonfly remain alive to eat the mosquitos we get every summer, so we chased it back out through the door.  By the time we were done, none of them had any taste for hunting this morning, so Diane went off to work and the rest of us went back inside.  It was a pity, though, since there were a number of nice big moths in the hall this morning, and Wabble is partial to moths.  Maybe they'll still be there tomorrow...

String Theory

What is it about cats and string?  The other night, one of our cats ate the string off a wand toy (at least I think it was eaten; the bits left attached to the stick and the feather were a lot shorter than the string had been, and we could find no sign of the rest of it).  I suspect Coco Puff because she had been chewing on it and I put it where I thought she wouldn't find it.  Fred would be another possible suspect since he has a history of eating strange things (and the worst he's ever gotten out of it was gas!), but he was outside with me, Finn, and his Auntie Di at the time we think it happened.  Nobody is showing any signs of distress, however, so I'm hoping it was digestible.  We are still watching for bits of red string to come out one end or the other.  As a precaution, we have put all the other feather-on-a-string toys in the hall closet, where the cats can't get at them.

Still, none of them had ever shown inclination to eat the string before.  Oh, sure, sometimes a cat will bite through the string in order to get the feather off and then strut about the house carrying her "prize", but they usually leave the string alone after that.  I have learned, though, that no ball of yarn is safe when Fred is around, so I keep my knitting firmly zipped up when I'm not working on it.  He's almost as creative with it as Tikan was.  Tikan was my first cat as an adult, and I still remember the first time Di left her crochet out overnight.  The next morning, the dining room looked like a macrame project.

Lesson learned, however.  Never leave string (or equivalent) out unattended, no matter how disinterested the cats may appear at the time.

Heat Wave

It has been Code Orange and too hot to breathe here in Northern Virginia for the past week or so.  I think it's been rougher on my boys, though, than me.  They like to go outside, but when it's this hot and the air quality is this poor, I don't like to take them out -- especially Finn with his respiratory problems.  It was relatively cool on Saturday morning, so I took Finn out in the front yard when Diane went to work, but he didn't stay out long; it was simply too hot for him.  Unfortunately, with the wonders of air conditioning, they don't believe me when I tell them how hot it is until I do something like open the balcony door to fill the bird feeder or water the plants.  They head for the balcony, but stop at the doorway and give me dirty looks as if to say, "what kind of trickery is this?"  But when one of us comes home from work, they all come to the door and try to get out into the hall.  In between, I can frequently find one or another of them sitting by the front door, looking up at me with big eyes and crying to get out.  Or I'll hear a funny noise at the door and see Wabble hanging off the door handle trying to get it open (see "Wabble Opens Doors").

Avoiding Mondays

Is it just me, or do everybody's cats hate Mondays?  Starting on Sunday night, my crew seems to go into full "Monday Avoidance" mode.  They seem to think that if they can stop me doing the things I need to do to get ready for the next day, they can stop it from coming, so they do their best to distract me from things like making sure the phone, PDA, and iPod are charged up, getting my shower, setting the alarm, and getting to sleep at a decent hour.  On Monday morning, they take turns settling in on top of my clothes so I can't get dressed and on my bed so I can't make it.  All the while, giving me those big-eyed "but you're supposed to stay home with me!" looks.  It's even worse after a long weekend or a vacation.  When I went back to work after being home for two weeks following foot surgery, every one of them made a point of giving me reproachful, "but we had an agreement" looks.  It would help if I could get them to understand the link between my going to work and their living in the style to which they've become accustomed (roof over their heads, clean litter, regular meals, that sort of thing).  Has anyone ever successfully explained this link to a cat?  I haven't.

Subtle Encroachment

I've noticed through observation that Mittens has a very sneaky way of getting other cats to vacate places she wants to be.  Where Puff or Romana will either complain to me or just go up and start swatting, Mittens simply goes over and claims just a little part (the edge of the Basket or a corner of a bed) then gradually stretches and moves over until she crowds the other cat out.  The other cat has a choice between accepting her company (and having her sprawl on top of him/her) or moving.  Even Finn is not immune.  She managed to crowd him off Di's bed last night.  With Fred, it depends on how determined he is.  The other night, she worked her way into the Basket with him, but he refused to budge.  Last night, she ended up pushing him off the bed as well.  Strangely, it rarely results in an actual fight.

Sibling Rivalry

On top of the tall dresser in the bedroom, we have a large basket with a pillow in it.  It started out life as a gift basket to the office from a vendor, and once all the goodies had been divvied up, I took the basket because it is the perfect size for a cat bed.  The cats think so, too.  There is an intense rivalry for the basket and the top level of the climber between Mittens, Puff, and Romana.  The other night, Puff was being greedy.  Having given Romana the shove from the top level of the climber, she settled in there quite nicely -- until Romana decided she wanted to go in the Basket.  Then Puff jumped up and ran over to get into the basket before Romana could.  I put Romana in the top level of the climber, and Puff ran over there to try and chase her out of that.  I intercepted Puff and explained that she could have either the climber or the basket, but that she couldn't keep both at the same time.  I don't think she understood or accepted that concept, so she decided instead to go settle in on Di's pillow and sulk.  Cats!  Gotta love' em!

Mom's Visit

My mom came to visit over the weekend, and I was a little surprised that the cats (with one exception) came out to meet her all on their own.  Mittens stayed under the daybed, and when I asked her if she wanted to come meet her Grandma Marisue, she gave me that "No, thank you; I'm comfortable right here" look that means she'll come out when she's good and ready and not a millisecond before.  The others all came wandering up to say hello to her -- even Puff, who's normally extremely shy.  Romana not only let mom pet her (another one who usually goes under the bed when anyone comes over), but actually reached out and grabbed her when she turned away.  Unfortunately, she missed Mom's sleeve and put a claw-hole in her hand, but Mom was willing to forgive her.

That evening, Mom and I went to see Riverdance, the final show of the farewell tour.  We both enjoyed it immensely, and I'm glad I got the chance to see it live before it went away completely.

Conspiracy

I did say it doesn't get updated very often!

Auntie Di just called me to tell me she was home, and that Finn was now conspiring with the neighbors (as well as our favorite radio station). When she got in the car to come home from shopping, they were playing one of his "cat wants out" songs. Then as she was coming up to the front door, one of our downstairs neighbors commented that it was a lovely day and asked if she'd be bringing the cat out! Of course he then met her at the door and demanded to go out. So when I get home tonight, it looks like we'll be taking the boys out for a little while!

Wabble Opens Doors

My youngest boy has gotten taller than I realized. A few weeks ago when I was doing laundry, I came out of the laundry room to find several of the cats roaming around the hall. Since my roommate was home, I thought she must have let them out, because I was sure I had pulled the door closed behind me. She heard me chasing them in and came to see what was going on. She hadn't even realized they were out! When I went back to the laundry room, I came back just in time to see Wabble coming out. Di swore he had opened the door himself. A couple of days later, I saw it with my own eyes. I had forgotten to lock the door when I came in from work, and Wabble went to the door and meowed. I looked to see what was going on in time to see him sit up, brace one paw against the door frame, and pull down on the door handle (we have ADA levers on the doors in our apartment). The door popped open enough that he could drop down and get a paw in there to pull the door open enough to get out. Now we have to lock the door even if we're just going to the laundry room, mail box, or dumpster.

Once again, my cats have proven that they are smarter than I am. It also means that we have to be home when Maintenance comes by because we can't lock them in the bedroom any more.

A New Blog Home

To give fair warning to new readers of this blog, it doesn't get updated very often. I have a tendency to forget for months on end that I even have it. To reintroduce my family to those who may not know us, it consists of myself, a full-time Department Digithead for the Exposition Sales department in a major trade association, variously full- or part- time student at a local community college (to get "officially smart" in what I've been doing and teaching myself for the past 20 years), and full-time cat mom; my roommate, a customer service assistant at a nearby grocery store and full-time "cats' favorite auntie"; His Grace, Sir Frederick, Duke of Northern Virginia (affectionately known as Freddie), a Siamese male who rules the roost; Nittany Lion (affectionately known as Mittens), a Siamese female who is very affectionate, but has a very loud soprano voice (especially when she wants something); two of her children (resulting from an adventure she had that was chronicled in the early part of this blog) Wabble, a tabby boy who is shaped like a Siamese, but scaled up to about double size (it's hard to believe that big boy came out of such a little Mother); and Sugar Paws, a cute little black girl with white paws and a white exclamation point on her nose (who looks just like her Mother with a different paint job); Finn Mac Cool, a Tonkinese (we think) whom we found at a local shelter while looking for the missing Mittens, and who is now a big Irish boy with a soft meow and a purr like a Mack truck; Coco Puff, a Siamese mix we also found while looking for Mittens. She looks like a Siamese done large with full Siamese coloring and a voice to match, but she's a real snugglebug when she wants to be; and Romana, a long-haired grey lady with a plumy tail and eyes that are green like springtime. Mittens also had two other kittens from her adventure, a grey-and-white pair now named Jamie and Zoe and living with their adoptive parents in Manassas. Our outside family also includes various birds, squirrels, and chipmunks who come to our feeder. The chipmunks only seem to come one at a time, so for a long time we thought they were all the same one and called them all Chippie (except when one got inside and became temporarily "that bloody rodent" (see "The Great Chipmunk Adventure" for more details on that one)).

Yesterday, Sugar Paws, Wabble, and Puff flushed Chippie out of the corner by the potting soil again when I went out to fill the feeder, but this time he escaped under the door of the utility closet. You should have seen the cats put on the brakes to stop from careening into the door!

As the days dwindle into Fall, the weather is turning colder, especially at night, although the days have still been fairly warm. We see a lot more squirrels out and about as they gather in their winter stores, and the time we have to take the boys out walking is limited -- especially since poisonous snakes have been seen in the area. According to the local news, a dog in the area was bitten and barely survived -- and the dog they were showing was a Golden Retriever. I don't want to risk my boys until we've had a solid frost so all the snakes go into hibernation.

I think Chippie either has a nest or a passage to his nest in the utility closet. I keep seeing him dashing back and forth across the balcony with his cheek pouches full. Most of the cats are asleep right now, except Sugar Paws, who is sitting under the coffee table watching the show outside the sliding door.

The other thing you may notice about these postings is that I never seem to know how to finish one off.

The Great Chipmunk Adventure

I really need to add to this blog more often in the year since the last time I made an entry, we have moved apartments, Ringtail and all 8 of her kittens have found forever homes, and our own cats have continued to grow happy and healthy.  Last Saturday morning, I went out to sweep our balcony, closing the screen behind me.  However, when I tried to go back in, Sugar Paws and Coco Puff slid out onto the balcony and made a beeline for the corner where the potting soil sits behind a couple of chairs.  It turned out that while the birds and squirrels had made themselves scarce while I swept, Chippy the Chipmunk had instead hid behind the potting soil.  When I tried to get Sugie out from under the chair, it bumped the potting soil and Chippy bolted.  Well, Sugie caught him and ran into the apartment with him!  He was unhurt, but she dropped him and he escaped into the apartment.  We locked all the cats up and started looking for him.  Since we couldn't find him, we let the cats out.  Sugie flushed him out, and we chased him toward the open screen door.  Unfortunately, Finn tried to join the chase, so I didn't actually see whether he had gone out the door or doubled back.  Since we didn't see him inside and the cats settled down, we figured he had got out.

Fast forward to Sunday night about 1:00 AM.  We were awakened by a clatter and row in the living room and went in to find Sugie and Puff going behind the green chair and Wabble trying to get around the other end of the couch.  We tried to move the couch, and out came Chippy!  After a great deal of fuss and moving of furniture, he ran inside one of our big speakers.  Since it was 1:30 by that time and we needed to be up by 6, we just put the speaker out on the balcony for the night, locked the door, went to bed, and hoped for the best.  Monday morning, he was gone from the speaker, so we brought it back inside.  But the cats are barred from the balcony for a few days just to let them know that catching chipmunks and turning them loose inside is not a good idea!

Cats -- gotta love 'em!

Tags: cats, chipmunks, meezer

More Kittens

Boy, it's been a long time since I posted to this!  I've been too busy to even mention that Ringtail surprised us in late August.  It turns out when she brought one set of kittens in from the storm, she was already working on another set.  She presented us with five new kittens, two ginger boys, a tabby/tortie boy, a tabby/tortie girl, and a black girl with white socks.

They are all adorable and are wandering about exploring their world.  The older kittens don't know what to do with them, but Wabble thinks they're wonderful.  We let them out for a couple hours at a time a few times a day so they can get socialized, but put them and their mother back in the nursery when the hissing starts.

A Whole Nuther Famiily

Yesterday, the remains of Tropical Storm Barry came through.  Ringtail, the female feral I've been taming gave us quite a surprise!  Diane called to me to come quickly, so I came running to see what she was on about.  I'd seen Ringtail up and about a little earlier and now she was up again, in the rain, with a kitten trailing along after her.  Diane and I went out to see, and Ringtail let us come right up to her, as she has been doing for some time.  The kitten, however, ducked beneath a car and climbed up into the wheel well.  Diane reached up into the wheel well and pulled the kitten out.  Meanwhile, Ringtail diappeared back down the storm drain.  Not knowing what else to do, we brought the poor bedraggled kitten inside.  About an hour later, Ringtail appeared again with another kitten.  This time we brought both her and the kitten inside.  Once she had settled the kittens in, eaten a couple of cans of food, nursed the kittens and got them to sleep, she jumped up on the window sill and called repeatedly out the window.   On the advice of a friend who does animal rescue, we took her back outside and she promptly went right back down the storm drain.  It was another couple of hours before she reappeared.  Diane said she had seen her running across the yard.  I went back out to see if I could find her.  Eventually, I went over to the storm drain to call her and saw her peering out, with another little nose peeking out beside her.  She came out and rubbed against my legs, calling to the kitten as if to tell her I could be trusted.  Eventually, the kitten came within reach, and I picked it up.  I heard a mewing, looked down, and saw another kitten coming out.  This kitten, however, was too scared to come out and kept ducking back down the drain.  About this time, Di came out to see what I was doing.  While she tried to persuade the kitten to come out, I brought the one I had caught inside and tucked it in with its siblings.  When I went back out, Diane handed me the fourth kitten, still struggling and spitting as if to convince either us or itself that it wasn't scared.  We brought the kitten and Ringtail back inside, and she settled in with the kittens.  She seemed quite content to stay in the middle room with her kittens until it started to get dark.  Then she went to the window and started calling again.  This time when I took her out, she only stuck her head into the storm drain and called, then repeated the process at the other storm drain.  Then she came back to the patio near the steps where I put the food for the ferals, calling all the while.  After a little while, the new tom, whom I call Young Tom, to distinguish him from Old Tom who passed away over the winter, came wandering up, and Ringtail went over to him.  I don't know what he said, but she whapped him on the nose, and they wandered off for a while together.  In the meantime, I brought out food for Tom and went back inside.  When I came back out, she was standing at the door crying to get in to her babies.  Tom, meanwhile, was eating; and when he finished he ran off into the night yelling loudly as if he couldn't believe what she had done.  She came back in with me, and now the whole family is safely ensconsed in our middle room with our resident cats safely shut out of it.

We are planning to foster her and the kittens until the kittens are old enough to be rehomed and then find homes for them.  In the meantime, I have the delicate balancing act of looking after and socializing Ringtail and her four kittens without our resident cats getting jealous.

Tags: cats, rescue, feral, kittens

Quality Control

I am very upset by the Menu Foods recall -- or rather, the reasons for it.  I hope they don't try to weasel out of compensating pet owners whose cats got sick and/or died as a result of their food.  I had a cat with chronic kidney failure, and that can get very expensive.

My point is, where was their quality control?  Why were they not testing their ingredients before to see if there was anything in there that shouldn't have been?  Also, why did they have so little idea of where the ingredients were coming from?  First they said the wheat gluten came from Canada, and now they are saying it came from China.

I do hope they find out how the poison got into the food in the first place and make sure it can't happen again -- at least without them finding out about it before they seal up the cans & pouches!  According to the news, no criminal charges have been filed.  In my view, somebody is guilty at least of criminal negligence.  If it turns out that someone put it in there on purpose, they deserve the death penalty (not to mention rotting in the special corner of Hell reserved for people who do that sort of thing).

My cats are my children, and it's only the pure luck that they don't like Iams or Eukanuba canned foods that has spared me from losing one or more of my cats.  My heart goes out to those who have lost pets to this poison.  I know what it is to lose a pet, and it is that much harder when you find out it could have been prevented if people you trusted to know what they were doing had been doing their jobs.

Tags: Menu foods recall, tainted cat food

A Lot of Catching Up

It's been longer since I wrote than I thought! In the time that has passed, the kittens have grown up a bit.  Two of them, GB and GG, have moved out to live with my friends in Manassas, Benjamin and Lisa, who have renamed them Jaime and Zoe.  They have grown quite a bit and are doing fine.  They've even won over Pearl, Lisa's 16-year-old moggy.

Of the remaining three, Star developed FIP in early September.  When Jazzle had it in 2005, she only lasted two weeks.  However, Star had a new vet who was willing to try new ideas and do some research.  She drained the fluid from his tummy twice a week and gave him a vitamin B shot each time.  We also had him on Predinsolone, Cytoxan, vitamin C, and pulsed dosing of antibiotics (one week on and one week off) to ward off secondary infections.  With this treatment, he was feisty and active for six weeks! When the crash came, it was overnight.  One night, he was fighting me over his evening meds, then overnight he kept shifting around as if he couldn't get comfortable.  The next morning, he was nearly comatose.  We took him to the vet, and I held him as he crossed the Rainbow Bridge.  His ashes now rest in a little box on our bookshelf with the notation:

Star
June 18, 2006 - October 12, 2006
One Feisty Little Bugger

Since the other two, Blaze and Wabble MacTabble, have been exposed and are susceptible until they are two years old, we decided it would be unfair to rehome them, so we are keeping them.  To date, they are very healthy and went in to be snipped and chipped a few weeks ago.  Blaze had her stitches out just before I left for the International Builders' Show in Orlando.  She is up to 6 pounds, and Wabble is a 10.2-pound boy -- as big as Freddie, and Freddie just turned 6 years old!  We recently had them all checked, and the biggest of them is 1-1/2-year-old Finn Mac Cool at 14.1 pounds.  Then come Freddie, Cocoa Puff, and Wabble, all tied at 10.2, then Romana at 8.9, then Mittens at 8.6, and Blaze at 6 pounds even.   All are currently healthy, and I hope they stay that way.

Now I'm in Orlando at IBS, running the exhibitor reg desk.  I've been down here a week, and I miss my kitties dreadfully.  I talked to Di the other day, and she said Finnie kept jumping up on the back of the green chair and whapping her in the head every time she sat in it.  She thinks he's decided she got rid of me so she could sit in my chair!  He jumped up on the arm of the chair, so she held the phone up so I could talk to him, and he purred at me.  He has a very soft mew for such a big boy, but he's got a purr-motor like a mack truck.  Every time Di tried to take the phone away so she could talk to me, he whapped her on the arm as if to say he wasn't finished.  She couldn't talk to me until he was good and ready to let her!

I also miss playing fetch with Blaze.  When we're in the bedroom and she wants to play, she will bring one of her tinsel buddies and drop it on the bed of whomever she wants to play with.  We throw it, she chases it around and brings it back until she gets bored with it and just wants petting and cuddles.  Oh, well.  I fly home in two days, and then I have a whole week off to play with my kitties and give them lots of cuddles.

On the subject of tinsel buddies, they are the worlds best cat toys.  They are actually tinsel pom poms that you buy at Wal-Mart or craft stores for about $2 for a bag of twenty, but every cat I've had has just gone nuts over them.

Tags: cats, siamese, meezers, cat toys

The Kittens Are Two Weeks Old

The kittens are two weeks old as of yesterday.  Their eyes are open, and they're starting to walk around in the queening box.  Mittens is spending more time outside the queening box checking out the rest of the house.  She's also making the kittens work a little more for their meals.  She's now lying at the opposite end of the box and making them come to her.  Last week, she got fed up with our "helping" the kittens find their way and started moving them out of the box and under the daybed.  Once we stopped picking the kittens up and let her mother them in her own way, she stopped moving them out of reach.  Now, we only pick them up if she's either lying on one of them or about to do so.

Mittens is putting more weight on recently.  You can almost not see her hip bones and shoulder blades.  She's also getting a little fiercer.  Last night, she met Romana in the hallway, and Romana was between her and the kitten room.  Romana hissed at Mittens, and Mittens chased her up onto the video cabinet, tail puffed out, and kept trying to jump up at her.  She couldn't figure out how to get up there by way of the climber, so she kept trotting back and forth in front of the cabinet, occasionally leaping up and putting her paws against the cabinet.  I'm not sure why Romana has suddenly taken to hissing at Mittens.  Perhaps it's because Romana had got used to being the "alpha female" and/or "Chief Fred Groupie", and she feels that Mittens has an advantage over her, being Siamese, intact, and having kittens.  Mittens also keeps trying to snuggle up with Fred, but Fred's not having any.  I'm not sure if it's because she ran off or because she has kittens that don't look at all Siamese, branding her a hussy, I suppose, in his book.

The kittens still have to be kept warm, so we have hardly turned the air conditioning on at all -- an unusual occurrence in July in Virginia!

The Prodigal Daughter

Doesn't it just figure?  Finally, something blog-worthy happens, and I've been too busy living it to write about it until now.  The miracle we hoped for has happened.  Mittens has come home!  We had been checking the PetHarbor.com found cat listings every day (a wonderful resource, by the way, whether you've lost a pet, found a pet, or want to adopt one, and severely underpublicized in my opinion), and in early June, we saw a picture of Mittens at the Prince Georges County Shelter.  PG County is in Maryland, on the other side of DC from us.  She was undernourished and pregnant, but when we went to look at her, everybody who saw her and the pictures we brought agreed it was the same cat.  As if that weren't proof enough, she came right to the door of the cage and started demanding to know where I'd been all this time in the creaky-door miaou that she uses when she's not happy.  When we opened the cage door, she came straight into my arms and settled in.  When I saw that her whiskers were ticked brown and white, I was absolutely certain.

We brought her home on Saturday and took her to the vet on Monday.  Other than being undernourished and pregnant, he gave her a clean bill of health, no FLV, no FIV, no parasites, nothing that we had feared might befall her on her own.

On Father's Day, June 18, she had her kittens.  There were six, but one of them died on the next day.  The other five are thriving, and their eyes are beginning to open.  There are two black kittens, two grey-and-white ones, and one dark grey tabby.  Mittens is a very good momcat  to them all.  She is starting to put on weight of her own now;  her ribs and spine don't stick out any more, and her shoulder blades and hip bones don't stick up as much as they did when we found her.

The other cats' reactions to the kittens are as varied as the cats themselves.  Freddie took a look at them, saw that none of them looked Siamese, and looked at me as if to say, "Someone gave her the wrong kittens!  They're not Siamese!"  He's such a snob.  He's starting to accept them, but he's still not quite sure what they're going to do.  Romana looked at them and seemed to accept them, but as she walked away, she gave a little hiss as if to say, "Mine were cuter!"  Romana had had a litter before we met her.  Finn keeps going up to the queening box and looking at them and then walking away with a slightly disappointed air as he realizes they're not big enough to play tag with yet.  Puff just keeps coming in and looking at them as if she's trying to figure out what they are.

We still don't know how she got to PG County.  Our best guess is that someone picked her up after she calmed down from her mad dash and took her home with them.  Then when she went into heat, either she slipped out to find someone who could do something about it and got lost again, or else whoever had her couldn't stand the noise of a Siamese in heat (anyone who has heard one will understand, those who haven't don't know how lucky they are) and turned her out.  Either way, we're glad she's home. 

The World's Worst Journal-Keeper

I think I must be the world's worst journal-keeper.  I write in this thing on average about once a month, even though things happen every day when you have cats.  The problem, of course, is that I'm too busy being in the moment to run off to the computer to write it down.  Recent developments include Finn getting the snip this week.  The vet said to keep him quiet the first night and that he would be normal by the next day.  In fact, he said that it was likely he'd still be woozy from the painkillers.  However, Finn woozy from anesthesia and painkillers doesn't seem that different from Finn wide awake.  Within a few minutes of getting him home, he had visited every food dish in the place and was playing Meezer Tag with Cocoa.

There's still no news of Mittens, although we are still putting food out for the strays and have seen a few of them in action.  However, we've also started getting raccoons at the feeding station.  We had an automatic feeder out there full of dry food, and they knocked the top half off and made off with the top half.  The next day, we put the remaining dry food out in a large plastic dish, and that night the raccoons made off with that!  We now have the dry food in a metal dish, and so far they have not been able to carry that one away.  If only we could be sure that Mittens is one of the strays we're feeding, though!

The cats are enjoying the Spring though.  We've started getting a wider variety of birds for them to watch.  The red-bellied woodpecker is back, and we've started seeing robins.  And today, I saw a tufted titmouse and a slate junco.  I haven't seen those two in over a year.

We've also started training Finn to leash and harness.  He still loves to run everywhere, which means I get plenty of exercise trying to keep up with him.  We tried putting a harness on Cocoa, but she went ballistic until we took it off her.  Romana takes well enough to the leash and harness, but she doesn't care much for being outside.  So for the moment, we are only taking the boys out.

However, as it's nearly feeding time, I suppose I should sign off for now.  Until next time (whenever that is)!

A Lazy Saturday Evening

Well, I'm just sitting on the couch while all the cats are napping.  Cocoa has just woken up next to me and is washing her face, Finn is asleep on the top level of the cat tree, and Freddie is asleep on the back of the Green Chair.  Romana is asleep probably on Auntie Di's bed, or in the closet.  The rain has turned to snow.  I hope the stray moggies will be OK.  I need to put some food out for them soon.

Finnie has been having some stomach issues and had to go to the vet today.  The vet gave him some new medicine and told me to take up his food for 12 hours (Finn's, not the vet's).  So far, he seems to be handling it OK.  He hasn't actually eaten since about 12:30 or 1:00, so we can probably put some food down for him before we go to bed (assuming Target doesn't close early).  The others will get a special treat; they'll get to eat their supper on the counter where Finn can't reach!

Yesterday, I went to Petco to get more dry food for both my indoor and outdoor cats; and while I was there, I talked to a lady from AdvoCats, who said she will help get a group together to do a trap-neuter-return operation here at Idylwood Village West.  I'm e-mailing her Monday (per her request) to find out what I need to do.  We'll probably have to get permission from the management, and I expect we'll trap a few cats who actually have homes, because several of the moggies I've seen at the feeding station look pretty well cared for.  So either they belong to someone who lets them run loose, or they have several benefactors!  So far, we have seen a couple of black-and-white cats, a tortie, a solid black with white paws, a solid grey, and a grey tabby, but no Siamese.  Mittens remains missing, and I hope she's all right.  I don't like the idea of her being out in the snow.  If she's been taken in somewhere, I wish we could find out who has her.  Of course, I'd then have to go and get her back, and that could lead to a fight.