11/23/10 – Tuesday

Randomness:

1. Yesterday, I thought I found a lump in my left breast. As it turned out, it was a tube of Terramycin (eye ointment for cats). What? You trying to tell me you don’t store things in your bra? Liar.

2. And then I thought my left breast was oozing some sort of strange liquid, but it turned out that the cap had come off the tube of Terramycin and leaked inside my bra. It was quite the day for my left breast.

3. “Is that Pink on the radio?” I asked Fred.

“No,” he said. “That’s Justin Bieber.”

“Oh.”

(Later) “Is that the new Sara Bareilles song you were telling me about?”

“No,” he said. “That’s Justin Bieber.”

Why the fuck is Justin Bieber all over my radio, and how the hell does Fred always know that it’s him? Never mind. I don’t want to know.

4. There are many things that sound exactly like wasps hitting the window. When one of the cats sits on the cardboard scratcher, it shifts and makes that crumply-paper-buzz sound, for instance. But I can hear that sound from three rooms away, and I always immediately grab a piece of paper towel and start looking for the wasp. Yesterday morning I stepped out of the house, and as I locked the door I heard what sounded like a THOUSAND wasps hitting the window, and almost had a heart attack. It turned out to be leaves falling from the tree.

5. I was sitting at my computer and heard the distinctive sound of something big and scary buzzing by my ear. I pushed back from the computer, flailing wildly at my face and ear. Spanky, who had been sound asleep on the cat bed next to me, levitated and then flew out of the room.

“What the hell?” Fred said.

“I think a wasp fly by my head!” I said, then looked down at myself and gasped. Clinging casually to the front of my shirt, looking ugly and malevolent and ready to sting was A GODDAMN WASP. “It’s ON ME!” I squealed, then brushed at it with my hand. It fell to the floor, and I stomped on it ’til I heard it crunch. Now I think I’ve got post-traumatic stress disorder, because every time I hear that goddamn sound, it makes me want to dive to the floor and cover my head.

6. After an evening of watching TV, Fred and I were walking to our computers, and Fred said “That toy I just stepped on almost felt like a bug.” Then he kept going. I turned the light on to see what toy he might be talking about, and found a wasp. Oddly enough, it wasn’t until I told him it was a wasp that he realized he’d been stung on the bottom of his foot.

7. I was sitting at my computer last night, and suddenly felt a tickling sensation on my knee AS THOUGH I HAD A WASP ON ME, and I FLEW backward, and several cats went scattering, and Fred said “I think you ran over a cat with your chair”, and as it turned out, the tickling sensation was Reacher’s whiskers. Whoops.

Annnnd that’s all I’ve got. Well, except for some kitten-related news in the next section. WOOT!

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On Friday, Starsky and Hutch (now Jack and Percy) went to their new homes in Indiana. On Saturday, Fred decided he wanted to go out to lunch. We were just sitting down to lunch when my cell phone rang. I grabbed it and saw that it was the shelter manager calling.

Three hours later, we had in our possession some sweet little 6 week-olds. Six of them, to be exact. And when Fred checked them and it became clear that we had an even number of boys and girls, well, our naming scheme was immediately clear to us.

Meet…

(“Adios, Johnny Bravo!”)
Greg.

(“Hey you guys – ooh! My nose!”)
Marcia.

(“Porkchops and appleshauce.”)
Peter.

(“Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!”)
Jan.

(“Mom always SAYS not to play ball in the house!”)
Bobby.

(“Baby talk, baby talk, it’s a wonder you can walk!”)
Cindy.

The Brady Bunch is my all-time favorite show, so it was only a matter of time (and having the correct number of girls and boys) before we got to have our very own bunch of Bradys.

Left to right: Marcia, Peter, Greg (in front), Cindy (at the water bowl), Jan, Bobby.

I don’t know where they originally came from. The man who turned them over to me got them from his grandmother, who had them kind of dumped off on her by a family member. They were in pretty good shape for the most part, though a couple of them have goopy eyes.

We put them in the foster room when we got them, and showed them where the litter boxes were (in the closet) and where the food was, and then left them alone to get used to their surroundings. A couple of hours later Fred opened the door to go in, and called to me to bring some paper towels because there was poop in the middle of the rug. And then he stepped further into the room, and it was like everywhere he looked, there was more poop. They’d pooped in every single cat bed, and the room just smelled horrific. I got it all cleaned up, and moved the litter box from the closet into the main part of the room, and set up another smaller, lower litter box in case the problem was that they couldn’t get into the litter box. There have been a few more accidents since then, but for the most part they seem to have gotten the hang of the litter boxes.

Yesterday, I took them to the vet and dropped them off for their COMBO testing. They all tested negative (yay!), and after I picked them up I had to go to the shelter to pick up a few things. I was driving down the road, and I smelled the smell of fresh poop and glanced back to see that all three girls were traipsing through it. Because I’ve learned to never ever take ANY cats ANYWHERE without about three times as many cleaning rags and replacement blankets for the carrier than I could possibly ever need, I was able to pull over in a parking lot and clean the carrier and the kittens with no problem.

Five minutes later down the road, THAT SMELL again. I stopped and looked. The carrier of boys had one little pile of poop in it, and all three boys were at the opposite end of the carrier staring in horror at the pile. That was a lot easier to clean up.

I’ve been experiencing a real Poopapalooza, is what I’m saying. Hopefully that’ll end soon!

They’re all very sweet and friendly kittens and start purring as soon as you pick them up. They’ve all displayed their own little personalities quite nicely, especially Bobby Brady. If Bobby Brady (I can’t help it, I HAVE to call him “Bobby Brady” rather than just “Bobby”, for some reason) were a person, he would speak in ALL CAPS! AND MANY! MANY! MANY! EXCLAMATION POINTS! The instant I enter the room and sit down, he climbs up on my shoulder and rubs his face against my cheek and purrs and talks. He’s a shoulder monkey. Cindy Brady climbs into my lap and just lays there and purrs and would probably just lay there and let me pet her forever.

Marcia is HUGE compared to the other kittens. She’s at 1 pound 10 ounces, and Cindy, Bobby, and Peter are all at one pound. Marcia’s a calitabby (I think that’s what you’d call her) and she has that very soft and silky Siamese-like fur. She’s a bit sedentary and doesn’t mind playing, but she won’t, you know, get up and go across the ROOM to play or anything. She’s probably conserving her energy for trips to the food bowl. She’s also a bit of a drama queen – the first to hiss and the first to complain if you pick her up when she was doing something. Greg’s a wild child and just plays plays PLAYS. Jan’s very playful and if you pick her up she’ll purr, but she doesn’t really ask for attention the way the three smallest do.

Peter, oh – what can I say about Peter? Just like the real Peter Brady (or rather, I guess I should say, Peter Brady the character from the show), he’s destined to break my heart (I was sure I was going to marry Peter Brady, you know). He’s a sweet, quiet little man who will sit with one paw on my knee and stare at me, clearly hoping that I’ll pet him. He purrs and purrs and purrs.

Since these guys are still so little, they’ll be around for a while – so you’ll get a chance to fall in love with them as much as I already have!

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Pretty, pretty Reacher.

Something has annoyed the Rhyme.

“I haz a box.”

Buster Brown gets around.

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When I walked into the kitchen the other night to put a glass in the sink, I was startled to see Newt laying there. I know cats like sinks – there’s a whole site devoted to it, after all – but I’ve never actually had any of the cats take up residence in that sink! He slept there all night, and hasn’t been back in the sink since.

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Previously
2009: I am entirely VERY FUCKING TIRED of cats trying to put their assholes directly on my face.
2008: No entry.
2007: The woman did 9/10 of the work to be done, and I was NOT complaining.
2006: No entry.
2005: I think he might be half skunk.
2004: I do love, love, love the gmail!
2003: No entry.
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry.
2000: No entry.
1999: If you look closely at the picture, you’ll note that it’s very close to the color of bile.