9/24/09 – Thursday

Wow. Is it really only Thursday? Is it just me, or has this been a really long week? I guess I’ve packed a lot into my week, between the iron infusion and the new kittens and the canning and laundry and stuff.

(Have I mentioned that adding a new litter of little bitty kittens to the household seems to triple the amount of laundry I do on a regular basis? Maybe I need to add some more baby blankets to my supply so I don’t have to keep doing a load of them every day.)

Yesterday I left the house at 8 am, ran into Huntsville to go to Sam’s, to Target, and then PetSmart. I absolutely love the fact that my Sam’s membership is a business membership (through Fred’s company), because it allows me to go there earlier than the regular public. And it’s never busy, and I can get in, get what I need, and get the hell out of there without having to dodge a bunch of other people. I got most of what was on my list (I wish Sam’s carried canning supplies, though. I could use a bulk supply of jelly jars!).

I ran to Target to get some canning jars and frozen fruit (I’m stocking up to begin making habanero-fruit jam and habanero hot sauces. It seems that I really am on schedule to start selling them at the beginning of October!), wandered around a little bit, and then headed for PetSmart.

My two goals at PetSmart were to get (1) nursing bottles with shorter nipples, if possible and (2) a little pyramid-cave type thing to put in the cage with the new kittens, so they could go in there and snuggle up and hide if they want to. As it turns out, I apparently made up having ever seen a little pyramid-cave in the ferret section at PetSmart, because they had no such thing. There was a soft-sided pyramid in the cat section, but it was so big that it would take up half the cage. I walked around and dithered and dithered and dithered some more, and then my reasonable side came out and said “They are perfectly happy, snuggled up to each other in that cage, stop fretting about it, GEEZ.” So I bought a cat condo with a shelf on it to put in the guest bedroom (for when they’re bigger and able to have the run of the room) and some kitten food, and called it good enough.

(That cat condo with a shelf on it (which I would provide a link to, but isn’t on the PetSmart page) was a HUGE hit with the True Bloods and Jake and Elwood when I brought it into the house. I didn’t get it three feet from the door, and it had four cats crawling on it.)

I got home, and it was time to feed the new guys, let them run around for a while, and do laundry. You know, the usual.

I’m thinking that the iron might have, in fact, given me a bit of a boost. I feel a tad more energetic*, and haven’t had my usual mid-day slump leading to a nap in the past couple of days. I also feel a bit more alert – or it might be all in my head. Who knows? I just know that the last two days I’ve been up at 4:30 (to feed the new kittens before Fred goes to work) and haven’t needed a nap AND I’m not ready to pass out at bedtime.

*Before I had the iron infusion done, I said hopefully to Fred “Maybe this will perk me up!” and he said “You never struck me as needing more energy.” But really, there are times when I have to force myself to get stuff done, and it would be nice to not have those days where it feels like I’m walking through quicksand. Maybe I am not, in fact, a lazy ass. Maybe I was just anemic all these years! On the other hand, I feel a whole new excuse coming on. When Fred calls me and asks me to do something for him, I can say “I’m feeling anemic today. I’m going to go take a nap instead.”

 

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We have named the new guys! Well, Fred did. I thought we should name them after the How I Met Your Mother characters (Barney, Marshall, Lily and Robin), but then Fred suggested other names, and I thought they had a little more sass to them.

(We’re all about the sass.)

I particularly liked Amy’s suggestion for truck stop waitress names for the girls, but I’m going to hang on to that idea for when we have a whole little litter of girl kittens.

Without further ado, meet:

Augustus Gloop (I think we all know that his nickname’s going to be “Gus”!).

Violet Beaureguard (previously known as “The friendly calico”).

Mike Teevee.

Veruca Salt (previously known as “The hissy calico”).

These are all characters from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (in case you didn’t already know that). Collectively, I’ll be calling them the Wonkas. That’s right – we named characters after the book/ movie and didn’t include Willy Wonka or Charlie Bucket – we just liked (the name) Mike Teevee better.

The Wonkas are doing well – they’re eating well (still on the bottle, except for Gus, who likes to lick Gerber chicken baby food off a spoon, which is supplemented by a bottle. I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before the others join in.) and they’re bright-eyed and active. Mike still has an immediate spitting reaction about just about everything, but they’ve all become so friendly in the past two days, that socialization is not a concern for us. Veruca and Violet and the purringest little things, love to climb on us, and then run across the room.

(Anything cuter than when they run at this age with their tails sticking straight up in the air? I think not.)

Gus enjoys a good belly rub (actually, all of them do), and after he’s done eating, he climbs in my lap and demands that I rub him all over. I imagine it feels like his mother giving him a bath.

GOD THEY ARE SO CUTE. Fred’s really pitching in with these guys, insists on getting me up at 4:30 before he leaves for work so we can feed them. I feed them once during the day, and then when he gets home in the afternoon we feed them again, and then again at bedtime. He’s really good at getting the food in them.

Veruca, running around like a crazy little thing.

That really looks like a splash of peachy-orange on his face, doesn’t it? I’m 99% sure he’s a boy, or I’d almost call him a dilute torti. (Making a mental note to double-check his nether regions…)

Gus, going crazy-eyed while he’s getting a belly rub.

Mike has a splash of white on his chest, and check out that “frosted” appearance.

Are these not the most gorgeous little kittens?

 

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The first few days we let the True Bloods out into the house, we put them upstairs at 6:30 so they could calm down before bedtime. Last night, I shrugged and decided to let them stay out until it was time for us to go to bed. If the TV scared them, I figured they could run off and hide.

The TV did not scare them in the slightest. Bill snuggled up to me, Hoyt and Terry snuggled up in a cat bed on the couch next to Fred, and the rest of them hung out on the cat tree in the other part of the front room. It was a bit of a pain to get them all upstairs at bedtime, but we got it done. They complained a little, but I let them out bright and early this morning, so they’re none the worse for wear.

It’s funny – the Wonkas complain about being confined to a cage (though they never complain for long – they get plenty of running-around time at feeding time), the True Bloods complain about being confined to one room (or the entire upstairs) and until I open the back door so our cats can go out into the back yard in the morning, they complain about being confined to the house.

Never happy, are they?

Terry, napping in the cat bed on the couch.

Someone discovered the toilet paper!

Snoozin’ Sam.

Sam and Hoyt, asleep on the couch, and Sookie and Terry asleep on the upside-down cat bed on the floor (which was originally on the couch, but they knocked it to the floor.)

 

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Man, is that a Mister Boogers look he’s got going on there, or what?? (I’m pretty sure that’s Elwood.)

 

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Previously
2008: Taking time off to hang with Liz.
2007: I informed him, yesterday, that he should feel free to pull up the cucumber plants, because I’ll shoot dead the next person who brings any cucumbers into my house.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: Of course, it’s not like she gets much of an example on how to socialize from Fred and Robyn The Cranky Shut-Ins.
2003: SHE HAD TO BE KIDDING BECAUSE NO ONE IS THAT STUPID.
2002: A lemon hat! So cute.
2001: Damn cats.
2000: No update.