Author: Robyn

Tom (still!) needs a home!

Can someone tell me what the difference is between canned crushed tomatoes and tomato sauce? IS there a difference? Because my favorite spaghetti sauce recipe calls for crushed tomatoes, and I like using crushed tomatoes because there are no chunks of tomatoes in it, and I don’t like tomato chunks.

Well, I guess I like tomato chunks in salsa (a restaurant we occasionally go to has salsa without tomato chunks – I think they use tomato sauce, and it’s really just kind of gross) and I like a slice of tomato on BLTs (for years and years I ate my BLTs without tomato, though) and sometimes hamburgers or chicken sandwiches. But in a sauce, I do not care for tomato chunks. I also don’t care for baked tomatoes – I’ve made quiche with halved cherry tomatoes in it, and while I ate it, I didn’t really care for it.

But in any case, what IS the difference between crushed tomatoes and tomato sauce? Anyone know?

I watched Burlesque yesterday. That’s two hours of my life I’ll never get back.

Well.

I actually watched the second half of the movie at fast speed – when I hit the “seek” button once on the remote, it speeds up, but you can still hear what everyone’s saying, they just say it faster – and frankly, I could have just taken the movie right out of the Blu-Ray player about 10 minutes after it started, and wouldn’t have missed a thing. I like Christina Aguilera’s voice and think she’s purty and I enjoy singing-and-dancing movies, but good lord – next time I’ll just pull up a couple of her videos on YouTube and call it good enough. What a generic movie annnnnd I hate to say it, but Christina Aguilera is not an actress. Stick to the singing, Christina.

I do not recommend.

So, Rufus. I hear you were a bad boy who went out into the back yard and over the fence on Saturday and were gone ALL DAY LONG and had to be trapped because you were acting like a scaredy cat and wouldn’t come to Fred and so now you have to wear a collar to keep you in the back yard. Do you have any comments on the matter?

“Your accusations bore me, lady.”

“And that guy did NOT scare me. He just smelled funny. Yeah, that’s it.”

First, your daily McMao movie (I have a really long one saved for tomorrow!)

Oh, the little pink toes on the left KILL ME DEAD.

He’s not hungry, he just wants a snuggle.

Maggie’s having deep thoughts.

Sleepin’ baby face.

All six! I imagine in another few weeks, it’ll be pretty hard to get a shot of all of them at once.

Pink toes, pink nose, and tiny little claws.

Those toes are just the most amazing shade of perfect pink, aren’t they?

Named! The kitten formerly known as Blue (aka “Dark face”, aka “no white paws”) is now Fergus Simon! Lori (winner of the Maggie Pool) named him after her sons.

I’m hoping to get the others named by the end of the weekend. What I need, if you know of any, are Irish names that are not gender specific, because we’re still unsure of the sex of two of the kittens and I’d like to get them named. So if you have any favorites, feel free to share!

Corbie, keeping an eye on Newt. Or really, just waiting for Newt to get fed up and run out of the playhouse.

Mission accomplished!

Previously
2010: “What the -?”
2009: Random things that make me twitch.
2008: She turned and glared her “FUCK YOU” glare at me, and went along her way.
2007: No entry.
2006: You WISH you were me.
2005: Off to Gatlinburg.
2004: Our palates are too immature, I suppose.
2003: Now I know why, when the camera and sound guy were setting up and I chirped “Oh, is this the camera that’s going to make me look like Ashley Judd?”, everyone laughed so hard.
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry.
2000: Then he and the spud went swimming yesterday, since the pool’s up to a sultry 66.

First, some videos, all taken on the day Maggie gave birth.

The first bit is of Maggie in labor, and you can hear Fred snickering at the expression on her face, and then me saying “You don’t laugh at a woman in labor!” The second bit is of Maggie and her firstborn. There’s nothing graphic, though the kitten is a bit damp still.

I believe Maggie was dealing with baby #6 while the other five were yelling for food. There’s nothing graphic here aside from some bloody towels.

And in this one, the first bit is shortly after labor was over, and Maggie was cleaning her babies. Then it cuts to later that same day, after we’d switched out the bloody bedding for clean.

Now, meet the McMaos!

Purple (aka “black splotch on right nostril) is a boy.

Red (aka “black nose with pink splotch”) is “probably” (according to Fred) a boy.

White Face is a girl.

The sex of Green (aka “Pink nose”) is unknown.

Orange (aka “Black nose”) is a boy.

Blue (aka “Dark face”, aka “no white paws”) is a boy.

In case you missed this one on Facebook yesterday, I couldn’t keep my hands off the babies. This is Green and his/her umbilical cord.

I weighed the babies last night, and they weigh between 5 1/2 oz (Orange & White Face) and 5 3/4 oz (Red and Purple). They’re all nice and healthy, with round little bellies. None of them is really in the running to be the runt of the litter, at least not yet.

You might think that Blue, there, with the open mouth is crying sadly for his momma. “Momma, we is HONGRY!” he might be crying. You would be wrong. Blue is shaping up to be the drama queen of the litter, and when I reach into the kennel to pet him or one of his siblings, he hisses at me. I can’t take offense, though – he’s so CUTE when he does it!

::slurrrp::

::urrrrrrp!::

::considering::

::slurrrp::

::slurrrrp::

::pondering::

“Tastes like chicken.”

Alice, bird-watching.

Previously
2010: She’s not pregnant. She’s just big-boned.
2009: (The smell of boiling chicken livers: gag me.)
2008: No entry.
2007: No entry.
2006: Now, I’m sure I’d rather be skinny and bald than fat and hairified, but what I’d MUCH prefer to be is skinny and hairified, thanks.
2005: I think that a more accurate description would be “covered the annoyance of itching by making your skin feel as though you’re being set on fire.”
2004: Meme.
2003: No entry.
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry.
2000: Fred’s such a bastard.

Ohhhhhh, y’all, if you had been here yesterday afternoon you would have seen me absolutely beside myself. I had just finished lunch and was doing a last email check before I toddled off to the living room to cross-stitch while half-watching those crazy OC Housewives, but then I got an email that my site was down, and THEN I got an email from my web host letting me know that, hey. We’ve suspended your Love & Hisses account, mm’kay?

Fuckers. FUCK. ERS. Oh, was I irate. SO IRATE.

Yesterday Google Reader linked to the Love & Hisses entry about Maggie birthin’ those babies, and unfortunately when I signed up for service with my current web host, when it said I had “unlimited” bandwidth, what it actually meant was “not unlimited” bandwidth. And the huge traffic spike from Google Reader caused a lot of drain on the bandwidth and was making the other sites hosted on that machine go super-slow and in fact I think my web hosting company briefly thought they were under attack.

UNDER ATTACK FROM THE KITTEH LUVAHS maybe.

(Please note: it was the huge influx from an unexpected source that caused the crash/ suspension. You guys who came back several times to look at the baby pics? Trust me, it wasn’t you. You guys keep on coming back and look at those pics all you want!)

The problem is that for at least the last year – maybe longer – I’ve uploaded all my pictures to the Love & Hisses domain, and linked to them from Bitchypoo and from Love & Hisses. And I post, perhaps you’ve noticed, a LOT of pictures.

When Fred got home from work, I was frantically looking at other hosting companies, but as he pointed out, due to the large number of pictures, with any kind of shared hosting I’m going to come up against the same issue. My web hosting company offered to upgrade me to a VPS Service account (I think it was called), but those start at $50 a month, and come on. All these sites I have are really hobby sites and I just can’t justify spending that kind of money on a hobby site, you know?

I know someone out there’s going to suggest putting up a Paypal button on this site, and you are very sweet, but I’m not willing to do that – I absolutely will not accept money from you guys for this, please don’t go sending me money I AM NOT KIDDING. I also don’t want to put up ads.

Luckily, after some brainstorming, we realized (and I asked the support guy, to be sure) that if I use Flickr – I have a Flickr Pro account, after all – to host my pictures, that will lessen the bandwidth used on the server, and I don’t have to move my blog. Yet. When I signed up with this hosting company, I paid for a year in advance because it was cheaper that way. That year is up in August. At this point, I’m not planning to stay with this company, but I’m not going to move out of desperation if I don’t have to.

What this long and boring epic means to you guys: pictures will be hosted at Flickr. I’m hoping it doesn’t make a difference at all for you guys. Things should still look the same and load about as quickly. It’s going to take several days to get this site looking the way it needs to. Thank you for your patience, and I lurve you.

Leanne wrote:

Hey Robyn.

If any of your readers have any advice on feline diabetes I would really appreciate it. As it stands I have to feed him every 12 hours and I have to moniter him to watch out for hypogylcemia. Hard to do when you are at work all day, but at least I own my own hair salon and can take a run home throughout the day to check on him.

As I told Leanne, we’ve only had experience with one diabetic cat (Tubby) and we had problems getting to the right medication level. I know that someone out there – maybe several someones? – have had experience with a diabetic cat, so if you have any advice or tips, would you share please? Thanks!

Our boy Rufus has clearly made himself at home.

“What?”

Rufus has found himself a hidey-hole somewhere in this house, and we can’t figure out where it is. We thought Sunday evening and again yesterday afternoon that he was gone, but then he showed up in the laundry room, all sleepy and stretching like he’d been curled up taking a nap somewhere. I canNOT figure it out, and it’s kind of driving me nuts!

Maggie is such an awesome little mother. I go into the room several times a day to spend time with her, to rub her back and her ears and tell her what a great mom she is. Yesterday, Susan the shelter manager and Richard stopped by to see the babies. Susan sexed the babies, and decided that we have at least four boys, one undecided, and one definite girl. Unfortunately, I’m not sure which was which (still working on identifying them, though I’m starting to get a handle on it), so we’ll have to look again.

Maggie was okay with strangers in her room, and okay with us handling her babies, and as soon as I put the babies back into the kennel, she climbed right in to comfort them.

I’m not having much luck getting a shot of her with her babies, because she does like to greet me at the door. I think today I’m going to go in there with her and just set up camp ’til the babies need feeding and I can get some good momma-and-babies pics. They’re not going to stay this tiny forever, I know.

The squirming pile o’ stripes.

Little white face says “I’m on top of the pile! I’M ON TOP OF THE PILE!”

Okay, I got their face pics, but I am a bad, bad foster mommy, and somehow even THOUGH I took pics of all six of them, I got overzealous when I was deleting, and I must have deleted the pic of the sixth one. When Fred gets home tonight, we’re going to use the fancy colored markers I bought yesterday to dab a bit of color inside their ears, and then I’ll snap face and body pics of each of them.

Little White Face. This one right here? Destined to be a heartbreaker (in a good way, of course). And my favorite.

Look at the stern little face on Black Nose! Black Nose is my favorite.

Awww, little Pink Nose. You know you’re my favorite.

Oh, wait. Maybe it’s Black Nose With Pink that’s my favorite?

Dark Face From the Nose Up. Are you my favorite? I think so.

Aww, White Face, how’d you get on the bottom again??

“Meez Poo luff yew.”

Previously
2010: Fred’s company and their largest customer have parted ways – and as a result, Fred is looking for a job.
2009: No entry.
2008: No entry.
2007: (Nevermind that Mister Boogers’ way of protecting me would be to go hide in the closet.)
2006: “Hard liquor is the first stop on the train to Gaysville.”
2005: I had no idea that leaving the top of the washstand bare meant that you didn’t appreciate the washstand.
2004: (Yeah, yeah, cry you a river. I know. Bite me.)
2003: No entry.
2002: Apparently Fancypants’ evil twin (except that I’m sure Fancypants is actually the evil one) now lives in our neighborhood.
2001: No entry.
2000: I guess there’ll be no physical fisticuffs for me to go break up.

Today’s going to be a super-quick post, because we were gone all day yesterday and I have a ton of stuff to get done today. Just some baby kitten pics – my goal is to get in there and get pics of each individual baby’s face when Fred gets home this afternoon. They all look a LOT alike, and if anyone has a tip for simple ways to mark them so I can tell them apart, I’m all ears.

I’m trying not to spend a lot of time in the foster room right now, because Maggie will run over to be petted and loved on rather than tend to her babies, and even though I know they’re feeding just fine, they’re certainly not starving, and for the love of GOD, she doesn’t have to be in there with them 24/7, it still bugs me.

It seems to be a fallacy that newborn baby kittens sleep all the time, because what they actually do is lay in a big pile, everyone sleeps deeply for about a minute and a half, and then the guy on the bottom of the pile is all “Hey! Why am I on the BOTTOM of the pile? I belong on the top!” and starts squirming around, setting off a squirming chain-reaction, and they wiggle and squirm and wiggle some more for an hour, then fall into a deep sleep for another minute and a half.

It’s exhausting to be a wee bebbeh kitten, is what I’m saying.

Okay, here are some baby pics. I’ll have a bunch more tomorrow, I promise!

Those two in the back apparently felt that they were too cool to run with the rest of the litter.

Little white face (note that the toes are a blur because he was wiggling about) wonders how he always ends up on the bottom of the pile.

Tommy and Sugarbutt show those little ones how brothers are SUPPOSED to snuggle.

Previously
2010: No entry.
2009: No entry.
2008: New/ old couches.
2007: 002. Do you have a pet? Six cats. Six. NOT EIGHT.
2006: “Brrrrrrrrrrp!” Mister Boogers said with great displeasure.
2005: E’gar comes home.
2004: No entry.
2003: “Hi. What R U doing to loose weight and how much weight have U lost?”
2002: Burned fucking beans.
2001: No entry.
2000: Diane Sawyer is so uncomfortable around kids, it’s laughable.

This was Maggie yesterday:

As big as she was when we got her – and she seemed HUGE to us – she expanded quite a bit. Yesterday she just wanted to be petted, and the thing that piqued my interest is that she went into the box and stood there, kneading. That was the first time I’d actually seen her do that, and I decided (and told Fred) that I was sure it meant she was nesting.

I don’t think I mentioned this before, but we had set up a big carrier/ kennel in one corner of the room, covered it with a towel to make it darker, and lined the bottom with towels. That was this one:

(We actually also draped a towel over the other end, where you can see light shining through).

Then, because we wanted to make sure she had a choice, I lined the box that Fred built several months ago with a couple of cat beds. That was this one:

This morning when I was in the shower, Fred reported that all Maggie wanted was to be petted, and that she was purring louder than he’d ever heard her purr before. He also reported that she’d paid no attention at all to the food bowl, and that was the first time that had happened. I went in and spent some time with her before I scooped her litter box, and she seemed very very calm. She just sat and let me pet her. I put canned food on her plate, and she went over and licked at it. I scooped her litter box and left the room.

I was out in the garage, dragging all the recycling out, flattening the boxes, and loading everything in Fred’s truck, when he came out with a very smug look on his face.

“I called it!” he said gleefully. “I said she was gonna go!”

“What?” I had no idea on earth what he was talking about.

“She’s in labor!” I practically ran into the house, grabbed my cameras and cell phone, and went straight up to the foster room.

Maggie was sitting in the middle of the floor, and we sat down with her and petted her. She just sat there for a moment, and then you could see the contraction happening by the look on her face. She sat through it, then got up and went into the box and sat down. She was in there for about half an hour. I started timing the contractions (“We need to start timing her contractions!” I announced importantly. “Why?” Fred said. “Is that something you’re supposed to do?” Heh.) and first they were coming every couple of minutes, and soon enough they were coming much closer together.

Fred, petting Maggie.

Fred announced that he saw something hanging out of her back end, and she cried out, and then she stood up and ran to the middle of the room. I wondered if having us present was bothering her, and Fred decided that it was, and left the room. As soon as he did, Maggie went into the covered kennel and laid down. A few minutes later she gave a great push, and out came baby number one, at 8:42!

The kitten wasn’t moving, and Maggie was more interested in chewing through the umbilical cord, and I hovered and dithered about what to do, and finally stepped outside the room and bellowed down to Fred to bring some rags. By the time I got back into the room, the kitten was moving and Maggie had started cleaning him (or her. I truly have no idea of the sex of any of these babies).

Do the little pink toes and the wee claws KILL YOU DEAD like they do me?

Before I knew it, Maggie was pushing again. A few short pushes, and baby number two was born at 8:57 am!

Maggie’s looking at that little climber like “WHAT are you doing, child?” A moment later she turned and looked at me like “What is going ON, here?!”

Baby number three was born at 9:20, and number four was close behind at 9:32.

Do you see the wee leg thrown over the kitten next to him?

I had literally JUST posted Maggie seems settled in for the time being. We may be at a grand total of four – or maybe she’s just resting up for a second round! when she started having contractions again. Moment later I was pretty sure that there was a number five, but I had to lift the towel on top of the kennel to peek inside to be sure. That one was born at 10:07.

I think this was right after #6 was born; Maggie was attending to the newborn, and the other ones were kind of wiggling around yelling.

Baby leg slung over Maggie’s foot.

She was SO good during this entire process, doing her job like she knew what was what.

We just now went upstairs to change out the bedding in the kennel because the towels that were in there were pretty wet from the birthing process. Fred carefully lifted the babies and put them on a cat bed. Then he reached in to get Maggie, and as soon as he went to lift her out, she appeared to think “Oh, okay. They’re taking care of the babies. I’m going to go eat!” and then went and did so.

It was touching to have her trust us that much, to have her unconcerned about her babies since she knew we were caring for them. I got the bedding changed out, snapped a few pictures, and the instant Fred lifted the last baby back into the kennel, Maggie climbed in after them.

I posted after the first one was born that I thought it was black and white, but as it turns out, we have all brown tabbies, some with lots of white. Hopefully they’ll look different enough from each other that we’ll be able to tell them apart.

I’m hoping to get individual pictures of them tomorrow and perhaps even get a glance at their backsides to see what we’re dealing with. It’s probably too soon, but Fred’s pretty good at sexing kittens – I think he was able to tell what Kara had had within a day or two of their births – and of course as soon as I know, y’all will know.

Lori T. was the winner of the Maggie Pool – she guessed 9 am today – and once we can tell who’s who and what’s what, we’ll let the naming begin. I do intend to still go with the Irish naming theme simply because I wanna. 🙂 Lori gets to choose which kitten she wants to name, and once she’s named hers, we’ll name the rest.

Thank you SO MUCH to all of you who took part in the Maggie Pool. I have to pull up the Paypal report, but I do believe we raised in the area of $500, and that is WAY too cool!!! You guys are beyond awesome, thank you!!!

LOOK at that face, would you? Butter wouldn’t melt! I think she’s got a moose herd in there.

Needless to say, no babies. SIGH.

At least y’all are still keeping up the guessing, which is entertaining me, at least. If you’ve entered the Maggie Pool, do double-check the spreadsheet to make sure I’ve got your guess entered correctly, would you?

The Love & Hisses Facebook page is here.

So, today’s the day. I didn’t want to announce it until the paperwork was done and everything was official. But our dear sweet Corbie, who by the way looked like this a year ago:

and who looks like this now:

Yes Corbie, that sweet little monkey who is (if you ask ME), the MOST beautiful cat in this whole wide world has gone off to his forever home.

So say goodbye to our beloved foster Corbie, the last of the Bookworms, who has lived here for all but the first few weeks of his life. My sweet Corbie, whom I love with my entire heart. Say goodbye to foster Corbie…

AND HELLO TO PERMANENT RESIDENT CORBIE!!!!

That’s right, Fred finally caved last week. I just didn’t want to announce it ’til the papers had been filled out and it was all official.

(Yes, that brings us to 14 permanent residents. What’s your point?)

Previously
2010: The chickens of Crooked Acres.
2009: IT WASN’T WATER AT ALL.
2008: No entry.
2007: Love you! Mean it!
2006: I am absolutely the last person on Earth you want in the vicinity if there’s an emergency.
2005: Questions answered.
2004: I am absolutely stunned that… I frankly couldn’t give less of a shit.
2003: No entry.
2002: No entry.
2001: I have to wonder, what the hell do all you skinny people do?
2000: Yes, this is a lame, short entry, but since y’all love me, you’ll be back. Right?

Okay, so, you remember a few weeks ago how I mentioned that in about the same time span, not only did Rufus show up, but a black and white cat who looked a LOT like Joe Bob from a distance showed up too?

We dubbed the black and white Joe-alike “Newman” (or I should say I named him that), and after that day I didn’t see him again. We decided he belonged to someone down the road, and that he’d just stopped by for a visit.

AND THEN.

He showed up one day last week, and he looked ratty, and he was very hungry. I decided that if he hung around I’d snatch him up and have him checked out at the vet, at the very least have him neutered, and I’d send Fred up the road to see if we could figure out where he belonged. But after he ate, one of our cats chased him off the property, and I wondered if I’d see him again.

Sunday afternoon, Fred glanced out the window and told me that Newman was on the deck of the people next door. They don’t have any cats, so we knew Newman was just passing through. Fred went out and called to him, and he ran right over. We gave him canned cat food, and he wolfed that down, then started on the bowl of dry food sitting there.

Fred did the rounds of the neighbors, and as it turned out, Newman belonged to none of them, though several of them had seen him wandering around the neighborhood.

Yet another dumped cat, it appears.

We dithered about what to do, but really, we had no choice but to catch him (which was a very difficult procedure of going out onto the front porch with a carrier, picking up Newman, putting him inside the carrier, and closing the carrier.). I emailed the shelter manager and asked if there was any possibility of room at the shelter for him. Fred thought that if there was no room at the shelter, we could at least have him tested and neutered and perhaps put him in the guest bedroom with Rufus.

(“Or we could just let Rufus run free in Gen Pop,” Fred pointed out.)

As it turned out, there was room at the shelter. We kept him overnight (away from the other cats), and yesterday morning I dropped him off at the vet clinic to be tested (negative, YAY!), neutered, id chipped, and get his shots.

He’s a super friendly boy – hands-down the friendliest cat who has ever shown up here. All the other cats who’ve shown up have been scared, at least at first, but Newman was friendly from the get-go. He’s a sweet boy, I hope he finds his forever home soon!

“There are no other cats. There is only Maggie.”

Maggie would like you to appreciate her girlish figure.

She LOVES that scratcher, and in fact has pretty much torn the other side to shreds. We flipped it over for her, and she’s doing her best to take care of that side, too. She’s a giver, that Maggie.

Appetite: undiminished. Girth: ever larger. Perhaps a bit less talkative, but I can’t quite decide.

Bayyyyyyyyybeeeeeeeeees, Maggie. Give!

Rufus on the cat tree in the guest bedroom.

Rufus lookin’ sassy.

I do believe that the only time Rufus hid under the couch yesterday is when I got the vacuum cleaner out and turned it on. He fled in terror to his safe spot under the couch. (In my defense, I didn’t actually realize he was on top of the cat tree in the front room at the time!)

The rest of the day, he either snoozed on top of the cat tree in the front room or wandered around the house. It’s nice to see him out more and more each day. He still gets nervous if we walk directly toward him, but at least he doesn’t run off. He just keeps an eye on us ’til we’re past him, and then he resumes whatever he was doing.

Probably another night or two, we’ll leave him out overnight (instead of locking him in the guest bedroom) and see how that goes.

Newt would like you to know that he’s fully aware he’s gorgeous. But thank you for noticing.

Previously
2010: Signs of spring – and pics from around Crooked Acres and beyond.
2009: No entry.
2008: No entry.
2007: (“Why, Robyn, you only sounded like a PARTIAL idiot! I was amazed!”)
2006: “What IS that? Some kind of GODDAMN NICKNAME? You fucking heartless freak? You want me to kick your ass to Seattle, or you want to confess right now, jackass?”
2005: A day in the life.
2004: Naturally, the mental note got lost in the mental clutter, so I forgot she was in there, and only remembered when it had been a few hours and I hadn’t seen her.
2003: No entry.
2002: Don’t look at me like that.
2001: Of COURSE he falls in love with her inner beauty, because EVERYONE knows that fat women don’t have any of that OUTER beauty, for crying out loud.
2000: I can only hope he’ll flash me some butt cleavage.