Summer Recap

So long time no post.  We've been traveling for my work, and busy with Hannah, and she's started sleeping through the night (yay) but winds up getting up at around 6 most mornings (not yay).  Which means that I kind of have to rethink my whole sleep schedule, getting up early to write, how I'm going to fit in The Artist's Way etc.  Our babysitter likes to talk about how she "puzzles" things together, and that's what I'm trying to do.

I was thinking back on the summer, and how it didn't work out at all the way I'd planned.  I had planned to go to Sweden for my best friend's wedding, and North Carolina for my stepbrother's wedding.  Neither of those things happened.  Instead, the following happened.

Memorial Day Weekend: the Saturday morning of Memorial Day Weekend I went to the doctor and got meds for my bipolar disorder.  I took them that Saturday night, felt like a freight train hit me, and slept for 13 hours without waking up once.

Hannah moved into her own room Memorial Day Weekend as well.  It was a big weekend all around.

The week after that I was in New York for BookExpo where I met a lot of publishers, took lots of long walks through the city, revisited some of my old haunts, and ate a lot of Pret a Manger sandwiches.

In mid-June the shit hit the fan with our neighbor when he came pounding up our steps swearing at us (he has some anger issues).  We should have called the cops for disorderly conduct, but we were too shellshocked.  Next day the County comes out and says that:
- we have to tear down the cat shed
- we have to get an inspector out about the home office
- we need to rehome half our cats.

That night I escaped to Seattle for the launch of the Amazon Fire phone and met Jeff Bezos the next day.

When I got home we decided that we were moving back to Pennsylvania by the next summer.  We would swing seriously into Moving Mode, which meant getting rid of stuff, fixing up the house, and yes, rehoming our cats.  I stopped feeling safe in our home thanks for the asshole next door, who also started coming up more often.  Before The Incident we'd seen him twice in 7 years.  Now he's up like every week.

Ok, so we spent tons of time and energy calling cat places and trying to find homes for older cats, which is a tough sell.

Then I went to Vegas for ALA Annual.  It was hot.  That's all I can say about that.  Oh, and the Bellagio fountain show is amazing.

We started Mommy & Me swim lessons the last week in June.  Hannah had a blast with the kids in the water, and even went off the diving board.

By the 4th of July we had homes for the cats lined up, and we were delivering them.  J took down the cat shed, but it took a week because he was doing it carefully since we might wind up reassembling it in our driveway.

The inspector comes in mid July and says that J has to tear down the home office, and has 2 weeks to do so.

I work part time so he has time to disassemble, and Hannah and I spend a lot of time together in the afternoons.

We had our first yard sale on August 2, and made around $70, and got rid of 2 carloads of crap.

The home office was mostly torn down by her birthday, on August 7.  Which she spent in the ER with strep throat.  A 15 hour overnight ER visit.  I'm still recovering from that.

Sometime in there I went up to San Mateo and got pissed off at the summertime tourists clogging up the airport.

After all this, the idea of going to Sweden - just the idea of it - made me nauseated.  I just couldn't do it.  So I bailed on my best friend and his wedding.  So sad.  I also bailed on my stepbrother's wedding.  Too many people got married in August.

Hannah took her first steps August 9.  She was really seriously walking by around the 19th.  Now she's a pro.

This past week we were up in Santa Clara for a big event I do there each year.  The drive through the Central Valley with an antsy 1 year old who can walk was pretty rough.  I had told my boss back in mid July that I was moving, and was going to be working for myself.  I might still stick around with my current job on a consultant/contract basis (and in fact I think it makes sense for me to do so, at least for a year or two), but I'm also hustling for other work next year, and will be going to the Pa Library Association meeting at the end of September.

And today, to nicely wrap up the end of summer in a neat little package, we had our second yard sale and made around $250.  I sold the Asus tablet I bought in 2011 at Best Buy in Upland.  J sold his first guitar.  We're seriously getting rid of everything.  It's awesome and freeing and amazing.

This summer I also started practicing daily meditation, daily writing, and using the loseit app.  I'm within 7 pounds of my pre-pregnancy weight.  I walk around the lake at least 4-5 days a week, with smaller walks the rest of the days.  It's great to start feeling healthy again.  I'm fairly well adjusted to my meds - they don't make me feel like I was hit by a freight train anymore, though I do still need 8 hours of sleep each night to not feel like death.

Hannah is on a good schedule, and I get time in the evenings to myself these days.  Also the mornings, if I can drag my ass out of bed early enough.  Now that it's getting light so much later, the 5:45 alarm seems even more like a medieval torture instrument.

And I've read a ton of books on Oyster.  I heart Oyster.

So that's where we are.  Nothing went as expected, but that's kind of how life goes, and I'm really excited about the future.  Working for myself, however that will go.  Moving back home (which sort of fills me with dread, but is also exciting at the same time - plus J is really excited, so it's great to see him like that).  Really committing to a number of big changes, which I think will be for the best for our family, and for Hannah.  It's been a crazy summer!

Rehoming the Cats

In the spirit of "it's what you spend a little bit of time on each day that gets results", my 50 Days 50 Things project to rehome some of the cats is moving apace.  And I've actually started getting results, a testament to how spending 5-10 minutes a day on a project can make things happen.  The cats are all still here, but by starting to share our situation with people, I'm starting to get a community of people who want to help us get rid of these cats.

So in case you've missed this in earlier posts, we have unwittingly become Cat People.  This is because we Give a Damn about animals.  During the economic recession, people would literally drop their pets off in our woods.  In most cases, the local humane society was able to help us get them fostered out, but in the case of Polly and her Kittens, there was no foster home.  Polly gave birth to her four sweet kitties in our bathroom in May 2008, and while we thought we'd be able to find homes for them all, we didn't (it was 2008 - the economy was in the tank - no one was taking in cats) and we still have these cats.  Plus Joey, who showed up one day, super friendly to the point of danger when he started wandering in the neighbors' house to play with her dog (she leaves her door open) and she's completely allergic to cats.  She was going to call animal control.  We said we'd take him in.  So he's in.  Also Twilight.  Poor Twilight.  She would sit on the window sill in the snow, looking in at us in the middle of winter.  She came in, too.

There are also the feral ones that live under the deck, but I'm not as worried about them when we move back to PA.  They do all right on their own (with the exception of Mama Cat, who I am determined to figure out how to bring with me if he's still alive, despite his feral-ness).

So anyway, we have a crapload of cats, not through our own devices really, and we want to be responsible and not just take them to the pound, but either rehome them, or take them to some kind of no-kill shelter.

I've been researching shelters, and the no-kill ones seem to only service people in their city limits (ie Palm Springs has a great shelter, but you have to have a valid city ID to take an animal there).  I did find Pet Pride in LA, who will take cats, but they charge you a fee (fair enough, since they'll be caring for the cat until they can place it) and the fee is a sliding scale based on how adoptable the animals are.  Our black cats are pretty much unadoptable (people don't adopt black cats).  So their fee would be like $2500.  Yeah, no can do.

So I've really been at my wits end trying to figure out what to do with them.  Yesterday I wrote to a woman who places cats through the independent adoption exchange that the mountains humane society offers.  We had a great conversation today, and she's willing to help us with contacts, and ideas of how we can place some of these animals.  I'm so glad I spoke with her.  Now I need to send her pictures of the cats so she can pass our information on to her friends.  She's already given me names of shelters I hadn't known about, and I'm going to start following up with them.

For the first time, I'm actually seeing a solution to this problem of too many cats, and it's exciting!  One little thing a day, and hopefully I shall have at least one or two cats gone in a few months.

Nature vs Nature

We care for some feral cats who live on the deck in the cat house I built them a few years ago.  Well, it's springtime, which means the birds are nesting and baby birds are being hunted by the fearsome predators that are Simba and Mama Cat.  Every few days, we'll find a sad little baby bird skeleton outside the door, where they've brought it as a thank you gift to us.  Sometimes Simba eats it whole, and then he throws up the bones.  It's really gross.

Today Simba caught a baby squirrel.  The birds I can handle.  I don't like it, but it's nature, and I get it.  But the squirrels, I don't like.  To start with, we had a bit of a blight in the trees several years ago and all the squirrels were killed.  They're just starting to come back.  I'm a supporter of any squirrel living a long and procreative life.

Second, these guys look so damn cute.  Baby birds are cute, too, but in a sort of empty way.  They don't look like little mammals.  I don't feel as much of a connection to them.

I wasn't even that upset about the squirrel at first.  Jonathan was more upset than me when he saw Simba walking over with it in his mouth, still alive.  He made Simba drop it, and took the squirrel on a shovel into the woods where he placed it lovingly in the nook of a tree.  He said the little guy looked ok, he didn't see blood, he was just scared.

Two hours later, Simba's back with the squirrel again, probably thinking that this is a giant game we're playing, and he's ready to continue to the next round.  This time the Mama Squirrel was leaping around in the trees, making hissing noises at the cats, yelling and crying down, and the whole thing was just too pathetic.

Jonathan took the little guy to a protected place next to the house, where he had been doing construction and there were bits of wood around, and piled bricks around him in a way that he thought would be small enough so that the squirrel could get out if he needed to, but the cats couldn't get in.  We called up to the Mama Squirrel that we were trying to help, and we showed her how to get to her little baby.  She looked at us, and I think she understood that we were trying to help.  But she still just kept crying and leaping around from branch to branch.  My heart broke for her.  As a mother, I couldn't imagine how much every instinct was pushing her to try to save her baby.  I looked her baby in the eye and I told him that we were doing our best for him, and I sang him a song.  He closed his eyes and his breathing deepened.

We had to go get my mom from the airport, and when we came back the squirrel was on the deck, lifeless.  The cats had fished him out.  I was instantly angry at Simba, and wanted to ban him from the deck.

But I know it was just his own instincts, and I can't blame him for acting according to his nature.  It's just tough, having heard that poor mama freaking out.  We couldn't have brought him in the house with our other cats.  If he stood little chance outside, he stood no chance in the house.  I wish we could have done something more to try to save the little guy, but then we'd be getting in the way of nature doing what nature has to do.  It's hard to watch, though.

How to Build a Feral Cat House with Few Tools and Having Practically Failed Shop Class

In case you haven't noticed, Old Man Winter is staring down at us, getting ready to pounce.  We try very hard to take care of all the cats that run around the neighborhood, and sadly, since we live next to a forest, there are a lot of people who abandon their animals near our property, and those poor little creatures wind up hungry and cold on our deck (there is a special place in hell for people who abandon a domesticated animal in the forest).

I was looking for a simple and easy way of providing some shelter to the outdoor feral cats.  It warmed my heart, seeing all the many pages of articles and videos from creative people who built creative cat shelters. Rubbermaid even got in on the action by letting people buy their storage containers at wholesale prices. All of it reminds me that there are lots of good people in the world who care for the neighborhood animals.  

So I was looking at some of these shelters thinking, "but they look like they require tools, and I nearly killed myself in shop class..."  (I was particularly drooling over these from the Urban Cat League.)  J has tons of tools, and knows how to use them, but I am not so gifted in the ability to handle a screwdriver.

Here's my few-tools-required, very-little-measuring-required, doesn't-require-scary-materials, and can-do-in-an-afternoon shelter, modeled by Polly, before it went outside.

Materials needed:

18 gallon storage containers (I used two, since I was making a two-story condo).  About $8/each at Home Depot.

2 sheets of foam insulation, though if you do it right, you only need one.  I bought the heaviest stuff, and it was about $9/sheet.  

Boxcutter or knife for cutting plastic

Hair Dryer to heat up plastic before you cut it

Liquid Nails (about $5)

Duct tape (because if you're me, you will spill the Liquid Nails and need to reinforce it all with duct tape anyway.  About $5)

Tarp, if you live in a place that gets a lot of rain (About $10)

Bedding: most sites recommend using straw or hay, which won't hold dampness when it rains.  I just used old blankets and clothes.  

So, the gist is, you're going to use the insulation to build a little condo, and put the storage containers inside.  The insulation will hold the heat from the storage containers, and if you make them long enough, you can slide the storage containers way back so that rain won't splash in, and there will be protection from wind.

So, step one is to cut out the pieces.  I am notoriously awful at measuring, so I just sat the storage containers on top of the foam, and did it all through eyeballing it.  I don't recommend this way.  If you're smart, you'll take a measuring tape to Home Depot, measure the storage bins, and then, with that information in hand, give the measurements to the nice man next to the cutting machine, and he will make the cuts for you.  They generally charge a dollar or so per cut, but if you look like a sweet ditzy girl, they won't charge you.  At least, that was my experience.  One other note of caution; that foam insulation makes a Godawful mess, so keep a shopvac nearby.  

So you've cut out your pieces, and then you want to glue them together, into a little box.  Have the silver sides facing in; that's the side that will hold the most heat.

If you're me, you will totally mess up one side, have to take it off and do it again properly, leaving a stripe down the side.  But whatever, this is the no-brainer way to do it, so you can manufacture while watching Love Actually and it will still be ok.

Big Boy is checking out the new box.  I put the storage container inside to make sure it fit.  Lucky for me, it did.  Barely.

Next, you do this all over again, to make a second level.  And glue on pieces for the back, too.  While the Liquid Nails is setting, I went around and used duct tape all around all the seams, just to make it solid.  And I have to say, I'm quite proud of how solid it is now.  When I shake it, it barely moves.  Mama Cat, who is now about 18 pounds, jumps up and sits on the top of it, and it just barely shakes when he lands on it.  It is a solid unit.

When you have both pieces glued together, you should have a two-story condo that looks like this.

Now, the fun part: cutting entrance holes in the storage bins.  Heat will make the plastic softer and easier to cut.  You can use a hairdryer to soften it up a bit.  You want to make the holes small enough so that the cats can get in, but predators (ie raccoons or coyote) can't.  It's better to start with a smaller hole and make it bigger if you need to.  You can always cut more out.  You can't make a big hole smaller, though.  So cut it out, and check to see if the cats will fit inside.

Make sure you use duct tape around the edges, because they are sharp, and you don't want your little one to scratch their belly trying to get in and out.

The best part is filling up the storage bin with blankets and bedding for them to get comfy.  They will create their own little nest, so don't worry too much about making it perfect, but give them the raw materials and they can decorate how they'd like.

The storage bin will look like this:

Then you put the storage bins in the condos - one on the top and one on the bottom.  The insulation surrounding each one will keep the cats nice and toasty.  Slide the bins back pretty far.  The other thing I've done is place an old bath mat in front of the storage bin.  It acts a bit like a doormat.  The cats get all the water and dirt off them before they go into the storage bin, so their inside home stays warm and cleaner.

Now take it outside, and see how the cats like it.  You may want to create a little foundation for it to go on - I just used a couple of 2x4's that were lying on the deck and put them underneath, spaced out evenly, to keep the unit off the ground, and also to add some additional protection against splashing.  Depending on how comfortable and trusting your ferals are, you might have to feed them a few times inside the home so they get used to it, and associate it with goodness.

When it rains, I throw a tarp over the entire thing, again, just as some additional protection.  If you leave it hanging over a bit in the front, like in my picture below, it will deflect the water from the homes.  All day today Mama Cat sat on the upper floor cuddled into a blanket, looking out at the rain.  I think he really enjoyed feeling like he had a porch, and could watch things, while still being warm and dry.  I feed him in there when it's raining, too, so he never has to come out and risk getting wet, which is the worst thing for cats to be (can lead to pneumonia, for example).

And even when he's outside his storage bin, the insulation still keeps a lot more heat in than if he was sitting outside.  When I reach my hand in to pet him, it's a good 5-7 degrees warmer when he's just sitting on his porch.  His storage bins get downright toasty when he's in one.

Spending an afternoon and $50 in materials can make a huge difference in the life of a cat, or two,  stranded outside with no shelter this winter.  And anyway, how else can you build a two story home for $50?

----
EDIT 2/27/13: We've been having crazy winds here - up to 60mph - and the cat house, with the cats inside it, is intact.  The cats are snuggled and warm, and only slightly freaked out about the wind because they have such a cozy spot to rest.  I'm definitely building another one next year!

in which we help Mama Cat utilize one of his nine lives

Mama Cat was named before we knew he was a boy, when we thought he was a female because he was so much smaller than the Big Bruiser who was hanging around our property when we moved here.  There were a lot of cats around who looked like Mama Cat, so we figured that s/he was their Mama.  Hence the unimaginative name.  The Big Bruiser had feline leukemia and had to be put down in the spring of 2008, and after that, Mama Cat came around a lot more.  At first he would run whenever he saw us.  Then he gradually started to trust us, and was able to figure out the correlation between us being around, and food being in the dishes outside.  Finally he let us pet him.

He's secure enough in his masculinity that he has never minded being called Mama Cat.

Mama Cat is a fighter.  His fur is bristly and regularly matted down with blood from the cuts he gets when he scrapes with other cats, or the raccoons.  Mama Cat knows our schedule and waits by the door for me to bring him wet food, and even as I'm pouring it into his dish, he hisses at me.  Mama Cat doesn't purr very often.  Sometimes several days at a time will go by without us seeing Mama Cat, but then he'll make an appearance, sometimes with a fresh cut, and we continue to feed him his favorite turkey and cheese meal.

Mama Cat resists being trapped and taken in to get neutered.  He's sat by and watched at least four other cats get caught in the trap, and he's wise to it.  It breaks our heart that he continues to live a difficult life with so much fighting, but we're a little afraid of him anyway, and I can't imagine how we can trap him now that he so clearly understands how the trap works.

A few years ago Mama Cat got an infection behind his ear, probably from a fight he was in.  He came around with an enormous bump on the side of his head, and we proceeded to try to heal him.  We put a heating pad on a piece of outdoor furniture where he would lay to keep warm, even though he was feverish.  We made a little shelter for him, and he didn't leave our deck for two days.  Eventually his infection broke, the wound healed, and he was back to his old self.  There have been at least three times so far where we were convinced that Mama Cat was on his way out. We say goodbye to him, and prepare ourselves for his death.  And then he'll go away for a few days, and come back, wondering why we're making such a fuss over him, and why we won't just put out some cream for pete's sake.

Last Wednesday we were again certain that this was it for Mama Cat.  He came up to the deck leaking blood and shit.  It looked gruesome - like someone had taken a bite out of his ass, literally.  He stunk of crap and death.  He was weak and his head was falling into the water dish.  He could barely make it up onto the lounger.  He would drag his ass and leave streaks of shit everywhere.  It was 11pm and we didn't know what to do for him.  Do we try to trap him and take him in to be put down?  It seemed a horrible way for him to die - Mama Cat, who always ran free and has never been in a car, having to drive 45 minutes to the 24-hour emergency hospital.  I know the actual act of dying might have been kinder to him, but getting there would have been torture.  No, it seemed like the best thing we could do was try to make him as comfortable as possible, keep his water and food nearby, and let him know he was loved.  Jonathan fell asleep on the deck with Mama Cat, and came back to bed in the middle of the night when Mama left.

All day Thursday he was gone, and we figured that he had walked into the woods to die.  At least, that was what we hoped for - a peaceful death for our friend.

Thursday night we looked out on the deck at the little cat carrier we put out with blankets when it gets cold, so the feral cats have somewhere to get cozy.  Mama Cat was in it, sleeping, still looking dazed, and still an enormous mess in his butt region.  Wow, we thought.  Mama made it through the day.  We again made sure he had water and food, and he allowed us to give him a lot of love.

Friday morning he was still on the deck, though not in the carrier.  Just sleeping by himself on the wood.  By mid-morning he had enough strength to go up on a piece of furniture.  Jonathan went out to sit with him, and within a few minutes, Mama Cat had cuddled in, and was laying on J's lap.

This was unprecedented behavior for Mama Cat, who barely ever lets us pet him.  Suddenly he was becoming a lap cat.  We were happy to be able to love on him (though we always washed our hands very thoroughly after petting him), but we thought it must be a sign that things were worse with him, if he was willing to be so vulnerable with us.

Friday night we noticed that he was starting to bathe his wound, and we were able to look at it more clearly.  All his parts were still there, so that was a good sign.  We thought maybe he just had a horrible infection that got out of hand, or something.

He still wasn't eating or drinking though, which worried us.  Cats need fresh water often - a vet explained to me once that a cat will die if they don't have water in what seems to me like a very short time - it was something like just 24 hours or so.  It's actually a preventative mechanism to keep them from starving to death - if there is no water available, there probably isn't much food either, and they start to shut down very quickly.

We were with him almost constantly all weekend, taking shifts of spending time with him.  We still thought that he was going to die, and that he had honored us by wanting to spend his final hours with us, and we were going to take that job seriously.  We weren't going to let him die alone.  We were committed to being there for him, however long he needed us, petting him and being part of this sacred journey that he was on.  Both Saturday and Sunday nights one or both of us slept on the deck with him.  We fell asleep on the lounger with him between us.  We picked fleas off of him so that he would be more comfortable and not have to scratch himself.  We picked the scabs of his old wounds off so that they wouldn't itch.  We rubbed his back and his legs.  We thought about what we like when we're sick, and we tried to do those things for him.

By Sunday morning Mama Cat was eating the gravy from a can of wet food, though he wasn't eating the food itself.  He would lick up the gravy, and then look at the food, poking at it with his foot, sniffing it, but not eating any.  We were happy with the gravy, though.  We kept track of the amount he was eating - every four hours or so he would get up, drink some water, look at us expectantly, wait while we got a can of food, lick the gravy, then stretch out and lay in the sun for a bit, and then go back to his comfortable chair.

At one point I sat down with him, and he rolled into me so that his back was against my leg.  I reached down and scratched his legs, and he lifted his head up for chin-scratches.  He was looking right into my eyes, and his expression had the most love, understanding, and depth that I've ever experienced from any living thing.  I could be anthropomorphizing him and just imagining the whole scene, but I swear, all the questions in the universe were answered in his face.

We still didn't think he was out of the woods yet, but we could see that he was fighting for his life.  One time while I was loving on him, I told him that he could stop fighting if he wanted to.  He had spent his whole life fighting.  Feral cats in the mountains generally live about 3 years.  They get eaten by coyotes, or they starve or get sick within that time period.  Mama Cat is at least six years old - he was fully grown when we moved here five years ago.  So he has been a scrappy fellow who has fought for every breath he was taking.  He did have us looking out for him, but that didn't stop him from taking care of himself his own way.  I wanted him to know that if he wanted to give up the fight, we were ok with it, and we would miss him, but we would understand.

I spent a lot of time thinking over the weekend while I was sitting with Mama Cat, stroking his skeletal body, which seemed to be shrinking away before my eyes.  I asked him why he thought he had to fight so badly.  Why couldn't he have just spent his life living in our woods, getting food on our deck, sleeping in the shelters we make for the feral cats?  Why wouldn't he let us take him to the vet and get him fixed so that he didn't need to fight so much?  Why did he make it such a struggle?  And then I thought that I could probably ask myself the same questions.  Why do we all make life so hard?  Why do we think it has to be such a struggle?  I wondered whether God ever wanted to shake us and tell us to stop fighting so badly, to accept all the gifts and love that are available to us, and to just be loved.

Early Monday morning I went to the pet store to see if there was any high-nutrition gravy I could give him.  If he was going to fight for more life, we were going to help him.  They recommended kitten food as the most high-calorie and fatty, and I also got some nutrient paste that they give finicky cats.  It made me so happy on Monday afternoon to see him eating the kitten food, and then looking up, giving me a little meow, asking for more.

Tuesday he ate about five times throughout the day, including some cream (note: giving cats cream or milk is really not good for their tummies.  They can't digest it properly.  Pet stores do sell milky products that you can give your pets.  I still give Mama Cat cream because he loves it).

And today, a full week from when he showed up leaking every kind of bodily fluid imaginable, he is comfortably laying on his cushion outside.  His tummy is full - today alone he's had two full cans of wet food, two cups of dry kitten food, and a few splashes of heavy whipping cream.  When we pet him now, we can't feel his individual ribs.  He is purring, and his breathing is even and deep.  He has cleaned himself up, and since he hasn't left our deck in five days, he hasn't been out fighting, and he looks like a handsome fellow with a shiny coat (though it's sprinkled with gray) and his eyes are bright.

I don't know how much more time we'll get with Mama Cat.  This winter might be too much for him.  Or maybe he will continue to hang on to life and we'll get another few years with him.  But I do know a couple of things.  I know that if a little creature comes to your door needing help, and you drop your plans and help it, it will be so much more rewarding than anything else you had planned.  We've been through something profound, the three of us.  Both J and I have been touched by the sacredness of spending that time with Mama Cat, when his life easily could have ended.  I'm so happy for Mama Cat now because even if he does pass away sooner rather than later, he has been vulnerable with us, and has received more love in the past week than many cats will ever receive in their lifetimes.  He has loved us, and for the past few days at least, he has accepted our love.

And that is a lesson that many of us humans, with our bigger brains and opposable thumbs, could stand to learn.

The feral cats outside

Last weekend the Outdoor Kitty brought us a mouse.

I was kind of grossed out, but he was so proud that it was hard to stay mad for long.

I think this was his way of adopting us formally, and now he's become a fixture on our deck.  We're planning on making a really awesome outdoor shed/cage for some of our cats who are having bathroom issues this month and we will probably add this little guy to the mix.  I mean, if a kitten brings you a mouse, who are you to turn down that kind of love?

Tonight one of the feral cats is in a cage in our bathtub.  He is going to get fixed and vaccinated tomorrow, and will probably spend the night in there again tomorrow, and then will get released back into the wild on Wednesday.  Maybe he'll fight less with less testosterone.  The last time we captured a cat and then released him, he hardly came back at all afterwards; I think he was afraid that it was going to happen to him again.  So who knows how much we'll see of him in the future, but I'll rest easy knowing that the likelihood of little kittens being brought into the world is lower with one less testosteroned cat roaming the streets.

I don't have much to say otherwise.  I went up to the Bay Area today for three hours.  Enough time for a meeting, a stop at Yumi Yogurt in San Mateo, and lunch at Subway.  Then back on a plane and home again.  I woke up at 4:45 and I'm tired.  But I did spend the hour long flight home doing the crossword, which made me feel proud that I exercised my brain.  Then I managed to walk around the lake, which made me proud that I exercised my body.  And now I'm going to go to bed and dream about cats.

My Day in Numbers

J has been away this weekend doing some sort of bachelor-party-manly-camping-rafting trip, and I'm home with the cats having Girl Time.  So here's what Girl Time looks like, in Numbers.

8: The number of episodes in The Kennedy's miniseries.  Also, coincidentally, the number of episodes that I watched last night, while laying on the couch not cooking dinner and not caring about the house getting messy.

2:  The number of dreams I had last night about living in the White House and dating RFK.

3:  Miles around our lake, which I walked around this morning.  I've been trying to do that 5 times a week.

2:  The number of Diet Cokes I drank today.  I'm supposed to be off soda, but I figure that J is having a weekend filled with debauchery, so I can drink some nasty aspartame-laced-infertility-causing diet coke.

3:  The number of Harry Potter movies I watched today in preparation for the big midnight IMAX showing on Thursday night.

2:  The number of walls in my home office that are now painted a lovely shade of bright green called Summerland.  That number should be all 4 after tomorrow.  It's nice and zen, and as an added bonus, it will be a cheerful gender-neutral color when this room gets changed into a nursery - when we finally manage to have a baby.  (sad, but kind of funny - though not ha-ha funny - story: the other night I was talking to J about names for the next baby when I'm pregnant with it.  Baby T and Mustard Seed are already taken, and I asked him if he had anything he wanted to call it.  He said he wanted to call it, "i hope it lives."  Cue tiny violins now).

27:  The square inches of my arms and legs that are covered in green paint.  I'm kind of clumsy and like to back into walls covered with wet paint a lot.

35:  The number of books that I decided are going to Goodwill and/or the Yard Sale Pile, and have been relocated from my home office to the living room floor.

3: The number of Tylenol I took for my back, which kind of hurts after the painting.

8:  The number of mayorships I have on 4square now that some punk took away my mayorship of the 7-11 this morning.  Dammit, I'm going to go on a slurpee diet to get that mayorship back.

1:  The number of sticks I peed on this morning because I've been feeling really nauseated and thought I might be pregnant.  It was negative, but this is ok because I'm still not ready.  The game is on again in September.  But right now, it's still the Summer of Heather.

2: the number of pounds I've lost this week, after having hit a somewhat discouraging plateau the past few weeks.  

87: the number of emails in my work inbox this morning.

5:  the number of emails in my work inbox tonight.  I'll knock those suckers out tomorrow for sure and start the week on an empty inbox.

Ok kids, I'm off to sleep for 8 hours now and cuddle with 3 or 4 cats.  Here's a funny cat story - whenever J's away, I sleep on his side of the bed.  And the cats love to cuddle with him, so they all come under the blankets and start to get all comfy, and then realize it's me, and get really confused.  It's my way of tricking them into giving me more love.

Things I'm Giving to the Thrift Store: Target Bag Edition

Bag available at the thrift store.  Cat napping on the bed.

This week, I'm getting rid of this lavender Mossimo tote from Target.  Here's the story on it:

I bought it in January 2005 in Nashvegas at the Target in Franklin.  There was another Target north of me, close to where I bought my Aveo, but I didn't like that one as much.  So this came from Franklin.  I remember it was dreary and cold, and I thought the lavender would cheer me up.  I used it right away as a laptop bag at ALA Midwinter, which was in Boston that year (incidentally, it was in Boston last year, too, but I didn't use this bag then).  

On the same shopping trip when I got this bag, I used a bookstore gift card that my boyfriend at the time had given me for Christmas.  You know a guy's not going to work out when he gives you a gift card for Christmas.  I mean, I'm all for gift cards.  And Lord knows, I enjoy shopping, so gift cards are usually good.  But from a boyfriend?  On your first Christmas together?  Does anything scream "I didn't really take the time to think about what you might like on this, our first major holiday together, and plus I was kind of in a hurry and you're not worth spending more than five minutes gift shopping for," more than a gift card? 

I actually really like this bag.  It's a perfect size.  It has lots of pockets.  It's a springtime color that you don't see that often.  It popped when I wore it with all black.  

But, you see, the reason I haven't used this bag in over five years is:  In 2006, I found a black widow spider living in it.  

Oh man, I screamed.  J took it outside and took care of it, and he said he'd never seen such a big spider.  To this day, I'm afraid that I might open some pocket, and a fang-toothed hairy eight-legged spider is going to jump out and poison me with her venom.  

Like that bag is extra attractive to spiders or something.  I don't know.  

Anyway, I just can't bring myself to use it anymore.  It's been hanging on my wall for years, with me thinking I might get over my arachnid fear someday and wear it, but it's not gonna happen.  I just can't reach into it for anything without getting freaked out anymore.

Since I had to dig through an old hard drive to find this picture, I found some other ones of Little Wrigley when she was a Baby.

So for the second day in a row:  Cute Cat Pictures.   Awwwwwwww.  They were scanned from 'real' pictures...'member them?  You had to take film to get developed?  What a hassle!  They aren't good quality, but looking at these reminds me why I still clean up her poop.

Cat Protesters

You know what I like?  I like going to sleep with lots of wind and freezing temperatures and getting all snuggly in my jammies, and then coming down the hill and going for a lunchtime walk to get a frappuccino past blooming rose bushes and tulips.  Ahhh...

You know what else I like?

I like cats.  And I especially like cats who know how to take a stand for democracy.  Once you get the kitten vote, you're done.

But really, how freaking cute is that?  Bin Laden and all the suicide bombers should take note - you can get a lot more sympathetic attention for your cause if you put signs around kittens than if you blow people up.  Just a tip, you know, cuz I'm all for the free exchange of ideas and information.

OOoh!  And the final thing I like is our new washer and dryer, courtesy of my in-laws when our old one broke (I can't complain too much - it came with the house).  Shit really hit the fan a few weeks ago - the washer and dryer, the hot water heater - good thing we still had heat!  We've been laundromatting it for 4 weeks now (well, J has), but those days are done.  Lowes came yesterday and delivered a nice new fancy stackable front load washer and dryer that plays songs when you turn it on.  Luxury!  I've always wanted a washer and dryer that sang to me.  I just didn't know it.  

Cat Lessons

You know those "everything I learned I learned from my cat" books that are supposed to make you laugh and go "That is so true" while you're waiting for a table at the Cracker Barrel? Well, I feel like writing one. Because I have 9 cats, you see. So I learn a lot from them. Here is just a sampling of the things I learned today:

1. If someone leaves the front door open, thus giving you the opportunity to go out and play in the snow, you should definitely take it. Snow is super-rad.

2. But you shouldn't go too far, because... well, it's scary out there without the people you love around you.  And getting warm again is the best part of going outside.

3. Naps are an important part of the day.

4. If you want something, and you don't get it, you should roll around in front of the person who can give it to you, and be really cute, and purr a lot. If they still don't give it to you, you should cry. If they still don't, well, then you should just bite their ankles.

5.  If you want attention, and you're not getting it, you shouldn't be afraid to ask for it by barging right in and making your needs known.

6.  Dry food pretty much sucks.  Try to sneak pleasures where possible.  Like someone's fish they're not eating.

7.  A q-tip can be a super-fun toy.  So can balls of paper.  You can find toys in the most unexpected places.  One person's trash is another person's toy.

8.  When you get scared, it's ok to go hide under the bed for a little while.  If you don't feel like talking to a stranger who's in your house, under the bed is a perfectly acceptable place to go.  And you don't need to explain yourself.

9.  Let me repeat that last part.  You really never need to explain yourself.

10.  Whenever possible, have someone else clean up your poo.

Random Check In and Cat Complaints

Long time no blog.  I was traveling to our glorious state's fair capital city, Sacramento, for the California Library Association annual conference.  Hung out at our booth and went to some sessions, and had a Board retreat with our most fabulous Board of Directors at the Sacto Public Library (they have free downloadable music there - for cardholders - membership has its privileges), which has an excellent cafe called La Bou attached to it, which I highly recommend.

I drove rather than fly.  It's a 6.5 hour drive.  It's a 4 hour door-to-door flight.  Till you strip for security, and partition out all the toiletries you can't take, it's really much more worth it to drive, at least to me.  I listened to Bill Bryson's new book, At Home: A History of Private Life, which should have been named At Home: A History of Everything that Wasn't Covered in My Last Book, A Short History of Nearly Everything.  It made the drive through the Central Valley pretty tolerable.

So this is a short entry just to let the People of Earth know that I'm still alive and kicking.  I'm going slightly mad at the moment, though.  We had a catsitter come to take care of the cats (duh) while we were gone, and I swear, they are purposefully rebelling.  One got out while we were gone.  The catsitter has no idea how.  She was totally freaking out.  Now they are pooping on the carpet in front of the couch.  Peeing on the freshly-cleaned windowpanes.  Throwing up in front of my closet.  All in the same night.

Then the garbage disposal explodes while I was disposing of rotten asparagus that was two weeks old.  An hour later, and the kitchen is cleaned up, but I still stink.

It's time for a book and bed.  I'm pooped.  Literally.  UGH.

excitement after a week of Badness

So I'm excited today for a couple of reasons. First, I started singing lessons again. I haven't taken singing lessons since 2001-ish, when I was a regular in the south-london flat of a welshman who was seriously into West End stuff. We did a lot of musicals, and I entertained my housemates by singing In Whatever Time We Have in the shower every morning. I really miss singing, and am desperate to find a choir again. I really need to make that a priority.

Secondly, I have an appointment tomorrow with the OB and he might do an ultrasound and I might be able to hear the heartbeat. How freaking cool would that be!! It totally weirds me out to think that there's something with a heartbeat inside of me right now. It's kind of Alien-ish. I try not to think about that aspect too much. Just like I try not to think about how the ending of this nine-month saga is going to go - ie labor. I couldn't watch the video in 11th grade health class. I'm definitely not reading ahead in What to Expect.... I figure that women have been doing it for thousands and thousands and millions of years, and if it was really that horrible, the species would simply cease to procreate.

The third thing I'm excited about is that ClassicFM now has an android app, so I can listen in the car, all the time. My friend Sandor hates ClassicFM because they don't play complete works, so it's kind of like pop-classical music. But I like it. Or rather, the ADD in me likes it. So I'm a big fan of the android app.

It's nice to be excited about something after the week we had last week.

The main thing was that the cats were super-sick. They'd been fighting off colds, all of them, for a week or so, but then Big Boy, the tiny runt of the litter of kittens, came down with it really badly. And the deal with cats and colds is that if they're congested and can't smell their food, they won't eat. And if they don't eat regularly, they get something called Fatty Liver disease, which can kill them quite quickly. So we took Big Boy to the emergency vet on Monday, and then again on Tuesday when he still wasn't eating. Each time they gave him antibiotics and fluids under his skin (subquetaneous is the medical term).

On Tuesday they gave us the bag of fluids to take home so we didn't need to keep bringing him in. He hates the car rides. So we became de facto nurses, injecting him with 100ml of fluids every day. He put up a nasty fight each time, and I have the scars to prove it. And it was absolutely horrible. After we finally got him restrained so that we could put the needle in, he would wail, and moan, stick his tongue out, cry in the most pitiful way. It was awful. We had to try to stay calm when we were waiting for the fluids to go in, hoping that he would pick up on our calm and stop fighting it so much; but as soon as the 100ml were in, we would take the needle out, let him go, and collapse on the kitchen floor bawling our eyes out. I knew we were literally saving his life with those fluids, but it killed me to see him suffer and not understand that we weren't trying to hurt him, but were actually trying to help him.

The picture is of him in his carrier, where he spent almost the entire week, having to breathe with his mouth open. Poor little guy. He finally ate and drank on his own on Saturday morning, a week after the last time he'd eaten on his own. We cried when we saw him, this time for joy because we knew he was going to be well. Today he's back to his old self, playing and chasing me around like a puppy. I really missed him when he was sick.

So now, in honor of Big Boy being better, a reminder of just how cute he was when he was first born, and will be again as soon as he gets a bath to clean up all the snot that's accumulated in the strangest places (he somehow managed to get snot in his tail... I don't get it either). Hopefully this week will be calmer...

Seriously, are all pregnant women this tired?

I'm very excited for mid-August when I will be officially out of my first trimester. There are a couple of reasons for this. First, the risk of anything bad happening goes down significantly after the first three months. But the big reason is the exhaustion. Apparently right now my body is engaged in a Herculean task of building an amniotic sac and placenta. How's that for fun? From everything I've heard, you literally wake up one morning around 14 weeks, and you suddenly have energy again. I'm very much looking forward to that day.

I'm trying to get used to the fact that, for at least a little while, my days will have significantly fewer hours than they did a month ago. This is because of all the time I spend sleeping. And thinking about sleep. And wishing I was sleeping. And planning when I will sleep. And talking about sleeping. Sleep is a Really Big Deal to me right now. I am blessed in that so far I haven't experienced a lot of morning sickness. I have a general amount of queasiness on a regular basis, and some aversions to foods that look kind of gross (the other night I fought back sickness when hubs spilled a fruit smoothie) but I haven't been getting intimately acquainted with the toilet bowl yet. I'm praying and hoping that this continues because the sleep thing is bad enough. If I had a puke thing on top of it, I might just have to throw in the towel and call in sick to everything.

Naps are becoming my lifeblood, that get me through the day. I've never been a napper in my life. But I'm discovering the beauty of falling asleep on a summer afternoon on the couch, with a kitty laying on me. Man, naps are good.

The other thing I'm having to manage is eating regularly. Today I went to the lake and on the way back out, I suddenly felt like I was going to faint. No warning. Just like that. One minute I was fine, the next I was digging for my trail mix and having to sit down. So I've gotta manage my blood sugar and eat smaller meals more regularly. The whole nearly-fainting thing was scary.

The good things about pregnancy so far? I'm eating really well - better than I've ever eaten in my life. And I'm listening to all my favorite music again, and playing the piano. I started when I read that Baby's brain was already developing, and I thought I needed to get some Mozart going, because really, why not? And then I started playing because my mom was learning Moonlight Sonata when she was pregnant with me, so I figure it would be good to carry on the tradition.

So that's the pregnancy update for today.

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Last week I had something kind of sad happen. When J and I first moved in together, nearly five years ago, we went to Ikea and bought a bunch of stuff, which he put together, in a wonderful demonstration of his manliness. One of the things we bought was a great paper lantern - it was actually five lightbulbs strung together with square white paper lanterns around each one, and nice zen-like green leaves of grass etched on so that when the light was on, they were all outlined and it was all calming and soothing. I loved that lamp. When we moved to the mountains and got a ton of cats, we put the lamp up in the attic.

Last week we were digging around through the attic and found it, and one of the cats had completely shredded one of the lanterns, so we decided to get rid of it. On Thursday night I was putting the recycling from the kitchen into the bin outside, and saw that he had cut up the lanterns and recycled them. It made me so melancholy to see the lamp. I remember the night he had hooked it all up. I fell asleep early and he stayed up working on that, and some bookcases. When I came out in the middle of the night, he'd fallen asleep in front of his video game, but had completed the projects and left the light on, and I felt all special that a guy had stayed up so late putting together furniture I had picked out for me.

And I guess I'm just sad because I know that we're never going to get those times back again, and life is going to change like crazy come mid-February. It won't just be the two of us anymore, and while I'm excited and happy to be having a baby, I'm disappointed that life has to change so much. I'm a Taurus - I don't do change. So I had a little sob at the recycle bin, and I'm still a little sad about it all. But we'll figure it out.

In other non-pregnancy-related news, the cats have all come down with a cold/flu and the little runt of the litter of kittens had to go to the vet today. He was coughing and hacking like an old man, and had really labored breathing, and it just broke our hearts listening to him. So we took him to the emergency vet today and got him antibiotics and a fluid IV and now he's just sleeping. Then we took all the sick ones and stuck them in the bathroom with the shower and a humidifier running. They didn't like being trapped, but all the moisture seemed to help.

So it's been a napping/sick cat weekend.

Happy Things

I have been snowed in since Thursday night, so going on a week. Here is how I have been occupying myself, especially during the three day weekend...

- long bubblebaths. I finished two books this weekend, and started a third. My minimum bubblebath time is at least 90 minutes. And it's lovely now that we have a huge window installed next to the tub, which J put in last summer. I open it up just a crack to let the cool air in, and watch the steam come rolling off my knees, and listen to the snow falling down in chunks from the trees when the branches can't handle it anymore. And I play with the cats, who seem to be massively interested in all things soap-related. They try to catch my toes, sticking out of the bath, and then I pull them under the water and they go chasing after them (the toes) until they're up to their shoulders in bathwater. Then they look at me with a weird expression, shake off their arm, and fall for it again. Whoever said cats were the smartest animals around clearly didn't live with nine of them.

- naps. I'm not a big napper. I usually wake up more tired than when I napped, and just want to go straight to bed. But I've been enjoying naps at the big picture window by the bed, with at least one or two cats snuggling with me, looking out at the trees and snow falling. Very cozy.

- cooking comfort food. On Saturday I boiled down a chicken carcass to make stock and made some lovely homemade chicken soup with carrots, celery, corn, and rice (cooked in the stock). That saw us through the weekend. Yesterday I made shephards pie, which is the ultimate in snowy comfort food. And I've been making a lot of grilled cheese to eat with tomato soup. I also made chocolate chip cookies and roasted a chicken tonight. It's gonna be a good week for food.

- playing oblivion. I'm almost done with the game (just the Dark Brotherhood and Daedric Shrines quests to do yet) and need to download the Shivering Isles expansion pack. And ever since I got my invisibility power, it's becoming less exciting because rather than kill monsters and goblins, I can just make myself invisible and run right past them, but really, there's nothing better than spending three hours listening to an audiobook, and hunting around Cyrodil for nirnroot (of which I have collected 263) and killing those stupid trolls. I hate trolls.

- downloading music. I'm so happy with my new music and the end of my entertainment crisis. I'm all inspired to start another choir-for kids this time, and go to choral workshops, and take some choral conducting classes and get myself more voice lessons. I'm also having fun organizing all of my previously unorganized music so that when I get a new zune - if my state income tax refund ever comes - I'll be able to stick it all on in good format rather than the hodgepodge that's on my archos jukebox right now. At last count I have over 6000 music files on my external hard drive that need to be catalogued. Gee. If only I knew where to find some music librarians...

Lately I've discovered, and fallen in love with, Jill Scott (call me slow - the rest of the world is already in love with her), Santogold, and the Blue Heron Choir. I've also rediscovered She and Him, Ivy, and Bliss.

So that's been the way I've been keeping myself occupied with this snowiness. Today I got out and shoveled for two hours, hence the fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies. Shoveling burns like 500 calories an hour, I read. I'm sore in places I didn't even know existed. More tomorrow, I think. It beats the elliptical machine. Today I enjoyed shoveling by listening to What Would Google Do on my mp3 player. Hopefully the car will be cleared out tomorrow. The hard stuff was doing the berm today. I've never used the word "berm" so much since living up here in the mountains. I never even knew what it meant a year ago. Now I use it in everyday conversation about six times a day. Weird.

Currently reading: Right Before your Eyes by Ellen Shanman.
Just finished: A Royal Pain by Rhys Bowen (part of a wonderful series of chick-lit mysteries set in 1930's London, and a new discovery of mine)
Currently listening to: Elgar and the English Choral Tradition with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic
Also loving: Dragonnette

Stuck in the Cat House

Since there are so many stray cats in our neighborhood, and we feed them, they hang around quite a lot. We always feel bad during the rain/snow so a few months ago J built a little cat-house on our deck for assorted cats to live in. Fluffy Cat is taking ownership of it. Today it is pouring with rain and Fluffy is out there enjoying the warmth. After I took this picture I went out and rewrapped the cushion in a towel and turned it over so the dry side was up, and threw another towel in, and took out the black sweater, which was soaked. So he should be pretty warm and cozy. It sounds like a children's book - Fluffy Cat Has a House.

I'm enjoying the rain, and also my warm house with the rain pattering on the roof. It's nice to be inside and warm. I feel really bad for all of the people who don't have warm houses with lots of cats to snuggle and hot chocolate to drink and fires to curl up in front of.
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And in other news, the new CJ Sansom book came out today. The tudor mysteries featuring his Matthew Shardlake character. I love them. I devour them. I went to Borders since today was the release date, and their copies hadn't even been shelved yet, but they got it out of the basement. It felt like when the Harry Potter books came out. I'm excited to end my reading drought.
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And also while I was in Glendale, at the Borders on Brand, I got lunch in this little walkway between streets with lots of outside cafes, and four of them had closed. Sign of the times, I guess. Sad.

Babies Babies Everywhere (and weird ex's)

Genesis, who works for a library that we work closely with, had her baby this morning at 2:44 am and was blogging about it by 8am. Man, that is some kinda dedication to blogging. She needs to win some kind of Blogger of the Year award.

We trapped a feral cat yesterday to take to get neutered, vaccinations, FIV testing, etc. It's our little part that we can do to clean up the feral cat mess up here. I get so angry at our neighbors, who have been here for 20 years, and somehow got the idea that because we feed these things, and provide a semi-warm spot for them under our deck, that they're ours. They say things like, "Oh, yes, we see your cats all the time. They are so cute" and I'm like, "have you noticed that these cats were here for much longer than we've been here?" I mean, the complete obliviousness. How can you just let cats multiply and die right under your deck and not know about it? I get so mad. So before Spring (and mating and kitties) arrives we're going to trap the main ones that show up all the time, and get them fixed. It also might get them to stop fighting.

So yesterday Fluffy Cat got trapped, and the poor thing was just so frightened. We brought him in and let him stay in the bathroom overnight, but we didn't take him out of the trap (it was big enough for him to move around in, and we put down blankets, food and water) because he never would have gone back in if we'd let him go. Plus our bathroom would have been destroyed. J took him this morning, and fortunately his FIV came back negative (thank goodness). The next cat to get it is Mama Cat (who is really a boy, but who we used to think was the mama of everyone). Mama Cat needs to go in soon because he is really hurt. He can't walk on his left front paw. He disappeared for a week and we thought he had become a victim of the cold, but then he showed up yesterday with his awful paw, and he's been sleeping on the blankets covering our woodpile. Every time I go out to give him food, though, he hobbles away, and really doesn't trust us. It breaks my heart. We need to trap him and get him taken care of - hopefully that will come next week.

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And it's officially Time to Leave Facebook. My husband's crazy ex-girlfriend sent me a friend request. What the? She's all, "Long time no see! I hope you two are doing really well." And I'm like, "yeah, that's it, I'm leaving Facebook...." Too many weird people around. Am I being really anal, or is it weird to send your ex boyfriend's wife a friend request on facebook? Especially when you haven't seen or talked to said ex boyfriend in like three years? This is why I couldn't be gay. Too many crazy chicks out there.

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I am currently listening to: Social Distortion
I am currently reading: The God of Small Things