Category: pets

We Haz Names (Maybe)

Good thing I didn’t start to write this post yesterday. 🙂 I *thought* we got the names for the kittens settled. But we may be rethinking that. First let me say that T. S. Eliot understood that the naming of cats IS a difficult matter. I’d been calling the kittens Thing 1 and Thing 2, nods to Dr. Seuss. I needed some way to refer to kittens I’d never seen (yeah, we had gotten some blurry photos but those did not convey any sense of personality).

Cinnamon

When we got home and let them out of the carrier, we could finally see them in living color and action. Big kitten was quite active. She ate, drank, played and explored. Little kitten ate, explored, played a little but was nowhere near as strong or as agile as big kitten. We were concerned.

Eilah emerging from her favorite sleeping place – the carrier

Big kitten was total kitten. We looked at her calico markings and her 3 tan paws and her name popped out of the ether: Cinnamon! Sweet and strong and yummy. 🙂 Of course watching her in action I thought we could give her the sobriquet “Destroyer of Worlds”. 🙂 She was non-stop action. She and little kitten would play and Cinnamon was too strong for the little one, who cried out periodically. I suspect, having been watching little kitten too, that the cries were fury at not being able to escape, not pain. 🙂 We called Big Kitten “Cinnamon” and have had no reason to change it. That name works for her very well.

Everyone loves the cardboard castle cave

Little kitten however – we could not get any name we liked. We needed something fierce and bold and daring yet beautiful sounding. We have a tendency to look to mythology for names or to foreign languages (taking a description and seeing what the word for that description would be in Greek, French, Hebrew, Italian or whatever. We tried matching spices – Cinnamon and Cardamon. Nope. Athena, Scout, Pebbles, Yael, Dido, Clove, Yata (I think that would be the transliteration for Cat in Greek), Spice, Minerva, and so on. Nope. A lot of those are really good names but they didn’t fit that little spitfire. The words brave, daring, fearless, explorer, intrepid in other languages just did not work either. Sigh. French & Italian often sounded too similar to English. Hebrew has too many words using the letter “chet”, which is NOT a pretty sound. We came close with Dido but the D sound is too harsh and abrupt. *grin* We are VERY picky.

Cinnamon proves CD racks are not just for CDs

Finally on Tuesday afternoon, since I couldn’t find a suitable mythological goddess, I took the word itself and looked in other languages. Ah Hah!!!! Greek might have been okay but many human beings have the name Thea. We tend to shy away from names that people use (exception being flowers). In Hebrew “goddess” is Eilah. We liked that (yes, I know there are some people who told us they did not but my son, husband and I agreed that we liked it – and we are the council of 3). You’d pronounce this name the way you would the city in Israel – Eilat – except with an ‘h’ at the end instead of a ‘t’. If you’ve never heard of Eilat, try this: A – lah, with the accent on lah, not A. Or go to Google Translate for English to Hebrew and type in the word ‘goddess’ and listen to the pronunciation. Eilah it was, our little goddess.

We were quite concerned about little Thing 2 on Monday morning. She was sneezing, she didn’t look as active or strong as Cinnamon, and really was skinny. She did not look 100% healthy. I called the vet and got their new kitten appointment moved to Thursday. They gave me instructions to call sooner if she seemed to be doing worse. We sat there and watched her and it dawned on us that while we’d seen her eat and use the litter box, we never saw her drink. We tried taking her to the water but other than getting her face into it and making her sneeze more, it didn’t work.

I got an eye dropper, filled it, sat on the floor, cuddled her in my arms and used the eye dropper to get water to her mouth. She started sucking it down like there was no tomorrow. My husband kept refilling the dropper for me and I’d give it to the little one and she drank and drank and drank. Guess who didn’t know how to drink from a dish? We spent the rest of Monday giving her water from the dropper and having her watch Cinnamon while Cinnamon drank from the dish. By Tuesday afternoon Eilah was drinking water from the dish like a pro! 🙂

Cinnamon enjoying her claws (which were clipped at the vet)

By Wednesday morning Eilah was MUCH more active, was looking stronger and plumper. We now had 2 Destroyers of Worlds. The rough-and-tumble play was good with Eilah jumping on Cinnamon as much as Cinnamon tackled Eilah. The two of them raced about their room fulfilling every single kitten stereotype that has ever been.

Cinnamon in action – most of the pictures are blurry kitten. 🙂 they are both VERY fast

Thursday morning we brought them to the vet. They got entered into the system: 2 calico girls, born January 6, Cinnamon and Eilah. The vet and the vet in training and the receptionist were all in the room, cuddling kittens. 🙂 And then the vet started really investigating Eilah. What does “really investigating” mean? It means holding the kitten in one hand while holding the tail up in the air so her little butt can be seen clearly. Maybe clearly. Hmmm. Look at this. Um, does that look like a little girl tushie or is that a BOY tush???? Her markings are clearly calico, which is something like 99% female. Her butt is uncertain. We may be entirely trendy and have the first non-binary kitten.

Checking out the vet’s office. no fear.

The fact is we still don’t know if Eilah is a little girl kitty, or if perhaps we have a little boy kitty who may need to be named Twister or Tornado. 🙂 Our vet came up with Twister given Eilah’s behavior as she was getting investigated and getting dewormed. 🙂

Eilah on my foot at the vet’s

So when you ask us have we named the kittens, YES, we have. Maybe. 🙂

We Haz Kittens!!!!

Our family has expanded by TWO! Two adorable little calico girls! We brought them home at 9:30 pm Sunday night. It’s now 3:30 pm Wednesday – 66 hours. I have over 160 photos and 11 videos. 🙂 (Hey – I know that’s low but I did have to sleep. 🙂 )

First kitten emerges. That’s the big kitten although neither of them seems to have any fear at all

I was astounded at how difficult it was for us to get 2 young female kittens. Why female? Because even though I loved both our male cats, my experience is that they sprayed even after being neutered, and they both fell ill at much younger ages than the females. The first male died from kidney disease at age 5, even though we gave him IV twice a day for several months. The second male ultimately died from diabetes, although we kept him alive for nearly 2.5 years after we’d been told he’d maybe last 6 months.

Priorities. Hey – it was a long ride from Port Jefferson to NJ!

So even though our prior female cats were all VERY neurotic, with the exception of BC, we decided we wanted females. We wanted them young enough that perhaps BC would not see them as threats. Small enough BC could “take them” if need be to maintain peace in her house. *grin* I was split evenly between thinking that BC would actually be glad of company (remember she was adopted into a household with 3 adult cats and an adult dog) and that she would hate any creature that came because we are HER people.

What’s this? Is this a toy?

Our first effort looked as if it would work. It was a rescue operation perhaps 45 minutes away. They had several foster homes with females. Very unfortunately the woman running the program died unexpectedly, throwing that operation into a bit of chaos.

Big Kitten loves her pickle. She LOVES to play.

Next we tried several other rescues and local shelters. Everyone had adult cats or young cats older than 3 months or one female or male kittens or…. you get the idea. We heard of 2 litters belonging to friends of friends – all spoken for.

Pretty sure that is the big kitten heading into the maze (yes, they do have names but that’s the NEXT post)

My husband started on Craig’s list. Despite telling the search to stay within 25 miles, he ended up responding to an ad in Westfield. There IS a Westfield in NJ and it IS within 25 miles. But this was Westfield, MAINE. And it was one female and one male. The gentleman offered to drive partway to meet us. Even if we met halfway that was a minimum of 5 hours each way. That is a bit much. We were not quite that desperate.

Big kitten loves the cardboard castle. See little kitten to the back right – she was more subdued the first night.

I was actually a little desperate. I have bought a shih tzu puppy. YAY!!!!! She will be coming home to us the first week in May. I really wanted to bring the kittens in first, get them and BC settled, and then bring in the puppy. I was resolved that we could not bring in kittens and puppy at the same time. So a little desperate.

BC and kitten getting acquainted

My husband found 2 female kittens in NY. You know we go into NYC all the time – we just call that either The City or New York. But NY is a BIG state. These 2 perfect kittens – born Jan 6, calico girls – were in Port Jefferson, NY – about 3.5 hours from us. *big in-drawn breath* Oooookay. We WILL drive up on Monday to get the kittens. 7 hours round trip.

There is nothing about BC’s body language (or lack of sound) that indicated any distress.

Fortunately for us, not so happy for the owners of the mother cat, the husband’s father is in the hospital in NJ. The wife had said that he might be driving down to see his father and he could bring the kittens with him and we could meet him. On Saturday afternoon we got a call that he was indeed coming to NJ – northern NJ, but still, a far cry from driving to Port Jefferson and back. The only problem for us was that we had theater tickets in the City, so we couldn’t meet him until after dinner (allowing for theater then train home then driving north). That was okay with him. WHEW!!!!

Check out the kitten room (formerly an office). Notice especially the multi-level maze my husband built for them. 🙂

We’d been preparing the kitten room (my husband’s office) for days, I’d picked up a new carrier, kitten food, my husband built a cardboard maze for them. We were set! It was Easter on Sunday. Everyone and their sister were on the highways. There was a bigger than usual backup trying to get past where Rt 80, the NJ Turnpike, and Rt 46 all meet, but we made it. Then it was on to Rt 4, which is definitely a road from hell. I’d not driven it in decades – I used to have to go up that way for business. It was worse than I remembered.

In my defense I can say that I was tired (long day of travel to/from the city), lots of traffic on the turnpike, I was hungry (we hadn’t eaten since breakfast), the signage on Rt 4 is terrible – both because many signs are faded and there are dozens of them all on one pole – and it was now dark with all the glare from those blankety-blank LED headlights. Yes, I was stressed.

The pickle has been a big hit. 🙂

We pulled up to the address and the husband was sitting there in his car. *laughing* It was like a drug connection. We got out of our car with our carrier and he opened up the back seat of his car. He scooped up one little ball of fur and plopped it in and then the second ball of fur went plop into our carrier. Done! We got back in our car and headed home. With a little spat when the sign was saying turn left and my car GPS was saying right turn. I HATE that. I pulled over and rested a moment, snarling at my husband “NO, I do NOT want you to drive”. What? That isn’t how you rest?

Big kitten still reacting to seeing BC, little kitten unconcerned

We made it home and upstairs. We filled the water dish and the food dish and the litter box. We opened the carrier and waited. A little head emerged. Kitten!!!! Then another little head! Kitten!!!! The wife had said she thought one of the kittens had allergies because it was sneezing. One of the kittens was WAY smaller than the other – half the size. And sneezing periodically. It was a bit worrisome. I had already scheduled their new kitten vet appointment, but it wasn’t for another 2 weeks. I decided that I’d call in the morning and see if we couldn’t get the little one in sooner.

Little kitten. Took us FOREVER to settle on a name. 🙂 This one has no fear. Lots of determination.

The kittens explored the room, had no fear, ate food, batted at toys. The little one climbed into my lap, climbed up my arm, nestled onto my shoulder and purred in my ear. ❤ The bigger one was typical kitten – play play play.

Some pictures need no words ❤ (big kitten – notice the tan paws)

BC came up to look. BC and bigger kitten saw each other first. *laughing* Bigger kitten did the kitty arch-back, fluff tail, sideway-stepping maneuver. BC lashed her tail a little. No hissing, no growls, no spitting. BC is easily 3x the size of big kitten, maybe 5x the size of little kitten. 🙂 BC did not look all that concerned. She was lying down on her side, watching. 🙂 This might work after all.

2 happy faces

Our son is very concerned for BC. I keep reassuring him. NOTHING has changed for BC except she can’t go into the office. She can look, but there are screens in the way. She slept with us, woke us up in the morning, got fed first, got her litter box cleaned, hung out with me while I did the crossword puzzles, watched TV with my husband, watched the kittens through the screen from the upstairs hall. Trust me – BC is not being neglected. She seems curious, but not angry. If anything she seems cautious, despite being so much larger. *grin* Life has gotten interesting. 🙂

I see them but I’m not sure why I’m seeing them

It’s A Hard Life

But someone has to do it. The furniture won’t stay down on its own you know. And desk workers need supervision. But oh my – all that responsibility can tucker out a little kitty.

pals just hanging out together, watching tv
haz box, sitz
had to rearrange my table so the supervisor had easy access
*I* might be sleeping but don’t YOU slack off
oh what a long hard day it’s been

Cat Toy Rating: Meh-ow

I confess. I believed an ad on the internet. It showed a cat playing happily and enthusiastically with a toy. It was more than I’d usually spend, and it’s not as if we don’t have similar toys already, but I decided BC was worth it.

I’ve been concerned about BC’s well-being ever since WC died in December. 😦 I told you the BC has basically plastered herself to me whenever I am sitting. She is on my table when I’m at the computer. She follows me around the house. She follows my husband when I’m not home. I believe she’s lonely. She was adopted into a house with 3 older cats and a dog. Now it’s just her. We still haven’t done anything about adopting another kitten, nor about getting a puppy. We still haven’t fully cleared the basement of ‘stuff’. That’s probably an excuse for whatever the true reason is why I’ve not done anything about getting another 4-legged family member.

Anyway, not only did this toy cost more than I’d usually spend, it came from overseas so it took awhile. It finally arrived! We set it up. There is catnip in the ball inside the ring. BC took a few minutes to look at it, sniff it. My husband showed her that the ball moves. *grin* And then she seemed to really enjoy it. Not as enthusiastically as the cat in the ad video but you can see that BC did actually play with it.

One night. That was it. It now sits lonely and neglected in the middle of our living room floor. (Because where else would it be, right?) The truth is that nothing beats a speck of dirt on the floor. Mom’s lap. Fresh produce greens on the counter. Dad’s red laser light. An old box that over the years has been pushed out and form-fitted to a cat body.

A Day in the Life of a New Retiree

hedge trimmed, flowers growing, It’s a lovely day in the neighborhood

THEY all assured me I’d be amazed at how full my day would be. THEY said I’d be too busy to be bored. I was skeptical but retired anyway. 🙂 What do you know? THEY were correct. What THEY did not make clear, however, was WHAT would be keeping me busy.

the great lettuce experiment – only one of the 4 I’ve planted is thriving

I do not consider myself to be overly concerned with clean & neat. I don’t like messes, dirt and trash bother me and I clean that up fairly quickly. But I’ve never been one to worry that much about dusting, or washing walls or cleaning windows. I used to KNOW myself very well. I LOVED wearing high heels, kinky shoes, exercising in the “no pain, no gain” fashion. The last few years have had me facing a redefinition of self. 🙂 I can walk into DSW and NOT find shoes that I neeeeeeed. I think the last time I wore heels was for New Year’s Eve. I have a wedding to attend in November – I’ll wear them again then. I have long since stopped pretending I’m going to sign up for boot camp. I started doing yoga before covid and I just went back to an in-person class last night (Yay! I LOVED it). Just stretching and holding in yoga was more than enough pain/gain for me. I’m not even all that interested in walking around town taking photos each day.

orange-red poppy

What AM I doing? Maintenance. *laughing* I’m doing all these actions that in the good-old-get-to-work days would never have pinged on my radar. Now when I notice something, I deal with it. I went to put an exhaust fan in the window the other day. Put it in, plugged it in, turned it on. Noticed it was filthy. Normally I’d have thought “ugh” and gone on my way. No, the new retired Ahuva looked at that and thought ” I wonder if I could clean that.” (Who IS this person???) I turned it off, took it outside, started trying to brush the accumulated dust and grit off. That didn’t work so I got a screw driver and took it apart. Ended up hosing down part of it, hand washing the rest. Nice clean fan into the window. One hour of my day accounted for.

my green peppers are thriving!

All of my days are like that now. They start with me walking my garden, checking to see if anything served as a midnight snack for critters, seeing if anything looks like it needs help, if any new flowers have opened. Feed the cat (sometimes she gets fed first). Do my 2 online crossword puzzles. Then I notice things. Maybe I noticed something a day or so ago and attend to that. Maybe I see it then.

dill, savory, thai basil, basil, flat parsley, curley parsley – and is that zinnia that snuck in back there??

Today as I went to walk out the door to check the garden I noticed how dirty the storm door was (too cold for me today – I closed the screens and saw the glass). I went and got the Windex, paper towels and a small stool (so I could reach the top) and cleaned the inside and the outside of the door. Did you know that storm doors have little ledges on them where dirt accumulates? I cleaned those too. 30 minutes accounted for.

i”m getting very impatient waiting for the summer flowers to bloom. I started so early in April, it feels like July to me now

The window cleaning was impromptu. Today’s planned activities were to try to figure out why/where the cat’s water fountain was leaking. It flooded the floor the other day. Took it apart, dried everything, put it in the sink, dried the drain stopper and put it in the sink, filled the fountain and waited to see if water appeared. If so, then the fountain has a leak. If not, it means we had it unbalanced where it was. It leaked. Aha! Now to do it again, but remove the reservoir and see if it’s the bottom part that has some leak or if it’s the reservoir. Water on the drain stopper. Somewhere there must be a hairline crack or flaw invisible to the naked eye. I was hoping to save the $55 to buy a new one but oh well, $55 is worth not flooding the kitchen. 🙂

yep, definitely water on the stopper. do you think the bottom of that blue cylinder unscrews to put a new filter in there?

Today’s schedule also included figuring out the whole-house water filter. I know how to divert the water away from the filter so I can remove it and change the filter. I forgot yesterday that I needed a bucket underneath when I remove the filter because there is going to be water anyway. Oops. Got a little wet. I took a picture of what I thought was the water filter but then couldn’t find anything online that looked like the picture. I think *maybe* there is a filter nested inside the tube that was in the outer tube. But the cap is soooo tight and I’m not sure so I called and left a message for my plumber. “Dumb User Question time”. I didn’t replace the unit so if I don’t hear from him I’m going to take it to a big box store and ask there.

I still have no idea what the green thing is in the center of the photo. dahlias to its right and front. if it hasn’t flowered by the time the dahlias flower it’s a goner 🙂

Today’s schedule also has “reorganize the garage”. Yesterday my husband and I began tackling the hoarders’ haven that is our basement (all the “stuff” from the attic and 2nd floor). There are 4 destinations for “stuff”: keep, give away, shred, throw out. We have reluctantly (realistically?) decided to get rid of the vast majority of our books, many of which have been on bookshelves in the attic for years. If we’ve not read them in decades, it’s unlikely we’ll read/need them in the future. Books are heavy. We need to box them in smaller containers to lift them. I’ll need some place to put them until we’re all done. That means back to the garage to rearrange everything left there, and set up tables, the way I did last year. We’ll move the boxes of books and “give away” out there until we are ready to go. Thank goodness today is cold (okay, *I* think it’s cold, I’m sure there are others who feel 70 is a fine temperature) so working in the garage will not be unbearable.

I love tropicals. The mandevilla seems very happy too. and look at the yellow curry plant!

Other days have seen me changing the light on the stove. Thank goodness I blogged about that ages ago so that I could remember how it’s done! I shredded a lot of paper yesterday (uncovered during the foray into hoarders’ haven). I’ve been IRONING. 🙂 Since we still haven’t bought furniture, and I’m still using our bedroom as my office (and my office as our bedroom), I brought the ironing board upstairs. Somehow ironing is much more pleasant when I’m on the 2nd floor surrounded by open windows and fresh air than it is in the basement next to the dryer. 🙂

weed-free driveway!! but it’s still obvious that I need to do some repairs. only on the edges – i want it permeable. the insurance company and i disagree about that. 🙂 the “new people” who buy our house can deal with replacing the driveway

I spent 3 mornings weeding the driveway. I trimmed the hedge. I found a handyman to finish my deck and do my other carpentry. If it works out, I have a lot more for him as well. 🙂 I find broken things and fix them when I find them. The curious thing about all of this is that it does not feel burdensome. No, it’s a source of great satisfaction. My “spirit animal” is a border collie, I believe I’ve mentioned that in the past. I’m not going to the office, but I’m still “doing” most of the day. I do take time to read, cuddle BC, enjoy iced coffee. I’m not going to the office but I am being creative and thinking: many of the things I’m doing require me to plan the best approach, to contemplate options. And don’t forget my crossword puzzles. 🙂

view from the porch, early morning, a great place to enjoy my morning coffee

I didn’t envision my days in retirement to be like this. To be honest, I had no idea what my days would be like – I couldn’t envision it at all. 🙂 Probably why it took me so darn long to retire. But this life is working out for me. I still have long-range plans for doing volunteer work, training a therapy dog. Cleaning the basement and getting the carpentry done is necessary in order for us to get a kitten for BC. (I wonder if she will consider a kitten ‘necessary”).

my constant companion

When I describe a day in the life of this retiree the word that comes to mind is “savor” (okay, Honour – savour). I have time to savor life. Breathe the air. Smell the roses. Love the cat. Be in the moment. I like it.

marigolds and some surprise gladiolas
I thought the cannas were going to be 3-4 feet tall. I’m hoping the bronze-leaved ones will grow that tall

Proper Cat Care

First you must exercise – work those hunting instincts. If you don’t have your own koi pond or flowing stream, you make do with what you can. After the strenuous hunt, relaxation & restoration on a warm, somewhat uneven, surface is necessary. It’s very rude when the paparazzi surface interrupts the rest time with camera clicks or reading material.