Kittenz tailz pt 1
Oh, lor', five days since the last post!
There was a lot of faffing about with community college classes: on Thursday night I skipped updating because at 11.30pm I was still hammering (oh, alright, Mr Gloriana was hammering while I watched in awe) at the frame for a wood panel painting that is four foot high, so it could get routed in the college woodshop the next morning. (I keep trying to break the second golden rule. The first golden rule: never drive any car taller than you are. The second: never make any artwork larger than you are.)
Friday I managed to lock myself out of the car while buying a second washing machine to replace the to-be-returned first washing machine that had to be bought over Christmas to replace the zeroeth washing machine that had finally departed for the spiritland. Which then entailed a very humble phonecall to Mr Gloriana to come rescue me, since I was a long way from home: double humility required, since I had locked the door with the latch on the inside rather than with the key from the outside, a habit Mr Gloriana has been very strict in trying to talk me out of. But instead of the well-deserving reaming I expected, he was very sweet, and cycled back home from work to pick up a car to get me. By which time, I was so exhausted (my morning schedule, let me show you it), that I went to bed at 3.30 in the afternoon. When your eyelids are drooping while you're looking at this:
it's time to nap. I gave the hubby instructions to wake me at 5.30, fully intending to dope for half an hour and then get up again. In the event, I passed out and wasn't roused till 7.
Yesterday was paperwork. That is all.
Today we sorted the garage so the new washing machine can make it through the maze of boxes when it is delivered (a task made easier by the fact that we had done the exact same thing a week before for the previous one); rewired the toaster to British power (don't ask); wiped down bits of the kitchen that should have been scoured for the sis-in-law's visit over Christmas, a grand plan derailed by the lethal germs Mr Gloriana brought home that left us both in bed for days just before our guests arrived; and cleaned the electronic catflap that was starting to make concerning groaning noises (OMG how do the cats get so much hair and dirt in there?? Do they just go rolling in it??? Kittle, of course, does exactly that, so I don't know why I bother to ask).
Which brings us to the cute for the day:
So we got kittens over Thanksgiving. Long story - longer than the pile of gumph up above - which I'll bore you with some other time. Suffice to say, they are a pair of ferals from a litter left by their mother near a bus station.
Apparently, up to about eight weeks kittens know no fear. They are easy to handle (if their mother is okay with it); they explore everywhere; they poke their noses into everything. It's much easier to tame ferals if you get them up to this age, but very very much harder if you get them any older, when suddenly they acquire a cynicism and terror of your true motives and the world at large. Because, of course you are out to kill them, especially when you handfeed them chicken from your own plate.
The two we got:
were just on the cusp of this crucial divide. However, although they were both obviously from the same litter, one (whom we shall call "Bigsie", or "Cat of Sorrows", for the sake of this post and others to come) was pretty normal kitten-size, about 2.5 lbs; while the other, "Smalls", was a runt of only a pound and a half. (In the picture above, Bigsie has her eyes closed and Smalls is vanishing down the gap between the cushions.) And there were other ways in which Smalls was less developed, besides the fact that she fit into Mr Gloriana's hand. Her eyes bulged in that young-kitten way, she hopped rather than ran, and her coat was all fluff rather than fur. Also, the fear mechanism hadn't yet kicked in the way it had for her sister; as if it's as much a component of physical development as it is of chronological age.
Which means, of course, that Smalls is an absolute terror. She gets everywhere. She was first to purr, first on our bed, first to climb the Christmas tree (biggest cat-toy evah!!), first to approach Kittle and be hissed at for her pains....
While Bigsie still runs under the furniture when I enter the room. Sigh. We are domesticating her, but it is a slow slow process, and she is awfully skittish. She sits and watches us pet Smalls, and obviously wants some love too, but is too frightened to easily let us stroke her. Which made last night all the more unusual:
Exhausted by my paperwork (don't ask), I was playing an online jigsaw puzzle to chill out before bed, when I realised that Bigsie was sitting on the hassock beside my desk, eyes fixed on the moving pieces. Soon she had slunk onto the desk, then onto my keyboard, then:
which, for a cat who slinks around out of hands' reach, is remarkable. She was so enthralled by this episode of CatTV that she let me stroke her without the quarter-hour courtship stroking usually demands, until she hit the monitor with both paws and nearly overbalanced it, and ran for safety. Video courtesy of Mr Gloriana.
Right, now I'm off to try answering older comments so so overdue...
There was a lot of faffing about with community college classes: on Thursday night I skipped updating because at 11.30pm I was still hammering (oh, alright, Mr Gloriana was hammering while I watched in awe) at the frame for a wood panel painting that is four foot high, so it could get routed in the college woodshop the next morning. (I keep trying to break the second golden rule. The first golden rule: never drive any car taller than you are. The second: never make any artwork larger than you are.)
Friday I managed to lock myself out of the car while buying a second washing machine to replace the to-be-returned first washing machine that had to be bought over Christmas to replace the zeroeth washing machine that had finally departed for the spiritland. Which then entailed a very humble phonecall to Mr Gloriana to come rescue me, since I was a long way from home: double humility required, since I had locked the door with the latch on the inside rather than with the key from the outside, a habit Mr Gloriana has been very strict in trying to talk me out of. But instead of the well-deserving reaming I expected, he was very sweet, and cycled back home from work to pick up a car to get me. By which time, I was so exhausted (my morning schedule, let me show you it), that I went to bed at 3.30 in the afternoon. When your eyelids are drooping while you're looking at this:
it's time to nap. I gave the hubby instructions to wake me at 5.30, fully intending to dope for half an hour and then get up again. In the event, I passed out and wasn't roused till 7.
Yesterday was paperwork. That is all.
Today we sorted the garage so the new washing machine can make it through the maze of boxes when it is delivered (a task made easier by the fact that we had done the exact same thing a week before for the previous one); rewired the toaster to British power (don't ask); wiped down bits of the kitchen that should have been scoured for the sis-in-law's visit over Christmas, a grand plan derailed by the lethal germs Mr Gloriana brought home that left us both in bed for days just before our guests arrived; and cleaned the electronic catflap that was starting to make concerning groaning noises (OMG how do the cats get so much hair and dirt in there?? Do they just go rolling in it??? Kittle, of course, does exactly that, so I don't know why I bother to ask).
Which brings us to the cute for the day:
So we got kittens over Thanksgiving. Long story - longer than the pile of gumph up above - which I'll bore you with some other time. Suffice to say, they are a pair of ferals from a litter left by their mother near a bus station.
Apparently, up to about eight weeks kittens know no fear. They are easy to handle (if their mother is okay with it); they explore everywhere; they poke their noses into everything. It's much easier to tame ferals if you get them up to this age, but very very much harder if you get them any older, when suddenly they acquire a cynicism and terror of your true motives and the world at large. Because, of course you are out to kill them, especially when you handfeed them chicken from your own plate.
The two we got:
were just on the cusp of this crucial divide. However, although they were both obviously from the same litter, one (whom we shall call "Bigsie", or "Cat of Sorrows", for the sake of this post and others to come) was pretty normal kitten-size, about 2.5 lbs; while the other, "Smalls", was a runt of only a pound and a half. (In the picture above, Bigsie has her eyes closed and Smalls is vanishing down the gap between the cushions.) And there were other ways in which Smalls was less developed, besides the fact that she fit into Mr Gloriana's hand. Her eyes bulged in that young-kitten way, she hopped rather than ran, and her coat was all fluff rather than fur. Also, the fear mechanism hadn't yet kicked in the way it had for her sister; as if it's as much a component of physical development as it is of chronological age.
Which means, of course, that Smalls is an absolute terror. She gets everywhere. She was first to purr, first on our bed, first to climb the Christmas tree (biggest cat-toy evah!!), first to approach Kittle and be hissed at for her pains....
While Bigsie still runs under the furniture when I enter the room. Sigh. We are domesticating her, but it is a slow slow process, and she is awfully skittish. She sits and watches us pet Smalls, and obviously wants some love too, but is too frightened to easily let us stroke her. Which made last night all the more unusual:
Exhausted by my paperwork (don't ask), I was playing an online jigsaw puzzle to chill out before bed, when I realised that Bigsie was sitting on the hassock beside my desk, eyes fixed on the moving pieces. Soon she had slunk onto the desk, then onto my keyboard, then:
Click to viewwhich, for a cat who slinks around out of hands' reach, is remarkable. She was so enthralled by this episode of CatTV that she let me stroke her without the quarter-hour courtship stroking usually demands, until she hit the monitor with both paws and nearly overbalanced it, and ran for safety. Video courtesy of Mr Gloriana.
Right, now I'm off to try answering older comments so so overdue...