Kittens!
So, when I went over to Barry's house on Friday, he surprised me by revealing that he'd picked up foster kittens earlier that day. Four tiny adorable foster kittens. And now I'm going to show you the pictures we took of them while I was there.
Although he's only keeping them for two weeks, we gave them provisional names. I suggested naming the all-grey one Blue because of her resemblance to a Russian Blue cat. Barry suggested playing off that name by naming the tabby-striped one Red because she was the most energetic and seemed plausibly to have consumed vast quantities of Red Bull. I then tried to figure out how to incorporate Red and Blue into a naming system that would encompass all four of them. Barry noted that Red and Blue are Pokemon names and started listing other Pokemon names. I chose Sun and Moon for the remaining two: Moon is the tuxedo cat, white and black like the moon in a dark sky, and Sun is white and grey like if Moon's colors were washed out by bright sunlight.
They were cuddly when tired and perpetually wrestling each other when not. They liked to wrestle each other on my lap, and they had a propensity to shred my skin and clothes while doing so. They kept their claws perpetually extended and dug them into my skin frequently while trying to get traction to climb up me. They also liked randomly chewing on me. All quite normal kitten behavior, I expect, but I haven't spent so much time with four such tiny kittens at once since I was about seven years old, when our family cat had four kittens (after which my parents got her spayed, as they probably should have done sooner).
Barry is an old hand at fostering kittens and had a system set up for them, corralling them all in the guest bathroom to assess their litterbox reliability before allowing them to explore the rest of his house. They had a cardboard bed, a cardboard litter box, and three bowls: a water bowl, a dry food bowl, and a canned food bowl. The animal shelter had sent them home with him accompanied by two different kinds of medication and instructions to medicate them several times a day because they'd been suffering from diarrhea. One medication was a powder mixed into their canned food, and the other medication was a liquid that he squirted into their mouths one at a time with an eyedropper. I had to medicate Stardust with an eyedropper for cat flu when she was a kitten.
The kittens did not get to meet Barry's three adult cats while I was there, although they have been introduced since then.
But really, you just want to look at pictures of them, don't you? Oh look, they're rolling over and stretching!
Sun left!
Now Red is leaving, too.
Moon and Blue are still in bed. Where did everybody go?
Maybe dinner is being served.
Or maybe everyone just wants to climb on Barry and me. Blue is well-camouflaged on Barry's lap.
Sun and Red are having quite a wrestling match.
Let's separate them and take closeups of Red.
Now it's Blue's turn to pose for a portrait.
And now it's Sun's turn.
And finally, Moon's turn.
Here's one last picture of Barry posing with Red. Adorable boyfriend with adorable kitten! Best thing ever!
Although he's only keeping them for two weeks, we gave them provisional names. I suggested naming the all-grey one Blue because of her resemblance to a Russian Blue cat. Barry suggested playing off that name by naming the tabby-striped one Red because she was the most energetic and seemed plausibly to have consumed vast quantities of Red Bull. I then tried to figure out how to incorporate Red and Blue into a naming system that would encompass all four of them. Barry noted that Red and Blue are Pokemon names and started listing other Pokemon names. I chose Sun and Moon for the remaining two: Moon is the tuxedo cat, white and black like the moon in a dark sky, and Sun is white and grey like if Moon's colors were washed out by bright sunlight.
They were cuddly when tired and perpetually wrestling each other when not. They liked to wrestle each other on my lap, and they had a propensity to shred my skin and clothes while doing so. They kept their claws perpetually extended and dug them into my skin frequently while trying to get traction to climb up me. They also liked randomly chewing on me. All quite normal kitten behavior, I expect, but I haven't spent so much time with four such tiny kittens at once since I was about seven years old, when our family cat had four kittens (after which my parents got her spayed, as they probably should have done sooner).
Barry is an old hand at fostering kittens and had a system set up for them, corralling them all in the guest bathroom to assess their litterbox reliability before allowing them to explore the rest of his house. They had a cardboard bed, a cardboard litter box, and three bowls: a water bowl, a dry food bowl, and a canned food bowl. The animal shelter had sent them home with him accompanied by two different kinds of medication and instructions to medicate them several times a day because they'd been suffering from diarrhea. One medication was a powder mixed into their canned food, and the other medication was a liquid that he squirted into their mouths one at a time with an eyedropper. I had to medicate Stardust with an eyedropper for cat flu when she was a kitten.
The kittens did not get to meet Barry's three adult cats while I was there, although they have been introduced since then.
But really, you just want to look at pictures of them, don't you? Oh look, they're rolling over and stretching!
Sun left!
Now Red is leaving, too.
Moon and Blue are still in bed. Where did everybody go?
Maybe dinner is being served.
Or maybe everyone just wants to climb on Barry and me. Blue is well-camouflaged on Barry's lap.
Sun and Red are having quite a wrestling match.
Let's separate them and take closeups of Red.
Now it's Blue's turn to pose for a portrait.
And now it's Sun's turn.
And finally, Moon's turn.
Here's one last picture of Barry posing with Red. Adorable boyfriend with adorable kitten! Best thing ever!