Incidents and accidents

The Stump is non-plussed with her mommy’s camera love.

She sleeps in my lap while I work.

I finally found radiator pasta again, for the first time in a year! I bought three boxes of it, and celebrated with some garlic chicken pasta.

Also, my dreams were seriously muddled last night, but I was dreaming about Meredith. I was REALLY REALLY sad and crying in the dream, as if it had just happened again. It’s already been six months without Mere, and a little over a year since Sabina left. I’m very heavy in my heart today, and very thankful for little things like my Stumpy and good pasta.

John and I have made a new kitty friend around our apartment. She’s quite skinny and young, and is coal black with golden eyes. Amazing little girl kitty, maybe about 6 months old. I took her some food last night and as usual, the Stump went apeshit at charged the door… at 4am. I filled up a spray bottle and am spraying the crap out of her every time she attacks the door. I may not get her to like other cats, but my goal is to get her to quit attacking the door in the night. Poor Stump’s world is crashing down. She gets wet every time she defend her mama, and it’s sooooo torturous. In a perverse way, it’s funny as hell to see that confused look on her face. Ideal situation would be that the Stump would get over it and we’d be able to have more than one kitty, but I’m not holding my breath.

So I go outside to pick up the rest of my laundry and from out of nowhere, this black and white tuxedo cat pops out of NOWHERE and all but jumps into my arms. WTF? The cat starts purring as soon as my hands touch it. I pet it for a few minutes, then figure it must be hungry, so i grab some cat food for it. The cat decided it would rather have pettings than a meal, and procedes to love on me all the way up to the apartment laundry room, still purring. I checked online for lost cats ads here, but found nothing. This poor thing has to be loved. Coat’s in great shape, loves everyone it sees. The Stumpy had a fit, of course, even seeing the cat through the glass was too much for her. Yeah, this is a one-kitty household here. I feel terrible leaving the cat outside with no one to love on it. Anyone need a loving, playful kitty?

Larken: it’s a boy kitty.

On May 31st, I got this letter in my e-mail:

Hi Stumpy!

Brandy Barker
Senior Account Executive
Fleishman-Hillard Public Affairs
200 N. Broadway | Saint Louis, MO 63102
314.982.7735 phone
314.982.1798 fax
314.255.7744 mobile
brandy.barker@fleishman.com

I replied back with our address so she could send some cat litter over if that was what she was really going to do. I figured, eh.. it’s free cat litter. Well, hell if she didn’t actually send the stuff! This morning, two boxes of cat litter were delivered by the UPS man. To be a fair product tester, I cleaned the cat box (and took photos for Stumpy’s blog). We’ll see how well it works. I’ll tell you one thing though, 99.9% dust free STILL means your entire bathroom is filled with dust.

While I was out on a photo-stroll for my Day in the Life last week, I met an orange tabby cat near the creek in my apartment complex. I expected him to be quite feral and run away like the rest of the cats here, but he was very vocaly friendly, practically attacking me for some pettings. I loved on him for a few minutes, then continued on. He had a collar, so he was obviously someone else’s buddy. I never expected to run into him again, since I didn’t know who he lived with.
Shockingly enough, I ran into him again yesterday on another evening photo-stroll. He was waiting for his person to get home, because he was under the bushes next to the door of an apartment. He ran out and pratically attacked me again. Since it was cool enough that no wasps were out, I sat down for a while and loved on him. His owner drove up while i was still petting on him. I’m sure he was surprised to see that his cat was picking up chicks while he was out. The guy told me the cat’s name was Pumpkin. I told him that he had an adorable cat, and we parted ways.

I took another photo-stroll again this evening, and my path took me over to the same area again. I looked around for Pumpkin but didn’t see him. The guy’s car was there, which meant that Pumpkin was inside. I walked around the end of the building (where I ment Pumpkin the first time) and was surprised my what i found. Pumpkin is apparently quite a terror! To the local shrew community, that is. I found these two dead shrews strewn carelessly about the parking lot. Pumpkin must like killing them, but not eating them, becayse these things were pristine. I immediatly thought about my friend Sraedi, who like dead things. I was tempted to pick them up and mail them to her, but she’s get a box of nasty rotting shrews. Even with ice, she’d get a nasty rotting shrew soup. I wonder how many other carcasses I’ll find over there in the future.

I woke up yesterday morning and walked into the living room to see something I’ve never seen before. The cat IN the mouse cage. You may remember that I have but one remaining mouse alive out of the four that Trinny gifted me with over a year ago. The other three have been lost to old age. So here’s my beloved Stumpy, her whole ass on one of the floors in the cage, paws in the paper chips at the bottom of the cage, looking at me with eyes the size of saucers. I yell “What the crap are you doing?” and she tries her best to get her butt out of the cage without killing herself. Just then, I notice a tiny little mouse tail dissapear under the couch. Oh, brilliant.
The next hour consisted of me with a towel, a flashlight and some crackers to try and lure the poor paniced mouse from her spot under the couch. I finally cornered her and grabbed her with a towel and put her back in the cage. She was very happy to be back in familiar surroundings. As I shut the cage door, The Stump wanders in and looks at me as if to ask “Hey, you look awful. What have you been doing?”

The Stump has been eating more and more cat food lately. Either she’s still got worms (likely), or she’s bored (more likely). I’ve been attempting to cut her down on food a little because she’s begining to develop a bit of a pudge on her underbelly. Fat kitties are cute, but she doesn’t need to become a fat layabout. Anyway, we keep the cat food in a big tupperware lock-tite container unless we’ve just bought some. It doesn’t all fit in the container, so the rest gets rolled up in the bag and stored near the bowl. Stumpy runs over to the bag, yowls one big long yowl, then tips her empty food dish over. Well, yes ma’am! So I go over and unroll the bag of cat food, and the photo to the left is what I find. LOL! John’s gone for the weekend, but he knew I’d find it and have a laugh. Silly man.

The kittens are gone! Gone to a better place! Gone is the stench from our bathroom. Gone are the claws in the ankles and arms. Gone are the kitty food cans from the pantry. We is free! John and I woke up extra early today to pack up the food and kittens and drive them over to the shelter. They bit on the box the whole way there, so I let them out once to watch the fog as we drove.
I can’t tell you how nice it is to have the spare bathroom back. It’s also nice not to have to rush home on my lunch hour to feed the bottomless pits. I swear.. kittens only exist to look cute, put claws in you, and turn perfectly good food into really foul smelling shit.
We eventually came up with names for all four of them. I named the first two, John came up with the names for the last two. John’s names are better.

Trouble - First one found, 1/2 black, 1/2 white. Always getting into something.
Angel - 2nd found, has a white stripe up her nose. Likes to just sit and be pet.
Spats - 3rd found, has white feet and a white tip on his tail. Playful.
Chance - 4th found. One black spot on rear foot. Chance as in ‘Last Chance’. Last of the four to do anything. Last to be found, last to eat, last to poop.. etc.

If anyone is interested, they can be found at Classic City Cat Care and also on Petfinder.

I called around to about 40 bazillion places checking for people to take these kittens. They’re too young, too small, too many.. etc. Everyone around here is full from Hurricane Katrina. I may have a place that will take them, but they usually only go for 7 weeks old, and these are 4-5. I’m taking them in tomorrow ot have them looked at, so hopefully they’ll be old enough or cute enough or healthy enough for them to be taken.
I’ll tell you, there’s nothing that smells much worse than kitten poop. That spare bathroom smells toooo bad for words. I found them a heating pad yesterday and they were all (one big kitten puddle of  fluff on it. They were nasty when I found them, but they have a bad habit of stepping in the kitten gruel  I make for them. They get really nasty really fast. They mostly wash each other, but they still smell bad, so I decided to give them a bath. I squished some peach mango shampoo into a semi-warm tub of shallow water, and swished them all around in it for a while. They all got real loud real fast. I turned on the heating pad again, then the hairdryer. There’s nothing more funny looking (or miserable) than a kitten who’s scared to death of the thing you’re trying to warm then up with. Poor things just sat there, shivering on the heatpad. I grabbed each and dried them with a towel, then they spent 20 minutes trying to nurse on my hair/chin. They do purr now though, so it’s mostly cute. And quite pointy. They’re all toes and claws now. This reminds me so much of the book by Jeremy Angel, Cats’ Kingdom. I read it when I was a kid.. it’s all about a bunch of cats and kittens in Japan that live together. Included is a chapter on kitten weaning. They have funny photos of food-covered kittens. Hopefully I can get them foisted off on someone else tomorrow and Stumpy can stop hissing at me because I smell like kittens.

Back in April 2003, I had this theory that garbage dumpsters spontaneously generated rabbits. This time, however, the dumpster created a litter of kittens. Here I am, sitting inside when John comes in and says “Heather, I think there’s somehting up with your car.” I’m like “WTF? What’s wrong with it now?” to which he replies “Kittens.” Brightly, I say “Huh?” and turns around to see him standing there with a mewing fuzzy spotted kitten perched on one shoulder. I grab my camera and head out, checking under the car for more. There are none there, so I’m thinking what we have is just a very adventurous young one out for a stroll. Then, we hear more mewing up the road.. by the dumpster! Another black kitten comes out from behind the can, and we hear more a bit of a ways off. A Korean couple has two more. They’re like “We no keep! You take!” So here I am, trying to juggle four squirming kittens in my arms, wondering what the hell to do with them. I plop them in the bathtub while John’s out looking for any more. I remember we had the KMR leftover from the found wild bunny, so I mix some up in a bottle. They are so hungry that they all jump the bottle and my hand, so I opted for a plate of the stuff instead. It worked rather well. They filled themselves up while I did some age research (they’re about 2-3 weeks old) and called the Athens Area Humane Society. They called me back at around 1pm, saying that they can’t take anything under 8 weeks, but they gave me another person to try: Meows without Moms. There’s no phone number, but hopefully they’ll get my e-mail soon.
Note: No, the Stump is NOT pleased.