Incidents and accidents

Well, Morla is gone. No more kitty in my bed, no more purrs in my lap. Of course, there’s also no more howling in the bathroom, and no more pee on my floor. Last night was my first full night of sleep in about a week, which was nice. The lack of her really hits me hardest when I come home to nothing, and when I wake to nothing. The night I took her back, it was dark here, so I got lost.. twice, and almost ran over a barred owl. She pooped in her carrier, so I had to empty it out on the way there. Yes, somewhere in the parking lot of a small rent-a-center is a small pile of cat turds. I’m sure it’s not the first. She seemed intrigued when I took her back, and spent the time that I was there chasing around the other cats. I’m sure she’ll be fine, but I’m still sad.

So, Larry came to visit yesterday. It was a really great day. We spent the day around Athens, talking about the graphic novel / online comic that we’re going to do together. He’s writing it, and I’m drawing, but we’re both working together on what we want, which is turning out to be really awesome. So far we’ve got the main backbone to the plot, and a few ideas for characters. It’s going to take a long time, and I don’t plan on giving away much right now. More will surface as we have more, but it’ll go slowly for now. It’ll be a long book though, because there’s a lot to tell. I’m quite excited. So, yeah, the day was great. It was a nice, comfortable day.

My forays into ebay selling have been so successful that I find myself looking around for more things I have that I can sell. I even want to go to garage sales and the local flea market to scout for sale items. Though I also want to scout for Pixietails too, which isn’t too bad. I also need a new motherboard, and I wanted to get some more art supplies, like some pastels and charcoal. I’m also working on the four seasons soon, after I re-do the mask woman’s web page. She wants it to look less fluffy and frilly, which I can understand. I think I’ll do midnight blues, purples and blacks with some star-like twinkles. There are also a few other site changes that i have to make before it goes live, but other than that it’s mostly graphic color changes, which is easy, but time consuming.

Last night, after many nights of Morla peeing on my clothes and howling in my bathroom, I made a really tough choice and called the people I got her from and asked if they could take her back. ::sigh:: I just can’t take the risk of having a seizure on the road and killing a family, all because my cat likes to jump in my tub and talk to herself (very very loudly, I might add). I cried most of last night, because I feel like I’m abandoning her, or my responsibility as a cat owner. I don’t feel like a good kitty mommy anymore. ::sniffle:: So, I’m taking her back tonight. I’ll come home alone, to an empty place. My baby girl will never come back to me, and I feel like a total ass for it. Larry’s coming to visit Saturday, and my dad maybe on Sunday.. but I know that on Monday, when I come home from work, and she’s not there, I’ll break down again. I just keep thinking about what life will be like without her. I know I’ll get another cat at some point. I’m even thinking of adopting the mother of Larry’s baby boy tabby, but I won’t do anything until after Thanksgiving… Which means I’ll be two weeks or more alone in my place. No kitty, no Morla. Anyone I get just won’t be her. She’s my Baby Girl, even though she’s nowhere near a baby. So, I’m sorry for the lack of updates, but I’m sure many more depressive posts will follow shortly. I just feel like a total shit.

Well! The Kitty day went very well, despite a few mix-ups. Larry and Greg (Larry’s uber-cool housemate) arrived about 11:45am, and we went immediately to Petropolis to pick out kittens. We arrive into a sea of people and dogs. Apparently, it’s adoption day here. We wade to the door and say hi to Meggie, then go see the kittens. Greg promptly falls in love with one that’s already taken, the little peach boy. I ask Meggie, and she says there are 2 greys and a black unclaimed, as well as the two mommies. I inform him, and proceed to push the talkative calico mommy of Litter Two on him, because I love her to death. He’s as indecisive as I am. Right at about the point he’d decided that he wants mommy2, she bites the shit out of him, and he changes his mind. Then he decides he’ll wait on kittens, because the peach boy is taken. The I pick up the grey girl, and play with her, and he decides that’s the one he wants. ::grin:: Heh. We fill out paperwork, the head off to eat and shop.

We eat at China Star Buffet. I would have gone for DaVinci’s, of course, but for some reason, they were closed. Shop at Target for cheapo kitty toys and such, come back to my place to say hi to Morla and drop off my stuff I don’t need to go get the kitties. As we’re taking the new cat litter out of his trunk and putting a loaner bit of Feline Pine in his, Greg accidentally shuts the trunk. Larry’s keys are in the trunk. After trying coat hangers unsuccessfully and calling my brother, we 411 a 24 hour locksmith. While we’re waiting, I fill up the cat box with the much anticipated cat litter. Joy of joys, Taj uses it within two minutes, Morla following suit 10 minutes later. I praised the crap out of her, and thanked whatever God might exist. The locksmith shows up and jimmies the lock open in under 15 seconds, and we grab the keys from the trunk. Off we go for kitties! They looked happy to see us again, and certainly were vocal. Plopping them in the carrier, Larry took me home, and drove back to Atlanta. Larry ended up with the black boy with white feet and a tabby boy. Greg took home the little grey girl. I think he should name her Nermal.

Well, this morning I woke to the sound of Morla trying to scrape to wall over the crap on the floor. I woke up to it yesterday, and the day before. Her box is clean. I’m about to cover the entire damn floor with tin foil. My only hope at this point is Dr Elsey’s Cat Attract, which Larry so kindly picked up for me at petsmart yesterday when he was out getting kitten stuff. Tajjie will be going back to my mother this Sunday. I have to drive him down there, but it’s so worth it, just to get rid of him. I love him to death, but he’s recently decided that he’s going to jump on Morla whenever he thinks I can’t see him. Every 10 minutes or so, he’s been running out of nowhere and jumping all over her! I squirt the shit out of him with water, but now he’s just ignoring it. Less than a week. I’m counting the days. Everything will be just perfect with my kitties if Morla will use the box.

My move is less than a week away, and I still have to pack a LOT more stuff before then. I’ve decided to keep the money, but I don’t know what I’m going to do with it. There’s so much that needs to be bought so far, and I just don’t know what to use it for. Some will go to Jared for his Birthday, and I still need groceries and new pants. I may use some to get a window perch for Morla once I move. I just don’t know. I liked the suggestion of doing a drawing for her, but I can’t think of what in the world I draw that an elderly woman would like to receive. I think what I will do though, is photo document the move, and unpacking, and me in my happy new safe place and give her an album full of those pictures and some cute drawings that go with them..

This whole week has been crappy, as you may have read in my last post, and I’ve been pretty down all week. I’ve also been uncharacteristically temperamental as well. This week, I think I’ve been mad more often than I have been the whole year, and I don’t know why. This whole week has been a series of things that piss me off.

Monday and Tuesday were full of anxiety for my kitties, because I had apartment inspections and I had to board them, or risk the wrath of my leasing people for not paying my pet deposit. I was so nervous, I spilled a glass of water all over my carpet, which apparently re-constitutes dried cat pee. I get home and my apartment smells like 20 cats came in and pissed all over my carpets. It was so gross, I turned right around and went to Kroger to get some carpet deodorizer. I got the Arm and Hammer foam stuff, and it worked miracles. Picked the cats up on Tuesday night, watched Buffy at my place, and went to bed.

Wednesday, I get to work to find out that Steve has forgotten about something (again) and I (again) have to take care of it with an uber-rush on it. While I’m hurriedly taking care of the thing he forgot, he keeps calling me over to where he is, asking me computer questions. Finally, I all but scream at him “Look, I’ll be glad to either help you, or do this thing you forgot, but if you want the thing you forgot done, you have to quit calling me away from it!” Then he gets all mad and starts naming off the mistakes I’ve made in the past two days while worrying about my cats. I typed in a few addresses wrong.. etc. So, I’m mad, he’s mad, and I still have to do the things he forgets to do.

Thursday, I come in to find out that while I was mad and down, I was also unintentionally rude to someone, and they complained to Steve about it. He jumps all over me for not being fake enough. At this point I just want to either cry or throttle him. Then he says “Oh, and are you done doing those royalty reports? I forgot I have to have them in by today.” The royalty reports are a bunch of numbers, and Steve HAS an accountant to do them, but he forgot to call her, of course. So he expects me to do it, even though I’m terrible with numbers. The only reason I was able to fix the other one is because I knew what was wrong with them before I started. Travis (another employee) kept fucking up our stamp count every time he closed (10 in august, 3 in September), so it’d throw off our sales for the day every time he’d do it. I had to fix his fuck-ups, and I’m not paid extra to do that shit. It’s hard! So this time he expects me to have it done in one afternoon. I told him flat out “Steve, you’ve got an accountant to do that, and even SHE requires more than ONE afternoon to do it in.” So right as I’m leaving, he tells me “You need to take this box over to such-and-such tomorrow. I was supposed to do it today, but I forgot to.” I almost choked him to death right there.

So this morning I had to get up at 8am, drive over to some place I’ve never been in an office park where ALL 30 buildings are identical, and get here by 9am to open the store early. ::sigh:: I’m still mad. It took me 20 minutes of driving around in the office park and 5 people I asked to get me to this place. I left there at 9am, Steve calls me on my cell phone to ask me where the hell I am. I tell him “I’m over here driving around in 30 identical office buildings looking for these people!” ::sigh:: Yeah, it’s been a real pisser of a week, but I still don’t know why I’m getting so angry over these things.

Well! The kittens are doing just fine. They’re about 5 weeks old now, and in the process of weaning themselves. They’re all so cute! They’re so big too! I mean, three weeks ago when I went, the little boy with the white feet was half the size he is now, and all of the kittens are up and running around instead of just sucking on Mom. They’re getting interested in toys now, and everything looks like a toy. I went in, and the hellion boy to the right started chewing on my toe. They’re all still up for adoption through Petropolis. There are:

Litter One
Grey male (2)
Black and white male
Black female

Litter Two
Creamy peach male
Tabby Female (2)
Tabby male (2)
Grey female

Right now, Larry wants the black and white boy from Litter One, and the hellion tabby boy from Litter Two.

I personally love the sweet girl tabby from Litter Two. She’s one of the ones that was found at the school and taken in the little girl’s book bag. She loves to be held and loves to cuddle. It’s so adorable to have a kitten the size of your hand curled up in your lap. She loves to play too, though. She was fighting with her brother (who never sits down) while I was there. Her brother though, loves to chew on everything he can get his mouth on, including me! He the one that chewed on my toe. You can see the rest of the pics in the cats photo gallery!

Well, Autumn is progressing rather slowly because I keep changing my mind. So far, I have four incarnations of Autumn, because I can’t settle on one pose I like the best. Each time I think I have the idea of what I want, I change my mind. First, I had her faced toward the right, looking left and upwards, hands in front, hair blowing in the wind. I decided I didn’t really like that pose, so I turned her to the left and put her hands across her middle, holding a towel in place. Then I decided that I didn’t want her half naked, so I turned her to the left and put her hands in her hair. Then I decided that on the web page I wanted her facing the text, so I flipped the image, but it looked funny. So then I drew another one facing the right this time, with her hands in her hair, but now I’m thinking that the first one with her hands in front of her was better than this one. ::sigh:: Oh, the fickle love that is art.

My camera is all filled up with photos and movies, so I have to put them up here. Movies will go in downloads, photos in the galleries they belong in. There’s some of the kittens, a few of me.. etc. I also have to seriously find out how to convert my opencanvas movies to movie movies anyone with QuickTime or media player can watch.

John and I went to Justin’s costume party last night, but it was almost uneventful. I got into my costume and went over. When asked where Justin was, we were told “He’s inside, with two girls.” I giggled a bit, but went on in anyway, only to find a puddle of almost naked (almost meaning ‘clothed but not for long) people in the floor, Justin being one of them. Totally embarrassed, Justin made a hasty exit to upstairs for some more private action, while John and I laughed our butts off the entire way home. I think we were at the party for less than 10 minutes.

I spent two hours at Petropolis today, hand feeding the little thing you see there. Petropolis got some more kittens, but they came with another Mommy, so all is good. That’s 5 kittens from one litter that was going to get drowned, 3 kittens from Mom One, and 3 kittens from Mom Two. The three from Mom One are 2 days old, the rest are 6 days, even the runt. He’s about half the size of the two day kittens, and it’s just so sad. He doesn’t seen to get the idea that he has to suck on something, but when he does, his back legs are so weak he can’t stand for long, so he gets tired and falls off the nipple he’s finally gotten hold of.

He eats when he’s warm, so I sat with him for two hours breathing on him and bottle feeding him until he fell asleep in my hand, then I got pictures. I’m worried, because he doesn’t show much improvement, even after eating.. I’m not really expecting him to make it, but I’ll continue to go feed him. Mom Two has the rest of the kittens, all of the tabbies, and two more grey ones. She’s a sweet girl too. All of hers are doing really well, and they’re looking for homes as well. Mom Two is about two years old, Mom One is about 10 months. There are currently 11 kittens, three at 1 day old, 8 at six days. If you’re in the Athens area, or know someone who is, these kittens deserve a good place to live with someone who loves them, once they’re old enough to be adopted out.
Edit: I called this morning, 9/11/02 to see how he was doing, and the little runt boy didn’t make it through the night.

Well! The first update to include photos this month, because I got my camera back yesterday, and figured out how to get it mounted in Linux all by myself. It took me two hours, but I got it. I was so proud of myself. I even called up Larry to geek at him. He was like “Uh.. okay Heather… ” It was pretty funny to hear, because I’m sure he could have done the same thing in about 2 seconds.

Anyway, these past few days have been an adventure. I dyed my hair red, as you can see from the photo. A bit more red than I am used to, but I like it. In a few more shampoos it’ll look a bit more natural, I hope. Megan’s walking better, so we went to walk around in the local park, which has forests and a river in it. We wandered around in the forests and such for good 1.5 hours or so. The pictures we got were all with her camera, so I had to wait on her to e-mail them to me.

Yesterday, I had to drive into Atlanta to get my car emissions tested (I passed! yay!), then drive the emissions report over to my dad’s office, just outside the perimeter. He and John and I went to the mall to get dinner and go birthday shopping, but I didn’t find anything I wanted there. All of the clothes look the same. It’s all that stuff that looks like it’s been dragged in the mud before sale. It’s awful… Why the hell would I want to but dirty clothes? So then we went to CompUSA to look, but nothing there. Finally over to PetSmart, where I found a kitty tower for Morla. While we’re there, it starts to pour. The tower does not fit in dad’s car, so it has to hang out the back of his trunk (in the rain) for the drive back to his office. Then we park under some wonderfully unsheilding trees to make the switch to the backseat of MY car. The thing just barely fits in the backseat. By this time we’re all totally soaked and laughing our butts off. John and I say goodbye to dad and head back up. It was a lot of fun. I laughed most of the way back up about the three of us standing in the rain, wrestling the cat tower into the car. Morla loves the thing, and Taj hasn’t braved her swats to get very close to it. It’s HER tower.

::grin:: I just caught One making kissy noises to himself, so that pretty much clinches he’s a boy. I’m just tickled pink that he’s starting so early (seven weeks as opposed to 15 weeks). He’ll be an excelent talker. I also think I’ve found a home for both of them. There’s a 55 year old man who lives about 30 minutes from here that wants to take them. He already has birds, so he knows what he’s doing.

Taj (as in.. Mahol?) has become the terror of my apartment. His newest game is to sneak up on poor Morla and chomp on her tail for her, then chase her wh en she runs away. I honestly think he enjoys tormenting her just so he can chase her. The only time she’ll play with him is if they’re playing ‘footsie’ with the door. She’ll get behind it and stick her paw through, whacking him on the nose. He returns the volley, but loses interest quickly. It’s been a little tough to take at times. She’s stopped sleeping with me because he bites her tail when she’s asleep, and instead is sleeping on top of the litterbox in the bathroom (where he can’t get to her because it’s right against the wall), and she slinks around h ere all the time, half afraid he’ll leap out of nowhere to tackle her. I’m hoping she’ll figure out that all he wants to do is play, but as of now, she’s the butt of all his bites, and it saddens me a bit to see it. Especially her not sleeping with me anymore. I really miss that.

I also got a letter from my Granddad this week. He kept on calling John “Jeffrey”, and I’m not too sure if it was on purpose, or if he really thinks his name is Jeffry. Either way, it was pretty damn funny to watch John read the part of the letter about him and go “Jeffrey? Jeffrey?“.. I laughed my butt off. I’m temped to tell my Granddad that Jeffrey is doing just fine, and says hi.