Chalcy + Paley = BFF

Chalcy (our new puppy) and Paley (my cat) are best friends.

(Well, Chalcy thinks so, anyway.) (Sometimes Paley thinks so too.)

They're working through their differences.

Paley was initially afraid of Chalcy. She was about the same size as Paley when we brought her home*, but Chalcy looks kind of like our renters' dogs--Chalcy looked more like the lab, but was about the same size as the min-pin, like some terrible combination of Paley's two mortal enemies. Our renters' dogs are MEAN**. And they CHASE her. We kind of expected Pae to be afraid of the puppy.

Pretty soon after we brought Chalcy home, Pae realized that Chalce was not the same as the other dogs. Chalcy would notice Paley and try to go be with her (like the other dogs (!!!)), but as Chalcy would scamper toward Paley, the puppy kept tripping on grass. And then, Chalcy would get near Paley, and the puppy would suddenly lose interest in the cat because she would suddenly notice, OH WOW, A NEAT PIECE OF GRASS! So Chalcy would lay down--right by Paley, but totally disinterested in her--to chew on some grass, or whatever. Chalcy was not exactly quite the same threat Paley was expecting. So Paley started trying to sniff Chalcy, and a little bit tolerated Chalcy sniffing her. Within a few days, Paley started to rub up against Chalcy sometimes.

Chalcy liked Paley, because they were about the same size, and Paley is black like Chalcy (and her missing littermates), and Paley has a tail. Chalcy licks Paley, so Pae knows that the puppy likes her.*** Since Paley is a friend, Chalcy always wants to play with her. Her littermates always wanted to play, so Paley must want to play too, right?

This is how their interactions usually go:
1. Paley rubs up against Chalcy, or comes to sit near her.
2. Chalcy gets excited. Chalcy licks Paley and nestles her head into Paley's side. (Paley is ok with this.)
3. Chalcy begins to suck and chew on Paley's face/side. (Chalcy is little rough with Pae, but Paley is willing to tolerate it, because it's obvious that Chalcy is trying to be friendly, and not trying to be mean.)
4. Chalcy starts to play-bite Paley, which Paley will sometimes put up with.
5. Paley gets tired of playing too rough. She yowls and smacks Chalcy with her paw.
6. Chalcy is excited about the new smack-each-other-with-our-paws game, and starts wagging her tail. Chalcy backs up a couple feet, and does that playful-puppy thing, where her bottom is up in the air, with her tail wagging, and her front is crouched down, ready to pounce on Paley. Chalcy jabs a paw towards Paley a couple times.
7. Paley playfully bats her paw at Chalcy's paw.
8. Chalcy tackles Paley and pins her down to chew on her.
9. OH NO! Paley does NOT want Puppy Fun. (Also, Chalcy is quite a bit heavier than Paley, so being jumped on hurts, or is uncomfortable at least.) Paley yowls and hisses. If Chalcy does not move quickly, Paley will GRAB onto Chalcy's front leg with her claws, and Pae begins biting Chalcy repeatedly, while she growls. (GET OFF, DOG!)
10. This hurts a little bit, but it is Puppy Fun too, so Chalcy enjoys it for a minute, and then it hurts a little, so Chalcy will back off, or Paley will jump out from under Chalcy (to go sit a few feet away).
11. [Repeat.]

As I've been typing this, it sounds a little mean, but everyone is playing, and nobody gets hurt. When Paley is really done playing, she will go climb a tree, or jump up a fence, or hop up onto the car, or go somewhere else Chalcy can't get to.

A lot of times, Paley and Chalcy will play on opposite sides of a fence, batting at each other through the fence. Sometimes they'll run through tall grass. Paley will run through the tall grass, and stop somewhere, and Chalcy will run though the tall grass to "catch" her. Then Paley will run somewhere else a couple feet away and crouch down, and Chalcy will bounce through the grass to find her again, and the game continues. It is a game for both of them--Paley loves all of the attention from Chalcy.

Sometimes they're not too interested in playing, and they'll just lie down near each other, a couple feet away. Usually Paley will come sit kind of near Chalcy and I, and after a couple minutes, Chalcy will take whatever she is already chewing on ("Tug!" or "Stick!") and go lie down near the cat, so that she can keep chewing on her toy, but also be near Paley.

In the past week or so, Chalcy has realized that Paley does not like to be jumped on, so now Chalcy catches her by standing above her, instead of knocking her over. Paley likes this better (of course), so she is willing for longer.**** I think they will be better friends as Chalcy gets older and learns to be a little more gentle. Paley sometimes gets tired of Puppy Games. She does like Chalcy, though.





* Except that Chalcy's mass is all bulk, and Paley's mass is all fur. So. Not exactly quite the same.
** To cats.
*** Chalcy also licks the calves and the goat, so they know she's different than our renters' dogs, too. She likes them, and they are friends.
**** Chalcy still loves to bite Paley's tail (because it is long, and it moves, and it is covered in FUR!), and she loves to bite Paley's ears--this is tricky, though, because Chalcy's mouth is bigger than Paley's ears, so she ends up biting half of Paley's head. This is not Paley's very favorite game.

Welcome Ella! (part three)

Paley stayed missing. We didn't see her at all on Saturday.

I visited Ella a lot. I held her and rubbed her, and we played. She really loves chasing ribbons.

It was kind of sad because I would go outside and call Paley, and she wouldn't come. "PAAAAALEY!!!" "WHEEEEERE'S PALEY?" (We used to play this game in my Salt Lake apartment. When I couldn't find Paley, I'd call her. "Paaaaley! Where's Paley?" while I would look for her. Occasionally she would be in plain sight when I'd do it. When I'd call her, though, she would come to me, wherever she had been, and meow meow meow urgently so that I would see her and could give her attention.) "KIIIIIITTTTTTTTY? WHERE'S PALEY?"

Nothing.

Once I saw her run across the backyard, but it wasn't her. It was a mostly-black cat that is skinnier than Paley and that I've caught in our garage, eating Paley's food two or three times. It always runs off.

And sometimes Ella would hear me calling and know that I was nearby, and she would start meowing. Which would sometimes make me think for a minute that I had found Paley, except that it wasn't Pae. I'd go pet her anyway. Ella gets a ton of attention from us.

Paley has her collar and tag, and she's microchipped, so I hoped that she would come back from her adventure soon, or that someone would call or e-mail saying that they had found her. I knew she wasn't thrilled about Ella, but I didn't think she was so upset that she would leave!

Sunday between conference sessions, we were pulling out of J's driveway and he stopped for something, and he called, "Paley?" "Paley!" I thought maybe he had seen the other cat run past. He said he'd heard a meow, but he wasn't sure from where and he hadn't heard it again. The neighbors all have cats, so who knows.

AND THEN! Sunday night we were back at J's house again and I was calling for her: "PAAAALEY! WHEEEEERE'S PALEY?" and I heard meowing. I tried to follow where it was coming from and I thought maybe she was under one of the cars in the front driveway. It was raining, so that would have made sense. But as I leaned down to look under the car, I couldn't see her, and I could tell the meow wasn't coming from there.

It was coming from an irrigation pipe that was blocked with a big brick. Paley was under the driveway. There's no way she could have gotten in there, so she must have gone in one of the irrigation pipes somewhere else and seen the light from that end in the driveway, and kept trying to get out there. Poor kitty! The pipe is about 6" wide, too, so there's no way she could have turned around.

I was so relieved to find her. We brought her stuff into the hallway between the garage and J's house, and she was HUNGRY. Ella ran out to greet her. They sniffed each other for 30 seconds or something, and then hissed. It was for sure progress, though, because Paley would not have sniffed Ella or let Ella sniff her before. So they're still not best friends, but they're warming up to each other. Good.

Next step: Sometime in the next few days we need to get Ella a collar and tag. (I know that for the tag we want a nice silver one like Paley's. But what kind of collar do we want? Ells is white and orange and gray. What color would match her?) It is also time for her booster shots. And then she should be ready to start going outside. She wants to. I've seen her chase a couple flies and they FASCINATE her. She has also tried to run outside a couple times.

Anyway, that's about the end of the cat update. The kitties are getting along a little better. Paley is found. Ella loves loves attention. (She purrs so thoroughly that sometimes when I'm holding her I think my cellphone is vibrating and it's actually not.) I think she's adjusting pretty well. She seems happy.

And we'll all live happily ever after. The End.

Welcome Ella! (part two)

So, on Tuesday, BJ and Tianna brought Ella over!

We were pretty excited about it.

Something kind of funny is, we started talking about how Ella would be J's cat. Jess and Mitch have two cats, and Annie really decided she was Jessica's cat, and Alley decided she was Mitch's cat. So they each have a cat. I told J that I already had Paley so we should let Ella be his.


I asked him if he liked the name "Ella" since Tianna mentioned on the blog that Ella probably wouldn't notice if her new family changed her name. J said he didn't. I asked him what he thought we should call her. He said "Kitty," which I thought was funny since that was what they had called her anyway, but J didn't know. (Her name is still Ella, and we sometimes call her Ella and sometimes call her Kitty.)


So, anyway, BJ, Tianna, and Kessa brought Ella over to meet Paley and see Ella's new home. They thought Ella would really have fun climbing trees. They brought Ella in a carrier that they had borrowed and I had Paley in her carrier, so we faced the little cages towards each other let them hiss at each other for a little bit.


And then BJ, Tianna, and Kessa left. Ella was mad. She hissed, and growled, and batted, and scratched, and bit me, and J wondered what we had gotten ourselves into. He'd never seen a cat so mean. Ella is still pretty small, so I was still able to hang onto her, but it became really clear that she needed to go back into Paley's carrier. I reminded J that Ella was scared. I reminded him that a week ago she had been left somewhere strange (maybe for the first time) and she had ended up with shots and surgery, which are not very pleasant. J agreed that it made sense. She would feel better later, I told him.


And she did! We left her and Paley in one of the garage rooms, with the door closed. Paley was out and Ella was in the cat carrier. We came back in a few hours and let Ella out. It was a difference of night and day. She purred and purred, and rubbed up against J. Ella loves to be held and loves to be rubbed and scratched.


Paley and Ella are becoming better acquainted. At first they always hissed and growled at each other. And then Ella stopped being hissy and became curious. Paley opened the door and came out into the main garage, and when I brought her back (for food and the litter box) later, she was still not excited about Ella, but Ella followed her around. I put Paley's food/water/litter on the workbench area, and left Ella's on the ground. Ella wanted to watch Paley, and kept trying to get closer to her. Paley growled and hissed. Paley tried to leave the garage room again, and Ella followed her to play with her tail. Paley growled and hissed. So Ella hissed back.

The next day, Paley had somehow gotten out of the garage. I went into the backyard and called her. "PAAAAAALEY!" "WHEEEEEERE'S PALEY?" and she came running! She was excited to see me. The door from the garage to the hallway (where she usually would go out) was closed, so I don't know how she got out of the garage, but I took her back inside for food, etc. She let Ella get a bit closer, but they were still hissy.


And then the next day, Paley disappeared. I called her and called her, and she didn't come. I had been planning to blog about getting Ella, but it seemed kind of weird and sad to blog about how WE GOT ELLA!!! (and by the way, Paley is missing.) ...to be continued.

*-cRaFt NiGhT!!!-*

J and I keep having SO SO many cRaFt NiGhTs, it's hard to even keep up with my blogging!

SO!

We've had this problem lately, which is, the roof leaks. J was thinking he needed to have the roof re-$loped, but we ended up deciding that the real problem is not actually the valley between the front and back of the house. [Actually, it's that the flashing (metal stuff) around the chimney is totally not up against the chimney right, so water can get in. (SOLUTION: put tar inside and use a special drill bit and special screws and uh, I forget what else, to reattach it better.) It's kind of confusing, but it will be wayyyy cheaper than having the roof re-sloped. We can do it.]

And then we had ANOTHER problem, which was, part of the skylight over J's part of the house flew off the roof a few days ago. (Whoops!) It's just the extra covering, but the actual skylight is cracked, so it is important.

So, it's not that big of a deal unless it rains.

And it's September, so no problem, right? Right?

We were on our way to church yesterday (on time!) and it started sprinkling. Like, sprinkling

big drops, though. So I said a prayer while J drove us back to his house so that we could put painter's plastic up. (Faith promoting story: It stopped raining right after I prayed for time to protect the roof! Neat. After we had the plastic up we went to church for the last two hours, and sometime during church it started raining again.)

We put plastic over the skylight and plastic around the chimney. We thought the whole thing was pretty funny. It looked pretty bad.

And then later in the afternoon, we replaced the skylight cover (because it's supposed to rain more today.) J mostly did that. I re-tarred the roof. I'm going to go back and finish it up, but I got a good start. There were a few cracks in the sealant they had used before.

We were up there for a little while, so Paley came up on the roof to check things out and see what we were doing.

Sometime later I'll blog about our FeNcE ~~~cRaFt NiGhTs!!!~~~

Life Update

School

School is starting again today. I had two classes this morning, and I have one more tonight, and two more tomorrow. This semester I am taking:

- English 5730: Studies Early American Literature - This class seems like it will be a lot of work. The professor seems very demanding, but seems to be a pretty nice guy. I've heard good things about him. When I went in to see a counselor for my graduation papers, she told me that if I go in for his office hours he'll love me to death, and I think that's probably true. This class will be a lot of reading early American documents (like the Constitution, or Pioneers, and Rip Van Winkle, which he says is the most under-read important novel). It's about new Americans defining Americanness. Cool.

- Philosophy 1250: Reasoning & Rational Decision Making - I'm not just crazy about this class. It meets my QB math requirement, so it is basically a class instead of "Statistics". It also seemed like a good idea because I'm about to take the LSAT. Here's the only problem: It's taught by a grad student. Why are 80% of all grad students so pompous?! Seriously, my impression of this guy so far is that he thinks he is a god and everyone should bend to his whims. DO NOT BE LATE. It is reasonable to expect people to be on time, but SRSLY, if I have another class that ends 15 minutes before, which I do, and that class goes over, which it does, you're really going to count all of my assignments late if I am not in my seat when the class officially starts? Give me a break. He is also a brat about e-mail. He will not e-mail about grades unless you are using your official university e-mail address. Does anyone even know their password for that? [No.] And what, are my parents going to pretend they're me and find his e-mail address to e-mail him or something? Really?

- English 3702: Intro to Literary History 2 - I think this is going to be a lame class, because the Literary History classes are all miserable and used to be required but are not any more. (But they still double count for requirements.) HOWEVER! It is taught by an amazing professor who knows her stuff and prepares like crazy and makes classes awesome. It will probably become my favorite class this semester, just like the Darwin class that I thought I would hate and actually loved, which she taught last semester.
- English 5885: Adolescent Literature - Very highly recommended professor. At graduation counseling, the lady said this class would be a riot. THANKFULLY, this class is not about the Holocaust like my Children's Lit class was, and includes Catcher in the Rye, which I haven't read since high school but remember liking back then.

- English 5110: Folklore Genres - This class has a big project attached to it, which is writing the life story of an old person. I am really looking forward to it. I can either interview a grandparent or other relative, or the professor will match us up with hospice care people. NEAT.

So that's what I have going on. I am also still preparing for the LSAT, so I have prep classes for that on Monday and Thursday nights.

Work

I quit my job so that I will have time to actually do my homework this semester. And so that I will have much more time to study for the LSAT. (It was really weird. My boss said they had 65 applications for my job. Holy smokes! And they even lowered the pay rate with budget cuts... She interviewed seven applicants and hired a guy last Thursday. I'm going to miss my coworkers since they were sort of my only friends.) I think I am also going to quit volunteering in Preservations, because: 1) I just feel too busy. 2) It doesn't feel very altruistic, so it isn't as rewarding as I had hoped. 3) They treat me like an actual employee and kind of glare when I announce that I will be missing days, but really, who has time to volunteer 10 hours every week? 4) The block of time that I was volunteering before is not free time for me anymore.

So I feel kind of like a quitter, but it's okay because it's really just a re-balancing of my schedule and life and priorities, and all that. And that's good and healthy.

Speaking of good and healthy, I am not. I'm sick today. And yesterday. I have a cold. The grad student said that the University is making accommodations for people with the H1N1 virus (he called it the "piggy sniffles"), which made me wonder if I have that. All of the symptoms are normal being-sick symptoms, so who knows, but I doubt that I do because I'm not vomiting or having diarrhea or anything like that, and I'm not enough of a hypochondriac to actually be concerned about that.

The Race

I am also sore, sore, sore, because my body is broken from running a half marathon this weekend. I ran the Hobble Creek 1/2 Marathon on Saturday. It was an adventure for a lot of reasons. The first reason is, even though I have been driving for a few months now, I have never driven anywhere near Provo. I one-time drove to J's new house in South Jordan, but I insisted upon taking State Street. Sooo, when J decided his move would be the same day as my 1/2 marathon, I realized I would have to drive to Mapleton alone. So far! I decided I would take State Street, since I had heard it goes all the way from Salt Lake to Provo.

Uhhh, it doesn't. I got to the end of State Street and took some road to like, Bangerter, to like Alpine Highway, to somewhere. I ended up in Bluffdale and Saratoga Springs, and eventually Lehi, and then I was okay. But I swear, with all the detours I totally went to like, every city between Salt Lake and Provo. I don't know how long it took. I had to change lanes a lot of times, which makes me nervous. I made it to Jessica's house safely, though. And then I had to take the freeway at like 5am on Saturday to get out to Mapleton. And the exit I needed was supposed to be closed, but it wasn't, so I took it. BUT THEN! The streets after the exit were closed! So I drove all around hoping that I would somehow find State Street and going in the direction I thought it was, until the street I was following ended. Uh oh. But I saw a few people who seemed to be going the same way and I followed them, and made a little loop and somehow ended up on State Street. And somehow got there.

And the race was fine. EXCEPT! Know how after I hiked the Grand Canyon in one day in May my left knee hurt for like 3 weeks? And then it finally got better but I could only use elliptical machines for awhile and then finally I could use the treadmill again? At mile eight, my left knee started hurting again. Badly. I found a way to kind of run by swinging my left leg instead of running on it, but it was lame. (hah. Literally.) I mostly walked the last five miles. So instead of improving my time this race, I was a few minutes slower than I was in the SLC 1/2 marathon. Too bad! At the end a few people (separately!) thanked me and told me I had been their pace girl and that I had kept them going. I told them they were mine, too, which was true. When you run, a lot of times you're running with the same people, so you push yourself to get ahead of whoever you keep passing, or to get ahead of the next person in front of you. Everyone inspires everyone else. And when people pass you they call out, "Good job! You're doing great, just keep going!" and they encourage you. It's pretty neat.

I was not last, but there were not a lot of people to finish after me. The race registration closed in two days, and who registers within the first two days of registration for a race?! Hard core people. So I was for sure one of the least-fit, least-trained, least-slim, least-fast people. But that was okay, because I was there. And I finished. And running 13.1 miles on a Saturday morning is much more awesome and healthy than not running. So I feel good about it. I don't think I will be ready for my full marathon next month, though. My cardiovascular system was fine, but my knee had a lot of problems, and if it's been 3 months since the hike, I don't know that 1 more month will make a big enough difference. We'll see.

Relationship

J and I have been dating for about six months now. It's still going really well. I am very happy. After we were dating exclusively, he asked that I please drive his other car, because he was driving a lot. And since he is quite allergic to Paley, and since my house is tiny, and since I don't have air conditioning, it made sense for us to spend more time at his house than mine, but that meant he would drive from his house to my house to his house, and then drive from his house to my house to his house again to take me home. And he was already paying to insure the other car, he told me, so me not driving it was costing him.

I didn't mind taking TRAX and was really afraid of driving because of my accident in...2002? So I was not crazy about driving at all. Plus driving is expensive. He said he would pay for my gas and insurance, and any repairs, etc. So I started driving when we would go places. Sometimes. And he was patient and confident in me. I was really nervous. But I became comfortable driving between our houses, which made dating me more pleasant, I think. I started driving his white car every day. And then one day I Stopped for Gas! Which was an exciting new challenge. And another day I Switched Lanes! And one day I Went to Walmart! And now I've been driving every day for a few months and I am pleased, because I knew I needed to start driving again eventually, and I can't think of a more ideal set of circumstances for re-learning to drive than the ones that I've had. So that's been good. I took the freeway back from my race this weekend. Go, me!

J moved this weekend. He bought a house in South Jordan, which I absolutely love. It's kind of ugly. Actually, it's the ugliest house in the neighborhood. But he got a smashing deal on it (he paid $30k less than it appraised for!) and it really is in a great area. It's a neat house. It's divided into two separate living areas (with a shared laundry room in between), so he's renting out the front (which is bigger and nicer), and he will live in the back. It is on half an acre, ag-zoned. It has a pasture that is already fenced off [perfect for goats!], and barns [we put the chickens in part of one!], and a big open backyard [perfect for gardening!], and mature fruit trees, which delight me. It has apricots (we ate like a billion of them and fed like a billion soft ones to our birds), plums (they're next), pears (!!!!!), and apples. The trees need to be pruned so so badly. There is also a ton of storage space. The garage is huge (it has a basketball court in it), it has two storage rooms built into it, plus an above space that is almost like another living area except that it has no water to it, and another area above that that is like a little secret clubhouse for kids, or something. It is an attic area, where the ceiling slants, but it has hardwood floors, and a desk built in, and windows that overlook the yard. It has a bed up there, which I don't know how they got it up there because the hole to climb up to the room is tiny. The neighbor kids said they used to spend the night up there. Fun!

So far we have painted the front kitchen (which was hot pink) and we've done a bunch of yard work. (Actually, J's dad has done a TON of yard work.) We've been getting the front unit ready to rent. I lowered the price on our ad yesterday and J has gotten 4 more calls about it in the past day, so I think it's probably about the right price now and I think it will probably rent soon. (I want to paint the barn, because it looks way run-down, which I think makes the whole property look more run-down, but whatever. We'll get to it.) I think so far we've shown the house to like...4 or 5? people? We had one applicant, but they were just way too risky, so it didn't work out. So this should be good.

Since J and I spend every day together and South Jordan = a lot of driving for me, his wonderful parents have offered to let me stay at their house whenever I want. It is 6 blocks away from J's new house, so it's really convenient for, say, Friday and Saturday nights. We are talking about driving up to Salt Lake in the mornings, and then I would stay there even more. I have my own bedroom and bathroom which are new and gorgeous, and I have drawers and a walk-in closet, and my own nice kitchen, as many cherry tomatoes and fresh garden vegetables as I can eat, etc. (Last night they served us fresh watermelon. It was yellow inside! It tasted delicious.)

The only trouble is, poor Paley can't move in with J or his parents, so she will become an outside cat at J's new house. I'm sure she will love, love, love living there, because the CHICKENS! are outside and they are SO MUCH FUN to watch. And there are grasshoppers! And rodents! And other fun things to catch. But I know she will be sad when I am inside and she can't come in. At least for a little while. The barn will keep her dry and warm, though, so she should be okay. For now she's still at my little apartment by the U of U, but she misses me since I only come home to sleep.

My Birthday

Last week was my birthday. I turned 26. Jess and Mitch celebrated with me the weekend before, and Jess wrote me a nice blog post. J and I went to Red Lobster for dinner. He gave me a little hymn book (in English! Which I have wanted forever but never want to spend the money on.) and socks (which I have needed more of forever but never want to spend the money on.) So that was nice. I like useful presents. (Jess also gave me useful presents. She gave me plates, silverware, pans, and kitchen stuff. Plus six Sees Butterscotch Squares, which I ATE, which I had been in the mood for for a long time since no Sees is near me.)

Hm. What else? I don't know. This is a pretty long post and I need to get some LSAT study in before my next class, so I think I'll stop here. (And hopefully update more often so that my posts are not as long.)

Paley!

Remember how I adopted a teenage kitten from the Humane Society in January?

I still have her.

Paley turned ONE! this July. (She's still a little cat, though.)

I haven't posted pictures of her in a while, so I thought it might be nice to take some. It is always a challenge to take pictures of Paley because my iPhone is not the best for action shots and she does not sit still enough. To get two reasonable photos that kind of look like her, I had to take about 20 pictures of a black blur.

Does anyone remember Abby, the mean (but pretty!) cat that Jess and I had? ... Paley is totally the opposite. She is the type of cat that everyone hopes they will have when they decide to get a cat.

Paley is friendly! She is an indoor cat, but she becomes interested in people near my windows. She plays with them through the window. My neighbors all love her. She is also nice to people that come over; if they're interested in her she's interested in them, and if they're not, she's interested but then she'll leave them alone.

Paley is well-behaved. She doesn't jump on counters, beg for food, ruin things, or get into any kind of mischief when I'm not home. Her worst habit is that she used to bother computer cords, but she knows she's not allowed to and she only does it when she wants my attention, and she doesn't actually hurt the cords.

The best thing of all, though, is this: I am convinced that Pay is not just an ordinary cat--she is a Domestic Shorthair Retriever! I think Paley is secretly part dog. She plays with water. She comes when I call her. (Every time!) She waits by the window for me to come home, and greets me at the door. She wakes me up in the morning by climbing onto me and licking my face (which is kind of gross.)

AND!

SHE FETCHES!

The game is a little different than it is for normal dogs because she's an indoor cat, so we play fetch indoors. Also, instead of throwing a ball or a stick, I throw a toy mouse. She knows it's a game, though, and it's her very favorite thing. I hurl the mouse across my apartment and she runs and 'catches' it and brings it back. She drops it at my feet so that I can throw it somewhere else. She keeps fetching for as long as I'll throw the mouse. Occasionally it gets lost and she has to look for it, but she always finds it and brings it back.

Sometimes she wants to play when I don't. I often wake up to discover I'm sleeping on top of a mouse--she sets it next to me while I'm asleep in bed and I guess when I roll over it ends up beneath me. Funny cat.

Anyway. Happy (belated, since I'm kind of a slow blogger right now) Birthday, Paley!

Bird Update #1

Okay, so this really isn't an update because I've blogged since then and a lot has happened since then, but I've been meaning to share this because it made me laugh.

J and I went to California a couple weeks ago. (It was nice. Before he even met me, his family planned their big family vacation--to Disneyland! And my family lives 20 minutes from there. So J invited me, and I stayed at the resort with his family, but we mostly spent time with my family. Since his whole family lives up here and mine pretty much all lives in CA. But anyway...)

We had arranged with Jess to have Paley (Remember? I have a cat!) stay at her house for the trip, so that Pay wasn't alone at my house for a week. (We had also planned to have the chicks stay at her house, since they were living indoors when I asked, but we decided to get the chicken coop and moved them outside and got big feeders and used the big waterer and left them alone.)

The morning that we left, I came over to J's house early and I had all of my stuff for the trip plus Paley. We had breakfast together and J finished packing, but Paley did not like being confined to the cat carrier, so she started crying. Poor cat. I set her carrier on a chair so that she could watch out the window, and that worked for a little while, but she wanted out.

Buuuut, J is totally allergic to her, so letting her wander around his house was not really an option. Instead, I took her out to watch me get food and water ready for the chicks.

And then! I had such a brilliant idea! I decided she would probably enjoy watching the birds. So I set her carrier in front of the chicken coop. Like, right in front of it.

She loved it. But it was actually funny because the birds were way interested in her, too. I felt totally fine leaving them like that, so Pay was fascinated for the rest of the morning while we finished getting ready. Hah. Awesome.

Okay, and then I have one other chicken story, which we heard while we were in California. (Having chickens is like reading Twilight. Or knitting. It just instantly bonds you with random people, and people want to talk about their birds.) SO, we were having dinner at my sister Steph's boyfriend's cousin's? [brother's neighbor's grandpa's friend's uncle's] house. And they were just delighted to meet us, and Steph told them about our chicks since ! they have hens too!

So here's what happened:

When they moved into the house, there was already a big chicken coop there. So she decided to get chickens. And she went to this place where everyone spoke Spanish and like, they I guess sold chicks there. But they were selling them straight-run. So (usually you'd just buy some and know you were getting 1/2 roosters which you would later eat or sell. but...) she asked how to tell which baby birds are hens and which baby birds are roosters.

And the guy, in broken English, esplained that the way you tell is, you pick the little birds up by their beaks. And if they flap a whole lot, they're roosters. And if they go limp and just hang there, then they're hens. So she started picking up these little birds by their beaks, and they would flap and squirm, and try to get away, and make a huge commotion! It seemed like they all did, she said, and she's sure that at this point the guys working there were laughing at her because it was just so ridiculous.

At this point we laughed, and told her how funny it was, and she said oh, we hadn't even heard the best part. She continued.

So she finally managed to pick out 16 little birds that didn't flap and try to get away when she picked them up by their beaks. She took them home and started raising them, and their hens were doing really nicely until one morning, they heard a kind of scratchy little noise one morning. She was sure it must be coming from the neighbor's house. It had to be. She didn't really think anything of it. But it continued the next day. And soon there was another little rooster noise.

And she finally realized it was coming from her hens. Her 4 month old hens.

It turned out that 14 of the 16 "hens" were actually roosters.

We laughed and laughed. But the story got even better.

She called the place that she had bought them and told them that they had told her how to pick hens and she had ended up with all roosters! They were nice about it. They told her to just put them in bags and bring them back and they would take them back and give her hens.

So she caught them and put them in grocery bags. He said bags, so she just thought grocery bags. He probably meant like, burlap bags.

They were decent sized bags, so all 14 of the birds poked their legs through the bottoms of the bags. And then she had 14 running bags that she gathered up and put in her car and took back. She said it was the funniest thing to see. She said they couldn't stop laughing when they saw her bags running all over the place.

Amazing story, huh?

Little Farm Update

Garden Update

Attempt #1: I think I may have mentioned--my garden died. All of it. (Well. All of it except the basil and chives, which were in a separate thing.) Even after it was totally thriving in my post about how I'd started a garden. I don't know what happened to it, but I think it may have to do with the greenhouse lid for my inside starter thing. I think that my plants get a lot of sun as it is, and with the greenhouse lid on, my plants were being steamed and that's why they died.

Attempt #2: But I hadn't really figured that out, so I just replanted the whole thing and the same thing happened: a bunch of stuff grew, and then almost everything died. At this point, I guessed that it may be the greenhouse lid and I removed that. A few plants survived. From my second planting, I have: one bean plant, one cantaloupe plant, five onions, two peppers, and either a broccoli or cauliflower plant (I forget). Also, for extra fun: I thought a whole bunch of stuff was growing, because a ton of these teeny tiny sprouts came up. But it was kind of weird because all of the sprouts looked the same, and

they never got any bigger. Soooo...I think something in the soil sprouted, which wasn't something I planted.

Attempt #3: I got some of those little planter things that you just add water to, like I did last year. In a couple plastic containers I planted just a few of each of the things I was excited about/still had seeds for. I planted: arugula, peppers, broccoli, cauliflower, celery, a few carrots, and lettuce. I put no special greenhouse lid on them, and just set them in the window with everything else. And! They're growing!!! Third time's the charm! These plants are also kind of a surprise, though, because Paley

knocked the bigger container over and all of the little plants fell out, so now I don't know which ones are which anymore. It's kind of like those grab bags at Claire's. Who knows what I'll get?! They're doing well though, whatever they are.

Attempt #4: About the same time that my second garden died this season, J suggested that we plant a garden at his house. He has a bunch of containers because he's done container gardens before. He's actually even grown stuff indoors with grow lights. He's actually kind of a much better gardener than I am, I think. Probably, since all I got from my square foot garden last year was like 2 strawberries and one tomato in October. (This was actually mostly because our balcony got like, no light. And because I didn't use a starter tomato plant.)

SO! We bought little plants. We got 6 strawberry plants, 2 tomato plants (J is learning , an artichoke plant (!!), and two blueberry plants, plus seeds to grow spinach (two varieties), and carrots. And we've planted them. They're doing great! The strawberries don't really like that we separated them, but they'll get over it.

Also, yesterday I bought a fancy green pot to transplant my kitchen herbs into, because get this--they've grown so well that they don't have much soil left! I will also re-re-plant the kitchen herbs that didn't re-grow when I re-planted them. Plus, fun discovery: the girl before me planted stuff in our front yard and a bunch of strawberries(!!) have come back along with some lemon herb and...sage? or something. Her tomatoes did not come back. Too bad.

So that's what's growing at our houses.

Chicks Update

For a while, every morning when J and I would text, I would ask him if the chicks were still alive. I remember us getting chicks when I was little, a couple times. And I think all of them always died. None of them ever really grew up. I think this was because we were little kids and we loved them too much. I'm sure we dropped some, and held them too tight, and were so excited to hold them that we didn't always remember to wash our already-clean hands. Also, they were in the garage, I think, which was probably cold. J and I don't drop them, or squish them, and we wash our already-clean hands before we pick them up. So they haven't died. Also, baby-chick food is medicated, so that probably helps with all of the baby-chick diseases.

The chicks are about a week old now. They're really strong and healthy, so we think they'll probably all make it, because the first week is probably the roughest for them. (Wahoo! Only five more months until they're big enough to start laying!)

They're still mostly fluff, but their wings have feathers now. Sometimes they try to get a little air, but they don't really fly much.

They eat a ton! We at first had a mason jar lid in there for their food, but they were eating [spilling] so much that J put a shallow tupperware thing in there instead. That seems to last them a bit longer.

They're starting to develop tiny personalities. Evelyn CHIRPS and CHIRPS and CHIRPS VERY LOUDLY! when we pick her up. Gertrude is the sweetest of our little ladies. She likes to be held. She is also really cute these days because she has a poofy, fluffy head. Maude and Gladys tolerate being held, but act like they have more important things to be doing. Silly birds.

I took them outside for the first time yesterday. They loved it. At first they weren't really too sure what to think of the grass and they stayed close to me, in the shade. Then they started to explore a bit and pecked at the grass and the ground. The flock stays together. It's pretty cute.

We think that we want to make a [very!] simple coop from a doghouse, which, if we found the right one, could work really well. And then after J moves to a house with more space, it would be nice to build/adapt something much bigger so that we can have 10-12 hens instead (and plenty of eggs to share with neighbors and friends).

Cat update:

Paley is doing fine. She likes to sit on the top of my ladder to get a great view of everything going on in the house and out the window. She likes attention! Whenever I'm home, Pay thinks I'm here to entertain her. When J comes over, she likes to cuddle with us. She's a sweet cat. (ALSO: She is almost a cat. In July, supposedly, she will be a year old, which is when kittens magically become cats.)

We play fetch. Paley brings me one of her toy mice, and drops it by my feet. I throw the mouse across my apartment. She runs for it, snatches it up, brings it back to me and drops it by my feet. We repeat this several times, until I decide I want to do something else.

Other, unrelated updates:

This weekend we are hiking across the Grand Canyon, rim-to-rim, in one day. It will be fun for me to see my family, and it will be fun for J to meet my family. (We see his family pretty regularly since they mostly live up here, but he's only met Jess from my family.) Our hike will be 24 miles, and I kind of want to die already, just thinking about it. I remember hiking Timp last year and hating my life. There should be fun parts, too, though. We have some geocaches we'll be finding in the Grand Canyon. And after we're finished, we will have Done it. I'm sure I'll have lots of pictures and interesting stories to blog about when I can't move on Monday.

Also, my grades posted and I got an A- in Children's Lit, an A- in Modernism, an A in my Darwin literature class, and a B- in my Diversity in American Lit class (which, I totally deserved a B at the lowest, but whatever). That means I made the Dean's list for this past semester. Cool. I'm looking forward to my Fall schedule, except now I'll probably drop the class by my Diversity teacher.

35 Suggestions for a Healthy Home

I'm pretty sure I've shared things from the Apartment Therapy book before. Although the fixing-up-my-apartment project continues [forever], after four months of borrowing the book from my library it's finally due. I have one more section that I've been meaning to share, and it's from the appendix. I've tried a bunch of this stuff, and it just seems good, so here it is:

35 Suggestions for a Healthy Home

When you wake up in the morning, make your bed. [I usually do now. I like it.]

Make sure the seat is down after you use the toilet. [I always do this. One time I actually left it open and Paley accidentally jumped into the toilet, because she usually jumps from the toilet seat to the sink, and didn't know to be careful. It was pretty funny and she got a bath right after I pulled her out. Poor cat.]

Always leave the shower curtain pulled across, so that it can dry and not mildew. [I try to remember this. It also makes my bathroom more colorful.]

Use your kitchen in the morning, even if it is only to have a glass of orange juice.

Take out the recycling when you leave home each morning. [I hate the environment so this doesn't apply to me.*]

Always include a thank you note with your rent. [I started doing this. I like it and will continue to do it. Now that I think about it, I bet it could just be a card that says "Thank You" with the check in it. What I've been doing is giving him an update on the apartment and telling him a little of what I'm up to. For example, this month I will update him on my painting project. Maybe I'll start doing just a blank thank you card for months that I don't have things to tell him about?]

Have your paper delivered. It is cheaper and more efficient.

Always go out of your way to say good morning to your neighbors on the street.

Pick up garbage in front of your building even if it's not yours. [Dilemma: I have a neighbor who is a collector. Of everything. I've heard his apartment is packed with stuff. He has two cars next to the house that are full of stuff too. I want to get rid of the junk on the side of our house, but I think he may be "saving" some of it. What to do?]

Before you leave the office, take five minutes to clean up your desk. [More relevant if you have a desk at work.]

On Fridays, take fifteen minutes and clear your desk, throwing out or filing all Post-Its, cards, or papers that are old.

Buy flowers for your apartment at least once a week on your way home from work. [I did this for a few weeks, but it gets kind of spendy on a student budget. Still, it brought life to my old little house. I wonder if the kitchen herbs will have the same effect? Eh. Probably not.]

Take off your street shoes when you come home. Use house shoes inside your home. [I started wearing house sandals. I like this and will continue to wear them.]

Hang your coat up right away when you come home.

Sort your mail right away when you come home.

Keep all coats, bags, and shoes by the front door. [Works better if you have an entryway, I would guess.]

Use the time just after you get home to run any local errands, such as dry cleaning, pharmacy, or laundry.

Check your messages right away and then erase the tape. [Huh. Do people still have answering machines?]

Return all your calls before dinner.

Use a cordless headset to make calls while you cook or straighten up your house. [ = Bluetooth?]

Don't let your refrigerator fill up with old food.

Always eat on a real plate with a real napkin.

Light a candle when you eat, even if you are alone.

Drink water.

When you are done, clean up and take this opportunity to clean your counters and table. If any counters or tables need oiling, do it right away.

Do all dishes before you go to bed.

Floss each night.

Don't make calls after 9 p.m.

Put all clothes away or in the laundry before going to bed each night.

Take a bath before bed if you have trouble sleeping.

Plan on at least 7 1/2 hours of sleep a night.

Buy good bedding. Invest in a good bed. [Someday.]

Get in bed early and read for 30 minutes.

Only have one book at your bedside at a time. Finish the books you start.

Give four parties a year.

Anyway, those are the 35. I almost felt like I should bold all of the ones that I'm doing and post it on Facebook. Doesn't it seem like one of those?

*Just kidding. Mostly. I did switch to earth-friendly dish soap and laundry detergent because of this book.

Funny cat story

Last night I ran a bath* but I didn't have time to take my bath right away, so I turned the water off when the tub was full, and kept doing other things.

I finished making dinner, and I ate.

I needed a pedicure, so I was painting my nails in the bathroom, and of course the door was open because I don't need privacy to paint my nails (and because I like ventilation). Paley came and found me. She always finds me when I'm home. And I gave her a little bit of attention, but I was painting my nails, so I put her down. She sat by me for a couple minutes and then went over to the tub.

Paley loves water. Sort of. When she eats, she'll play with her water. She puts a paw in her little water dish, and splashes the water. Intentionally. When we were at Jessica's house, Jess and Mitch saw her do it too, so they know.

She perched on the edge of the tub, and started to play with my bath water. I thought that was pretty funny, so I grabbed my phone to snap a picture. Silly cat.

Excceeeeppppt, Paley has a cold. She sneezes. A lot. So every time she sneezed, she'd have to kind of brace herself to keep her balance. I was taking pictures of her dipping into my bath water when she one time sneezed and FELL IN.

POOR KITTY! She swam to the edge, pulled herself out, and ran off. I caught her, and dried her off with a towel, and then put her on the heater to dry. She was all wet except for her tail, her head, and the top of her back.

It reminded me of this one time Jess and I were at the mall and we saw a kid playing on the fountain (like you're not supposed to, but kids do anyway), and he fell in. AWESOME.


*This is one of the things that I've taken from the Apartment Therapy book I'm reading/have been reading. The guy recommends taking baths. It's relaxing. He mentioned some CEO who takes a bath every morning, and reviews his notes in the tub. He often comes to his board meetings with papers that have water spots on them.

Just One Won't Hurt

Saturday night, I went with Jess and Mitch to the Humane Society to get a cat.

Mitch waited patiently in the car (until his PSP battery died; then he waited patiently inside), while Jess and I went from cage to cage trying out all of the cats.

I came to the shelter wanting probably a kitten (but probably not a tiny one), that was probably

 black (since they find fewer homes for black kitties), and probably female (since I'm just not into having my furniture marked).  But I was open to changing my mind.

Jessica reminded me that it is Very Important to have a kitty that already purrs.  Because by the time they're old enough to be adopted, they already know how to purr.  

I wanted a cat that would be cuddly, but that would also play.

We tried out the kitties that were in the entry area, and we liked one of them, a black kitty named Chartreuse.  But we thought we should probably keep going, because they had a lot of cats.  

In the cat room, we found a bunch of fun cats.  Jess liked a cat named Biscuit that mewed a lot and had a funny meow, and Wanted Our Attention.  I liked two cats of the ones in the room.  One was named Abby, even though it was male.  It was a fluffy little black 5 month old kitty.  The other one I liked was named Wit.  He was a Siamese cat, but a nice one.  (My experience

 with Siamese cats has generally been that they are mean.)  When I took Wit out of his cage, he did NOT want to go back in.

They had "Get Acquainted" rooms, with a story on the walls about a man who did

n't want a cat from the pet store, because he was old and he wanted an older cat to match him better.  And they told him to go to the shelter, and he did.  It was a nice story.  

We took Abby into the Get Acquainted

 room, and he was okay.  I liked him.  BUT, he was so so fluffy that he had poop in his tail, and it got ALL over me.  All over my sweater, all over my pants.  And then Jessica was done with that kitty.  She suggested we try Wit.  So we did.

And I didn't care for Wit.  Because he was so needy that he only wanted to sit with me, not

 chase the mouse when I threw it for him.  Plus, he was meowing so much that I didn't want him to bother the neighbors while I'm gone during the day.

So I still liked Abby alright, and was going to get him, except that Jess reminded me of the kitty from the front room, and we decided we'd at least Get Acquainted with her before deciding on the suuuper fluffy boy.  So we got her, and I'd forgotten how much I liked her.

When I took her out of her cage, she started purring, loudly.  She cuddled with me in the Get Acquainted room, and then when I threw a mouse for her, she was interested in that, too.  And she had medium length hair instead of long hair, which is preferable (and doesn't get poo in it).  

I picked Chartreuse.  And I filled out the papers and hoped they wouldn't remember me from when I had such an awful experience as a foster person for kittens.  

They remembered.  

"I recognize you," the lady said.  "You're one of our fosters!"

"Yeahhh," I said.  "I had one litter."

"And now you're adopting a cat!"

"Yep.  One.  Not six."

The lady laughed.  She knew that six cats are too many for an apartment.

And I finished doing the adoption papers, and when they called me up they started to give me instructions.  "It's already got these shots, but it will need two more, on this day and this day," the lady said.  "And it looks like he was neutered on--"  

"You mean spayed."

"No, neutered."

"The kitty I'm adopting is a girl."

"Aren't you adopting Toby?"

"Chartreuse."

"OH!  I had you adopting a five year old, male, black and white cat!  This is all wrong."  She looked at the adoption tag I'd brought up, and adjusted things.

When everything was back on track, they got one of their adoption cat carriers, and they went to the cage where my kitty was.  "She's a really nice little cat," the lady said.  "She was in a crate with a bunch of other cats, and she went around and groomed all of them."  (AWWW!)

And I had them make a tag for her, because they do that.  They didn't really have any cat collars, though, so we decided we'd get one later.

I named her "Paley," for William Paley, who wrote Natural Theology, which we studied in my evolution class.  (Basically, I kind of blogged about this before, but Lamarck had started this idea that species can change.  And everyone was SO sure that there had been a special creation, meaning that God made species special for their environments.  And religious people had kind of three reactions to Lamarck's stuff.  Some people were like "Impossible!" and decided that it was all nonsense.  Other people decided that God put fossils on the Earth to test our faith, and that dinosaurs never actually existed.  And some people were like "Evolution?  FANTASTIC!!!!  God make things make themselves!  HE'S EVEN GREATER THAN WE THOUGHT!"  And that was basically Paley.  Love. It.  He was sort of like a C.S. Lewis, I think.  He had this watchmaker analogy that was a Big Deal.  It's fun reading.)  

So anyway, we got in the car and drove to Target for a couple things, and then... to Jessica's house! (Because I was staying for MLK Jr. weekend.)

And Jessica's cats were not really sure what to think of the new little cat.  Annie hissed.  Alley was interested.  Paley just kind of sat there purring, not really caring what they thought of her.  

She spent the weekend there with us, and then she spent Monday afternoon at Mitch's parents' house (while we went sledding), and then she finally really came home Monday evening.

She likes our house just fine.  She has good manners.  And cleans herself a lot.  She loves attention, and purrs a lot.  Loudly.

The pictures kind of look like I adopted a shadow with eyes.  In real life, she is three-dimensional.  At the shelter they told me she is probably part British Shorthair, because she has a little puffy face, instead of a long face like Jessica's cats.  She's cute.  

The End.  (Or, more cheesily, The Beginning.)