Work, New Cat, Temple Pictures, Garden, and Moving.

Work

I've been busy with work lately, which is a good thing.  A man in northern Utah asked me to manage his house for him.  He's moving out of the country.  Then, another man who has eight apartments and lives out-of-state asked me to manage for him too.  So, this month I've spent a lot of time showing vacancies lately, and also responding to maintenance issues at the apartments.  I've actually been busy enough that I haven't been doing any more marketing, although I plan to pick up with that again soon.

Jeff is back to work, too.  He has been for a little while now.  He did get multiple job offers again, but one of the jobs offered higher pay and really good benefits, so he accepted that one.  It's with a company that most people have heard of.  Jeff doesn't really like the job very much, because it's taking a long time for him to actually get started doing programming, and he is bored.  That should improve over time, though.  He keeps finding out about new benefits--we already knew our health care would pretty much be free, but on the first day of work he found out they were going to give him an iPhone--and pay for his service.  (Cool!  Although Jeff is kind of disappointed because he really likes his Droid.)  Then, Jeff offered to work later hours so that he can work some hours with the Australians that are on his team...so the company gave him a credit card and said they will pay for his dinner every day.  Nice!

New Cat

I brought home a new cat.  I was showing the home that I'm managing to some prospective renters and I asked if they had any pets.  (The owner allows up to two, with pet rent.)  They said no--well, they do--they have cats--but they're getting rid of them.  "Oh," I said,  "Are they good at catching mice?"  I explained that we've looked for a mouser before, but people always list cats online saying they would be good at catching mice, or saying they would grow up to be good at catching mice, but I want a cat that already catches mice. 

They said, "Actually, they are!"

So we talked some more about it, and after I showed them the rental home, they invited me back to their house.  I met two of their cats, and decided to take the one who had more of a history of catching mice.  Her name is Kitty, she is 17 years old, and she has long fur that started getting ratty a few months ago.  She is sometimes really friendly and sometimes really aggressive.  Perfect.

So I brought her home, and let her out in the barn, and then I didn't see her again.

Jeff thought I was joking when I told him I'd brought a cat home, but it didn't really matter because she isn't really our pet, she's just [supposed to be] living in the barn and we're feeding her.  We'd talked about getting a barn cat before, so it wasn't completely out of the blue. 

And then, after a few days of Kitty being missing, I was out doing some work in the barn and I heard a meow that wasn't Paley.  I walked around the corner, and (!) there she was!  So I showed Jeff our new cat.  And I fed her.  Paley does not like Kitty.  Kitty is disinterested in Paley.

Temple Pictures

This week my Relief Society (ladies church group) did a "Wonderful Wednesday" activity.  The main project was making temple pictures.  The pictures are beautiful (and popular up here in Utah) but if you just go buy one they usually cost about $200, so although I've wanted one for a while, I haven't bought one.  For the activity they charged us $53, though, and that was totally worth it.

I invited my sister Jessica, and we each did pictures of the temples where we were married.  (Jess did Salt Lake and I did Jordan River.)  It was pretty easy.  Basically, what you do is mount a print onto a board.  Let it dry.  Texture the print.  Let it dry.  Paint your frame.  Let it dry.  Add screws and little metal things to the back of the frame.  Insert the mounted, textured print.  Tighten the screws.  Wait a day and add the bracket thing that lets you hang it.  Then hang it.

Garden

My garden didn't go quite how I planned, mainly because I was unable to get a fence up to protect my garden from goats.  So I never planted my garden.  But, after I abandoned so many healthy plants at my in-laws' house, my father-in-law planted anything that seemed like it might survive.  This resulted in a lot of produce, actually.  We've been picking and eating purple tomatoes when we go over to my in-laws' on game days.  And, I've had a couple of the Rich Sweetness 132 melons.  They're small, but they're pretty delicious.  A couple days ago, my father-in-law tore out all of my garden and harvested what he could.  Frost is coming soon, anyway, and I think he is planning to plant some trees where my garden was growing.  It was nice of him to let my stuff grow at their house.  

Moving

We're only sort of moving.  We've been living in the back portion of our house, and we've had the front part rented out.  The guys living in the front have been there for over two years, but now they're moving.  So we're going to move up to the front!  I think it will probably need new carpet, and a little bit of work done...but we plan to move in the beginning part of November.  I am SO excited to have a kitchen(!) and a bath tub(!) and a bigger office area(!) and a fireplace(!).  Jeff is worried that moving will be a lot of work, and getting organized will take a long time.  It kind of will, but I don't think it will be too bad, because we won't have to pack, or load things up in a truck, or anything like that.  We'll just take things and put them in their new places.  Easiest Move Ever.  Did I mention I'm excited to have a real kitchen?  Because I am.  We finally got an oven back here a few weeks ago, though, and that's already been excellent. 

We're busy and we're happy and these are the things that are going on.

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.

Welcome Ella! (part one)

Welcome Ella!

On Tuesday, J and I had the privilege of welcoming Ella to his house.

Jess was actually the one who suggested it. She texted me on 18 September.

Jess: Do you want another kitten?

Me: I don’t think so. Thanks anyway.

Jess: Paley likes friends. And besides, they’re outside.

Jess: Remember, you wanted a friend for Paley.

[At this point, I remembered signs that were up at the Humane Society when I adopted Pae that said stuff about how having two cats is better than one. And I remembered how I had seriously considered getting another cat because Paley gets lonely. Whenever I’m home she thinks I’m there to entertain her. At the time, I decided my apartment was too small for two energetic kittens and got I Paley a fun cat tree instead.]

Me: A canine friend, though. J is super allergic to cats. How old is it?

Jess: Farms can have lots of pets. She’s six months.

Me: Is she spayed? What does she look like?

Jess: Yes, I think so. She’s a calico and actually really cute. She’s still kitten-ish size.

Me: Why does she need a new home?

[Remember? Jess and I had Abby, and she was beautiful, and she had good manners, but she was a terrible cat.]

Jess: Ugh. Her family had a baby.

[Totally understandable. Also, at this point I was thinking it was one of Jessica’s co-workers or cohort people, or something since they’re always getting married and having babies.]

Me: Oh. I’ll talk to J about it, but most likely no.

Jess: Also, she loves water like Pae!

[Paley does love water. Silly cat.]

Jess: Mmkay. You should also see pictures of her and read about her. They’re on BJ and Tianna’s blog.

[I thought about this for a second and at first thought they were advertising a cat for someone else, and then it dawned on me: BJ and Tianna have a kitten. And they had a baby fairly recently.]

Me: Ohhhhhhhhh. It’s BJ & Tianna’s kitty.

Me: I read their blog, so I know her.

Jess: And like her?!

Me: Yeah. I don’t know that they would want her to become an outside cat, though, would they?

Me: Huh. Jeff actually said yes.

[He did! I was pretty surprised. And then I worried that when I asked him if it was okay for Paley to have a friend he might have not realized he was agreeing to us getting another cat. But it turned out he did know.]

Jess: Really?! I’m not sure they’d care. As long as you love her.

Me: Huh. I guess I’ll call them.

Me: Or maybe just e-mail. [Tianna was on Gmail chat, so I just talked to her there.]

(a bit later)

Me: Looks like Paley is getting a new friend.

Jess: Really?! Paley likes friends!

Me: Yeahhh, Paley will like it.

Jess: Well, you did say she thinks you need to be her friend all the time.

Me: Oh, I didn’t tell her that.

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!

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.)

No more cats.

Well, I just took the cats back.

This time, I tried calling ahead (nobody answered), I found a way to put a luggage strap on the Pet Taxi, and I got off at the correct train stop, so that made things a little easier. Okay, a lot.

But when I told them the kitties hadn't had their second shots or been spayed/neutered yet, they got mad at me. "We never take foster kittens back before they've been spayed." WELL. And I kind of mumbled something about the Humane Society being far, and I have to carry the cats, and they're destroying my house, and it sounded like a lame excuse.

And I don't think the lady understood that when I bought a pumpkin yesterday, I couldn't carry it because my forearms are still bruised, and so are my hips. And she obviously didn't understand that last night I had to put sweats on top of my pajamas and then sleep with a heating pad, because I was out of clean blankets and even my comforter needs to be washed, and so does my couch. And she couldn't have understood that I can't put my bathmat in the bathroom, my shoes on the floor, or my books on the couch. And she definitely didn't understand that my new-to-me couch which had zero snag marks when I got it is now covered in snag marks. Even though I say "no" whenever kitties start to bother it.

Obviously she didn't understand that kitties bite me awake, or just mew and mew, or run around and I haven't slept well since I got back from Boston. And I don't think she understood that I've tried and tried to make my house smell livable, but that I can't open my windows really, because they have no screens and I can't let the cats out. She didn't understand that I gave each of the kitties individual attention at least a couple times every day so that they would feel loved, and grow up to be nice cats, for other people. She didn't understand that I was trying to help and did my best.

She didn't thank me for keeping six cats in my apartment for six weeks.

She was annoyed. She said, "They're not spayed. What am I supposed to do with them?" and I thought maybe it was a rhetorical question, because she's in charge of foster animals with the Humane Society. And like, all week long doesn't she get not-spayed cats that she's not expecting? (That's the whole idea of having a Humane Society, right?) And these ones weren't even mine. But she just looked at me, because it wasn't a rhetorical question, so I said, "Spay them?" And she said they'd have to find someone else to foster them. It was an extremely awkward conversation.

And I know I read on the fostering agreement that if I didn't take them for their shots, or if I refused to give them back, I wouldn't be allowed to foster animals and maybe not even adopt from the Humane Society ever again. So I think I may be blacklisted from the Humane Society.

Which is awful. That's like being blacklisted from volunteering at the library or at an elementary school.

So now I'm home in my catless house. And feeling awful about my best not being enough.

OOh, glimmer of hope! Just now, as I was typing this, another lady from the fostering at the Humane Society called to find out what happened. And I explained that I couldn't take them back for shots, etc, during the week because I have a new job, and the Humane Society is way far without a car, etc, and she was like, "Ohh." And she told me the kitties were "nice and fat"! And we talked about some of the mom's issues (like wishing she were an outside cat and not using the litter box), and some of the personality traits of the kitties (one of them was hissy when they tried to give it shots), etc, and it was the conversation that I had expected to have when I dropped them off.

Sigh.

I've kind of started coming up with names for them.

I've had the kitties for like six weeks, and I haven't named them.

I call them:

The girl one. = The gray and cream long-haired calico girl one.

The gray one. = The long haired gray one that poops on everything.

The white one. = The white boy.

The orange ones. = The two boys that are both orange.

Except, the orange ones don't look alike anymore. One is darker, and his tail has a dark tip. He has short hair. The other one has medium-long hair, and he's lighter, and his tail has a light tip.

Also, the orange ones get into different kinds of mischief now. And the dark orange one has decided we're BFF. So he keeps sitting in my lap and falling asleep, which is darling.

I've started thinking of names for them, though, which is a Bad Idea, because everyone knows that once you name them you start to get attached. Even though I don't like them, I sort of already am. Because I keep serving them. I feed them, I pick up their poop, I pet them, I talk to them, I come home to them. Everyone who's served a mission knows the way to love someone you don't love is to serve them.

I really want to call the fluffy light orange kitty Punkin. He's so round and orange! Wouldn't that be cute? It would, huh. The same way that babies born around Christmas are sometimes named Holly or Noel. And girls born on Valentine's day are sometimes called Valentina. And boys born on the Fourth of July should be named Sam.

And I had thought of another really good orange kitty name for the other one, but I forget it now. (It's better that way.)

And if I wanted to keep the theme, I could name the white one Spook. Cute. Just like how parents name their kids Julie and Jared and Jordan and Jennifer so that they all start with J's. Except instead of a letter theme, it's a season one. But he doesn't really seem like a Spook or ghost cat anyway. Maybe because of his orange tips.

Anyway, I'll keep calling them by their colors instead of naming them. Even though I feel like I'm in the 1950's because there's a white boy and a black girl. And a colored girl.

Oh well.

In other news, in my last post I said I didn't, but I actually did accomplish some stuff today:

- I registered for another 5k, which is this Saturday. Fun! And I went running today.

- I picked up my College Republicans shirt, which, frankly, disappoints me. It says on the front "Your Professor Doesn't Have To Know" and it's an ugly font, and each word is capitalized (why?), and I understand that some people get really picked on by their professors for being Republican, but wearing a shirt that says that makes me feel like I'm keeping a bad secret, which I don't think my party affiliation is. It just seems like my shirt is making some kind of an excuse to go get drunk on a school trip or something. But yay. Another free shirt. Although I wish they'd chosen the other idea they'd told us about, which was like GO RED (or some other verb)! BLEED RED (we have a big blood drive, which nobody takes seriously, but which everyone sees advertised like crazy), VOTE RED. (AWESOME.) Oh well.

- Right after I finish typing this, I'm going to watch the last episode of the first season of Heroes, which is obviously also an accomplishment.

- AND! Tomorrow I have an interview for a job! And that's exciting, since I am presently unemployed.

The End.

Taking the cats back...home again.

Today I decided I was done with the kitties.

It's been about the right amount of time, anyway.

I cleaned everyone's eyes and noses. We took a few pictures, which nobody wanted to sit still for. And which didn't focus right, since they were on auto-timer.

I cleaned the big pet taxi carrier. And stuffed everyone into the cage.

I lugged them up the hill to the TRAX station. Nobody really meowed or anything, but they were heavy, and I knew we were in for a lot of fun. We had just missed the train, so we had to wait for the next one. It wasn't the worst problem to have, because I was already tired of carrying them. Everyone nearby wanted to talk to me about the kitties. Everyone nearby had siblings or friends who fostered kitties. And then the kitties started to smell. I think the gray one pooped and it started getting all over everyone. Gross. Everyone was just kind of chilling out in the pet taxi, though, so we were mostly ok.

We caught the train, and it was a SANDY one instead of a DOWNTOWN SLC one, so we didn't even have to change trains at Gallivan Plaza. Sweet. It was an older train, so we couldn't really get down the aisle to a good spot, but I sat in one of the "please offer these seats to the elderly or disabled" seats (which I usually don't) (sit in, not offer!) and that way there was space for the Pet Taxi on the floor in front of me. Another lady got on the train a few stops later, and she wanted to talk about the kitties too. And how nobody should ever buy pets from anywhere but the Humane Society. Great.

And then we got off at 3300 S, because you can either get off at 3300 or 4500ish, and last time I went I decided 3300 S would definitely be closer since you have to backtrack a TON if you get off at 4500ish.

And the cats were HEAVY.

So about every block or sometimes every half block, we all sat down and rested. And they smelled, too. SO badly. And my hands hurt. And my arms hurt. And my sides hurt.

And I sometimes carried them on my right hip. And when I did that, I would put my bag on my left shoulder, and hold the Pet Taxi handle with my left hand, and balance the big pet carrier on my hip, and reach my right arm to the far side of the carrier. I think that was how I carried them most often. Sometimes I would try to do the reverse, on my left hip, but that was less comfortable.

Other times I carried them in front of me. And I reached both arms around the sides of the carrier, and held it near the bottom.

And still other times I just carried it by the handle, and they bumped against my leg as I walked. That made me tired the quickest.

And then, when we were at about 3700 S, I remembered: actually, there's a train stop at 3900 S. I didn't need the 3300 S stop. I wanted the 3900 S one! It was too late to turn back, so I was walking six long blocks that I didn't even need to, carrying heavy cats. Great.

And then, I got to 3900 S, and I felt like we were getting close. EXCEPT, I couldn't figure out how to get there. And it was quickly getting dark.

There was an overpass to cross some train tracks. First, I tried walking under the overpass, right next to the train tracks. But that wasn't right. And I would have had to have actually crossed them, at not a crossing spot. And I was still having to stop pretty frequently, and it seemed like something that would get me in trouble, and not even get me to where I was trying to go.

So I went back out of that, and around the SLCC Milcreek corner, and down to the light. And I crossed the intersection, and crossed to the other side of the street, but it was 210, and not 300 W, and it looked kind of like a dead end. So I crossed back, and crossed again, and crossed again, so that I could go over the overpass on the pedestrian side.

And we stopped and rested, and then we went up the hill, stopping to rest partway through. And we got to the top, where there was a scary, bridge-like thing for pedestrians to cross, which was covered in graffiti. And we crossed it. And we started to go down the other side, except that it looked like it crossed the freeway. Which was wrong. We didn't want to be on the other side of the freeway.

So we walked back down the overpass. Back across the street to the 210 one. And I wanted to lay down and fall asleep on the side of the road. Because I was So. So. Tired. And Everything hurt. Well. Not everything. Just my hands and arms and shoulders and sides and hips.

And the kitties started to get tired of me jostling them around, and tipping the carrier to hold it against one side, and tipping it in the other direction to hold them on the other side, etc. I noticed I was getting cat poop on me which had become a mess inside the carrier and was getting on me when I would hold the Pet Taxi against my side. Great.

But we were ALMOST there. Sort of. And I could SEE THE SIGN.

I kept consoling them even though the cats don't speak English. "We're almost there. Just 2. 3 more blocks. I know guys, I don't like this either." So we made our way down the long industrial street that wasn't the right one, so that we could get to a street that got us to the right one.

And it was dark.

And I kept having to stop like, at every other industrial place's driveway, to rest. And partway through, there was a dog which became interested in us. But its owner was good and kept it from coming across the street to eat the cats.

And then we got to the right street. And the kitties were mewing because they'd had it. I wanted to cry. I was tired. "We're almost there, guys," I kept telling them. But really I was telling me.

And we got there! And the gate was open, for EMPLOYEES AND DELIVERIES (or something like that) ONLY. And I was there for a delivery (or whatever the word was), so I went in.

And there were people outside!

We only had to stop once to rest in the driveway. It was like we were sprinting towards the finish line of the race.

Except the people outside weren't just outside, or on break. Although I'd left at 4pm, it was now 7:45. The place was closed.

.

.

I explained to them that I was done with the kitties. I'd been fostering, and it had been about the right amount of time, and I was done with them. They said the door was locked, and there wasn't anywhere to put them even if it was open.

I said my arms were tired, I got off at the wrong stop and had carried them from 3300 S. I said I was done with them.

They understood that my arms couldn't carry any more. One lady said she gets tired after just walking half a block.

They decided we would call the foster people and see if they could come back (hello inconvenience), and I agreed that we could try that. They didn't answer.

One of the ladies said she would take them, but that she doesn't work tomorrow. And then she said she would just take them. And I was like "are you sure?" because you're always supposed to ask that even if you don't care if someone's sure. And she said that she was. And then I was just taking down the email address so that I can send pictures and comments about their personalities, and they noticed that Lisa V's phone number was on my papers, too. And we had to call her, too, because maybe the ladies could drop the cats off at her house, if they could just get her address. But she didn't answer either.

And then the lady who was going to take the cats realized she can't have kittens that haven't had all of their shots. These haven't. No, she's not allowed to have foster kittens. Because one time she had a kitten die. It got distemper, and someone brought it back to the shelter after they had adopted it, saying it had died. So she's not allowed to have kittens anymore. Just cats with all of their vaccinations.

But I still couldn't carry the cats anymore. So they offered me a ride home, and I can bring them sometime when it's open. And I should call the foster ladies first, please. Great.

So after goodbye pictures and almost 4 hours of trekking with cats this afternoon, we loaded up into the lady's van, and she drove us home. Everyone was happy to get home, and everyone was covered in cat poop. And smelled like it. I gave a couple kitties partial baths.

And now, as I type this, I'm back where I started. (DO NOT PASS GO, DO NOT COLLECT $500.) Except my hands are still red and raw, and I accomplished nothing with my afternoon. Super.

Cat update

The kitties are getting bigger.

The two orange ones look less alike. The darker orange one has started sometimes purring when I pick him up. He's also more active than most of the other kittens. And he sometimes will sit still with me for a little bit. The lighter one is less interested in me [note: he slept in my lap while I uploaded pictures for this post, though] and playing and has a sore eye, poor kitty. Both of the orange kitties like playing with plastic bags. Actually, I think all of the kitties do.

The white cat doesn't cry nearly as much as he used to. He's really pretty now; he has orange like...tips. His ears are orange, and his tail, and his nose, and they fade to white. As of a couple days ago, he thinks I taste good. Or something. When I pick him up, he starts licking my shirt or my arm. He especially likes to do this after I go running, because I'm salty. Randomly, the white kitty developed a fear of heights. When I hold him, or go to put him down, he clings and starts meowing, totally freaked out.

The gray cat has become fascinated with cords. She likes to bother my computer, the telephone cord, my hair straightener cord, my phone charger, etc. I have to pick her up and find new things for her to do. The gray cat looks less mangy, and doesn't crouch when she's walking now (usually). She'll be a pretty cat when she grows out of her ugly kitten phase.

The calico little girl is about the same. She's still sweet. She still purrs when I pick her up. She's very curious. She likes yarn. Her fur is very soft. She likes to pick on her brothers.

Most of the kitties are doing much better with knowing when to use claws, and when not to. They're all doing a great job of using the litter box.

Their mom isn't. Kiki is the same as before, except more annoying. She still doesn't use her litter box all the time. She has started rummaging through my kitchen trash when I leave the house. She keeps trying to run outside. A couple times she's gotten out without me realizing it, just as I'm coming home. Except! There's an entryway to my apartment and my neighbor's apartment; so even if Keek makes it out of my door, she would have to conquer another door to actually get outside. Which obviously, she can't. So she starts crying and wants back in, and I let her in. Stupid cat. So I think whoever adopts Kiki should want an outside cat. Because she sucks at being an inside cat, but she would probably be pretty nice as an outside one. And she wants to go out anyway.

Obligatory Cat Photos

Just to let you all know, I think once I'm done with these kitties, I never want cats again. And I don't think I'm exaggerating, either. In my chat with Brian about getting kitties, he told me not to become a crazy cat lady, and I said I wouldn't but now I am entirely confident that it will never be an issue. I've had several moments where I just want to step on them. Like spiders.


These beasts are loud. I let Keek out and when she isn't with the kitties, they cry. And when I make her be with the kitties, she cries. So I feel like there's constant cat noise. Even times when nobody needs anything, someone's crying. Usually it's the white kitten. It cries. Pick it up? It cries. Put it down? It cries. Let it be with Keek? It cries. Let it wander the house bothering things? It cries.

These cats smell. Awful. They make my whole house stink. I clean the litter box multiple times every day, and it seems like they fill it up as fast as I empty it. Also they eat a ton.

And no, I haven't named them. And no, I don't think I will. And yes, I'm heartless.

I really genuinely thought I would enjoy this, but I just don't at all. Hopefully I'll like them better in a couple weeks when everyone's bigger. Or something.

Anyway. Here are the pictures.


The white one (boy). Crying.
























Okay, this kitten I actually like. She sometimes cries, but the instant you pick her up, she starts purring like she's just so happy to be picked up. Also, she seems to be one of the smarter kittens.















Her practicing backing up, arching her back, and poofing out.

The gray one. She looks kind of mangy. Actually, she looks like a really old stuffed animal. She has long hair, and when you pick her up she weighs like nothing. She crawls really low to the ground, and moves really slowly, and sleeps when the other kittens play, so I think she's kind of the runt and maybe isn't eating dry food yet and needs more time nursing so that she can gain some weight.

One of the orange boys.

The other orange boy. Getting a bath, which he wanted none of. Also, Kiki.















The boys sleeping after eating.

(Blogger seems to always do weird stuff wtih my format, so I'm just going to post this and not worry about it today.)

Worth reading: word to your mother

So guys, I'm adding another link to the side of my blog and you should check it out.

It's called 'word to your mother' and it's a girl, well, actually a mom, who blogs. She's pretty awesome. I think her blog was one on a page of suggested reading from Google Reader.

If I'm friends with you on Google, then you've probably seen a few things of hers that I've shared. If not, you should make haste and check out:

Her post that includes the Wonder Sauna Hot Pants, which still amaze me.

Her post and follow-up post about her new cat. Hilarious!

Or there's this. Or this. Or this.

And she's doing a giveaway right now, so if you want you can enter for that, too.

(Her blog sometimes reminds me of Seriously, so blessed! except that it isn't fake.)

Anyway, that's all.

Living the good life.

I was thinking about cats.

My cat is so lucky. She has all of her food and water provided. She has free heating. She can sleep all day, or play when she feels like it. She demands and receives attention whenever she wants it. And she goes around getting massages from everyone; nobody gives it a second thought. Nobody ever fights her about anything. She has such a simple, relaxing lifestyle.


As I considered her sweet lifestyle, I was initially a bit jealous. How fortunate she was, to be born a cat.


I thought more about it, though, and really, being born a cat is probably usually a misfortune. The only cats that really have it good are indoor cats. And possibly farm cats.




There are a whole lot of cats that have to defend their territory, have to hunt to survive, and so on. They lose limbs and limp, and get ear mites and fleas, and eat trash. They have to avoid cars and hungry Koreans and dogs and bad weather.


There are probably loads of stray cats. And domestic cats that have to live outside. Life as an average cat wouldn't be all that great. And I'm sure the odds of being born an indoor cat are really, really not favorable.


Come to think of it, I guess there are people out there (especially in other countries) born with a lot of the same problems that outdoor cats have. I should be thankful for what I've got.