Shy kitties

Miss me? I'm still here, mostly hangin' out on twitter and my practice blog these days. Not having much to say, I'm not saying much. 140 chars at a time fills the bill nicely.

I have several shy kitties among my fosters at the beginning of this year, sisters Buffy and Willow, and Arnie, about 2 months older. Someday I'll write about them in detail, maybe on our rescue blog, but in the meantime I wanted to post this little video. You see, Willow has a crush on Arnie, and nobody believes me. Here is video proof of Arnie washing Willow's ears. I wish you could hear her purrs.

The hive

The kittens are thriving. You can see a couple of them more clearly here, with Mama in milk bar-up position. That was the first afternoon, when they were just a few hours old.

The second pic is a mere 72 hours later. It appears the volume of kittens is about equal to the volume of Mama, who quickly regained her svelte pre-pregnancy figure.



We are so grateful that this is an experienced Mama (though it will be her last experience) and that all her milk stations appear to be functional, with a goodly supply of product. When we visit the nursery there is generally a pile of sleepy babies with big round bellies, and a rumbling purr emanating from Mama. D- likens it to the buzzing of a bee hive, with a surrounding swarm of kittens, so has decided on a bee theme for names. Mama will henceforth be known as Queenie Black, and we'll be choosing names that start with B as soon as we can reliably tell them apart and determine genders.

Little brothers (and sisters?)

On Tuesday, during the hunt for Big Brother, we briefly considered taking his Mama downstairs to use as "bait." Considered very briefly, and rejected that option as being too stressful for this little girl, who was as big as a house and due anytime.



Anytime turned out to be less than two days later. On Thursday I got an 8am wake-up call, and the report that Mama had been birthing since about 4am. D- was concerned that, while everything appeared to be going well, the babies were ice cold and Mama wasn't keeping up with the cleaning, so I packed up one of my portable radiators and hurried over.

There were eight (8!) babies! The last one still had an intact umbilical cord, and the placenta had been delivered, so I cut the cord (with rather blunt scissors - probably more effective that way, anyway) and we discarded the last placenta. She had already eaten seven, and I don't think she could take another bite. In fact, she didn't eat again until late that evening. We helped dry the kittens who were still damp, D- heated some gel packs and placed them, well wrapped, around the periphery of the storage box (she had already moved them off the middle of the bathroom floor, where all the action had taken place), and I cranked up the radiator.

Mama spent the rest of the day lazing around on her back (hah!) so all the kittens could find nipples, being an absolutely perfect mother. Completely unlike our last, Marmee, who had to be taught what feeding and cleaning were all about. I will never forget Laurie running around the tub screaming that he was hungry.

Not these kittens. So far, utter contentment.







This is the sight that greeted me when I finally came downstairs. Aunt Layla and the uncles were calmly sitting in the waiting room. They knew what was up, being experienced foster home assistants.



BTW, did you guess what colors they are? Only 6 are black, with two brown tabbies.

Big Brother

This is my new cello coach, Big Brother.



Big Brother to whom? Why, to Angelina and Brad, of course. Didn't you notice the family resemblance? Angelina, Brad, Big Brother, and their very pregnant Mama came into foster care together - we won't go into the details of why they were surrendered. Angelina, Brad, and BB stayed with me for awhile, while Mama is confined at D-'s, waiting for those babies to pop.

Last Thursday A, B, and BB went back to D-'s house as well. Angelina and Brad were adopted on Saturday (yay!) and about the same time Brother disappeared. I was on kitten watch Sunday, and poked around the house very thoroughly without spotting him. On Tuesday I went over in spelunking clothes, flashlight in hand, and D- and I started systematically dismantling her basement.

I was very afraid we were going to find him here, where the spaces between the rafters reach 10 feet over top the next room. That was quite a trick, to get my head up between the HVAC and the wall to peer down the chute.



This is where we finally found him. This little alley had been partitioned off with a sideways piece of paneling, precisely because this is a tough place from which to extract fugitives. What, you don't see him?



Try tilting the door the other way. Yup, that's him at the end.



I was able to squeeze down the tunnel, pick him up, trembling, and back slowly out without squishing him. He went into a carrier without much fight (to our relief) and we brought him back to my house - where he promptly made himself at home, much to the displeasure of The Ladies.



Why did he have such a reaction at D-s house? Our hypothesis is that he was very bonded to his (female) former owner and had transfered that close attachment to me. He was very distressed when he lost two people in the course of a week. He's a complete doll, and very affectionate. Stay tuned while we figure out how we are going to transition him to a permanent home.

In the meantime, he has work to do.



Late-breaking news - kittens this morning! Guess what color?

Loaners

I see it's been almost a month since I last posted. Where has the time gone?

My friend D- knew I was still missing Frankie, so she kindly lent me these two four-month-old monsters to occupy the void in my heart for a week or two. That's laid-back Brad on my left and squirmy little Angelina on my right. She has the barest of white tippy toes on the left side, along with one white whisker and one white chin hair. Adorable.



And I have another loaner in the house today - a cello. In the continuing saga of the exploding cello from last winter, my new replacement cello developed a crack in the top of the top just as I was getting ready to take it in to have a new bridge made and some adjustments done in the hopes of making the playability more to my liking. I have been more and more disappointed, because this wasn't the cello I would have bought if it had been one of the candidates in my search.

Though the shop that I bought the cello from won't simply refund the money (which I completely understand), they have always been willing to trade the cello at the original purchase price for another cello. So that's what I'm (finally) doing. And I must say, even though I don't need another cello at this moment, having two perfectly good ones (and two cello-shaped objects, CSO's), it is always exciting to try new cellos.

But that's all I'm going to write about that now, because I want to go practice some more.

I'm going to miss them

I know, it's a wonderful home, and I really like the people. But sometimes you just especially love them. I'm going to miss those warm, purry, snuggly wakeups. Johnny leaping from the dining room table to the counter to enjoy his goat's milk. Frankie grunting, unsuccessfully imitating a Maine Coon's trill. And so many other things.



Have a good life, Frankie and Johnny.

Weekend

Compact

This is Pi, curled up in the circle ball track. It's odd that this is one of his favorite places, all 7 1/2 months and 9+ lbs-worth of him. It's not a very big space, but it must be cozy.



See what I mean?



This is Pi after he woke up and spilled out of the track.

Amazing.

No privacy

In case anyone wondered what it's like to take a bath with a houseful of foster kitties...

Bigs and littles

The event of the day was a home energy audit, one of the services provided by the gas company where a guy with ever so many more handyman skills than have you comes to visit your house with an infrared camera to show you where all the air leaks and other heating inefficiencies in your house are and glibly describes 40 different ways to fix each one.

Most interestingly, I discovered that when the temperature is 18 below 0 all you need to do is walk around the house with your hand out to identify all the same sources of heat loss.

No, really, this was a useful thing to have done, and I learned a lot. Probably the most important things were that the biggest source of heat loss in my house are all of the cannister lights (20? 30? 40?), and that I really need to clean the metal filters in my electrostatic furnace filtering system more often than, say, every year or two.

After we brought the house back up to a comfortable temperature (part of the process involved sucking all of the warm air out of the house with a blower fitted into the front door), I turned the furnace off again so that I could clean the filters. They looked like dryer lint catchers, no lie. Unfortunately, I forgot to take photo documentation, so you'll have to take my word for it. They have been delinted and are in the dishwasher now. Hopefully they will be dry before it hits 30 below tonight.

While the house is cooling off, the "Beaches" are popular with the resident catlets. I thought this tableau was striking enough to cause me to break my temporary vow of blogging silence.

Here we have a big stripey and tuxedo on one side of the bathroom sink:



And little stripey and tuxedo on the other:



Adorable.

Tummy and toesies Tuesday

It's been a long time since I showed a Tummy Tuesday post, but with Frankie being so obliging I had to close out the 2008 Tuesdays with this one.

This was a new bed style I thought I'd try. I plopped it down in the kitchen in front of the heating vent, and voilà, instant Frankie favorite place. And here he is, doing his day job.

How I spent December

Tree + cats + camera + me.

Merry Christmas to All

This is a special Christmas for Dolly, because she's at home - we officially adopted Dolly this month. She continues to graciously share her tree and ornaments with the other fosters, big and little, and hopes fervently that they will all find homes of their own soon.

One more day 'till Christmas

So many ornaments to destroy, so little time...

But you can't get the full effect without sound. I've learned to recognize this rustling from wherever I am in the house.



I have collected a large basket full of ornaments from the floor and various other resting places, and will do one last total tree-redecoration tonight.

Two days until Christmas

Have you been naughty or nice?

Three days until Christmas

Stay warm!

Morning paper

Last night's rehearsal did indeed end after 10pm. Much to my surprise, we have a beefy string section, expanding from 2 or 3 to 5 in each section. It feels a bit odd to be a volunteer in the midst of a professional, or at least paid, section.

Two new pieces were added, one a cello obbligato and piano accompanying a child's recitative with choir. Very nice, and handled by one of the pros. It was by no stretch a dress rehearsal for us, as we were hurriedly marking in bowings and dividing parts throughout, not to mention sorting through pieces and discovering who was missing what. At least being busy keeps things from getting tedious.

One thing I noticed was that orchestra members have much better discipline than choir members. It was no problem at all for us to sit quietly in our own thoughts while other performers were being rehearsed, while the choir couldn't seem to help chattering when it was too long between singing. I wonder why that is?

I slept in quite late this morning to compensate for the late night last night, and in anticipation of another one tonight. The black-and-whites joined me while I drank my morning coffee and, well, tried to read my e-mail and morning blogs. Sometimes it's hard to see around the crowd at the screen.









You just know that Frankie would be the little boy in class whispering to his neighbors, throwing spit balls and pulling pigtails.

Squee!

I don't know what else to say.

Last night we had the first tip-over, fortunately toward the window, so it was easy to grab the tree and sit it back upright. Today it's below zero, and I'm making the rounds to put down towels as draught-stoppers to keep the door bottoms from freezing. The tree-tipping culprits have burrowed in together under the tree for a mid-day nap, a winter wonderland of light snow outside the window.

How cute is that? Monsters.

Tree update

The tree is still standing, though occasionally looking a bit worse for wear. This is a typical daytime configuration. I think there are five under or in the tree...



... and one taking advantage of the make-shift tree skirt that has fallen to the floor.



Yes, that's a garland of purple beads that's hanging loosely, as well. Once a day I make the rounds, picking up and replacing all the ornaments I find on the floor, and re-stringing the garlands. There are no breakable ornaments, and no tinsel, so no harm done, and we are all greatly enjoying the tree.

Tree 1 Cats 0

I hope you didn't bet against the tree - it's a sturdy little thing, and has been cleverly decorated with indestructible ornaments. I did hear a few of them rolling on the floor, not yet to be seen again, but on the whole, things look pretty good.

I have taken about a thousand pictures since yesterday - very hard to get a good photo of a moving kitten in the dark (except for the tree lights) with a pocket camera set on no flash.

Here's a truly ornamental glamour shot of Johnny, my climbing wonder.