Marty and Dave's Newest Addition

Two weekends ago, my mom and dad came down to help us scour the Floyd Fall Craft Festival for handmade treasures. We got a spiffy leather belt, a few Christmas gifts, and had a nice time. My parents found an inspirational sign (this sign is going to inspire my mom to make up her mind about the curtains that will hang on the window the sign is now posted above), very dark applebutter, a pretty necklace, and some other odds and ends. In one particularly crowded section of the fair was a woman selling paintings on behalf of a local art gallery. She also is the "Feline Coordinator of the Floyd County Humane Society." You can just imagine the pictures plastered all over the side of her stall. Every cat featured looked like something out of a calendar. But one kitten was hands down the cutest thing you've ever seen. Mom immediately fell in love. The lady told her that the kitten was, indeed, unclaimed and wouldn't be weened and ready to leave her mother for at least two more weeks. Mom said she'd "think about it" and wandered on. As we were leaving the fair hours later, my dad said "Why don't you go back and see if the kitten's still available? If no one else has claimed it today, we could find a way to get it back to Richmond."

And so, on Saturday, with baby Emma curled in a towel, snug in her cat carrier, we met mom at the halfway mark between Radford and Richmond. She's absolutely adorable and her middle name should be Spunk. She'd only been at my parents' house a day before she pushed Star (their aggressive, moody adult cat) away from her foodbowl and ate Star's food! Marcy and Emma are still feeling each other out. Emma's not afraid of anything and Marcy...well, despite being 8 months older...is. So eventually Marcy's not going to run when the kitten tries to play with her, and until then, my parents are just careful to give both cats tons of love and attention.

The adventures of Diana and the plastic litter

Okay, it's been awhile since we've posted anything new. It's not that there's been nothing going on, but that we've been too busy to post.

For example, for the past week we've been trying to get a urine sample from Diana. Note that as a cat, Diana doesn't understand "Could you just pee in this cup, please?" This has led to any number of "situations" that would be hilarious if they were on TV and not so funny when you're actually there...trying to, say, slide a bit of foil under a cat's butt while she urinates. Uh yeah. Funny to picture someone else doing. Not so funny to be the person (or to smell it).

Long story short (and edited for the non-bodily-fluid-lovers out there)...Diana had symptoms of bad, possibly life threatening and very expensive UT problems. The vet tech explains to me in small words how one gets a cat's urine sample. This consists of locking the cat in a room with NO textiles (she'll use the towels/sofa/clothes/whatever instead of the box) with a litter box filled with plastic pellets. Diana is a skittish cat. Plastic pellets make loudish noises. This was NEVER going to work. Every time, bless her heart, she TRIED to think about using the plastic pellet filled box...she put one paw in and scared herself with the noise of them rolling around. After days of this very pitiful, locked in the bathroom existence and still no usable sample, we broke down and bought aquarium rocks. It feels more like litter and it's still nonabsorbant. Here's the thing. You have to wash it. And dry it. And then be ready to strain it the instant it gets used. UGH. I washed aquarium litter. I think I'm going to put that on my resume. And, after all this hooplah...she's just fine. Apparently we just needed to change cat litter brands. Go figure.

Calvin's New Friend

It's been a while now since Diana joined us and she now seems comfortably settled into her routine and place in the household. This routine, however, doesn't always suit Sir Calvin. Diana is a princess: high maintenence like you wouldn't believe. Everything is her way or the highway, bucko. Diana is nocturnal in the strictest sense. She wanders around the house at night, cat napping. During the day, she's taken "beauty rest" to a new level. I think "beauty coma" would be a better description. No amount of trills and purrs and pokes from Calvin can rouse her for a game of tag. Heck, forget Calvin, she hardly shakes the cobwebs off to get up for her favorite treats! Calvin, on the other hand, is less of a cat and more of a human. At least he thinks so. He thinks normal "people" are awake and active during the day and sleep soundly during the night. So this means that early morning and late night, when both cats are awake, there are rousing games of tag and kickball as well as foot races that could be mistaken for elephant stampedes by anyone who can't see the participants. We're encouraged that D and C get along so well when they're both awake, but during the day, Calvin seems to be a little lost. Diana is happy to come wake us up at 3am to have us entertain her. (I swear she thinks we're her personal valets and jesters!) Calvin, however, gets bored when Brett's at work and Megan is working on the computer and has been forced to make a new friend to keep him entertained.

Calvin has adopted a leopard print mouse that is a handmedown from Emma, Gina's princess...I mean cat. Emma is particular about her toys and the mouse didn't interest her at all, so it made its way to our house when Gina moved to TX in the summer. At first the mouse was in a drawer with other cat toys. If we left them all on the floor we'd never be able to sweep, so we rotate through the toys in the drawer and when they haven't played with one in a while, it goes back in the drawer and a "new" forgotten old one comes back out. At some point the leopard print mouse made an appearance in the house and hasn't be able to get back in the drawer for a moment's rest since. Calvin now carries the mouse around the house with him like a little kitten. He brings you the mouse when he wants to give you a gift, but quickly takes it back again. :) He cleans it and naps with it and takes it to the food bowl with him and of course he talks to it to keep it occupied during the day. Yes, I'm sure he's doing this for the benefit of the mouse. He keeps it away from Diana at all costs. I suppose he's afraid she'll give it cooties like girls often do.

Eventually the mouse needed a name. It's clear that he's adopted the mouse as his own pet to take care of. Calvin had already given it a name. A distinctive, if somewhat mornful, "meeewww" and sometimes he calls it by a nickname, a short chirping "mew". We translated it for him: "Hobbes". (Be sure to check out the link here.)