The latest additions to house life: kittens, porch furniture and
plants.
Kittens are obviously the most exciting. So I’ll save the best for last.
Porch Furniture:
2 Saturdays ago we were at home depot (like ya do once you
own a home) and we passed by the end of summer sale furniture. This cute little patio set was sittin
there basically calling our name.
We sat, said, “hmm,” then left.
Dilemma:
We needed furniture for back porch.
But we are also on a budget.
But it is on sale and it is almost beautiful Fall,
porch-sittin weather.
But we are on a budget.
But if we don’t get it now they won’t have it til spring and
prices will be sky high.
But we just got kittens (which = expensive kitten vaccines)
But but but
End of dilemma resulted in the purchase of furniture after I
walked by our empty screen porch and envisioned just how cute the navy blue
furniture would look against our mustard colored house.
Assembling friends
PLANTS
Last Saturday we found ourselves back at home depot…where we
will certainly be for many Saturdays for the rest of our lives. We’ve been almost killing this
hydrangea plant given to us by Gaga (my cousins’ grandma). We kept forgetting to water it. Then we put it out in the sun…cause
plants need sun. Then it looked
worse. It came time to plant. (because now I know you plant things
early fall). And if we didn’t get
it planted it was most certainly gonna die. Off to home depot we went to buy it a friend. It’s a good thing for Google cause home
depot workers know NOTHING about the plants they sell. We learned from Google that hydrangeas
only need a few hours of morning sun.
Oops.
Once we found the perfect, partially shady spot we started
digging. Then we struck
concrete. Concrete was apparently
permanent and important (our house foundation extending from porch…and kinda
ruining our plant vision). No
worries. We got it done and had
our first gardening experience. New
hobby? That’s a little ambitious
to say at this point. The whole
time we were working I kept expecting a car to stop, see how clueless we were,
and come help. At first, Joe was
digging while I snapped pics.
Joe—“No. You
are gonna put this on the blog.
People say ‘oh I saw you on the blog he he he!’ What do you say about me on the
blog. You make fun of me?”
What else should I have done? We only had one shovel.
Then, my turn with shovel.
(now I know it only takes ~3 minutes to get a shovel thumb blister)
--Mother said you could always tell a lady by her
hands.-- Scarlet
Weenie hands.
Need gloves. Hopefully Gaga
plant makes it. It looks pretty
pitiful next to Home Depot plant.
Home Depot Plant
Gaga Plant
KITTENS
I have now had kittens for almost 2 months. I have had 3 big goals in life. 1) Be on permanent staff at Camp
Bratton Green-CHECK 2) Live abroad
–CHECK. And once those two things
were fulfilled my 3rd big life goal was to get kittens. 2 kittens--CHECK. After a tiny, internal debate of
whether to get kittens from people giving away kittens or adopt from a shelter
I settled on going to a shelter.
Shelter trip was rough. I’m
already worked up and nervous about seeing all the sad, caged faces. Sarah McGlaughlin might as well have
been playing in the background.
Joe and I enter:
Front Desk Lady:
can I help you?
Me: yes I’d
like to adopt 2 kittens
FDL: oh well
let me tell you about Lavender, an adult kitten who is sweet, a little feisty but
needs a good home.
Me: (guilt
setting in on my already grief-stricken heart as it listened to all the caged
animals I couldn’t take home) –oh.. well.. I wanted kitten kittens.
FDL: oh
ok. First room on the right.
(clearly, it is near the end of the road for Lavender)
Grrrrr. How
dare you, Front Desk Lady.
But from there on out all the “adult kittens” I saw were Lavender. Joe and I enter first room of cats and
I start crying. How can I pick
two? Especially out of a cage with
four. Especially when Lavender is
staring at me from every cage. Joe
did not know what to do with me.
We went to second kitten room and he walked over to this cage with two black
and white kittens. “Emily, what
about these?” I glanced over. Saw that there were just two, young
kittens and said, “yeah. Fine.
Those are fine. Let’s
go.” I had to wait til the next
day for the “adoption counselor” (aka this recent college grad who seemed way
in over her head) to do all the paper work. I wanted to say, “Excuse me? you want me to wait a day?... Y’all do want to get rid of
animals here right?”
Apparently there is an application process and an
application was already in on “Charles.”
But my application won since I wanted them both. Charles and Dudley were there shelter
names. New names: Charles Mooey Poppins and Dudley
Richard Parker. They go by Moo and Richard Parker. Moo, cause he looks like a cow and just watch Life of Pi for
explanation of Richard Parker. Do
not call him Richard. Or RP. It’s Richard Parker. But you are welcome to say it with an
Indian accent.
So far they are still confined to our bathroom at
night. They are mainly inside cats
for now… until their neuter date.
They still just wanna play throughout the night and Moo is very
vocal. He meows if he finds
himself alone. And one of his
self-comforting habits is to gently gnaw on my fingers. So bathroom it is for now.
Another problem –and this is gross—is Richard Parker’s
poo. One Monday night I was about
to leave when I saw Richard Parker going #2 in litter box. Then I saw the last of his poo still
hanging on. It’s ok. It’ll fall. Oh no. It’s not
falling. And now the kitten is on
the move. Crap. I grab a paper towel, slam the bathroom
door shut, grab cat ..but I know, even as I go to grab the swinging poop, that
this is a bad idea. I only end up
smearing most of the poop into his white hiney. Crap. I run the
tub water. This is going to get
ugly. I throw a towel in the tub
cause I heard cats hate slippery surfaces during bath time. Wrong. Cats hate water during bath time. There’s no other choice. I can’t let my cat run around with poo on his butt. I smush his rear into the water. He starts meowing. And frantically trying to escape. I’m swishing and swiping with paper
towel. I gag. Now Richard Parker is wailing. Moo is on the other side of the
door. Now Moo is wailing. For all he knows I am in there trying
to kill his brother. It sounds
like I am killing them both.
So the problem is Richard Parker had eaten (and not
digested) my head hair. And poo
was dangling from said head hair.
I thought it was because their food was near my hair drying and brushing
station. I moved hair
station. But this hasn’t fixed the
problem. Then the other night
Richard Parker pukes. Moo starts
to sniff the puke. But Richard
Parker is still puking and Moo is still sniffing. Now there is puke on Moo’s head. Now Richard Parker has stepped in his own puke. A hot mess. He puked two more times that night. My theory is the puke is related to the
hair eating issue. Now I’m close
to confirming the theory as I have seen Richard Parker gobble up two hair/dust
bunnies in the last 2 days. Next
effort: vacuum the whole house
every day. Today we found a little
poop smear on living room windowsill.
We also have brown floors.
So if poop is hanging on and falling off in the house… we may never know
it. Until it shows up on our big
white club chair. I have never had
this issue with a cat in my life of owning cats. Besides this minor issue I absolutely love having two
kittens. Really I do. They play with each other, bathe each
other, pee with each other (even though they are getting to big to use litter
box at the same time… this will certainly result in a mess soon) and sleep with
each other. The most beautiful
kittens ever.
3rd life goal fulfilled. Any suggestions for a 4th? And don’t you dare say human
babies. I am maxed out on things I
have to care for.
And now for cute fest. (I take an embarrassingly amount of self portraits with them)
last trip to the vet. Gonna need separate carriers for the next visit I think.
Things got a little crazy one Saturday morning when we slept in.
