Tag cats

Cuddly kittens and a fresh cup of iced tea

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

I can’t stand the cuteness in my house today!

I’m sitting here with Nala, my Goffin’s cockatoo, and Oz, my teenager’s big, dumb 9-year-old cat who thinks he’s a teddy bear. I just had some ring bologna for breakfast and made myself the best glass of iced tea:

This particular glass is two parts Tazo Organic Earl Grey Noir and one part Tazo Vanilla Bean Macaroon black tea.

In the crock pot, dinner is bubbling. Crockpots are the perfect cooking tools for witches. It’s a cauldron with a plug!

I made a marinade of organic apple juice, brown sugar, Briggs liquid aminos, Chinese cooking wine, fresh ginger and garlic and dropped a pork loin and some potatoes into the mix.

But wow! I totally digress. We’re hear to talk about kittens and cuteness!

Kittens and cuteness

So the teenager is with her dad and I’ve been taken care of the kittens. Fog, the last trapped member of the brood, followed Opie out of the teenager’s room. Opie is our 9-year-old cancer survivor 3-legged cat.

Fog apparently adores him.

Oz tried to join, but he was afraid of the kitten. Opie heard Oz hiss and served as bodyguard for little Fog.

Video here: Opie protecting Fog.

Now I waited as long as I could but I needed to vacuum the dining room. Even though it was in another room, Fog heard the noise and hid behind the cat tube.

Opie stayed on the ottoman as if standing guard. When I finished vacuuming, they got back on the couch together.

I was worried that Misty (short for Mistofelees) might think something happened to Fog. So I brought Misty to the porch.

Misty wasn’t as enthused. But Fog stayed with Opie.

You can’t really see it, but they are touching.

Household update

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

The kittens still eat as if they don’t know when their next meal will be.

I gave Nala a shower today to evaluate the extent of her plucking. She spent most of the day with me. I even let her have a small piece of Cool Ranch Dorito. She liked that.

I went to Petco and used my $10 off $30 coupon. Bought Nala a perch she hopefully can’t eat and some more parrot food.

I worked myself to exhaustion doing chores today. And had a big bag of Doritos and two slices of ring bologna for dinner.

I did chores all day and the house doesn’t seem cleaner. It still looks gross.

Let’s see if I can recap.

  • I cleaned the kitchen/bathroom cat box.
  • I ran the dishwasher. Did the dishes that can’t go in the dishwasher.
  • Cleaned bird cages.
  • Fed all the animals.
  • Gave the cockatoo a shower.
  • Scrubbed the tub.
  • Tried to unclog the drain. This became a laborious process.
  • Went grocery shopping.
  • Put the groceries away.
  • Folded laundry and put clothes away.
  • Vacuumed my bedroom.
  • Cleaned the roomba.
  • Stripped my bed.
  • Remade my bed.
  • Did a load of linens.
  • Hung the linens to dry.
  • Unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher.
  • Scrubbed the kitchen sink.
  • Gathered all of the newspapers for the birds.
  • Organized my tax paperwork (my last W2 came so now I’m stressing about doing my taxes).
  • Went to the pet store.
  • Fed all four cats.

My soft heart

Angel Ackerman 2 Comments

It’s almost 10 pm.

Sobaka has gone home, so I am alone in my bed.

I’ve had a long hard week month. But I know next month will be easier.

I closed Nala and the budgies alone in my room when I went to work, started Sesame Street to keep Nala company and made the decision not to come home for lunch because I can only stay 10 to 15 minutes and that might cause more confusion and anxiety than it prevents.

And Nala seemed fine when I got home but she may be missing a few more neck feathers. I adopted the bird version of a “cutter.”

The teenager had some friends over, and I agreed to drive one of them home. I retrieved Nala after work and introduced her.

But Sobaka got jealous, barked a lot and so when I tried to put Nala on the dishwasher, Nala bit me, hard. I flinched, that’s the best way I can describe it and Nala almost fell off me. We were both disoriented and I felt terrible for not alleviating Nala’s distress.

We had tea together as I did some kitchen chores and then I brought Nala up to the quiet bedroom, leaving the dog with the teenagers.

Harry Belafonte’s “Angelina”didn’t even brighten her mood and that’s her favorite song.

And then I played a trick on her. About 7 pm, I started watching Gordon Ramsay in my room in the dark hoping Nala would fall asleep before I needed to chauffeur the high school children.

At 7:30, I left the iPad playing and crept out of the room in the dark. Nala yelled for me, but I had to go. When I returned an hour later, she didn’t hear me come in the front door. I think she went to sleep!

As if my soft heart doesn’t have enough to deal with, YouTube has been suggesting I watch a video of a kitten name Smurf who was given to a dog as a chew toy. My daughter watched it, and assured me it had a happy ending but I couldn’t endure it.

It just makes me ask again and again why people are so selfish and cruel.

And I said to my beautiful daughter, “That’s why I don’t want to separate those kittens. They are siblings. They deserve to be together.”

She tells me again that the latest kitten (whom we call “Fog”) is terrified of her and that her friend will be the best home. That we can’t afford and don’t need four cats.

She’s right.

But they are cute babies and I want to be sure they have a good and happy life.

Pout.

The third kitten

Angel Ackerman 4 Comments

Somewhere around late summer/early fall, my teenager and I started trying to help trap a young cat living under my neighbor’s porch. It disappeared before we could catch it.

And then, around Thanksgiving, my neighbor discovered she had kittens under her porch. Mama and her three babies.

Mama and two of her babies started hunting in December. And one little kitten was left behind.

We trapped it the weekend after Christmas and that’s our Mistofelees.

About two weeks ago we trapped a second kitten, now off to a home.

Last night, the teenager got the last one and we reunited it with Misty.

Videos:

The final kitten

Letting the kitten out

Kittens getting closer

Kittens reuniting

Kittens playing

Monday successes (kitten!) and Dollar Tree finds

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

So I had my annual physical today. I adore my physician. I’ve struggled to find a doctor that, honestly, gave the impression that he cared whether I lived or died.

I got my flu shot. Better late than never, right?

We interrupt this blog entry to say… I just got a text from my teenager who disappeared while I was on the phone… Misty’s final sibling has been trapped.

Sardines.

But I get ahead of myself.

I went to the doctor this morning and apparently they have a calculation for your risk of heart attack, stroke or other heart disease or something like that in the next ten years. Mine was 0.5%. But my blood pressure was also super high due to stress. I need to keep an eye on that.

And today I went to the gym. Did ten minutes on the treadmill. Did 15 minutes worth of weight training. Really I could do the weights at home and walk around the neighborhood… and if I don’t start working out in earnest I may do that. Cancel the gym and use what I have at home.

In other updates:

I made an Asian-inspired chicken for dinner that was amazing.

I put the candy the teenager bought me in a pretty jar. Ate some yesterday. Have been good today. I don’t think this is what they mean by eat your colors.

And we stopped at the Dollar Tree to get sardines to trap Misty’s siblings and I got groceries. And not processed junk either.

They had lentils, cheddar cheese and riced cauliflower in dollar-sized portions. I forgot to check the sodium on the cauliflower… usually riced cauliflower is plain. The cheese is real cheese. They had a big bag of shredded cheddar cheese, but it turned out that was cheddar cheese food.

We reunited Misty and her sibling, but that will be a story, with video, for tomorrow.

For this week, we now have:

  • 1 dog
  • 1 cockatoo
  • 2 kittens
  • 2 cats
  • 3 budgies

Heaven help me. I have the start to a petting zoo.

Housework Saturday

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

I woke up at 6 this morning, but laid in bed for a while afraid to wake the birds.

I opened the curtains for them slightly before 8. Here is a glimpse of them in the pink nightlight. Good morning, Birds

I fed the cats, the birds, made coffee, put in laundry and hung wash before making a giant hot pocket for breakfast.

Ham, spinach, scrambled egg, homemade mozzarella.

I cut some cantaloupe. The teenager had a mango.

Then I did dishes. A second load of wash. Vacuumed the kitchen, living room and half the dining room. And the furniture.

I washed the living room and kitchen floor.

Picked up the teenager’s stuff and moved furniture.

Then I stopped to visit the kitten. Which the third kitten has returned. If the neighbors catch it, we have a former neighbor interested in it. But she is going on vacation with Sobaka’s mom so then we would get to foster Misty’s sibling!

Sobaka might be here in as little as an hour. I need to shower but I also need to rest.

I watched an episode of Gordon Ramsay’s The F Word last night and an episode of 24 Hours: To Hell and Back. His original BBC show and his current one.

Perhaps one day soon I’ll do an essay on my new obsession.

Happy Friday!

Angel Ackerman 5 Comments

I think I might have said two or three hundred times that this week was hard.

But there was some goodness between all the hard.

  • Our CEO got my department a mentor. Someone we all love and trust, though I am the only person in the group who doesn’t have a pre-existing relationship with this man.
  • My coworkers are all so super nice. My former office mate makes the Folgers in the kitchen palatable and I normally hate Folgers. He makes the coffee so strong it tastes like chocolate.
  • My new development partner and I are getting along great and I love her energy.
  • My other colleague invited me out for a drink after work. She was meeting some friends and wanted someone to keep her company so I had a lovely oatmeal stout at Pearly Baker’s.

At home, I watched the episode of Kitchen Nightmares that was filmed in Forks Township, “Bella Luna,” and saw some nice shots of Easton:

And tomorrow our favorite little dog, Sobaka, is coming to visit so for the next week we will have…

  1. One Yorky Maltese
  2. One kitten
  3. One cockatoo
  4. Two nine-year-old cats (with seven legs)
  5. Three parakeets

And for your viewing pleasure, here are Nala and Opie: Nala and Opie check each other out

Kitten update

Angel Ackerman 2 Comments

Not only is Mistofelees really doing well with the teenager, but the teenager helped our neighbors catch one of Misty’s siblings.

The word on the street is that that cat shall be named Smoky.

And I even got some kitten cuddles!

Here are some videos of Mistofelees, the one features Opie, our three-legged, cancer surviving 9-year-old male cat.

Opie and Misty

Misty purrs so loud

State of the menagerie

Angel Ackerman 2 Comments

Author’s note: this post was originally posted last week but somehow got unpublished and republished in the wrong order.

Let’s start with the kitten…

Mistofelees is still on our sun porch. The teenager has her room 100% clean and ready to accept the new member of the household though she and the teen have not worked out an agreement for when she will sign her lease.

The two have been playing, footage of which can be seen here: Playing Kitten

Some of our other neighbors are feeding her braver siblings and hope to catch them because they know of a potential home.

And then there is Naughty Nala. She was mad at me from the time I got home from work yesterday until I came home today. Refusing to step up, refusing to come out of her cage, biting me if I went near.

But today she seemed to forgive me for going to work. She stepped up beautifully and snuggled like a sweetheart chattering away.

She stood on the dishwasher while I made dinner and while we ate. To reward her, we fed her sweet potato fries which she loved. Video here: Nala is a Sweet Potato Girl (that’s a pun, referring to Tori Amos’ Cornflake Girl.)

If you don’t know the song, let me take you back to my college days: Cornflake Girl

Nala shenanigans and meal planning

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

For those who enjoy Nala’s shenanigans… She insisted on trying to steal my coffee. See her here: Coffee thief.

And we do still have the cats. Including big, dumb Oz.

Periodically I put her back in my room, but she kept calling me due to her fear of the budgies. So Nala watched me unload & reload the dishwasher, have breakfast and make extra parfaits, do two loads of wash, hang wash, let the roomba vacuum the kitchen and then I washed the kitchen floor.

As for meals this week, the menu includes:

  • A nice chunk of ham I got at the grocery outlet for $1. Probably with boxed Mac and cheese.
  • Veggie burgers or regular burgers
  • Spaghetti, either that black bean spaghetti I got at Marshall’s or Green Giant lentil rotini I got on sale at Target
  • A prepared salmon and vegetable salad I also got cheap at Grocery Outlet
  • And “Greek night” with a lentil salad and a white bean salad from Lidl and some mighty fine looking mixed olives I got at Grocery Outlet for 77 cents.

And this little naughty cockatoo refuses to vacate the drying rack, probably because it’s heated.

Now my daughter and I are off to bake cookies.