This week has been awful but beautiful.
When things get harder, I have to see the magic in the world.
A coworker brought muffins and French butter from Wegmans.
Another coworker came over for a grapefruit margarita.
My daughter and I didn’t see eye-to-eye, but I know she knows I love her and I’m proud of her.
The kittens…
And Nala has played with all her toys, she hasn’t plucked recently and went to sleep without someone in the room with her.
Thank you to everyone who supports me.
This is going to be a crazy lil bit of everything post. I’ll try to divide into topics with subheadings; I want to be good to y’all.
I bought her some new toys. Anything paper, like the one above, is a hit. But she seems to be afraid of bigger toys of heavier materials.
This is a photo of everything I got her:
As for plucking, it gets worse and better day by day. I’ve noticed three main triggers:
The kittens certainly get more tired out since we let them run through the house. They pull they towels off the racks in the bathroom. They scatter the wash in the laundry room. They steal Oz’s food and he’s too big and dumb to stop them.
Some of my past kitten posts:
Tomorrow I get my first fill on my nails. They still look pretty perfect and I can see my natural nails growing in!
For more on my nails:
I joined AAA last weekend specifically because I’m traveling to Washington DC alone this weekend.
My temporary cards haven’t come!
I’m super excited and mostly ready.
I told my work colleagues and they asked if I planned on touring any of the downtown DC sites. I said no, I plan on sitting on my friend’s couch drinking coffee most of the weekend.
The teenager is going out with her dad so I’m on my own tonight for Valentine’s.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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
So, Monday night was cold and we felt sorry for the kitten and wanted to bring him/her into the house.
The teenager had reached the point where we could briefly touch it, with a casual poke. With my daughter’s permission, I grabbed the kitten and brought him/her in the house.
He/she didn’t like that. Poor dear hissed and carried on. I wasn’t prepared for how bad he smelled. He squirmed free and hid under the Christmas tree.
The teenager played video games and went to bed.
The big cats crawled in bed with me.
In the morning, the kitten was gone. I checked all the cat hiding spaces I could think of and no cat.
And the basement door was open.
The teenager and I tore the house apart for what seemed hours. She was bereft. I felt guilty.
I made lunch.
Then we suddenly walked through the dining room and the cat was sitting on the porch looking at us.
Just like a cat. No where to be found one minute and sitting there as if he had never gone.
The teenager spent New Year’s Eve with her grandparents (and I went out for drinks with some girlfriends, something I’ve never gotten to do before).
When I got up this morning I found kitten, whom the teenager has aptly named Mistofelees, sitting inside the dollhouse. Later I found him on top of the dollhouse. And a few moments ago I found him on the windowsill.
Progress is being made.
To help with his smell, we bought some Burt’s Bees Dry Shampoo for cats. Which, of course, we tested on Big Dumb Oz.
Testing the Dry Shampoo for Cats
Just now… the kitten stalked across the porch and checked out Opie.
Our house is probably the biggest menagerie in the neighborhood.
Budgies…
Cats…
And dogs that stop by and hang out even when they don’t belong to us, even on Christmas morning.
So a few months ago, this cute gray cat starting hanging out under my neighbor’s porch. My neighbor borrowed a trap, and she and my daughter tried to catch it. They failed.
Though my teen did catch a possum.
The cat seemed to disappear so we hoped it had found a home.
But oh no. Early last week in the bitter cold and snow, three kittens appeared. All dark gray with big brown eyes.
Momma seems to roam the neighborhood and when she’s gone, the kittens wander. So my daughter feeds them and brings them water. But she can’t catch them.
As soon as Momma returns, they all return to under the porch.
But now the shyest of the kittens seems to be the only one left. Have the braver kittens gone with Momma?
He just sits in the bushes and cries.
I want to bring the poor baby home.
The lonely kitten (if we catch it, its name shall be Mistoffelees.)
Angel Ackerman 