Saturday, October 2, 2004 Heigh ho, the dairy-o, the cheese stands alone. I’ve never considered that a sad song until this morning.
We haven’t seen SpotTee since last Sunday. Poor KittyMeeze is all by himself out front. I know that SpotTee has been gone in the past, but with all the other cats that hung around, it wasn’t quite so noticible. But with only the two (Carla the tortie has been gone for about a month now) it is quite noticible. We feel really sorry for Meeze and we’re going to do what we can to get him in. We might try to get him to come into the yard via the gate and not bring him immediately into the house. At least he’ll be safe and he’ll have some kitty companionship in the day. And once Little Bit settles down, he’ll have her again.
Speaking of Little Bit, she’s sick. I found her sleeping in the litterbox last week, her nose crusted with kitty litter. This wasn’t good. I was able to use my bamboo backscratcher and knock the litter off and I pulled the litterbox out of the crate. I got the cake pan I’d used for the kittens and put the old style clay litter in. Since this was smaller, I was able to move it to the front of the crate and I put a towel in the back. Then Thursday, she didn’t eat any dinner. She didn’t eat anything at all yesterday, even though I tempted her with deli sliced turkey and baby food. She had been lapping up the baby food previously (which I’d added L-Lysine to), but wasn’t at all interested in it yesterday morning or last night. I did find the vaporizer and the steam is going into the crate via the slots at the side. She must like it, because she’s hanging out on the shelf, where the moist air is.
Naturally, I’m concerned as to where she got sick. Of course, my immediate thought is that she caught it here. I’m surprised because I thought she was exposed to Notwally when he impregnated her earlier this year (I believe the calicos were his). I mention her illness over at the Cats’ Door (where the topic is CATS! and only CATS!) and it was pointed out that quite possibly, she picked this up at the vet clinic when she was getting spayed, which makes perfect sense. Great. So, now, will the rest of our cats become infected? So soon before our trip to Disneyland? *sigh* I hate saddling the sitter with this problem, I really do.
The kittens are doing well, except I worry about Chandler. He’s not nearly as active as the other two. When he plays, he plays hard and matches Phoebe and Joey, but he doesn’t play as often, spending more time sleeping. Maybe that’s just the type of cat he will be. Ross and Rachel didn’t seem as active as Phoebe and Joey, now that I think about it. Maybe they’re the ones who are different. And I’m not letting the kittens in with Little Bit right now. I just don’t think she’s up to dealing with them. She’s trying hard enough to breathe through her nose. I gave her some treats the other day on her shelf and Joey got up there and actually pushed her away from the treats, growling at her. She backed off, head down. Poor little girl, I wish she were well. I think once she’s over this, I’ll let her loose in the house. The timing is sucking, though, because of the added stress of the catsitter. She’s fostering a baby now and the baby will be here with her. I don’t know if her kids will be here because they moved recently to a house farther away and it just wouldn’t be practical to have them stay here. I know that all the people does affect the cats. I wish there was some way around it, but I don’t know what. I think worrying about this is giving me some added stress right now.
Last weekend, the sofas were removed from the living room. Boy, was it empty. Saturday, though, we went shopping and I finally got my rocking chair. And a little table for next to it. There’s plenty of room for them in the living room. I also ordered some new cat trees from Drs. Foster and Smith. We’ll be throwing some of the old stuff away. It’s pretty thrashed. The new stuff got here yesterday and we have another floor to ceiling cat tree that should be here next week. The idea is to make the living room the cats’ room. Brian had said something about this years ago and now it’s coming to fruition. Except for my rocker. I got a buttpad at Wal-Mart this past week and put it on the rocker and yesterday, everytime I thought about sitting in my rocker, there was a cat already sleeping in it. *sigh* I also got some single story cat condos. I originally went to Wal-Mart because, in the past, they had them for less than $12.00 each. I hit two stores and neither of them had any. I ended up at Petsmart and paid twice as much and got half as many as I’d wanted. But I also got some really fun cat toys (which the cats like, too!).
I mentioned the fact that Royal Canin lowered the bag size by three pounds of their Sensible Choice brand of cat food without a price reduction to go along with it. We decided to change foods because of this. We’d tried Chicken Soup for the Soul cat food and it wasn’t a big hit when that’s what they were getting. As a sample food, it was yummy, but as a mainstay, it was a bust. So, last time we bought food we went with Felidae dry. The cats already get the wet at dinner and I have to say, they like the dry as well. They’re all doing well on it, they don’t overeat, but they do eat it. DeeJay really likes it, which is a good thing. His appetite is one of my big concerns. I went to a Trader Joe’s last week, looking for the same type of treats that they had at the clinic where I’d taken Marco, but I didn’t see the treats, but did see a small container of cat food. I thought maybe the clinic was using the food as treats, so I bought it. Well, it’s not the treats, but I’ve been putting some in a bowl and adding warm water and DeeJay likes that, too. It’s nice to see him spending more time at the food dish.
Annie is actually pooping in the litterbox I brought into the office for when the kittens are back here. I wish she’d pee in it, too, but I guess I shouldn’t expect miracles. Annie is such a doll. I love seeing her sleeping on the towels in front of my monitor.
Ciara still hacks and coughs. She’s better when I remember to give her the L-Lysine. And doing it twice a day is best.
I’m surprised at how well the cats are accepting the newcomers. There doesn’t seem to be all that much stress on them, not a lot of hissing and spitting. Maybe because we brought Rachel and Ross in not all that long ago. Whatever, I like it.
I think Benny has a bladder infection, because he’s peeing a lot more than usual, so I’ve got him on amoxicillan. He and Oliver seem to get into it more than I like, but maybe because Benny isn’t feeling well.
As for Oliver, he’s really calmed down a lot in the time he’s been here. He hardly ever bites anymore, and when he does, he doesn’t bite hard. I had to put him off the bed last night because he was biting my feet. He was towards the bottom of the bed, my side, and my feet got warm so I pulled them from under the sheets. He didn’t like that and started biting them so that I’d stop moving. I showed him. I sat up, grabbed him and placed him on the floor. Then I put my feet outside of the sheets.
I think I’m getting run down. I haven’t been sleeping well, due to Little Bit crying at night. I’d put the kittens in with her, which would calm her down, but then the kittens would want out an hour or so later, making all sorts of racket trying to get out of the crate. As I said, with her being sick, I’m not putting the kittens in and I think that they’re all starting to acclimate to the human cycle. Which is dirurnal, not nocturnal. I hadn’t gotten more than five hours of broken sleep since we brought her in. The past few nights I’ve been able to sleep longer. Thursday night, we went to bed at 8:30 and I didn’t get up until after five. It was nice. Right now, I’ve got an upset stomach, my lower back hurts, I have a headache and I just feel yucky. I hope I’m not getting sick, I wouldn’t doubt it, though. I’ll just drink lots of water and take my vitamins. I wish I was more energetic.
Well, that’s the update for now. Not very exciting, but non-stop.
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