The Weekend Has Arrived (At Last!)

It is going to be a busy weekend, with holiday parties and general housework type things, and making sure that we keep all of our critters happy and well.

I promised the animals that this post would NOT be about the kittens, but let me just say this much.  Kittens:  I am in awe of your mighty destructive prowess.  I think that these six little bitties managed to completely trash my bathroom in about twenty minutes tonight when I let them out to run and play.  Let's see...  one dived head first into the water bowl, sending water SLOSHING all over the floor.  After which the others, delighted at this, splashed and pounced happily through the puddles as I was desperately searching for a towel to clean up.  And then ran through their litter box.  So not only was my bathroom dripping with water, but it was now completely tracked up with wet clay litter!  They managed to climb into the trashcan, climb into the holder for the toilet scrubber, and one of them figured out how to slide under the radiator, which meant that they all caught on to that little game quickly.

Here is a picture of them being a little more sedate:

But anyway.  About my non-kitten post.  My other animals want for me to tell you how they are doing.  So.  In no particular order:

Argos and Maera are becoming better and better friends.  There are still little spats now and again, but I'm pleased with how well they get along.  Maera becomes positively distraught when Argos leaves without her, which he's done a couple of times:  once to go to the vet for his annual check-up, and once to go to the Meet & Greet at Ross Park Mall last week.  Jeff reports that she cries when we leave, and seems generally depressed about it until we get back.

Mommmmm, she's got cooties!

Bit and Annie have always been fast-friends, but they have been best friends lately.  Probably because they think I'm terrible for bringing the Tiny Menaces into the house.

Charlotte is herself.  She seems annoyed at the time that we spend behind closed doors with the kittens. (I'm quarantining them for at least a few days before I even let our cats in the same room, to make sure that they're not incubating kitty colds.)  She threw up a little earlier, which has me mildly concerned.  Any change in Charlotte's health is something that worries me.  I keep telling myself that all cats occasionally throw up, and hers even looked like it was at least partially a hairball.  Normal cat malady, Mel.  Take a deep breath.  All the same, Jeff and I have agreed that she's sleeping with us tonight so that we can be aware of any additional troubles.  (Her congestive heart failure was misdiagnosed as attempts to cough up hairballs, originally.  That being said, back then, her coughing never actually PRODUCED a hairball, it just sounded like it.)

Charlotte is unconcerned about my concern.

Maera continues to do well.  We've given her a bit more freedom this week to choose which room she wants to be in.  In the past, she was always required to stay with one of us, because I didn't quite trust her not to harass the cats or to get into things that she shouldn't.  I trust her with the cats now, and am learning to keep certain things out of temptation's reach, so now want to wean her off of being in the room with us at all times.  Frequently, she does choose to lie down on our bed in our bedroom while we're in the study in the next room, so that's a step towards more independence.

OK, this picture has nothing to do with Maera's independence, but it amuses me.  I think she's doing an iPhone intervention with me.

I hope that all of you have a wonderful weekend, and that you are able to lavish your furry friends with love and attention and affection.  I know that I plan to!

Babies

Our kitten babies are doing well.  They eat like little horses, and are just so adorable that I want to snuggle with them all.  They're still not too certain that THEY want to snuggle with ME, though, but a couple of the bolder ones seem to be coming around.  I think I even heard a tiny purr coming from one.

Jeff built a carpeted "kitten shelf" to put in their Kitten Containment Unit.    It took them awhile to figure out how to use it.

The first to figure it out:

I am the 1%!

The rest of them figuring it out (with a little help from my husband):

They are lovely.  I have no idea of how I'm going to be able to tell them all apart enough to accurately name them though!  There are two fluffies and four short-hairs, that much I can see.  But there isn't much color variation here to work with.  I know that there are two boys and four girls.  I can't wait to name them!

The dogs are cheerfully oblivious that we have other creatures in the house, though I do get sniffed from head to toe when I leave the kitten room.  The cats have suspicions, but choose to not be too concerned about it until they actually see proof.  They were all glaring at that closed door this morning, though, when they heard the kittens playing with a jingle ball...

Kittens

I was going to get on and rant about something tonight, but something came up to distract me.

Kittens!  The Animal Rescue League asked us to foster a late litter of kittens for them until they're big enough to keep at the shelter.  And how on earth was I supposed to say no to THAT?

Hopefully I will have more attractive photos later.  They still think that I am a Big Scary Monster (TM) and so aren't hitting their super-model poses for me yet.

Anyway, it is impossible to muster up enough righteous indignation to rant about something bad when you have six sets of little eyes peering at you.  So instead I am going to melt into a kitten-induced coma.

A couple of first night observations, from a kitten-newbie, before I go to bed:

1.  Kittens never stop moving.  There is a seething black pile of undulating fur in my guest room right now.

2.  Kittens have no sense of self-preservation.  Which is why they are in a crate right now.  I have no desire to have to pull kittens out of my box springs, or off of my curtain rod.  Or from under the radiator.

Easy Like Sunday

Usually, I see these beautiful restful pictures on CAT blogs, but dogs are pretty good at lazing about as well.  Particularly greyhounds.

This and That

It's been a rather busy day today, as Saturdays often can be.  After giving Argos an early morning bath and giving him a chance to dry off, the two of us (leaving Jeff and Maera at home) drove across the city to the Ross Park Mall.  We had volunteered to do a Meet & Greet event in a new venue - a store called Moochie & Company.  It was a fantastic store!  I imagine that most greyhounds would completely love to be in it...  it has lots of stuff for dogs, but what I saw EVERYWHERE were toys, toys, toys.  Most of them with squeakers.  Which meant that every time new customers came into the store and tried out the squeaky toys, Argos and adoptable hound Flyer would throw their heads up and STARE into the back of the store.

The Meet and Greet went very well.  Argos has a great personality for these events - he loves people of all kinds, and just assumes that the feeling is mutual.  He's not shy about just walking up to someone and leaning against their legs, staring up at them beseechingly for petting.  It melts the hardest of hearts.  Adoptable hound Flyer did an awesome job as well.  You'd have thought that he'd spent his entire life meeting and greeting all kinds of people, for all that he's only been off of the track for a few weeks.

One of the things that Moochie had that AMAZED me was a rack of squeaky toys that were every bit as long as a greyhound.  Argos would eye them with a certain gleam in his eye every time someone squeezed one of them and it made a noise.  I almost bought one, but then worried that Maera would destroy it too quickly - and then we would have a giant orange squeaky toy with the stuffing coming out, like all of its miniature cousins hidden in our living room closet.

I did buy a couple of other toys for the dogs, however.  One is a long green monkey/grinch looking thing with a santa hat on.  Maera caught sight of this when I got home before I even took it out of the bag, and before I knew it was pulling it out and playing with it.  I'd say that she approves.

She is now lying on top of it on her bed so that no one else can have it.

Which makes Argos sad.  Maera stole the best toy AND he has to lie on the couch and have holiday pictures taken of him.  You might think that this is the most glum Santa you have ever seen, but just you wait.

Maera is glum.  She is not allowed to eat the Santa hat.

That's better.

But the most upset of them all, and the one the most lacking in this thing called "holiday cheer" is:

Ho.  Ho.  Ho.  I hate you sometimes.

I'm not sure what displeased her more:  that I put the hat on her to begin with, that I started laughing and taking pictures, or that after the third shot, Maera leapt up over the back of the chair and whisked the hat right off of Charlotte's head before running off with it to do a bizarre parade of the vanquished around the main floor of the house.

Devotion

Have you ever wondered WHY dogs adore us so much?  Is it because we are magic food machines, or is it a more pure love than that?  I personally think that it's a little bit of both - no one does devotion like a dog does, and I don't actually think that mine are that devoted to me just because I am Food Provider.  (Though it doesn't hurt.)

I frequently wonder why they adore me so much.  I mean, I'm not a HORRIBLE person, and I'm kind to them, and love them to distraction.  But part of me feels very unworthy of the level of devotion that I am shown.  I get irritable - frequently with them - and am not as patient as I could be.  I worry over them too much - constantly on the lookout for something that might be wrong.  I can almost sense the eye-rolls sometimes.    Though I do take them places, I don't do it nearly as often as I might like, and there's that whole abandoning them every workday thing, so that I can earn enough of a paycheck to feed them.

But they don't see it that way.  When I'm irritable with them, they keep seeking me out, clowning for me in an attempt to appease me and to put me into a better mood.  (I for one, would avoid me, and possibly give me the silent treatment.)  When I fuss over them - whether it's their training, their health, their attitude, they endure it with quiet patience... they don't seem to care whether I take them hiking, to the park, or into the back yard. Because what they really want is to be with me, no matter where we are.  And if they get upset with me for going to work, their joy upon my return makes them quickly forget.

And really, although this post started out being about the dogs, my cats show a similar level of devotion.  I know that felines have a reputation for being aloof, but honestly, I do not see that trait in any of my cats, nor did I see it in either of the fosters.  They are simply delighted to see me when I get home, or when I get out of bed in the morning, greeting me with loud meows and purrs, shaking their tails at me like they are rattlesnakes instead of cats.  They don't punish me for leaving them, and they quickly forgive me for any bad mood that I might be in.  And it's not because I'm the perfect cat-mom, either.  I just think that they have more of a capacity for loyalty and love than they're given credit for.

May I show my loved ones that same understanding and devotion that my animals have modeled for me.  I have a feeling that I'm on to something there - this is the kind of thing that would shake the world,and in a good way, if it were more widely practiced.

Appreciation

I've made a post about the beauty of things around me in the past, and in that post, I talked about how beauty affects me (and probably everyone else.)  It warms the heart.  It turns thoughts towards things that are good, and pure, instead of focusing on the ugliness that at times seems to surround us.  My thoughts have been gray-tinged for awhile now, and that tends to only amplify during the holiday season.  The holidays just don't warm me like they used to - I think that I see all  of the nastiness that people are capable of leading up to the celebration...  the woman who pepper-sprayed other Walmart shoppers for threatening her shopping turf, the nasty drivers in the shopping district near my house, so intent on getting out and accumulating stuff that they bang on their horns for any and all reasons, and make nasty gestures out of car windows at one another.  The sheer volume of people increasing no matter where you go.  Whatever.  My intent is not to bring anyone down, or to convince others to not like the holidays - there is good there too, I just have a difficult time seeing it sometimes.

Which is why I decided to take today to focus on the simple pleasures in my own home, far from the hustle and bustle.  And even though I've made a similar post before, I thought it appropriate to do it again, in case anyone else is stuck with me in this place of grayness.  These are the things that fill me with a sense of appreciation.  I'm glad that I have my husband (though he is not pictured) and my animals, and the life that we have made for ourselves.

Okay.  There's really nothing that beautiful about a ratty pair of sneakers and a single mary-jane, but this is what I saw when I came downstairs.  It made me giggle, then laugh.  I must have needed the laugh, because I had to eventually sit down.  Maera loves to hoard shoes.  This is all Maera's fault.  But I thought that anything that got me to give a belly-laugh deserved a mention in this blog post.

And speaking of Maera, one cannot continue to have negative thoughts when THESE brown eyes are gazing at you adoringly.  Well, gazing at you asking for treats.  But I'm sure that there was some adoration in there too.

Bit's glamor shot.  Caught quite unintentionally while she was watching me get ready to do my little bit of shopping.  I love her green eyes.  And her ear tufts.  A world with kitty ear tufts cannot be that bad of a place to live.

Though the photo quality might not be stellar, there are few things that are more pleasant and relaxing than watching a cat groom herself in a shaft of sunlight.  That is the image that I get in my head when I think of the word "contentment."

It's good to see that Argos and Maera are becoming friends.  It warms my heart to see it.  Even if they did evict Annie from the bed.  Really, they'd have been happy to merely join her, but Annie would never consent to that.

One thing that tells me that all is well, and I can relax, is when I come home and Charlotte is on the back of the recliner.  It is HER perch.  It's the first place that I look when I can't find her.  All is well, Charlotte is at her post.

And one thing that I can finally do is look at old pictures of Romeo, and enjoy the beauty that is in them.  I was avoiding pictures of him, because seeing them always made me feel a lump in the back of my throat, and I would have to fight down guilt that we couldn't do more for him than we were able to.  I have finally set aside the guilt, and can look at the single year that we had him as a reprieve from the shelter for him.  He got soft, warm places to sleep, and as you can see above, he WAS able to relax in our house, for all that he was bullied by the other cats.

I hope that you enjoyed the photos.  I know that photos of other people's pets are probably not as relaxing as photos of your own, but I would encourage anyone who is suffering from the holiday blahs to take some time, slow down, and enjoy the loved ones, two-legged and four-legged alike.  The beauty and comfort is there if we but look.