A couple of people who already saw this asked how I got Serenity to look right at the camera; it was easy! I have a 10-second timer on it, which beeps and flashes a red light every second until the photo happens. So kitty was very entertained, if somewhat struggly.
The rest of my 2010 photos can be viewed here.
I have been lax with kitten updates (I blame June).
We’d been keeping them still pretty much confined; we didn’t like the way Corwin was fixating on them. Also, our house was utter chaos with the renovations and the moving and the flailing and stuff. So we’d let them out for a couple hours every night while we were watching TV, but then… back to the cat room!
Finally, about… oh, three days ago? I was going along pretty well with the unpacking and the organization, and decided that coupled with me being home all day where I could keep an eye on any shenanigans, maybe it was time to let loose the hounds kittens.
At first Corwin stared and stared and stared, but I think it helped that kittens had met Bridgett first. They recognized Corwin as the same basic kind of animal, and immediately and with no fear went up and started head-butting her and demanding cuddles. I don’t think Corwin knew what to do! She’s still following them around sometimes, as if to say “I want to be included in your fun and your chasing and your wrestling and your fun!” but gives them respectful distance and sometimes even ignores them in favor of napping.
Hooray! Peace in the house!
Well, “peace” other than SOMEONE liking to chew on cords, through cords, and on knitting needles. But OTHER than that… peace.
PS. As I was writing this, Serenity picked up a roll of duct tape from my desk and tried to walk off with it. Crazy huntress.
But then, we knew she would.
1. Not threatened by old doggy, 2. Meeting new friends, 3. Old doggy has an old, 4. “Will you be my friend?”, 5. “your toes smell like Doritos”, 6. “Hello, little kitteh!”
From day three -
Day four was pretty much exactly as above; I’ll spare you.
Day five -
Moya the Grey, and Serenity the Feisty.
Day one -
Day two -
We’re now into day three, and so far the reactions seem to be…
Tavi AKA “Princess Cat” – OH MY GOD KITTENS RUN AWAY RUN AWAY!!!!! AAAAAHHHH! :hides under bed:
Brindle AKA “Nutbar” – You have GOT to be kidding me. :deep sigh:
Bridgett AKA “Old Dog” – Yeah? So? We’ve had kittens before. No big deal. :licks butt:
Corwin AKA “Backup Dog” – I think I want to eat that. :stares intently at door to cat room for 16 hours:
Mostly we’re keeping the kittens separated, especially when we’re not around. And seriously – Tim told me that Cori spent most of the day laying in front of the door to the cat room. I’m suuuuuure just to be there if the kittens … needed anything. I’m not too worried, though; even though she fixated on them for a few minutes tonight when we brought them out into the living room, eventually she laid down at my feet and napped. She’ll just need time to get used to them. And time, we have!
If you live near us, that is.
Names are still under discussion…we’ve got it narrowed down to three choices, but… man!
Why is it so hard to choose?! All of these are great names! Maybe we can name one “Moya Rosie Calamity Jane” and the other one “Serenity Gilda Trixie the Whore”. … yeah… maybe not.
Both of the kittens are pretty relaxed and very friendly, with the darker one being the most easy-going of the two. She likes to take naps on top of people. They are in the process of being weaned now (a couple weeks earlier than expected, but momma cat has to take some medicine and she can’t pass it on to the babies, so Alexis is weaning them this week) so we could be new kitteh parents any week now. Which means deciding on names! Part of me is all “get them names now! don’t wait!” but part of me is “why not wait until they get here and spend a couple days observing them”.
So, last year when Chili died (and I can’t link to that because it was juuuuust before the Great Hosting Change of 2009), Tim and I started talking about getting new kittens. Backup Kittehs, if you will. But we wanted to wait until Rembrandt died, because she was old and cranky and granted that getting new kittens might push her over the edge… we wanted to wait. Then it just wasn’t really a good time, coupled with Buddha getting up there as well… we decided to wait until she left the party to begin a look for new kittens. We knew we wanted two (so they could play with each other and tire each other out, instead of constantly wearing out our 11-year-old sisters) and we wanted girls (no more boys peeing in the corners!). That was really all we had in mind. And we trusted that when the time was right, the universe would open up the magic kitten access door.
Saturday night we were having dinner with some friends and Rhea said, “hey, you know Meg, right? Her daughter’s cat just had kittens. I think they might be girls…” and… the rest is history. I’d been messaging with Alexis over Facebook and the end result is…
But, not so fast! They’re only about 10 days old, nowhere near ready to take away from mommy yet. Mommy, who, the same week she got knocked up also broke her jaw – so we were able to bring them two cases of Buddha’s uneaten wet cat food, solving two problems at once. So in about 7 or 8 weeks, these little baby girls will come to live with us, in the HaldeCon Menagerie.
And we’ll need to name them! Right now their names are Maggie and Mimzy (their brother is Monkey, and they all have an “M” on their faces) but I don’t know that we’ll stick with that. Below are some ideas that Tim and I have, coupled with some ideas from my friends on Facebook. Tim and I would love to hear your input (note to non-geeks: some of these are geeky references).
Multiple choices are OK, and there’s a line for “other”, so if you have great ideas, let us hear ‘em!
Do you know how hard it is to deliberately spell “the” wrong?
The rest of my 2010 photos can be viewed here.
