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.

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!”

Day four was pretty much exactly as above; I’ll spare you.

Day five -

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!

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”.

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!

The rest of my 2010 photos can be viewed here.

Since we got her aunt Rembrandt put to sleep last year, Buddha is now the oldest cat in the house. She was born… let me think. I was living on the farm, it was before I lurched into the training marriage… so it was… 1992? Early 1993? Ow, my brain, digging into the past! I think I got married in — OH! It was the September before my 25th birthday – I remember because I had been saving money to go backpacking around Europe for 6 months, and 25 was the age cut-off for a student Eurail pass. EurRail? SpellCheck doesn’t like either of those. SpellCheck also doesn’t like SpellCheck. So I got married in 1994, and that means that Buddha was born in either late ’93 or early ’94. Which means that she is now… in the 16/17 range.

I named her Buddha because when she was a kitten her belly was 95% of her. She would stand in the middle of the tin of milk, or the plate of food, all four feet stretched out and cramming as much into her gullet as she could.

Now she weighs less than five pounds.

Sunday she had a seizure in my lap. At first she twitched like she was going to have a rather large and gross hairball, but then she fell/slid off my lap while having convulsions and panting heavily. I didn’t know what to do other than sit near her and let her hear, if possible, the sound of my voice. The twitching lasted about 45 seconds, after which she tried to rise but couldn’t. She sort of heaved and spasmed a little bit more, breathing heavily, and although her left eye was normal her right eye was completely dilated. I really thought it was the end, and while half my heart is hoping that she’s not in pain, half my heart is naming my new Replacement Kittens. Is that heartless? Then she had about 15 more seconds of a less frightening looking seizure, after which I held her head and she sort of nuzzled me in a really drunken uncontrolled way. She tried to get up again, and this time she was able to – she lurched around the living room doing her best Bill the Cat impersonation, howling piteously. Then she laid down and took a nap for an hour. When she got up, she was fine.

We had to have the vet out anyway – gawd but do I ever love a vet that comes to the house – and while I was a little nervous that he’d yell at us for not taking her to the 24-hour Emergency place… it turned out (and I shouldn’t have been surprised) that he felt the same way we did. The cat is lovely and sweet, but she’s old. If this is the end, or close to the end, tests and prodding and making her uncomfortable isn’t going to show us anything other than what we can see – she’s old – or anything that we care to hear. The cat is almost 17! Is it fair to force her to undergo testing and possibly surgeries to give her a little bit more life? And what quality of life would it be? I’d rather just give her all the wet cat food she can eat, and hope that she goes in her sleep while dreaming of catching birds.But then, for both animals and people, I’ve always thought that quality is more important than quantity.

So… here’s to Buddha! The oldest cat in the house! And all the wet cat food she can eat! Which believe me, even though she’s merely a shadow of her former self, she can still put that shit away.

1. A moment of quiet, 2. wanna play? wanna play? wanna play?, 3. I’m getting yooooooou, 4. Almost calming down