The Fun House

Now six weeks in, we're going to the vet today for the first round of tests and shots. I expect it'll be something like... oh yeah, herding cats. Lately this troop has been venturing out of the guest room several times a day to explore the house, eat odd things off the floor and climb everything in sight, including the drapes. One of the brand new foster kittens has an eye infection and is much smaller than the other one. We're taking him (?) to the vet too. The other one, is doing much better and it turns out is also a calico. Since we're sticking with carnival names, some of you may be interested to know that carnival women are less likely to have nicknames than the men are. Therefore, instead of naming this kitten Easy, I think we'll go with Janet because she and my friend Janet share some of the same qualities, which I will not list here (out of fear of retribution; this is the same friend who used to threaten to knock me out and give me a tattoo). Plus she's a top-shelf cat lover.

So here we are, the whole gang.

Cowboy

Whiskey Nick

Gypsy

and the orphans, Janet & Lefty

Royal Occasions

Sorry, I couldn't resist. Stella and I are house sitting for my friend Beverly (from the previous post) and when we found this in her dining room yesterday, just in time for the Royal Wedding, I just couldn't pass it up. Now that we've seen Her Majesty the Queen's tiara out in the light of day, it's even better. They almost match. Well except for the rhinestones. And Stella, who's game for just about anything, didn't even blink when I put it on her.

Those rumblings about the Kitten Report (or lack thereof) haven't gone unnoticed. The last couple of weeks have been a wild ride. Now, what with all the chaos of kittens, and a ton of extra work, as of yesterday morning we (of course) decided to up the ante. An e-mail arrived the night before about two kittens that had been abandoned by their mother. She was jumped by a dog in a thunderstorm. The kittens (7-10 days old) were going on two days without eating (which is really bad in the whole kitten scheme of things) so once I made the call the gentleman who rescued them brought them to my house to see what Domino thought. There was pacing and growling and a little bit of confusion, okay, a moderate amount of confusion considering I was asking her to do this all over again, amid flying six-week-old kittens but..

She did it. Thirty hours in and I think we're now a litter of five. Keep your fingers crossed. Pictures soon.

Shave and a haircut

Walter being entertained by Stella and Smiley, waits to get his summer haircut

A little over a week ago we picked up our old friend Walter and headed over to Beverly's house to hang out for a little while and get him a haircut. He and many of the other folks he lives with at the group home have gotten to know Stella well enough that it's a big deal whenever she stops by. If it's a nice day and they're all sitting outside, they come over to the car and ram their collective arms in my back window to pet her. She responds by wagging her tail and slobbering all over them and the glass. I haven't mentioned it but she's been a lot better about letting people pet her lately. Early on, she was overwhelmed by the attention and would often lunge in the opposite direction but somehow (maybe just through repetition) she seems to have overcome it, even with little kids, I'd say eighty percent of the time.

Anyway, we picked Walter up and made it over to Beverly's house whereupon we were greeted by two notorious Texans, Smiley and Pepper. This bunch (some of you may remember) used to live on a giant farm in Kentucky. Now (hooray), they're just across the river. Both dogs are seniors and Stella seems to understand that although they're friends, they aren't the rough and tumble kind of friends we normally encounter. Meanwhile, Walter got his hair cut and she had a great time just romping around the yard scouting butterflies and squirrels.

Pepper, looking almost like a puppy again, already got her summer haircut