Peas and 10 Qs

Ok, so obviously I've tried blogging before, but have found that since I do not make a living off of it, I have a difficult time keeping it up. So here I am again starting a new one in the hopes of having an outlet for my sporadic thoughts.

Peas and 10 Qs? What's that about?

I dunno really. Peas are food, and I definitely like food. Q is my favourite letter of the alphabet (X and Z are close runners-up). "Minding your Ps and Qs" suggests that you should say your please and thank yous according to one version of the phrase's etymology, and of course 10 Q is a play on "thank you." Put it all together and it just sounds kinda cute. Nothing more. That's me being random and having a fancy for cute puns here and there.

But I should be pleased and thankful for many things in my life, including the ability to have random thoughts, a decent grasp of the English language and grammar, and all the stuff that happens in my life that makes me think that I should at times write them down.

Reading my last post from a few years ago makes me think I'm a visionary with no follow through. I am not more often found on twitter chatting away (but do post there more frequently than here), nor did I ever end up doing much work blogging either. Ay yaaaa. I'm only consistent in my inconsistencies. Me in a nutshell.

Anyways, I'm in the midst of enjoying a few weeks of vacation time, interspersed with some serious job hunting. Crossing my fingers that I find something sooner rather than later - I could really use a change of scenery.

Next random thought/realization: I've lost one cat to kidney disease, and acquired a dog since my last post. Mercedes and Foster have survived the passing of their brother Oscar, and Josie is my new fur kid of the canine persuasion that I adopted last year that was originally named Gremlin (ew!) from the shelter that received her. I thought Josie was more appropriate.

A pic of the new trio at a rare time of peace:

Cute huh?

Josie and the cats (now you get it, right?) make an otherwise dull home life quite interesting. Methinks I should've become an animal behaviourist of some sort. I can watch them interact and just do their own thing for hours. I can also talk about them ad infinitum, so I should be careful and monitor myself before I become "that person" who hoards animals and can't relate to the rest of the human race.

Ah, I seem to be spending my time procrastinating in here rather than doing what I should be right now. I'll cut this shorter than originally planned, and if I get around to posting again, hopefully it won't take as long... :)

It's been a long time...

...and looking at my last post, I'm not at all consistent, am I?

In any case, I'm much more consistent using my Twitter feed, so if you're curious as to what I'm up to, it's there!

In case you're checking up on my cat chronicles, I've got 2 of 3 out of hiding. The third (Mercedes) is still very shy, but she's getting mildly better in my presence, especially when I'm eating. Not that she's ever eaten anything that I've cooked or offered her, but she's always intrigued nonetheless.

Funny thing about this trio of cats I now own: they don't ever steal off of my plates. I can leave an entire steak dinner out, and they'll sniff and walk away. Skeeter and Squirrely (my feline brotherly pair from years past) would stop at nothing to get anything off of my plate regardless of whether or not I was guarding my plate. These cats are either waaaaay too mannerly, or just waiting for me to eat a dead mouse before they go for anything I eat. Who knows.

The likelihood of me being more consistent in writing on this blog? Maybe better in the upcoming months since I'll also be blogging for work purposes (on the work-based blog site). After all, I'll have to keep refining my writing skills somewhere...

More of my vampire cats...

Ok, so I couldn't resist putting up more pictures of my anti-daylight-loving Snuffleupa-cats.  

These are pics of them when they were still young (ok, they're not that old - they're only 2) and a little leaner than they are today (not my doing - I've only had them 6 weeks).   

This is Oscar and Foster...

...and this is the 3 of them together (from left to right): Oscar, Foster and Mercedes.

Just thought I'd share these just in case I never get to see anything but their butts running away from me and the camera...

...but the people on Seseme Street did get to see Snuffleupagus eventually, didn't they?

More kittie kronicles - the 3 cat pileup...

Little did I know that cats are stackable like Lego.  Take my 'fraidy cats that still are EXTREMELY shy of humans for instance.  In the shot below, you can distinguish 2 of the bodies by the separation of stripes and greyness piled up against the wall:

What you don't see in the above picture is the fact that all three are indeed stacked on top of each other and hiding the third cat.  Poor Foster is the one squashed underneath all of this as evidenced by the picture below of the other side of the ironing board where you can almost see the dividing line between the top cat (Mercedes) and the bottom cat (Foster).  Oscar's head is wedged between the other 2 butts, and may be that sliver of lighter grey shading between the 2 darker bodies if you look carefully.What would cause such a sight?  Just another setback for little Mercedes who decided that life under the washing machine would be much better than being exposed to the light.  So like the true vampire-cat-caver that she is, she refused to come out to drink, eat or use the litter box for almost 2 complete days, and only stirred at night.  Meanwhile, the boys were looking for, and trying to rescue their sister who didn't want to be rescued at all.  Oy.

3 bucks worth of dowelling from Home Depot, and problem solved - I've got a sliding door blocker so that no kitty can re-enter the washing machine area.  

The boys are now becoming more adventurous and starting to take chances on guessing whether I'm truly asleep, or trying to spring a trap on them.  The other night while I had dozed lightly off (did I mention that I'm sleeping in the living room now to get them more accustomed to my presence?) I woke up to see Oscar's white muzzle in the distance staring at me, while a pair of ears and 2 beady eyes were peering over the arm of the couch directly at me.  Very sneaky and cute.  Once I made eye contact they were both off to hide again, but I think there's some mild progress being made.  After speaking to the cats' foster mom, she mentioned that it had taken about 2 months for the boys to come near her voluntarily - and that was forced with harnesses and a leash to tether the kitties to her, ensuring they got used to humans.  Yikes.

So alas, I wait in patience for the day even one of them decides that I may not be entirely vile after all.  The feral part of them is still holding on strongly.

Gawd these little dudes are a loooooooooooot of work.  I'm happy they're here - but still they're a loooooooooooooot of work.  ;)

The Cat Diaries - 1st Week

Ok, no updated pictures for this entry - no cats to be seen after week 1.

That's not entirely true.  I have seen them come out, but we have to play a coy little game where they can come out and stare at me, but if I look at them too long, they'll dive back under the couch.  They're distrusting of me still, and there's nothing but time and patience that can cure that.  

They've been exclusively nocturnal thus far, seeking the cover of the evening shade before venturing out from under the sofa bed where they are literally burrowing presently, but when they do come out they play hard.  

Foster is the ringleader, and the brains behind most of the things the little beasts have gotten into.  The third night when he was feeling a little more intrepid, I awoke to hear a small crashing sound and a sheet of paper floating towards the floor - that was Foster misjudging the height he had to jump to make it on top of my dresser.  However, when he thought I had gone back to sleep, he tried a second time and made it up top - only to be bored in 3 seconds when he discovered there wasn't anything cool to play with up there. Subsequently, he jumped down, headed for my closet door, and started to sl-sl-slide it open and crawl in.  He popped back out a minute later, left my room, and came back with the Oscar and Mercedes (now that I've settled on her name) so that they could all pile into my laundry basket inside.  At least it's all stuff that needed to be washed anyway.

Other discoveries I've made in the morning:

• 2 destroyed catnip toys (must get toys with stronger material than cotton)
• Front closet door open (also where the cat food happens to be right now)
• Fridge magnets skewed oh-so-strangely downward (as if someone had misjudged a jump and slid down the fridge)
• Horrific scratching noises at 3am in the morning - rushing out just in time to see Oscar running out from behind the TV in the living room.  He'd fallen between the TV cabinet and the wall and was scrambling to get back up.  When I looked in the morning light, there was a static-y grey streak of cat hair clinging to the wall and leading straight downward.

Ah yes, the little night owls like to rock n' roll all night, and sleep in every day.

So while they still haven't emerged during the daylight hours (even when I'm not home - I've left wet food out during the day, and it's gone untouched - highly unusual for them), I think I'm making some progress in getting them to trust me.  Foster stares at me from just below the "couch visibility line" - the line of sight where he can just see my face, and as long as I don't look directly at him (pretend to read a book, play with my Blackberry or concentrate on the TV), he'll continue to stare.  Every night he's gotten a little braver and a little closer, but still just below the couch visibility line.

Funny though, from the foster mom's description of the cats, I would've thought I'd see more of Oscar, and less of Mercedes.  Quite the opposite.  Foster's supposed to be the most normally social of the threesome, Oscar is like the "second banana," preferring to let another cat go first, then following in its footsteps, and Mercedes is the quiet and reserved one. Oscar's totally keeping to himself, and Mercedes will follow Foster around and is out much more than Oscar.  

I'm still discovering who they are, but at least I've finally settled on names that I like.  I'm also looking into supplementing their diet with more natural (raw) foods.  Aye-ya (Chinese expression of...uh...you'd have to hear it to understand its context I guess) - the more I read about food and nutrition (for both humans and animals), the more I wish I hadn't.  So homeopathic/natural foods for cats.  Who would've thought there'd be sooooooo many books on the subject?  Ok, so the books are biased against the pet food industry - it is a somewhat unregulated business, and you really don't want to know what goes into pet food that has already been banned or deemed unusable for humans (let alone animals).  Ick.  I wish I could go back to being ignorant of what I put into my cats.  Too late now...my food explorations shall now include my new fuzzy adoptees to a certain degree.

I may have more to write once they experience the housekeeper tomorrow.  Until then we'll see if Foster comes even closer to me tonight to play the I-see-you-but-you-can't-see-me game...

And then there were three...

Ok, so while I had told myself that I'd wait a year until I got another cat, I realized that I was okay with getting another now, about 5 months after my little Skeeter passed away.

Toronto Cat Rescue is the organization I adopted the threesome from. Their original names are Joey, Jake and Penelope. I'm not a fan of those names in particular, so I've decided to rename them. I've only figured out 2 of the 3 names thus far though - Joey will become "Foster" (very appropriate), Jake will become "Oscar" (I love this name), and Penelope will be...well...I haven't decided, but it may turn out to be "Blakely" or "Mercedes." We'll see if either of those stick. That's the nice thing about cats. They so rarely come when they're called, you don't really have to worry about naming them. The dark blob below is Foster.
This one is Oscar:
And this one is...Blakely/Mercedes/I'm not sure yet.
The pictures above are the last time I actually saw them. Ever since Tuesday, they've been hiding inside my couch as illustrated by the lumps on the side under the coverlet in the picture below:
Thus far, they've only come out at night, and are still very distrusting of me (after all, I did kidnap them out of their comfy home). But when they do come out at night, it makes me think that I've adopted night owls, not cats. The amount of crashing, shifting and snooping around that they do as a pack makes me think they're not as shy as they let on...I've woken up to cats falling off the dresser, 3 cats playing in my closet in the laundry hamper, my toothbrush on the ground, one torn up catnip toy, and a whole lotta scampering from behind the TV. Good thing I fall back asleep pretty easily...

Here's hoping they mellow out sooner than later.