Holiday Hangover

(Sigh...) "New Year's Day is so boooooriiing!"

"Nobody wants to do anythiiiiing!"

"Yes... you may admire Ruby's belly while you wait for something more interesting to happen."

"How about another angle?"

"Wait... what?"

"You want to do WHAT to Ruby's belly??"

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New Year's Day was quiet here at Teeny Tiny Tabby Town. The four outside the foster room seem to have paired off boy-girl-boy-girl for nap time. Witness:

Norman and Abby in their favorite chair on their favorite blanket.

Please note that she was there first and he joined her

(along with those nasty toenails that he won't let anyone trim)

"Please go away, Lady. Can't you see we are SLEEPING?"

And...

Prepare for the ultimate squee...

If you are at work, you might want to cover your mouth...

I'll space down a bit more to give you time to get ready...

Ready?

Simba and Ruby sitting in a tree...

N-A-P-P-I-N-G!

You have no idea how long I have waited to see Simba bond with another cat.

I guess Willie Rae knew what she was doing when she demanded to stay forever and ever.

(Sigh....)

Ultra Quick Health Update

*** Henry, Tika, and Abby are home.  All have upper respiratory, but Henry is a wheezy, sneezy mess.  He is grumpy and less than thrilled that I gave him medicine.  (Picture his face in the "Put Me Down" photo and you'll know what look me gave me at medicine time) At least it's only once per day.

Okay... so I went and found the "Put Me Down" photo instead.  It was this look, except on a bigger face.  The boy is nearly 7 pounds now!

*** The girls were spayed on Wednesday and were running around the family room like maniacs less than 12 hours later.  I have pain meds to give them every two days, but they hardly seem like they will actually need it.  It is virtually impossible to tell the girls apart.  We've put a spot of green nail polish on Abby's ear, red on Tika's.  Except we can hardly remember which girl got which color... ;-)  They are feminine versions of Henry and I believe more and more that they are litter mates.

*** After vacuuming and flea treating my house twice a day for three days, I think we're about done (but whenever someone scratches, I tend to lose my marbles).  I haven't seen a crawler in over 24 hours.  Charlie, Norman, and Simba get a "just in case" dose of Capstar on Thursday followed by another crazy vacuum session.  At this point, I'm just holding out until a week from Friday when I can Frontline all of the adults again.  Just as long as the Adams don't get anything, I can stay sane.  They need to move to Petco on Saturday.  

*** Mother Jefferson and the munchkins continue to do well and are unfazed by any of the craziness outside their bathroom door.  And today... while I wasn't looking... their ears boinged up to the top of their heads.  I am honestly too tired to walk back upstairs with a camera, but I will have take a photo tomorrow and have it for you on Monday.

I'm off now until Monday.  (I know I said that before, but I figured you would want the Henry report).  Everything is fine... unless I see an f-word.  Then I might be saying the f-word, a few hundred times or so.  ;-)

Friday Updates

We've had an eventful week with lots of news and changes and more news as we get to know the munchkins in the foster room.  I thought it might be nice to send you off into the weekend with some updates about life in Teeny Tiny Tabby Town.

Eloise began her stay here as the most serious little flea infested thing that ever walked on four (very short) legs.  She shrank away from human contact for the first few days but after ten days of love and care, she is the by far the most affectionate kitten in the bunch.  She comes crying for snuggles and doesn't care what you are doing... SHE MUST HAVE THEM!  Eloise allows cradling like a baby, nose booping, and insists upon belly rubs.  She rubs on feet and chews on toes, especially if they have nail polish on them.

"Don't mind me. Lady.  I'm just sitting here quietly... waiting for petting... you can pet me anytime... really."

"Okay... that's alright... I'll just pet myself if you're too busy."

Weezy rings the dinner bell (and the breakfast bell and the lunch bell and the snacking time bell) for the entire foster room.  When Weezy's hungry, everything stops until a can gets opened.  She has a quiet, throaty meow, but she means business.  Her serious little look never changes.  The combination of big ears and round eyes give her a studious air, like she's questioning you each and every moment.

Eloise is currently the healthiest kitten in the foster room.  No signs of fleas, upper respiratory, or ringworm on her.  We intend to keep her that way.

"Gerber chicken baby food is my secret to good health.  Now if I could only fit my entire face in this jar..."

Henry came in as the wild child and Henry remains the wild child.  Whatever object holds his focus IS a toy and there is no persuading him otherwise.  He slightly unnerves me when we cuddle and talk because he focuses so intently upon my moving lips and hair blowing in the breeze of the ceiling fan.  He has pounced at both on more than a few occasions.  He jumps at everything claws out.  My lips have the scars to prove it.  There is no tail that is safe.  On Thursday, he attacked Eloise's tail and got his claw stuck on the tip.  Boy, did she give him what for!

"I don't know how you expect me to sit still for pictures when your camera-thingy has this awesome toy hanging from it!"

"No time for non-blurry pictures, Lady.  There's a ball to chase here."

Henry is the first kitten to greet me at the door to the foster room... every time.  He sprints like his tail is on fire.  He must be involved in everything.  It really doesn't matter how anyone else feels about it.  He would snuggle, but he gets distracted too easily and finds something to pounce on instead.  I imagine he sleeps, but refuses to do so in my presence.

"Okay... I'll sit here for 2.4 seconds so that you may take my photo.  Then, your lens cap is mine."

Henry arrived wheezing and sneezing.  Most of that is gone now.  I haven't heard a wheeze in several days and we're only treated to the occasional sneeze now.  He has a touch of ringworm on his ears and above one eye.  He has lost the fur there and is crusty, but hasn't become red and swollen (and this is after several days).  I'm hoping that with medication, this is as bad as it gets.

"Oh good, you found another camera... because I'm keeping this one."

Porter is my special love.  He wants desperately to love me, but his health issues are getting in the way... namely, I medicate and bathe him.  When I am in the room, he stares at me from afar and purrs.  He cocks his head when I talk to him.  I can tell that he's trying to decide whether or not to be brave and visit me.  We are beginning to reach an understanding... with the help of routine and Gerber chicken baby food.  (Ugh... you know how much I love him if I'm willing to touch that stuff.)

"No pictures, please."

"Talk to the paw."

"Honestly, Lady... you're as bad as the paparazzi."

When the foster room doors are closed and I am out of the way, he is a completely normal kitten.  Porter and Henry have hours-long sessions of Wrestle Mania.  It sounds like thunder in there, even when the skies are clear.  He loves the track ball and chasing a ping pong ball across the room.  His favorite place to nap is in a sunny spot on the very tippy-top of the cat tree.

Blurry Brother Smackdown

After a week of worry, we finally seem to be seeing a bit of progress with Porter's ringworm.  Instead of red and raw, his sores are starting to look crusty and drying out.  We stumbled upon a medication strategy that works for both of us.  I wrap his body in a towel, hold him like a baby, and dab the drops onto his face with my gloved fingertip.  He then waits patiently as I free one leg at a time to squirt the drops onto his sores there.  When I run out of legs, he runs off my lap.  His goopy eyes have cleared and I haven't heard him sneeze in days.  Improvement... that's all I need for now.

After talking to the vet about preventative measures for ringworm, I decided the easiest thing to do clothing-wise was to leave an old bathrobe and a pair of socks in the foster room.  The plan was for me to put them on as soon as I walk through the door so I'm completely covered except for my hands and face.  The kittens had other ideas.  Apparently the inside of my robe makes the most excellent hiding spot for pouncing on a sibling.  We've had many wrestling matches around my ankles.  So now when I leave the room, I wash hands, face, and ankles  ;-)

Henry swats at a streaking Eloise while Porter looks on from inside my ratty pink bathrobe.

Penny isn't so sure that she likes this "freedom" thing.  Even with the run of the house, she usually stays upstairs... mostly walking between the family room and the top of the stairs (which are open to the living room) to tell me off for leaving her door open.  She complains loudly if one of the boy cats enters her space and even louder still if they look at her food.  But since there is no fighting and no aggression, I'm calling it a success.

Our Penny princess has become a bit of diva in the food department.  She has expressed a clear preference for canned food.  If I drop kibble in her bowl, she gives me a looks as if to say "Why are you feeding me this crap?" and then she walks over to space where her wet food bowl usually resides and meows expectantly.

"You can open my door and give me freedom, but this is as far as I'm going.  There are boys down there!"

Tommy isn't one bit interested in the commotion going on around us.  He would just like his favorite spots to remain free from other cats.  For the most part, he gets his wish.

"I know this really isn't my spot.  I don't care."

Norman can't understand why I won't let him in the foster room.  He also has issues with them having access to kibble 24/7 while he does not.  Additionally, he has no problem with Friday the 13th.  He would like us all to just deal with it and hug a black cat.

Uncle Norman keeps an eye on those kittens.

"I'll just hang on to the remote this evening.  How about a "My Cat from Hell" marathon?"

Simba can't understand why I would want to have so many cats in the house.  After many days of avoiding me completely, he is starting to come around a bit.  BUT the jerk has sprayed in my basement (which he apparently considers his lair).  Luckily, he seems to only be interested in spraying a concrete floor so it's been easy to deal with so far.

"If Norman thinks those cats on the television are bad, just wait until I finish washing up the Paw of Doom"

Charlie just wants someone to throw him the ball already.

"Or we could play with these toys instead..."

Have a great weekend everyone.

"We'll just wait here until you come back on Monday."

Metro Monday

One of the great things about being a military wife is having the opportunity to travel the world. Over the past 17 years, the Air Force sent us to live in Texas, Idaho, Germany, Ohio, and Michigan.  Once you've set up house, started work, and settled the family, day-to-day life is pretty much the same as yours.  But the vacations (especially when living overseas) are exceptionally memorable.

Before my oldest daughter's 3rd birthday (and before her younger brother's 1st), my kids had been up the Eiffel Tower, fed pigeons outside the Louvre, seen Pisa and Rome, been blessed by Pope John Paul II, climbed Swiss mountains, visited fairy tale castles, and been to the Tower of London... with the Beefeaters playfully offering to find someone to baptize the baby in the chapel where Anne Boleyn is buried.  My youngest child, born almost 11 months to the day after we relocated back to the States, asked frequently as a preschooler, "But when will I be in the pictures??"  She was well aware of being left out of something magical.

One of the worst things about being a military wife is having your life uprooted on a tri-yearly basis.  Every few years, we would wait for the orders that told us where to move next.  Often you have little choice or influence in the matter.  While we awaited our orders to leave Germany, it had been indicated that we could expect a move to England next.  Needless to say, when the papers arrived with the word Ohio on them I was just a bit disappointed.  ((If you are from Ohio, I apologize for the way that sounded but I guarantee that if you had the choice to live in either England or Ohio, you'd pick England too.  By the way, I ended up with a soft spot for Ohio which is a remarkable thing for a native Michigander))  Being away from family for years at a time while your kids are small is no small issue, either.


In 2004, the Air Force offered my husband the opportunity to return home to Michigan as a full-time active duty member of the Michigan Air National Guard.  Full time employment, remaining in the military,  and coming home all in one fell swoop?  Yes, please.  Our first assignment with the guard took us on an extended tour to northern Michigan.  We bought our first house... a 1970's fixer-upper on a hill in the woods, less than a mile from a bike path that connected the entire town.  And it was so difficult to look at this view every day while driving to work every day:

So tough to spend summer days with your kids in locations like this:

Or this

Two years ago, my husband received a promotion (Higher rank = raise which always a good thing).  That promotion, however, meant that he needed to leave his position and take a command downstate.  For those unfamiliar with Michigan-speak... "Up North" is the northern portion of the lower peninsula.  I use  it to refer to anything north of the Zilwaukee Bridge or Saginaw.  "Downstate" is the southern portion of the lower peninsula, usually referring to south of Flint and generally means the Detroit area.  Don't worry, we haven't forgotten that there's an entire other peninsula... they're the "U.P." or "Yoopers" and they loving refer to us as "trolls" because we live beneath the bridge that separates us.

Traverse City and Detroit might as well be in two separate states, two separate worlds.  We were exchanging hills, beaches, and no-more-than 4 lane highways for concrete, asphalt, skyscrapers, and a daunting Interstate systems that ringed the city.  And did I mention this was Detroit???  We dragged our feet moving.  For the first year, my husband worked in Detroit and came "home" on weekends while we put our house on the market.  After ten months, the house sold and it was time for us to make our move.

The situation wasn't all bad.  In a way, I was coming home.  The daughter of a retired Detroit police lieutenant, I was born and raised on the city's west side in the days of residency requirements for city employees.  Yep, I grew up inside the city proper and lived to tell the tale.  Contrary to widespread belief, not all of Detroit is a wasteland.   Most people probably hear "Detroit" and picture this:

This house lies four blocks from my childhood home.  I was overjoyed to drive a bit farther and find this:

The house where I grew up, a bit rough around the edges and slightly worse for wear, but no victim to the urban blight and decay we all hear about.

Detroit has amazing spirit.  Even out in the suburbs, we're a bit sensitive to how it's portrayed to the nation.  Most suburban residents are only a generation or two removed from living within the city limits.  Detroit is "home" and you're far more likely to hear me say that I live in Detroit than Macomb Township (where my current home is actually located).  I think most metro residents would do the same.

So, without further ado, I introduce "Metro Monday"... a glimpse inside the good things about living in Detroit and southeast Michigan.  (Don't worry, it will be far less wordy in future weeks)

The Renaissance Center... a Detroit landmark for as long as I can remember... still magnificent in the June sunshine.  Somehow it's more impressive to me now that it was as a child.

By far, though, the best thing about discovering Detroit has been this:

There's a fabulous metropark mere minutes from my new house... hiking trails through the woods, bike paths, and

The lake, complete with two beaches for swimming.  We will be spending most of the holiday week somewhere inside this park, where it feels like home.  Woods, water, and Detroit.  I guess I am really home.

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TomCat spent much of the weekend destroying the inside of his nesting box to express his disappointment over TomKat's impending divorce.

"I really thought those two crazy kids were going to make it."

"I may just need to hang out in the laundry for a few days to recover.  Do we have any ice cream?"

Norman spends much of his day hanging out on the other side of Penny's door.  She's not quite sure what to make of this development.

"This is creepy.  Can you make him stop?"

You might think that Penny's got an admirer, but I tend to believe it's her food bowl that our old man is after. If he gets through the door, he travels in a straight line to the kibble.  After all, he's got some weight to gain!

Penny's on the spay list for later this week.  When she's healed and has been vaccinated, she will join the general population outside the foster room.  I know what this means.... do you?? Conversations are being had about the next residents of the room  ;-)

Rules for the Cat

The cat is NOT allowed on the furniture.

You've got an issue with furry pillows??  What's YOUR problem??

Surely, you couldn't mean me.  I'm just sitting here looking beautiful.

Doll furniture is still okay, right?  The doll doesn't care if I get fur on HER pillow.  She told me so.

OK, I'll just sit here in the sink instead.  Ewwww.... Someone SPIT in here!!  I think it was that red-headed kid.

OK, the cat can go on the furniture, but NOT on the kitchen counter.

That sounds like discrimination to me.

I told you I didn't touch your stupid Oreos.  Look... they're right over there where you left them.

Alright, the cat can go on the kitchen counter too, just not when I'm preparing food.  Deal?

THAT'S NOT FAIR!!!  I DON'T WANT YOUR YUCKY VEGETABLES, HUMAN.  JUST GET ME THE FANCY FEAST AND NO ONE GETS HURT!

Fine... The cat can go wherever it wants, whenever it wants, as long as it doesn't swat me in the face at 5:30 in the morning demanding to be fed.

(((tap, tap, tap)))      Hey lady... You up? 

The cat will now be fed at 5:30 in the morning.

Special thanks to my new blogosphere friend Holly Waterfall for bringing this lovely bit of truth to my attention (and to my dear friend Kirsten who posted it in her Facebook feed the following day!) I do not know the true author for attribution.  If you have that information, please let me know so I can credit them accordingly.

Have a great weekend everyone!

PS--- I've been hearing about commenting issues and (as a blog newbie) was clueless at first how to make it right.  Did some clicking around in the comment settings yesterday and I think you should find everything fixed for you.  Just click the drop down menu, choose "Name" (You don't have to include a URL and can leave it blank) or "Anonymous" and comment away!  If you have any more problems, message me either on the  Facebook page or at teenytinytabbies (at) gmail (dot) com and I'll get right on it.  Thanks!!