And Engineer's Guide to Cats

Horus and Bear

Horus attempting to investigate the camera


Bear being nonchalant

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Inside/outside Izzy

I don't think I've mentioned that Izzy has decided she is an inside/outside cat. She has and she's quite adamant about it. When I got home from my ramble, she greeted me as I got out of the car.


And then she had to show me how happy she was to see me so I could let her back in the house to eat and drink.


Silly kitty!

Ghostly Rainbow

I tried to snap a pic of Rainbow, but she decided to move so I have this ghostly image of her. I still think it's kewl the way that happens.

I promised you a picture

But it's not really very helpful, is it? Loki just did not have any interest in cooperating. He was bound and determined to show me his back no matter what I tried to distract him with. Oh, well. Can't really say I blame him.



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Boy gone

Loki became gender neutral yesterday. He's back home from the vet's today and he doesn't seem to be the worse for wear although he did insist on chatting with me when I first got home. Poor thing had to tell me just how traumatized he was by his first trip away from home and how he really, really, really didn't appreciate being left at that nasty, strange place.

Normally I would have pictures to go with a post like this, but the rechargeable batteries in my camera finally gave up the ghost after almost four years and I just don't have any others handy at the moment so pictures will have to wait. I guess I should really look online for more batteries for the camera, but I'm feeling lazy right at this moment. It is Friday night after all and I am right in the middle of a really good book.

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The three amigos

I tried to get pictures of the kittens, but they just wouldn't hold still for them. They are into exploring and sniffing and being brave. This was the only decent picture I got and it is of the three boys. That's Thor by the wall, still nameless next to him, and Esarhaddon walking into the shot.

Esar is the brave little kitty that could. Open the bedroom door and he is out of it and down the hall before you even realize it. It's that teleportation thing cats do. He doesn't seem to notice or care that everyone except his mother is hissing at him.

They are still so cute.

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The god emperor of the universe secure in his domain

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Stash

Stash finally holding still long enough for me to snap him. I took this picture in the dining room with the light off which is why he is so out of center. I couldn't see anything through the viewfinder and I was just hoping I'd get him when I clicked.

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Rainbow

Rainbow sitting on the chair under the dining table.

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Woolly Bear

Woolly Bear is another of Izzy's kittens. He is the cat I had planned to keep.

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Miss Bette

Miss Bette is another of Izzy's kittens. And, yes, the cats have clawed the wallpaper off the walls. I actually hate the wallpaper so I'm not terribly upset by it.

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Streak and Mouse

Streak is one of Izzy's kittens. I still have six of the seven she had. They'll be nine months old this weekend.

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Nu Bs 2 Bs

The kittens are two weeks old today. I made the Prodigal Son get them out of the closet so I could snap pictures of them. It seems Meli won't let them out to explore. She's an extremely protective mom.


Meli had to be in the middle of the kittens when the Prodigal put them on the bed. I snapped this as he was trying to pick up Meli to move her out of the way.


The four furry monsters sniffing around the bed. They were very curious about what this new place was. It's hard to tell in the picture, but the kitten on the far left is a much paler orange than the two in the middle.


When we wanted to snap Meli and the kittens together, she decided she wanted away from them. This is the Prodigal trying to keep her in place.


The Prodigal Son holding the gray and the pale orange kittens.


The Prodigal Son holding the two darker orange kittens.

Eat your heart out folks! They are just the cutest things.

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The new arrivals are one

One week old, that is.


Here's the Prodigal Son holding what I think will be a grey tabby. We both also think she is a girl. Although you can't see it in the photo, she's got one eye half open.


Here all four are snuggled in their nest in the closet. The Prodigal and I think the three orange kittens are all boys. Just what we need . . . three more god emperors of the universe. ~ grin ~

Guess what these are

They were born this morning. There are four - three orange and one dark. These belong to Meli.

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Can you believe this wee, timorous beastie . . .

. . . turned into this grooming lion king?

The boys are it!

They - Woolly Bear and Stash - just got back from the vet and they are now not the boys they were when we dropped them off yesterday. They don't appear any the worse for wear.

Only six left! Hurry, while supplies last!

Would you believe I've actually managed to give one kitten away? Chaps has gone off to her new home. She's gone off to live with a nice older gentleman whom I met at the vet's office last month. The Prodigal Son dropped her off this afternoon.

I can honestly say there isn't much difference between twelve cats and eleven of them.

Horus and Miss Goatee

This nap is brought to you by . . .

It has been a really, really long time since I took photos of the kittens. Yes, I still have all seven of the littler buggers although there are only six in the photos which follow. Woolly Bear is missing. I have no idea where he was napping.


From left to right: Stripes, Chaps, Stash, Streak, Goatee, Miss Bette


Stash couldn't be bothered with me snapping pictures. He just kept on dreaming.


Miss Bette also couldn't be bothered by me or with me.


Streak, however, had no problem giving me the evil eye for waking her up.


Goatee was trying for the evil eye but she just wasn't awake enough. That's Chaps next to her.


Last but not least, Meli keeping an eye on the jungle out my back door.

Izzy's back

But you didn't know she was gone, did you? Well, she is and she is now un-sexed. She's been at the vet's since Tuesday getting her little self fixed so we won't have to deal with her getting out and producing another litter. She's glad to be home and she seems to be holding up really well. So far she's dealing with the surgery and the drugs better than either Mouse or Rainbow did that first day back home.

I've informed the Prodigal Son he needs to make sure she's not left unsupervised with the kittens so she doesn't do something or have something done to her that would rip her stitches. We'll see how well that plays out.

Oh, she weight 8.3 pounds. Thought you'd want to know that.

I was right!

I think it was at their first visit to the vet that I asked the gender of the kittens. Very early on, I'd looked and decided there were two boys and five girls. The Prodigal Son kept insisting there were six girls and one boy. Well, the vet sided with my son, so I haven't bothered checking again. I mean, surely the vet can tell better than I, right?

Not so much.

I picked up the kindle yesterday and the vet told me Stash was the biggest kitten, weighing in at 3.8 pounds. I commented I would have expected Woolly Bear to be the biggest since he was a male. That's when the vet told me Stash was a male as well. Will wonders never cease?

Meet Moustache

Dinner time

Play time

Oh, and I forgot to mention

The Prodigal was at the vet with the kittens as well. When the vet asked if we were going to keep any of the kittens, the Prodigal told him we were keeping three of them. That was news to me. It seems the Prodigal wants to keep Woolly Bear, Stripes, and Miss Bette.

And before I forget, according to the vet, Woolly Bear is the only male among a kindle of females.

First trip to the vet

The kittens had their first trip to the vet today. One of the nameless crew has developed a fungus and I wanted it treated so the whole bunch was taken in. They all have a sinus infection with attendant goopy eyes for which we have antibiotic and cream. All of them have good lungs and heartbeats. None of them have ear mites. All of them are a little underweight, but we just started them on solid food this week so the vet wasn't terribly concerned. They were given a dose of worming medicine each which none of them liked at all.

And now we're back home and they have been fed. They and Izzy are all snuggled down for a nice nap after polishing off three cans of cat food betwixt them.

They've escaped!

We brought the kittens out of the bedroom and let them have the run of the house. Meli wants to play with them. Horus just growls and snarls at them. Rainbow hid. And Mouse sat on the window sill placidly observing the furry monsters from a distance.

A couple of the kittens were disconcerted by this vasty space and a couple decided they preferred it to the bedroom. Stripes and Woolly Bear are definitely the alpha cats in this pack.

No glamour shots this week, just a muddle of bad pictures 'cause the silly buggers just wouldn't hold still.

We're in trouble now

The kittens have finally gotten their land legs and they've started exploring their surroundings in earnest. So far, four of them have taken to wandering all over the bedroom. Two are Stripes and Wooly Bear and the other two are of the as yet nameless bunch. We have to be very careful opening the door 'cause the little buggers can be anywhere. We've caught them exploring the door hinges and trying to see if they can get under the door to see what's in the Great Outside where people come from.

Poor Izzy. It was bad enough having to deal with seven when they were pretty much immobile, but now . . . No wonder she wants to spend so much time in the Great Outside where the seven aren't. She's happy leaving them alone for a couple of hours while she eats and sleeps.

The Prodigal Son sent me this photo he took of Izzy and the brood. That's Miss Bette Davis she's holding while the rest are nursing. He took the photo with his phone a couple of weeks ago but he didn't send it to me until yesterday.

Three weeks old today

Three of the seven have crib names. The first photo at the top is of Miss Bette Davis. The grey tabby is Stripes. And the last photo on the bottom is Wooly Bear.

You can see that they're just the tiniest bit a bigger handful than last week.

Kitty pile

Herding kittens

Two weeks old

What's cute got to do with it?

The kittens are twelve days old today and they are getting slightly more mobile. Although they still enjoy laying in one small lump, watching them jockey for position in the kitty pile is a hoot. Jockeying for position involves rolling over and pawing at the air, rolling over and pawing at each other, climbing over each other, trying to crawl their way under each other. A couple of them have also gotten curious enough to explore the bounds of the blanket that's been their home.

Pretty soon, they'll be a holy terror.

Get ready . . .

. . . to overdose on cute. Here are the kittens at six days old.









So, who wants one?

All together now . . .

Behold! I give you a kindle of kittens . . .

Seven swans a-swimming

OK, they're not exactly swans and they certainly aren't swimming, but I'm reasonably sure there a seven of them even though the Prodigal Son only reported six when he woke me this morning to tell me Izzy had popped. He also noted that things must not have been too bad for Izzy 'cause he didn't wake up while she was delivering. That really isn't saying much since he wouldn't have noticed unless she'd planted all four feet's worth of claws in his chest and bitten his nose off. And, yes, those are the Prodigal's now ruined shirts and towel on the floor of the closet where Izzy decided to deliver instead of the nice snug box the Prodigal made up for her.

Most of the kittens take after their momma and are, to varying degrees, black and white. There does appear to be a grey tabby with at least one white paw in the bunch. I haven't really disturbed momma and babies much except to prod at the babies to make sure they were all alive and well and to snap this first set of pictures. Later today I'll replace the bloody mess of clothes with clean dry newspaper and toweling which I shall have to run out and get.

Izzy seems to have taken to mothering despite being a very anti-social cat. She was not very well socialized, to either humans or fellow felines, which I blame on her former owner, the girl who should not be allowed to own an animal of any kind . . . EVER. Izzy and Horus are both her cast offs.

Oh, well, enough blather. Take a gander at the new additions to the household . . .

Class is over

Class is over. The instructor thought we'd finish by 1 p.m. or so today. Ha! Fooled him, we did. We finished at 4 p.m., but it was another good day. I don't exactly hate VB.net but I'd rather stick with Delphi but that's only assuming the newest version, which is supposed to fit into the .Net framework, doesn't make you do all that extra work that VB.net does. Not to mention typing. Hasn't Microsoft ever heard of components for which you provide exception programming and not functional programming? Oh, well. Maybe I'll get used to VB.net when I've worked with it for 15 or so years.

The prodigal son, whose leg you can see in the photo at the left, took pictures today of Heru and Muggles and Mouse. I think my favorite picture is the one of Heru looking vaguely bemusedly annoyed at having been photographed. I also rather like the picture of the Lion That Roared being put in his place by the Queen of the House while the Empress of the Universe looks on in serene repose. Kittens are such a riot.

You may have noticed that Horatio / Horus has gone through another name change. He's now become Heru which is short for Heru-pa-Khered. I've decided to counfound the vet. I think they need a little shaking up.

Horatio becomes Horus

The little fart pulled a name change on me very similar to the one that Goblin pulled when I first got her. He'd knocked over a trash basket and was rooting around in it so I yelled at him to stop. What came out of my mouth was "Horus, NO! Stop it!" So there you have it . . . Horatio becomes Horus.



If I thought our vet could handle it, I would tell them his name was Heru-pa-khered - Horus (Heru) the Child - but I think I'm going to get funny looks just telling them his name is Horus.

Roseunicorn, don't look!

Trust me. You don't want to see what I've got here. It will only make you mad.



You looked! Shame on you. I tried to spare you. Well, there's nothing for it now. I guess I'll have to introduce you. This is Horatio. The prodigal son brought him home tonight. According to the son, the person - and I use the term very loosely - who had him decided he didn't want the kitten anymore and threw him - yes, I mean picked him up and threw him like a football - into the street. This upset the son no end and he begged me to let him bring the cat home. I told him he could, but it would be a temporary measure. If the kitten didn't fit into the household, we would have to find another home for him. Well, I believe that about as much as you do and about as much as the son did. Heck, the cat's already told me his name. As you can see, he's a shaggy orange tabby. What you can't see are his green eyes. Other than being a little on the thin side, he doesn't seem to be in too bad shape. He's already wandering around the house and objecting to the girls - ick, cooties - being here. He seems to think he should be king of the hill.

Invasion of the dirty socks

Oh, my! Got up this morning to discover the living room socked in and Miss Muggles snuggled up with one.

Miss Muggles

I finally have two mostly decent shots of Miss Muggles where her tortoise shell markings are more evident. Her lopsided chest markings show up really well.



She is just such a sweetie cat (even when she's being the dain bramaged demon cat from the nether hells.)

The best friend with the best cat

(That's my best cat, of course.)

Booster shots

Miss Muggles, Mouse, and I just got back from the vet. They were in getting their booster shots and having their little raptor claws trimmed. Miss Muggles weighed in at a hefty 3.11 pounds and Mouse wasn't far behind at 3.8 pounds. They were both very good girls. No hissing or scratching or biting, just plain mind numbing terror tempered by curiosity. They go back in four weeks for another set of booster shots. Thank goodness for having every other Friday off.

Mouse, starring in Alien 4

This is Mouse doing a pretty darn good imitation of an Alien at rest on a blue folding chair.