Got junk?

I'm having a hard time cleaning my place up. It's become so messy I find it difficult to live here but cleaning up seems such an overwhelming and tedious job that I've been postponing it for weeks. I'm watching Hoarders which really helps me get up and get going. I tackle one little task at a time and keep sitting down to rest and divert my thoughts every couple of minutes, which seems a good strategy. From lack of sleep and rest during over half a year of working two jobs I'm simply too physically tired to accomplish much in one or two days but I'm making a slow progress.

It helps that the fleas seem to be largely gone ever since I sprayed the cats with medication (Frontline, a single dose for large dogs divided into four doses of 0.7 mililiters for each of my little possums, as I sometimes call them) two weeks ago. Before that, there were so many fleas I couldn't really enter the cats' room to clean it because several fleas would instantly jump on each of my legs. But once the cats became, so to say, poisonous to them, the fleas seem to have died. Of hunger, I guess. Although I was afraid they'd move on to me to feed on, it didn't happen. Today I managed to wash a part of the floor in the cats' room under their toilets, and, surprisingly, didn't see a single flea in the process. And I haven't even used the spray I ordered from the vet to treat the floors.

Host of the fleas

Tiger, the largest of my cats (as well a cute, very social and oversensitive gray striped male), must be hosting an impressive flea population because he scratches often and leaves several eggs behind wherever he jumps down or spends some time resting. Why do I mention that? Well, I attempted to clean my place a bit today and, while hanging laundry, must have left the bedroom door open. You know the rest. I continued to clean for a while when suddenly it struck me Tiger was nowhere to be seen. I looked in the kitchen, I looked in the bathroom, I looked inside the operating washing machine. No trace. Peace and quiet, no sound to be heard (I turned the TV and washing machine off). At that point I pretty much knew and turned my step to the bedroom. Where, on my unmade bed, curled upon and against the messed up covers, Tiger was preparing to take a nap. I only managed to say "Yyyyyyyy" and look directly in his eye as he looked in mine! He got up immediately and left the room in a hurry, miaowing and demanding to be let outside, probably to get as far from me as possible. I attended to his wishes, letting him out through the window, and was left with a huge pile of bed covers to inspect for fleas (found one, it was large, so probably a female) and wash, to be safe, twice each.

I mean my hands dropped. I have so little time to myself and now this. I can't wait until I get rid of that one hour of work each day so that I can pull my.. self together a bit better than I do now.

Update: watching Nadia Giosia's Bitchin' kitchen, quote: "a little selfishness is a good thing. Too much selfishness, on the other hand - even better."

I changed the sheets on my bed to all white/pale green/pale blue so that any fleas are clearly visible.

About five minutes ago the queen mother cat threw up because she had too much chicken liver for dinner. But she didn't throw up directly on the floor, oh no. Upon waking up, she puked from atop of the armchair down one of its sides. Luckily, the armachair was covered with a blankie and on the blankie the puke went. Very fresh, too, basically the pieces of liver came back without much fluid. The poor cat can't stop eating when there's still food left in her bowl - she probably somehow remembers going hungry when she was still feral. I gave her too much to eat beacuse I bought a large tray of livers for both the cats and myself but forgot all about it until the livers went past their expiration date. Now I also have to wash the cat blankie.

The cats are snoring

while sleeping on my best vintage table as flea eggs continue to drop off them. Mhnhhh... mhnhhh... mhnhhh... One of them has taken to sleeping in a large ficus pot near the window. I read fleas simply love dry sand. I'm sick at the thought of having to vacuum again. I had to get up slightly past 3 a.m. today to make it to the other side of town for a work-related training. I was 30 minutes late but noone said a word, and, furthermore, at the end of the day my further training was cancelled! Hooray! Instead of several employees travelling - each for a week - to be trained by a head of the department at a very far away company location, the head of the department will be travelling next week to train us all at the same time at the place where we work. I think they realized we're disrupting their work too much. Just in time - I only had to get up that early and take a train with smelly masses once instead of six times I had scheduled.

I'm off for a small nap as I can hardly keep my eyes open.

A good brandy is...

Quote of the day: "A good brandy is like a tiny cat in velvet slippers scampering down your throat. A bad brandy is like that same cat, barefoot, being pulled out by the tail."

I had an afternoon off the day before yesterday and wandered around several neighborhood stores carrying luxury food and drink items in search of belated Christmas gifts for my family who had duly presented such gifts to me. I purchased various teas, the most expensive one - by Niederegger of Lübeck - marzipan, i.e. almond flavored, as well as halvas (one of them a Pişmaniye or floss halva, in the form of wool-resembling nests for my thirteen-year-old niece), and unusual chocolates, such as marzipan and anise-flavored. I also noticed a Pedro Ximenez sherry at one of the stores and was appalled at the price of almost 17 Euros for a regular 0,75 liter bottle but todays web search revealed that price was indeed the lowest I encountered. So I decided to buy the bottle tomorrow and sample the PX once I finish my current sweet (we're talking at least 100 grams of sugar per liter) oak-aged white Crimean wine - Kрымвейн белый крымcкий, one of the delicious products of the renowned Massandra estate, made of the white Kokour, Aligote, Rkatsiteli and other varieties.

I can only enjoy wines occassionally these days as I work a lot, too much in reality, and I don't have enough time to sleep not to mention sobering back into shape. I must have had the Crimean bottle opened for a month and there's still enough left for two small sippings. Being a fortified wine, though, it hasn't really gone bad taste-wise, only the best parts of the aroma are gone. I basically only buy fortified wine now so that it doesn't go to waste if not drunk within tree days, which I can't possibly accomplish. I'm planning to work somewhat less by spring and hopefully will be able to make the necessary formal arrangements with my employers in the coming weeks.

Of other news, the cats have brought in fleas and my place is quite badly infested. I mean a flea jumps on me at least once a day. I saw it happening, that is, I saw what I now know were flea eggs falling out of their fur a couple of weeks ago but - alas - at the time it didn't occur to me what they were. What kind of a strange sand is that in the cats' toilet?, I thought. Does clay litter indeed decompose into such tiny, round, pearly granules? Well, hello, the answer is NO, and on top of working outside the home I now have loads of cleaning and spraying to do inside my apartment. Luckily I don't find fleas particularly disgusting or I might have gone mad thinking about the 95% of the flea population sharing the place with me in any available crevice of the floor and furniture.

I'm off to at least do the washing up before watching today's episode of Colin and Justin's Home Heist... I felt so tired yesterday that I fell asleep at 11:30 p.m., missing all the fireworks, and woke up today at noon.

Sick

I'm a tad sick. And I've been able to take some time off work now that I work two jobs and do not have to worry if the last pennies of my wages will last me until the next payday. While the symptoms are mild they persist even though I've been taking an antibiotic, so it might be something viral. It actually began around October 4th and although I do feel better, especially when making sure I stay warm and at home, I still don't feel completely healthy. I hope it will not last an entire month like it did last December when I went to work sick with another something for over thirty days, hoping it would go away any day but it didn't, I just kept getting better and worse in a couple of days' cycles.

Cat Dumbo found

I've spent an entire month worrying about Dumbo the cat - first his whereabouts, then how to bring him back home and, finally, how to introduce him back to the cats who had driven him out of the house in the first place. I'm pleased to report that I've managed to solve all three problems. With considerable help from the web - had I not read about the experiences of others who lost and found their cats, I might have given up. However, having read about the virtue of patience, incessant search in the close proximity of the cat's home and setting food-baited traps to catch the lost pet, I regained hope and continued searching and calling him early mornings and late evenings, i.e. when cats tend to be most active.

My first sighting of Dumbo took place two days after I had started putting out food at night, which was almost two weeks after he went missing. He emerged from behind my neighbor's shed, thin and scared to death, crawling close to the ground with his ears down, at 6 a.m., heading towards the food bowl. He was actually being led towards it by a free roaming neighborhood cat, who must have first found the food. They both fled back to the neighbor's shed when they saw me, but the food began disappearing from the bowl ever since. Two or three days later Dumbo actually showed up next to me in the garden at his evening meal time! He then began showing up for both breakfasts and suppers, and then one day, when I miaowed at him with the 6 a.m. breakfast bowl in my hand, he emerged from the tall grass bed close to the house, where he was hiding, approached my extended arm and let me touch and pet him profusely! Over the following days we proceeded to have his meals first closer to the house, then in the hallway with the front door open, inside the apartment with the apartment door open, and then, when it was raining, I closed the apartment door when he was inside, eating. 

I first kept him separate from the other cats, whom I locked in the cats' room and was letting outside through the window, while Dumbo had both another room and the hallway to himself, so that he wouldn't feel too imprisoned. After two or three days of this arrangement, he began demanding to go into the other cats' room. I opened the door slightly so that they could smell each other. I instructed them to be good and not fight with each other. They reunited over the following five hours, first staring at each other suspiciously, then slowly approaching. After their first night together in the same room, I found all four cats sharing the same window sill and watching the garden from there. This was two days ago, and exactly four weeks after Dumbo went missing.

As I said at the beginning, the reason he went missing in the first place was because his own mother wouldn't let him back into the house after he first went outside! I was busy working at the time and did not expect that an interpersonal conflict would arise between my cats due to being let outside. Therefore, I heard the queen-mother screaming her lungs out chasing away some cats who tried to enter the cats' room through the open window, but I thought she was dealing with the local feral population. It didn't for a second occur to me that she was chasing one of her own children and companions, the poor Dumbo! Which was actually the case. It must have happened several times, Dumbo trying to return to their room through the window and she chasing him away viciously, and Dumbo got so scared he hid in the neighbor's shed and decided to stay there so that she couldn't see and chase him again.

Dumbo is a bit of a dominant male and it might have been the reason why the queen mother decided not to share her territory - newly enlarged via the open window - with him. I'm so glad I managed to reinstall peace among them and have all four back together. I'll certainly be much more careful introducing any changes to their routine from now on.

Cat Dumbo missing

One of my cats, an almost one year old male named Dumbo has been missing for four days now. I've just returned from the garden - searched for him everywhere but couldn't find him. I'm worried and sad. On Saturday I opened the window to the garden for them for the first time since I adopted them last summer. They were hesitating for an hour or two but then he finally decided to step outside. He climbed down the pile of wood to the lawn and that's when I last saw him. It didn't occur to me that being so shy he might have the courage to go anywhere farther than a couple of steps from the window. But either he had the courage or got scared and hid somewhere. He was so small and thin, barely over six pounds of weight. I'm worried what might have happened to him if he wasn't fed for four days now. Please send positive energy his way.. I'm still hoping he will show up. 

A spaying spree

Tiger has improved. We went back to the vet on the fourth day of his being unwell as she told us there was no point in waiting any longer if he wasn't eating or drinking and losing weight every day. She diagnosed an irritated liver, gave him an antibiotic shot and I think another shot containing I don't know what (I was too overwhelmed to register that), and pumped a good half a cup of Ludlow's (?) solution under the skin of his upper back, until he looked like a camel with water leaking from his hump. This was supposed to hydrate him and replenish electrolytes. He was so scared, and probably weak, he wouldn't even think of fighting. However, the procedure helped - as if she'd watered a wilting plant - he was back on his feet the same evening and continued to improve. Today, a week later, he's practically back to his old self, with the exception that I haven't seen him pee in the corners behind furniture. He purrs and loudly vocalizes, displays attitudes and generally participates in the other cats' activities, including eating, begging for food, playing and sleeping together. Hooray. You should have seen him right after he'd been neutered when the other cats wouldn't sleep with him because he smelled of the vet! They were only staring at him and smelling him from some distance. He was so miserable.

This afternoon I lured him to sample some boiled egg yolk next to where I was eating boiled egg sandwiches. When he was tasting the yolk, I sprayed the back of his head with anti-roundworm medication from a tiny syringe the vet gave me! Boy he jumped! He had been clever at breakfast when he saw the syringe in my hand, and I only managed to catch the remaining three then. But then they went to sleep some, then they woke up, stretched, sniffed around... Lured by the yolk lying innocently on the floor next to my chair, he forgot! I caught him completely off guard and the application was successful.

Now I have four cats all dewormed at the same time. This is supposed to prevent them from spreading roundworm to each other. My previous apllications have not been entirely successful because only two cats would eat the medicine willingly. The other two - Tiger and his little sister - only ate it the very first time I served it, mixed with wet cat food. Then they must have felt a bit off and remembered it because they'd never touch the medicine-contaminated food again. The little queen would even scratch the floor next to the bowl to show that the disgusting contents of the bowl should be buried like feces! Tiger would just smell the food, shake his fur off with disgust, and walk away. This resulted in two cats being fully dewormed and two remaining roundworm carriers. The vet was worried that the worms were making them weak and prone to suffer complications from the surgical procedures I wanted her to perform.

I have two appointments scheduled in May to neuter the remaining queens - one on the 13th and the other on the 25th. I've already arranged to have those days off at work. While I'm very happy that Tiger is both neutered and back on his feet, I'm now very worried about how well both queens will take their surgeries. The first attempt on last Tuesday was unsuccessful - the queen mother of the three almost passed away on the table when given an anaesthetic shot. The vet immediately gave her an antidote shot to wake her up and resuscitated her. She said if she'd left the room for a couple of minutes as she sometimes does, waiting for the anesthetic to work, she'd come back to a dead cat - the queen was not breathing and her gums were turning blue. I picked her up the same evening and there were no further complications but obviously I will be so worried when we try to neuter her again. The vet is also freaking because the cats are family and therefore may have similar health problems - now she doesn't know what to expect when she puts any of them on the operating table.

Well, isn't this fun. One done, three more to go. No need to say, I hope everything turns out just fine.

Tiger neutered

My little Tiger was neutered last Thursday, at the age of ten months. While he looked merely a bit confused when he fully woke up around 8 p.m. on that day, now he clearly remembers that something violent was done to him and is very scared when I approach him and look at him for any longer than a moment, or when a stranger enters our home, as my father did today. The poor beast crawled and hid in the farthest and darkest corner of the cats' room and stayed there until my father left.

He also doesn't eat almost anything and drinks very little. Today he (I think) puked some watery yellow foam. I'm concerned if he could have caught something at the vet's, since he's not been vaccinated against anything as of yet. I'm hoping it's just drug poisoning from the anesthetic shot and he's going to improve soon. Although he's noticeably thinner than his pre-neutering self, he remains strong enough to jump up onto the table as well as the window sills.

His general level of energy, however, has been reduced by at least 70%, and this is really sad to watch. I hope he recuperates and regains at least another 40% of his strong, brave and proud former self.

Cat spreadsheet day

I spent the day calculating how much money I need monthly to feed my cats. And guess what. Based on my purchases during the month of December, one adult female cat plus three seven-months-old kittens need monthly no less than 23kg (46lbs) wet cat food plus 7kg (14lbs) dry cat food to eat and 5 liter milk 3.2 % fat plus 5 liter sweet cream 12% fat to drink. At leat that's what my cats consume. Man, I've been worried sick about how much those guys are costing me.

I determined I can't really afford the wet Whiskas for the bunch, I'll have to settle for the brands Kitekat, Winston and Tesco, in order from the most to the least expensive. Each of the three bought at a different supermarket. I try to feed them different tastes, both in order not to bore them and to assure better nutrition. They seem to like Winston best, which I buy at the Rossmann supermarket.

I've been aiming to reduce my daily stress induced by having to remember about buying their food and drink in small, day-to-day quantities. I've decided to buy their food just as I buy their litter - preferably, once each month. A twelve-pack of milk, a ten-pack of sweet cream and the cans. What relief. I'll have to work some more to learn the right proportions of beef, poultry, game, fish and you name it, but I'm really glad I'm on the right track.

The Spanish(?) woman I once encountered on the web, who calculated nutrients needed by cats based on nutrients provided by mice meat (!) remains my guru. She actually buys raw meat of various animals, takes hours to grind it including bones, and bothers to add taurine and whatever else is needed but not naturally there. She claims the result is more economical and beneficial to the cats than buying commercial wet cat food, which is based on grains and only contains 4% meat.. which (the 4%) I can sadly confirm, carefully reading the can labels. 

The little culprits are now asleep, their stomachs full of raw turkey hearts I defrosted and cut up for their dinner.

Ride on the J train

I didn't expect ever riding the J train again but here I go, thanks to bombonia's video encountered on the gowanus lounge blog. Musically it's a bit of Moby meeting Susanne Vega, and visually, well, I'm not so much into grays but I'm certainly very much into the el.

I Live in Brooklyn from bombonia on Vimeo

By the way, my cats got into the habit of gathering on my computer chair regardless of whether I'm sitting on it or not. The three kittens sleep curled behind my back while I type or click. There's very little space left for me on the edge of that chair if I don't want to squash them..

New Year's day

I spent the first forty minutes of 2010 with my cats in their room. They had never seen fireworks and were a bit scared of the noise, especially the younger female. She hid in the dark underneath a bed between the bed and the wall and I could only see the pupils of her eyes shining green from there. Her two brothers were a bit braver but the mother seemed worried as well. She left her spot on the styrofoam box by the window and only returned there when I entered the room and began talking to them softly and reassuringly. I was so glad to see she felt safer at the sound of my voice! I stayed and talked to them until all the firework noise ceased. At the return of silence the young female almost immediately emerged from her hiding, and we all returned to our normal activities of that time of the night, that is, we soon went to sleep.

Upon waking up this morning I saw about three inches of snow on the ground and it was still snowing. I think I must have shoveled for about three hours. But I got everything done - the sidewalks on both sides of the property, the driveway and the path to the house. While it's not snowing anymore and it even looks like the snow is thawing, we have frost forecasted for the rest of the week, going down to as low as -16 C. It's certainly better to have those heaps of snow out of the way before they freeze.

New cat on the block

With age - she's about sixteen years old - my cat is beginning to resemble Garfield more and more each day. Just look at the pic. 8 a.m. I open the front door and there she is. Her eyes half closed, she turns to me in disapproval.

"Look at this guy. What does he think he's doing? He's been following me all morning. I couldn't get inside the house, so I'm keepin' the front door behind my back.. and he's been sittin' here looking at me for ages! No way I'm having any of it!"

I don't know what to make of this attitude because he must be about fifteen years her junior and he's very handsome.. I mean I'd go for it. I call him Tiger because he's young, striped and really bouncy. Fearless, too. He ignores people appearing near him and will even approach you if his curiosity is aroused. We already played chasing the end of a stick in the grass a couple of times and he let me briefly touch his head. Below you see him preparing to jump at my cat the moment she leaves the safe cover of the front door behind her to satisfy thirst from the nearby bowl of water.

Will you go out with me, pretty?


Oh, shucks! She moved! Ain't that butt just lovely?


Move away - lemme aim!


Oh, I'm so gonna show her...

Next, he jumps! The funny part is that he misses most of the time, so all I get to see is a spectacularly high jump followed by a loud landing about two feet behind her, and then my cat hissing and chasing him. He runs and she follows! Man, I wish I had the camera on, but it all happens too quickly.

Three weeks ago. The early stages of figuring out how to approach her - hiding in the flowerbed, next to a huge catmint plant.

I have no idea where he lives but I believe he doesn't have a home. He's such a funny and healthy young fellow that he made me think about actually giving him one.