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On May 15, 2024, I adopted two kittens. The boy is Tezcaatlipoca, and the girl is Ishtaar. (The double a’s in their names are intentional misspellings of their mythological namesakes.) I have tons of Caturday posts, including discussing my preparations leading up to the adoption, yet since adopting them, I haven’t posted about them even once to this blog. In fact, I didn’t even post about them to social media until I was (amusingly) scolded for it. I’ve been a bit busy and at times distracted. More on that in a moment. For now, here they are:

Ishtaar, when feeling good, is remarkably social. She always wants to be near me, and usually wants to be on my lap. She’s also remarkably easygoing, accepting whatever circumstances she’s given. Tez is somewhat antisocial. That doesn’t stop him from crying for attention, especially when he feels Ishtaar gets too much of my attention, but if I acquiesce, he usually runs away. Occasionally, he’ll allow me to pet him, but that quickly devolves into a clawing and biting attack. It’s playful, and he can control the intensity of the bites, but he has no such control over his claws, so I often have cuts on my hands. That’s okay, though, because I like playing with cats, and he’s far more active in that regard. Overall, though, they’re both good kitties, just in very different ways.

The Bad News

Ishtaar got (I guess you’d call it) a cold. Lots of sneezing and an eye that eventually swelled shut. It was time for their first vet visit anyway, so I took them to my local vet. Long story short, Ishtaar is very sick. She was running a fever for which she’s on antibiotics, but that’s not necessarily related to the underlying issue. After several less-invasive tests, she had a surgical biopsy last Monday. The results should have come in no later than yesterday (Friday), but I’m still waiting. So, we know she’s sick, but we haven’t even diagnosed her yet.

It’s images like this that convince me she’s not going to make it regardless of what she has. She’s disturbingly thin. If I ran my fingers down your back, I could feel you spine (right before I was arrested), but I couldn’t feel the sides of your spine. There’s “stuff” in the way. Her spine is almost complete exposed, and I can make out her entire skeletal structure by feel. I know she has two kidneys, two lungs, a heart, a small intestines, etc., but I have no idea where she fits them. They must all be so small that they can’t function properly. She has good days and bad days, but her bad days really suck. I’ve had to isolate her because Tez attacks her. This makes matters difficult considering she’s reluctant to eat unless he’s nearby. She actually likes him.

I’m getting her all the care she needs, but if the worst happens, my next question is whether to get a replacement cat. Not only would Tez be bored without a companion, but he needs to learn social skills. It might be helpful to get him a cat that could put him in his place but not be aggressive, simply defensive. That’s a tall order, I suspect.

So, this post became a downer, but this is my current mood.

Sorry.

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Yes, this is a day late for Caturday. Sue me.

I received my $7,320 tax refund that resulted from my Tesla purchase, and while I’m going to roll most of it back into the car, I had two recreational purchases I knew I was going to be making with those funds. The first was a treadmill, which wound up costing me only $5. The other is a kitten (or maybe two), which I can’t get until early April because of an upcoming vacation this week. While I’m eager to get the cat(s), I want my house cat-proof (to the extent that’s possible) and cat-friendly before then, so I can wait.

Phase 1

Simple enough, right? Well, it’s got a stupid story associated with it. I went into my local PetSmart in South Riding, VA. I need help figuring out what I need. As Carl Sagan would say, I’m facing the unknown unknowns, i.e., I don’t necessarily know what I should ask for. No one was available to help me, and no one seemed to care, so I just bought something that I knew I needed and left. But hey, it was a Sunday. That wouldn’t happen on a weekday, would it? So I went in on a Wednesday.

Crickets.

So, while I’m in the PetSmart, I’m surfing Amazon for information and better pricing, and guess what? I found an automated litter box on Amazon that uses ordinary litter for about 54% the cost of the equivalent model at PetSmart. So, . . .

Phase 2

I bought this via Amazon, and walked out of PetSmart without buying anything. Bad for business, eh? Anyway, the idea is to buy two litter boxes, one for upstairs and the other for downstairs. I’ll need to buy a manual one if my kitten(s) is(are) as young as I want, but that allows me to test this guy to see if it’s any good. If it is, I’ll buy a second one when the cat(s) get(s) older. Otherwise, this will be the secondary one, and I’ll spend the extra 46% for the PetSmart one. But maybe not buy it from PetSmart. They’re very unhelpful.

Phase 3

While I was surfing for automated litter boxes, I also found this.

I define this as a five-level cat tree. By that definition, PetSmart had only two- or three-level cat trees, none of which had scratching posts. Nevertheless, PetSmart‘s trees cost as much as this one did. Granted, you take your chances not being able to verify the integrity of the structure, but this paid off. The “carpeting” is really soft, and the scratching posts seem durable. Moreover, I wouldn’t quite call this “dark grey,” and that works. It’s almost the same color as my carpet, which is a greyish blue, and not particularly dark.

So, I need letter, cat food, and another litter box. I also need to get things off of shelves that are easily knocked over. What am I forgetting?

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