Grass and Sky

Luckily, I'm not in school anymore and don't have any homework lying around, because if I did, Zoe would certainly eat it. The girl's gone paper crazy! She uses those sharp little teeth of hers to rip up everything in sight. When I get dvds from Netflix, I have to hide the envelopes if I want them to be in one piece when I'm ready to send them back. Good thing she's so adorable, or I'd have to send her back.

Mal had me worried yesterday evening. He puked up a hairball but didn't feel any better afterwards, wouldn't eat, etc. Finally puked up a little more, and had a small piece of salad dressing packaging in it (the individual serving packet that you get with pre-packaged salads). Poor guy, he loves to lick and chew the package after I've used the dressing but he's never swallowed any of the plastic before. I'll have to be more careful with the packaging from now on.

I can't believe it's June already. Summer is here, ready or not. I always find myself wishing for just a little more of that lovely spring weather, and looking ahead to fall. It seems unfair to hate summer so much, when it was the highlight of the year for my entire childhood. No school! Let's go outside and play, play, play! Spend all afternoon at the local swimming pool, riding bikes, climbing hills. I don't remember ever minding the humidity or the heat as a kid. Now I go outside and wilt. All the strength and energy drains out of my body and all I want to do is turn around and go back inside. Or at the very least sit down somewhere and be a very passive observer of the world around me. Unfortunately, when one spends one's day supervising highly active and disaster prone one-year-olds (good grief, we've got such babies this summer) passive is not a word in one's vocabulary. Yeah, provider of happy memories or not, I hate summer. September can roll around any time it likes.

But vampire cats?

Zoe is hungry, despite the fact that I just fed her less than an hour ago. And when she's hungry, she usually tells me by wrapping her jaws around some part of me and just slightly clamping down. Not hard enough to break skin or hurt, just enough to let me know she wants something. Tonight, however, she clamped down on my neck and there's a nice little welt to show for it. Not okay, Zoe. Not okay.

Work has been keeping me busy this week, but I think I'm finally going to get a break. I had parent teacher conferences scheduled for after work Monday and yesterday, which meant Starbucks (Monday) and Bangkok Balcony (yesterday) but also getting home late. And on Monday I still had to write up yesterday's child report after I got home.

On the plus side, I enjoyed the time I spent with the parent yesterday, and we had a yummy meal. I had Pumpkin Curry, which is just about as yummy as food comes. Sadly, although it tasted good at the time, it has been punishing me all night, and my stomach still hurts. Which means I'd better skip the leftovers. *is sad*

Tonight I need to stop at the store and pick up some essentials like bread and TP. I'm giving Mal a break from the bathroom and keeping Zoe penned in today. I wonder what sort of disaster will await me when I get home.

Yesterday evening was rather stressful and unhappy. Mal and Zoe had a big fight, which I suspect occurred because Mal got cornered attempting to use the litter box. Which resulted in him freaking out and pooping in the living room. Having just a few months ago said good-bye to one cat who was pooping inappropriately, I was really not pleased to see it happening again with another one.

With Mal freaking out and so stressed, I thought I really better find another home for Zoe, much as I love her. One of my friends was thinking about getting a cat and had said I should let them know if things didn't work out with Zoe, here. I called her last night and she immediately said she'd be happy to take Zoe and would pick her up today. I suggested she and her husband take overnight to make sure they knew what they were getting into (they've never owned any pets before) but that they would be welcome to come over today and meet her, and coincidentally to drive us to the vet. I then spent the rest of last night and this morning feeling so sad and guilty that I couldn't keep this darling girl that I've completely fallen in love with.

When D and M showed up this morning, they admitted that upon sober reflection, there was no way they could be good, responsible pet owners right now, since they like to travel and have several trips planned in the next few months. Also, they are hoping to move back to Australia within the next year or two and wouldn't be able to take her with them. They did, however, still take us to the vet (and then the petstore and then out to lunch).

I had been worried a little because Zoe had developed some rather swollen nipples, and I was concerned that she might have some sort of infection or growth. Turns out she was pregnant last month, when she got spayed, and is just having some symptoms of being in heat as her body deals with all the changes. The vet was very reassuring and said that she would probably calm down quite a bit within the next few weeks or a month, as her hormones return to a normal balance. He also thinks she's probably a good bit older than the vet my brother took her to thought. She may be as much as two years old, which puts her much closer to Mal's age.

The vet was also very encouraging about not giving up on getting Mal to accept her. He suggested that I set up three litter boxes around the apartment (pretty much results in one per room, except I refuse to have one in the bedroom) which will hopefully prevent altercations like the one last night. He also recommended something called Feliway, which is like a Glade plug-in, but instead of being some sort of sweetly scented room deodorizer, it's a pheromone sprayer. It contains the same pheromone cats have in the scent pouches along their jaw, and is designed to send out 'all is well' messages, to help cats feel more calm in their environment. The thing was insanely expensive and the outlets in my house are old and crappy, so I could only find that the thing would fit in without immediately falling out again (I also have this problem with pretty much everything else I plug in anywhere in my apartment), but if it helps my furkids learn to get along, it will be worth every bit of expense and annoyance.

I'm not naive enough to think that this will make a huge immediate difference, but the vet was pretty confident that between the litter boxes, the Feliway, and Zoe's slowly balancing hormones, things really will get better between them. So I'm feeling much better this afternoon. And in order to celebrate not getting rid of Zoe, and in hopes of getting Mal and Zoe comfortable with each other, I finally got around to making a new icon. This picture was from day two, before Zoe went crazy and scared the living daylights out of Mal. This is what I hope will be the case again, in a month or two.

Yesterday, Zoe was still feeling very cautious and wondering what the heck was going on, new place, new person, new cat. That's a lot of new things for one little girl to assimilate, so she spent most of the day snoozing on the sofa.

This morning, she and Mal are doing a bit more of the jostling for power. I have a strong suspicion Zoe is going to win this war. Mal is allowing her to set the rules, and I have twice now seen him roll over and expose his belly in her presence.

Zoe is also proving to be a very competent hunter. She has already destroyed Mal's fishing rod toy by chewing through the cord and detaching the feathered end. I'm going to have to watch out for my shoe laces with this one. I am also going to have to unclutter all the high surfaces that Mal can't reach, because Zoe is lightweight and already proving to be a superb jumper. She made the leap from bed to dresser top with no signs of difficulty this morning, something Mal always wanted to do, but rarely managed, even in his much thinner days.

Poor Mal. He just looks so perplexed by this whole situation.