Life is so new and exciting when you’re young

Raven and Tootie sleeping in a sun spot

That’s exactly what my new fur baby thinks.  I’m sure he feels he landed in a good situation with soft places to sleep, many toys to play with, and plenty of food.

You can tell by watching him that he’s never done any of this before, so he gets so excited over looking out the window and breathing in the fresh air.  He watches all the critters and birds outside.  The chipmunks are pulling things off the blankets now to make their nests as they do every year.  He doesn't know what to think about this and is fascinated with them.

 Raven

Raven is enjoying life so much - everything is so new and exciting to him.  When he’s through looking outside, he’ll play himself to sleep attacking toys.  

 Raven

 Raven

Raven

 Raven

This little fur ball purrs instantly when you touch him and sleeps with us every night, but has slept in the cat tree two nights since we got him because he was too tired to come to bed.  Koki loves those nights because she can come to bed.  She could otherwise too, but she won’t.  I used to think she was so small, but she’s a giant next to him.  There should be nothing there to threaten her.  She’ll even nose him and then hiss and swat at him.  I guess its jealousy.

 Koki

Koki stuck her head in the cat box yesterday when Raven was in there doing his business and once he saw her and finished up, he gave chase.  They ended up upstairs with her under the furniture again.  She likes to be the chaser, not the chasee.  But Koki has always had to have things on her terms from day one.  She won’t eat until she’s good and ready and won’t come to you either unless it suits her.

All these cats have their own personalities.  That’s just part of the fun of having a cat.  They’re independent but are loyal and never judge you over any of your issues.  I wish people were more like that.

New kitten wreaks havoc around my house

 Raven

  This little rascal has turned our environment into chaos.  I’m sure things will settle down in a while.  Being only three-months-old, he’s always on the move.  We are fortunate he usually stays in bed and sleeps most of the night.  But lookout when he wakes up full of vim and vigor and ready to take on the world.  You don’t dare move your feet because that’s just an invitation to attack.

It’s fun having a kitten around as long as you pick up the breakables.

 Raven

I’ve had so many cats over the years, so we have a ton of cat toys.  A friend of mine gave me this furry ball with a bell on it that sits atop a spring.  Raven attacks this vigorously and is so carried away with excitement when playing with this that he does flips in the air and landed on the edge of the coffee table tonight.  Luckily, he didn’t get hurt, although he did sit there a while staring at it.  I imagine he thought the table was attacking him.  His head made a loud thump when he whacked it.

 Raven

After a quick nap in the cat tree, he was at it again.

I feel sorry for Koki who wants to come to bed so bad, but she won’t do it as long as this little squirt is on the bed.  There’s plenty of room, but after hanging out a while, she hisses and stomps off in disgust.  This may be a good thing as she sleeps on legs and pins me to the bed at night.  As a result, I usually have to get up a couple of times with a cramp in my leg or foot.  I hate to throw her off, so usually I’ll be still and go around with a backache in the mornings.

 Koki

On Friday night, I thought we had a breakthrough because Koki and Raven were playing footsies under the chairs upstairs.  Of course, these are low to the floor so they couldn’t see each other.  Maybe that makes a lot of difference in a cat’s world.  Today it was back to the same old thing with Koki keeping her distance and hissing at him again.

 Raven and Tootie

He’s doing his best to make friends and win the two older females over.  Tootie doesn’t mind him at all now except to look at him weird when he’s jumping around like an idiot.  Tootie loves everyone, so I’m not too surprised she came around first.  I guess Koki doesn’t remember being in Raven’s shoes not so long ago when she was the new kid on the block.

Maybe some cats are like people in this respect where they don’t remember what it was like to be a kid.  I’m giving Koki some extra attention and haven’t given up hope yet that she’ll come around.  We’ve had Raven two weeks today and he has settled in here as if this is home.

Other than kitten watching, the moving endeavor goes on.  We’re making slow progress because we’re still waiting for contractors to show up to do a few things we can’t do.  This is the last weekend of the Parade of Homes, which a large annual event here.  We still don’t have the “for sale” sign on the house and that was the goal for the middle of February.  This whole moving venture can get you down if you let it.

Tootie

On a happier note, it is warming up enough to open the windows again for a short while.  Hooray!

My new baby likes the limelight

Raven

He poses when I get the camera and tries to look cute.  Raven really likes me to take his picture.  I’m going to post a few here.

I’ve had him a week today and my girls are still upset over his presence.  The older one is coming around a little, but the younger one hisses and hits him.  He can’t understand her behavior and is doing his best to make friends with her.  I think she realizes she isn’t the baby any more and is upset over it.  Usually she hangs out upstairs.  The last couple of days she finally started to come back down for part of the day, if the sun is out so she can sit in the sunny windows.  I hope she comes around in the next couple of weeks because my husband said he’ll take Raven back so he can have peace in his house.  He really hates the fact they aren’t used to each other and won’t get along.  I know these things take time.

 Koki

Right now, I’m splitting my time between Raven and my upset girl, Koki.  I hope this strategy works.

This little guy is so mellow and good-natured.  He purrs all the time and will start up even when you get close to him and haven’t touched him yet.  I can even hear him with my ears, which aren’t the best in the hearing department.

Raven

 The other morning, I woke up and he was sleeping with his head on my shoulder and his arm around my neck.  OMG!  He is just so dear.  I hated to move and disturb him by getting up.

 Raven

 Raven

Raven

He has such a good life – eating, playing, and sleeping.  I really think he’ll be a good addition to the family if Koki will break down and play with him.  She always wants somebody to play with and Tootie’s too old for much of that.

 Tootie

On another note, our house is still not ready to put on the market, so this is upsetting.  We’ve had problems with contractors who make appointments to come and do things we can’t do and then never show up or even bother to call and cancel.  I don’t know if this is a reflection of this next generation, or if it’s just this state.  These people aren’t very responsible at all and not customer friendly.  I don’t know how they expect to stay in business, but I guess they don’t care if they get your business or not.  I know when I was working, the customer always came first and my generation at least had the courtesy to call and change appointments if something came up.

Now I can only guess when we’ll get out of here.

Meet the Newest Member of my Cat Family

My baby boy - Raven

This little bundle is three-months-old.  I adopted him today from PAWS.  He was part of a group of five kittens that someone abandoned and luckily, someone else found.  All the kittens were black.  He had three brothers and one sister.  He’s the last little guy left and boy was he all over me today.

He started purring as soon as I touched him and he wanted to jump into my arms and nuzzle me.  He was grabbing the pen as I was trying to fill out the paperwork and didn’t want me to put him down.  He looks so much like the black boy I lost in October 2010, except his eyes are going to be gold instead of green.

He yowled most of the way home unless we stopped at a red light and then he got quiet.  It’s apparent he doesn’t like riding in the car, but then maybe he remembers his recent visit to the vet to be neutered.

Once we got home and let him out of the cage, it was time to investigate.  The girls don’t want anything to do with him at all, except Tootie’s more tolerant of the situation than Koki who promptly ran upstairs and hid under the furniture after hissing at him.  She realizes she isn’t the baby anymore, so I have to give her some special attention.  I came up and coaxed her out and eventually she settled down in her usual place in my office – on top of the computer and modem.  This is after she let me know she’s disgusted with the whole mess by grabbing my arm and pretending to bite me.  But she still won’t come downstairs.

I have no idea how the next few days will go.  Koki always sleeps with me, but the lady at PAWS told us this little one is a bed hog too.  Oh my!  I can’t turn over in bed now.

Raven was very demanding at dinnertime, weaving around my legs and meowing loudly.  I guess he worked up an appetite.  It seemed like he would never fill up.  But eventually he quit eating and played some more and then this sweet little thing remembered where the litter box was and went in there before he crawled up in the top bunk in the cat tree to nap.  What a good boy!

More pictures will be coming shortly.

I’m sure after a few days the cats will work out their issues and get along.  It’s always like this in the beginning.  I wanted to get Koki a playmate because she wants to play with Tootie all the time and Koki gets aggressive sometimes.  Tootie being almost fourteen is not ready for that.  Koki’s going on nine, but you’d never know it.  I can’t believe it myself.  The years fly by way too fast.  I’m glad that she’s always gung-ho, but right now, she’s pouting about the newcomer.  I imagine I’ll get the cold shoulder for a while.

A Lizard in the Fireplace

This was the biggest event at my house today.  I didn’t get a lot accomplished toward the moving project because going after the lizard took quite some time.

Somehow, cats always know everything that’s going on in the house, even if we think they’re fast asleep.

 My baby Koki

This morning, Koki alerted us to the little rascal because she was pawing on the glass trying to get at it.  She loves the lizards.  My husband looks at it and tells me its dead, tucked in behind the glass.  I didn’t think so because I was dusting in that room yesterday and I would have noticed it.

Lizard from our photos

 This little fella was about half-grown.  I wish I’d gotten a picture, but of course, there was no time for that.  The picture posted here I got from our photos of past years, but it was this type of lizard.  We have lots of them around here in the summer.

After some debate on how to accomplish the task, whether it’s a rescue operation or something for the burial ground out back, we decided to take the fireplace apart.  At first, I tried to reach it with a paper towel as my husband tilted the glass out.  This didn’t work, as it wasn’t far enough out for me to reach the lizard, even with my skinny arm.  So I got the yardstick and we discovered that it was very much alive – only playing possum.  It runs under the fake logs in there as soon as I touch it.

So we started dismantling the fireplace, setting the pieces aside on the tile floor.  Once we got the logs out the lizard scrambled through a small hole in the side that I assume is the way he got in.  Or he could still be in there, between the rocks that circle the fireplace and the outside wall.  I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough.  For now, he’s still in there as far as I know.

Once he vanished, we set out to clean up all the parts that were dusty and that you can’t get to once the fireplace is intact.  After that, we had to figure out how to put everything back the way it came out.  This wasn’t as easy as taking it apart.  I think everything is that way, don’t you?

I wonder why this guy is even out of bed.  Why isn’t he hibernating, as the lizards do in the winter here?  It makes me think he’s hiding out in there this winter.  If that’s the case, I’m sure he’ll find his way out because he’s probably been in and out a dozen times already.

By the time this project was all done, it was too late to go back and tackle my sewing/craft room, which is what I had in mind when I got out of bed today.

Well there’s always tomorrow.

Beware when the ‘old people’ bag of ailments lands on your doorstep

Free Clip art

And it will, eventually, for all of us.  That’s right, I’m talking about arthritis, rheumatism, hearing impairment, the need for glasses, hip and knee replacements, shoulder surgery, and any number of other things when body parts start to wear out.

Of course, these are only annoyances and could be the big stuff like heart disease, diabetes, asthma, high blood pressure, cancer, strokes, COPD, and Alzheimer’s.  I guess we can say we’re fortunate if we can stay off this large list.

It’s sad to have to think about all this.  Once we’re older and wiser, look what we all have to look forward to.  That doesn’t seem fair, does it?  Then, life isn’t always fair.  I guess we’re all doing good to keep our wits and mobility until the end.

I had to go and get glasses last week and that got me to thinking about all this other stuff that may be coming down the road.  I already have the arthritis and hearing impairment and now some silly glasses they say I need.  I can’t get used to them at all.  It seems like stepping into a cuckoo world to put them on and I’m actually thankful to take them off again at night.  They make me dizzy and believe me; I don’t need any help with that.

The lady who fitted them tells me I’ll get used to them in time.  Some of my friends who have the transitional lenses tell me the same thing.  Everyone’s ready to throw them out the window during the first month or two.  I’m hoping they’re all right.  I don’t want to be so wobbly, bumping into walls and holding onto the stair rail to get up and down the stairs.  When I uncovered my plants temporarily to water them, I about fell on my face on the patio.  I don’t dare get behind the wheel of my car yet.  Right now, I’m wondering if I really need these glasses all the time.  I’m tempted to go back to my readers.

All this has me speculating what else is coming my way.

All you young people out there take care of your bodies.  I know you can’t avoid all this stuff because of heredity, but you might be able to make some things better on yourself as you reach old age.  Of course, in my case, most of the stuff that’s landed on me so far couldn’t have been avoided, had I not partied my life away in my earlier years.

Ultimately, everyone needs to decide what’s best for them and then prepare yourself to live by the consequences that lifestyle creates years from now.  You can think first though and perhaps avoid doing some stupid things that’ll have an impact on your health later.  I’ve done my share of stupid things, mostly because of being in a rush and not slowing down.  I try to be more careful now than I was twenty years ago.

We should all slow down and not be in such a hurry as we go through life, stopping for a moment to enjoy all the beautiful things around us.  I try to remember this and practice it by sitting on my patio and enjoying nature when it’s warm enough to do so.  But if you’re a person like me, there’s never enough hours in each day and always one more novel to read or write before times up.

Enjoy the Super Bowl all you sports lovers, and happy Groundhog Day, or Candlemas, whichever you celebrate.  Of course, Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow again, predicting six more weeks of winter.  Now is this any surprise?  Quite a few people actually wear top hats and tuxedos for the annual event at Gobbler’s Knob in Pennsylvania.  Even though this groundhog is only right 39 percent of the time, it never deters the event that started in 1887.

The first day of spring is March 20, so we have six and a half weeks to go anyway.  Maybe that’s why he sees his shadow more then he doesn’t and is scared back into his hidey-hole.

I know things took a turn back to the cold side here starting last Saturday when we had rain and then hail.  It never got over forty.  Nightly temperatures are now down in the low twenties again for the near future.  We have snow in the mountains all around us once more, but at least it’s up there and not down here.  That’s one blessing.  I knew we’d pay for the nice January we had.