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So, updates and a packing list.
GhostKitty is still doing well. Last night I gave her a bath because she was SMELLIEST EVER. It was probably one of the more comical things I've seen a cat subjected to in quite some time. She was a little confused. She was hissing at the hand that was getting her wet, but leaning into and PURRING at the hand that was lathering. She was so attention starved that any scritches were good ones... Even tub scritches.
So at least she smells kinda good now. (I really didn't want to deal with bathing a cat, but she smelled like something ROTTING. It was VILE.) Mama seems a good deal less interested in her too. Maybe because I used dog shampoo on her, and thus she now smells like MamaDog usually does when SHE gets out of the tub. (I didn't HAVE any cat shampoo... ostensibly because you're not really supposed to wash cats. So I used dog shampoo on the cat. First the flea kind - JUST IN CASE - and then the kind that smells like my Grandma's pot pourri. It's a little disturbing to have pets that smell like my starchy Grandma, but it's a REALLY GOOD smell.) GhostKitty is now EXTREMELY SOFT and quite fluffy. Much more fluffy than I'd originally thought. She kind-of let me comb her a bit to get out some of her tangles. My finger is swollen to the size of a sausage link, so I was admittedly a bit ginger about it, but she tolerated most of it without trying to eat me. During the bathing phase, I was FINALLY able to confirm that she IS infact the girl-kitty that I dubbed her.
GhostKitty and MamaDog have now had a couple of encounters. Mama is somewhat interested in the newcomer, but not aggressively so. Ghost fluffs up a little less every time she encounters Mama, and Mama is looking more and more bored with GhostKitty's displays of threat. In their most recent meeting, I gave Ghost a can of wet catfood, and she was tearing into it when Mama came in to check her out. Ghost was torn between having her normal hissy fit, and stuffing her face. Stuffing her face won, and Mama was respectful of another animal's right to eat in peace. She just stood there for a few minutes watching the new kitty, then huffed at me like, "Well I don't see what all the fuss was about."
I have to say, with a certain amount of admiration, that GhostKitty looks like the CLASSIC Halloween icon when she fluffs up and arches her back at my poor MamaDog. She is solid black with huge, bright gold eyes and her tail is huge and brushy, so she looks quite the thing.
She is eating with relish and has used her litterbox with a delicate certainty that tells me that she was once someone's inside cat. When it stops raining, I really should make my brother flyer the neighborhood to see if anyone calls about her. Despite her distaste at being picked up, she does purr at my touch (never flinches) and winds between my legs if I have shut the laundry room door so that the dog cannot get in. Hopefully somebody misses her, but if not, she will be happy here, I think.
In other news, my boss has given me permission to leave for Madison on Sunday instead of Wednesday as I had previously planned. Thus I will get to spend the week of Thanksgiving working from my new home, in the company of Handsomest Ever Boyfriend, instead of languishing in Pittsburgh and hating the fact that I don't have WiFi installed in the Pittsburgh house. In theory, the WiFi should INCREASE my productivity, but the presence of such a distractingly delicious male form may seriously REDUCE productivity. If I am very disciplined, they will cancel each other out, and I shall remain sufficiently industrious to keep my boss happy.
And now we get to the point in all this where I have to put up a packing list so that I don't forget anything important in my mad-dash back and forth across the country in the next two weeks:
I may have to add more things as I think of them... Girls (And you one or two token boys who know about girly things.) Can you think of any comfort items that I may be forgetting?
GhostKitty is still doing well. Last night I gave her a bath because she was SMELLIEST EVER. It was probably one of the more comical things I've seen a cat subjected to in quite some time. She was a little confused. She was hissing at the hand that was getting her wet, but leaning into and PURRING at the hand that was lathering. She was so attention starved that any scritches were good ones... Even tub scritches.
So at least she smells kinda good now. (I really didn't want to deal with bathing a cat, but she smelled like something ROTTING. It was VILE.) Mama seems a good deal less interested in her too. Maybe because I used dog shampoo on her, and thus she now smells like MamaDog usually does when SHE gets out of the tub. (I didn't HAVE any cat shampoo... ostensibly because you're not really supposed to wash cats. So I used dog shampoo on the cat. First the flea kind - JUST IN CASE - and then the kind that smells like my Grandma's pot pourri. It's a little disturbing to have pets that smell like my starchy Grandma, but it's a REALLY GOOD smell.) GhostKitty is now EXTREMELY SOFT and quite fluffy. Much more fluffy than I'd originally thought. She kind-of let me comb her a bit to get out some of her tangles. My finger is swollen to the size of a sausage link, so I was admittedly a bit ginger about it, but she tolerated most of it without trying to eat me. During the bathing phase, I was FINALLY able to confirm that she IS infact the girl-kitty that I dubbed her.
GhostKitty and MamaDog have now had a couple of encounters. Mama is somewhat interested in the newcomer, but not aggressively so. Ghost fluffs up a little less every time she encounters Mama, and Mama is looking more and more bored with GhostKitty's displays of threat. In their most recent meeting, I gave Ghost a can of wet catfood, and she was tearing into it when Mama came in to check her out. Ghost was torn between having her normal hissy fit, and stuffing her face. Stuffing her face won, and Mama was respectful of another animal's right to eat in peace. She just stood there for a few minutes watching the new kitty, then huffed at me like, "Well I don't see what all the fuss was about."
I have to say, with a certain amount of admiration, that GhostKitty looks like the CLASSIC Halloween icon when she fluffs up and arches her back at my poor MamaDog. She is solid black with huge, bright gold eyes and her tail is huge and brushy, so she looks quite the thing.
She is eating with relish and has used her litterbox with a delicate certainty that tells me that she was once someone's inside cat. When it stops raining, I really should make my brother flyer the neighborhood to see if anyone calls about her. Despite her distaste at being picked up, she does purr at my touch (never flinches) and winds between my legs if I have shut the laundry room door so that the dog cannot get in. Hopefully somebody misses her, but if not, she will be happy here, I think.
In other news, my boss has given me permission to leave for Madison on Sunday instead of Wednesday as I had previously planned. Thus I will get to spend the week of Thanksgiving working from my new home, in the company of Handsomest Ever Boyfriend, instead of languishing in Pittsburgh and hating the fact that I don't have WiFi installed in the Pittsburgh house. In theory, the WiFi should INCREASE my productivity, but the presence of such a distractingly delicious male form may seriously REDUCE productivity. If I am very disciplined, they will cancel each other out, and I shall remain sufficiently industrious to keep my boss happy.
And now we get to the point in all this where I have to put up a packing list so that I don't forget anything important in my mad-dash back and forth across the country in the next two weeks:
- Zig's pictures and art that he forgot when he went home.
- Business clothes for the conference in Boston. Actually, I'll probably end up putting ALL MY CLOTHES into garbage bags and transporting it at this point. I don't really need clothes in the Pittsburgh house once I leave... All my underwear and socks seem to have advanced to Madison without me anyway, and they're supposedly the IMPORTANT part.
- All computer gadgetry and software. (Especially Malware removal tools and backup hard-drive.)TV tuner card.... Crap... I'm supposed to take the satellite dish with me, and I don't even know if I have the right tools to get that sucker off the roof... Someone remind me to climb out onto the porch in the DAY TIME to look at the hardware. Printer also needs to go in this trip. I'd rather move it in the car with all the delicate stuff than have it knocking around in the Moving Truck.
- Plane tickets for Boston trip. Stupid airline could only send me paper tickets, so now I have to spend extry brian-cells worrying about not losing the suckers.
- Dishes and other kitcheny things. This will need to be broken up into two sub-lists: Staying and Going. (New pans, Alec's mixer, food processor, baking pans, dishes, coffee cups, Nissan coffee press, one of each kind of spatula, strainer, and spoon, and one set of good tupperware are all going. Pots, old mixer, toaster, coffee pot, plastic cups, mish-mash tupperware, and microwave can all stay.)
- Knitting stuff to keep me entertained.
- Bathroom stuff to keep me well groomed. (Scrubby gloves! Perfume!)
- iPod, gps, cell phone, and ALL APPROPRIATE CHARGERS.
- Prescriptions.
- New car charger.
I may have to add more things as I think of them... Girls (And you one or two token boys who know about girly things.) Can you think of any comfort items that I may be forgetting?