Plants, Pies, and Little Neighbours

So, WindoPlant is looking happier than it has in months:

This rhubarb and strawberry pie (recipe courtesy of Smitten Kitchen, discovered thanks to my dear Kim is still cooling on the rack RIGHT NOW.




I came across this little fella sleeping in my garden when I came home from the shops yesterday afternoon (and yes, he was breathing--it's always a bit iffy when it comes to London foxes. They're not the healthiest of creatures.)


But These boys live next door and come over to say hi to me almost every day. That's Squidge in the front and Mooney standing behind. They're very sweet. Squidge is a bit simple (he's a fully-grown tom who still chases his tail) and Mooney can be a bit aloof but they both come around right after dinner for a head-scratch. (Before we met the new couple next door, but after the cats started coming around to say hi, we called them Ackee and Saltfish.)


That's all.

4 Legged Poop Machines and other garden poems

I love cats.

I hate other people's cats.

My cat would never think of pooping in my vegetable garden.

As with other people's cats, my cat poops in other people's yards.

Because, hey, you don't shit where you eat.

----

I hate snails.

I hate other people's snails.

They hate snails too.

----

Greenfly, greenfly, scourge of courgettes

You gave the zucchini a disease.

My birds don't eat you.

I used insecticide.

A plant died.

Garden Update

Three of my aubergine plants have been eaten down to the stalks. There's still several more so I'm not too upset, but I can't imagine what ate them. Several of the stakes in that bed have been uprooted and some of the plants have been banged about, so I can't help but think it was one of my neighbors' vile cats. They use my backyard as a town square/toilet and no amount of shouting or chasing after them has convinced them that they're not welcome. I need a super-soaker.

My courgette plant looks sick. It is flowering prettily and regularly but the leaves are not in good shape. I keep popping off the ugly ones, and it keeps having fewer leaves. Oof. It might have a disease. I'll see what the fruit looks like, if it produces any. It lives in a pot and has garden-center soil, and it was really big and happy until I put it outside. But there was no room inside--it got so big it blocked the skylight from the seedlings.

Tomatoes are looking healthy but not getting bigger, but it has been stupidly cold out--apparently this is the coldest, grayest May in 20 years. We actually caved and put the heat on tonight. This is ludicrous. I am very, very unhappy with the weather.

Spinach plants are growing and happy. They were getting eaten by bugs so I sadly had to invest in some anti-bug, which I didn't want to do, but it was either that or not have any for me. I hate bugs. And British weather. And my neighbors' cats.

I'm not sure if I like gardening.

passive aggression

If you own a cat, but live in a house with a roommate who does not own the cat, and your cat pukes everywhere every day, or misses the litter box, or sheds constantly on all surfaces, or is simply hungry...guess what. It is your responsibility to clean up after and feed said feline. More to the point, even if you don't give a damn if your house is booby-trapped with cat vomit or carries an eye-watering odor, your roommate probably does, and you are obligated to clean it up. It is irrelevant if you get home from work late and are tired, or are busy doing other things--its your pet, not your roommate's, and your roommate should neither be forced to clean up the dried piles of puke nor live with them in his or her kitchen.

Additionally, if it is pointed out to you that your cat throws up more often than it should, or that the puddles of diarrhea in the living room and hallway are a sign of illness, you are also responsible for seeing to the cat's healthcare, at your expense. If you are unable or unwilling to tend to the health of the feline, then it is still your responsibility to see to it that the cat winds up in the care of someone who can and will.

----

If you run a gas company and need to replace the fuel lines going into an apartment building, you have an obligation to tell the people it affects so they can plan ahead to not be home. If you are going to begin tearing up the street with jackhammers at 5am on a Saturday, they should have the right to know in advance. If you cannot inform people of this inconvenience, you must start work later in the day. Additionally, you have an obligation to put things back the way you found them when you're done. That involves patching the holes in the street fully--e.g. not leaving loose steel plates all over the road that make noise loud enough to set off car alarms or leaving around lightweight sawhorses with no sandbags that fall over into traffic. That also involves turning people's gas back on, without being begged, in a timely fashion. If you must gain access to the home of a client in order to turn it back on, you must take in small considerations for your clients' own time, such as requesting clients block off 2 hours for a technician to arrive instead of 15. You cannot expect clients to take days off work and sit around at home waiting for a technician to arrive "anytime between now and 11:59pm." Then charge them a fine if they cannot be there.

If you are the superintendant of a building and a landlord requests that you leave a basement door unlocked so that a maintenance person from a gas company may gain access to a resident's meter, you have an obligation to do so. If you fail to unlock the door, you are responsible for all fines incurred by the tenant from said gas company. Additionally, if the tenant is required to take the day off work to let the maintenance person in, only to discover that thanks to your negligence they will have to take an additional day off of work in order for the repair to actually take place, you owe them additional compensation, such as culinary services or cooked food for all of the days that the tenant is unable to cook for him or herself.

----

If you are a ginger-haired Englishman with a direct connection to the writer of this publication who recently returned home against the request of the writer, you have an obligation to come back and continue your snuggles.

Gas Attack

So I moved a little ways across town last week, and, while I've spent most of my time since then working as a wardrobe assistant, when I've been home I've been befriending my new roommate's cat, Slider.

Slider is somewhat ambiguous in age and origin--my roommate has had her for about six years, but believes she was at least seven when she came into his care. Her slightly saggy old lady cat belly has always had very short, thin fur--an appearance which gives the uninformed observer the impression that she's recently had surgery.

She's snuggly and affectionate, if a bit needy when it comes to attention. She seems to want to be picked up whenever a human comes home for a bit of head scratching, finger licking, and a touch of that weird "cram my head up under your chin" behavior. She's talkative and communicates easily, with the "meow then point my head at what needs attention" system, and the "pat pat pat...pat pat pat....pat pat pat...head butt--wake up stupid human, kitty is hungry!" morning routine. She prefers to have company when she eats and will come get you for a trip to the full food dish.

She farts constantly.

Sheez, I have never before been so regularly privy to the scent of yesterday morning's lightly fried eggs. She gets right up in my face to do it, too. It's not my fault her owner feeds her corn-based chow, but she sure wants to punish me for it. Bleurgh.

Ex-Menace to Society

Teddy was neutered this weekend. Everything went fine and he is happy and healing well.

toeses

so i met another kitten this weekend and his toes are similar to Teddy's. I think he's okay.

This evening Teddy was out playing with another neighborhood cat, who is frustratingly named Boots. (this Boots is white and black, though, and male) When it was time for Teddy to come in for the night, he chose to ignore my call as Boots is far more fun to play with than some lame old human. But Boots heard it and, making sure Teddy was following him, ran up on our porch, which he never does. He ran back down, and Teddy followed. So he ran back up and stayed there until I picked Teddy up, at which point he ran off. I guess our pesky kitten was driving him crazy so he was happy to drop him off at home. What a responsible older cat.

Does anyone find that they're more inclined to use pathetic grammar when talking to cats? I consistently refer to Teddy's "toeses" "feets" and "toofums." I'll ask him if he "went bonk" when he slams his head unceremoniously into a wall. I do not recall baby-talking to Boots to this extreme, even when she was young. I also don't recall talking about her quite so much. I'm sure i'll tone it down a bit once the kitten-related novelty wears off. Sorry.

Things Teddy Has Tried to Eat

in no particular order: Styrofoam, a nickel, a blanket, feathers, tassels, a plate, his tail, a leather chair, soap, dried paint, a chunk of tile, kitty litter, dirt, dried leaves, his foot, a teabag, a newspaper, a coozie, my cell phone, my computer mouse, a carrot, an artificial ice cube (he doesn't like real ice cubes) a candle, a rock, trousers, my forearm, my mom's laptop, a chunk of drywall, a safety pin, a thumbtack, a screwdriver, 15 christmas ornaments, his foot and his tail at once, sandpaper, a spanner, a price tag, a receipt, 2 almonds, a toothbrush, a vitamin, and a Christmas Cactus.

He should jingle by now.

Tis Cheaper to get a new Cat than new Carpet

My kitten is that little cold skinny kid in water wings at the neighborhood pool--edging cautiously toward the water's edge, fingers crossed, eyes squeezed shut with the effort of convincing himself that there's no sharks, that its perfectly safe... getting all the way to the stairs...and then running away at the last minute. You know the only way this kid is getting wet is by means of a reckless shove or slippery deck. In Teddy's case, its a slippery bathtub rim and a tail that is far more interested in water than his nose.

rubber ducky

Neither Teddys nor buggies enjoy baths. Ridding shelter kitties of Shelter Funk is not a fun or easy process, but i've found its easier to take Teddy in the shower with me than to try and bathe him in the sink. We're taking him to the vet this upcoming week to introduce him to her and get a prescription for Frontline or something. He's about 9 weeks old and in ostensibly good health (read: he's a complete nut, which is perfect for kittens) so he should be a fine candidate for a de-bugging goop. Boots did fine with it for at least 10 years (i can't remember how long she wore a flea collar, but bugs never seemed to bother her. in any case, Boots was an indoor-outdoor cat who remained healthy and happy for at least 17 years (read: nearly 3x her life expectancy) with regular flea gooping. i don't know why some people are so freaked out about it. She got worms occasionally from eating rodents but she went crazy if we kept her from going outside.

We're trying to keep him clean and keep bugs out of his fur until we can get him some goop. It doesn't help that this is the weekend and the year-change holiday is monday and tuesday, so there's not much chance of getting a vet appointment. Oh the paranoia of knowing your pet plays home to bugs! I keep thinking i see them everywhere. Poor kitty. When he's properly insect protected i'm going to wash every item of clothing I own. Bleurgh.

Welcome Home, Teddy!

Teddy Kitty, born around October 8, 2007, moved into my parents' household December 20, 2007 weighing about a pound and already litter box savvy. Prior to joining our family he had been at the York animal control center for 2 weeks, so we don't know anything about his family or background. He is healthy and happy, incredibly friendly and playful, and cute enough to get away with murder. For now he lives indoors, but once he's big enough we'll start letting him play outside with the neighborhood feline gang.

I hadn't posted this till now because we spent several days trying to think up a good name for him. He seems pretty cool with Teddy. He loves pencils, laps, and laser pointers, sleeps through the night, and cries to be picked up when he's tired. In all I think he's a very good kitten and he is welcome. We're trying to discourage people food and toilet drinking from the outset, but we'll just have to see what happens. We're suckers when it comes to a cute kitty.

Note: Teddy is Not the cat we took from the hospital parking lot. That cat disappeared the first night he was here. No idea where he went, but i hope he's okay. He was just too wild to settle into living with humans.

abduction update

And the aforementioned F.D. has managed to utterly vanish. Mom inspected her car thoroughly before going out, and nobody saw any four-legged renegades darting out of the garage this morning. I don't know of any cat-sized routes into or out of the house from there. Could be anywhere. Delightful.

abduction

There is a very scared, confused, but warm young cat hiding somewhere in my garage. It was living in some shrubbery outside the hospital where my mom works, and out of concern for its well-being now that it regularly drops below freezing at night around here, we lured it into a carrier, zipped it in, scared the tar out of it, and let it loose to make a nest for itself somewhere under the bonnet of my mom's car. Brilliant. nothing like killing an idiot feline with a fan belt to get your day started right.

I didn't want the cat to freeze out there, but I'm really not ready for another bewhiskered addition to my household. Especially not one so timid and apparently brainless as this one. I don't know. Its really adorable--no more than a few months old, from the look of it, most likely male, mostly white with grey ears and occasional splotches, and ostensibly in good health. (not trying to advertise, just sayin.) In the next few days we're gonna see how it/if it settles in, and if it comes around to the idea of hanging out, we'll take it to the vet and get those hateful necessities taken care of. Right now i'm pretty sure it thinks i want to eat it, but it was very friendly at the hospital--almost too friendly. It had that "rub all over the legs, trip the human, eat its brains" technique down pat. (why else would they make figure-8s all over your feet?) We'll find out if its inclined to not run away in terror after a few days. I'd hate to wind up with one of those cats that you only know exists because the food dish empties and the litter box fills. damn useless pets who never leave a safe closet.

urgh. i don't know. i miss Boots.

In other news, can anyone explain to me the purpose of religion-themed billboards? They're obnoxious and pointless--avid believers may see them and feel smug, but non-believers are going to either not see them at all or see them and find them annoying. They're hardly an effective outreach campaign. your cheeky billboard is not going to break down the barriers to my psyche and get my ass in a pew--if anything its just going to encourage rebellious youfs to tag it or light it on fire. you're not going to change anything with it--the religious zealots will continue to be zealots and the educated elite will continue to think. Why waste the money? Who are you trying to impact?

just over a week

It finally happened last night--I saw a bookbag on the floor out of the corner of my eye and thought it was the cat coming to check on me. So far I'd been so conscious of Boots's absence that the force of that habit was overwhelmed--all book-bags were just book-bags. But i guess as my focus drifted, the old habits returned. I wonder if i'll ever reach a point where i don't apologize when i trip over my sneakers.

In other news, a household plumbing project required me to cut away a sizable portion of my laundry room wall yesterday, reminding me forcefully of just how much i loathe sheet rock and Fiberglas insulation. urgh. but the removal went smoothly and promises an equally smooth re-installation. unfortunately, now that the hole is there, my dad is eying the aging linoleum in that room too. I hope he'll let me rent a compressor and just brad the baseboards back on once its tiled.

In still other news, i'm now certified as an advanced-level autoCAD operator. Hooray me. Now, to get a job on a sailboat.

Boots Kitty, 1990-2007

12:25AM, November 18, 2007 saw the passage of Boots Kitty, aged approximately 18 years, into eternal rest. She is bitterly missed by her human companions, several of whom have scant memories without her. She quietly slipped away, surrounded by her family, after a full and happy life, spoiled rotten by all who loved her. She was an affectionate and patient kitty who tolerated all of the silly ways we tried to show her we cared, and who communicated with ease so much that words fail to fully express.

I'm glad I could be here for her as her time drew near, and I believe she spent her final days in peace. She handled her descent with the dignity and grace she brought to all aspects of her life, and for that I am grateful.

She is buried and memorialized in the back yard she reigned over all the days of her life.

Farewell, dear friend.

tri-podiatry

I've come to appreciate that there are a few benefits to having a cat with three legs. While I'm sure Ms. Boots would disagree as she's lost much of her independence, agility, stamina, and self-esteem, her amputation has nevertheless led to a couple of upshots.

For instance, she's become more "affectionate"--that is, without her hind leg to scratch her neck and the back of her head, she calls upon human assistance to hit those hard-to-reach places. And its absolutely adorable how she goes about it. True, in cat-language she's saying "you, yeah, the one with opposable thumbs. pet me. here." but it comes across as a very sweet snuggly behavior.

She's more inclined than before to be picked up and held, probably because standing can be tiresome. In wanting to be held, then, she has resigned herself to tolerating all the bullshit we put her through while holding her.

She's never too far away--she likes to be within earshot of her humans, probably for safety. While she still never comes when she's called, she can be found if you go looking for her.

While this isn't necessarily a good thing, she's gotten more talkative. She announces her presence when she enters a room, or when you do. Not sure why. But she has gotten more communicative in other ways, somehow--she uses direct eye contact, touch, sound, and nasal indication (i.e. pointing at what she wants with her whole face) to get your attention and get what she wants. She's a simple creature--she wants to be let in and out, wants food (my cat is a bit of an oddball in that she doesn't eat if you don't follow her to her food dish. she doesn't expect you to feed her there, you just need to watch her back. That's not age or senility talking, either--she's always done that.) She also, when lonely, will wander around the house, yowling pathetically, until someone comes and talks to her. (I don't appreciate this at seven a.m.)

In other news, i learned how to cast off my knitting last night. Its delightfully easy, i just hadn't bothered to learn (i've been knitting and re-balling for about six months now.) huzzah--something to show for my work.

Bootsie-Tootsie

Thanks Josh.

I WILL FIND YOU

whatever psychotic IDIOT it is who shot my cat, I will find you. I will hunt you down. I will give you the beating of a lifetime. If you're lucky, you'll only wind up committed to a lunatic asylum for the rest of your life for expressing very clear sociopathic tendencies (i.e. deliberate, unfeeling cruelty to animals). If the rest of the world is lucky, I'll kill you. If you think its funny to hurt a cat, you probably think its funny to hurt a person, too.

At the very least, the police are involved. You fired a deadly weapon in a highly populated residential area--an area in which dozens of school-aged and younger children live--in the middle of the day at an animal that was minding its own business. This is not the kind of thing that neighborhood folk like to hear.

MY CAT IS 16 YEARS OLD. If you DARE to tell me that she attacked someone, got into your garbage, or even so much as left my yard...frankly, you're lying.

YOU DID IT ON PURPOSE. YOU HAVE NO EXCUSE. YOU ARE A DANGEROUS CRIMINAL.

To say the least, I take it personally. My cat has lived in this neighborhood longer than you--this i can guarantee. To say you didn't know what Boots looked like is to say you didn't know you had a left hand. She wasn't some random stray making trouble. She doesn't wander further than thirty yards from my house.

Moreover, I guarantee you that our neighbors like my cat better than they like you.

YOU ARE A HORRIBLE PERSON. YOU ARE INSANE. I HATE YOU.

My cat is in critical condition. If she dies, or has to be put down because to keep her alive would be torture, I will fly home and crack skulls together until I find you. Boots has been a better friend to me than you will ever be to anyone, and the least anyone could offer her was the chance to die with dignity on her own terms.

You should be in prison, or at the very least an asylum. You're a sick individual and you should not be allowed in the presence of children. I hope there is such a thing as Karma and your leg is shattered when you're hit by a bus in the near future.

If I never do have proof of who you are, know this for the rest of your life: at the best of times, there are a dozen people who hate you. I'm one.