It's Two Traps!

As mentioned before, I borrowed a drop trap to catch the pregnant feral in order to get her spayed and stop the kitten factory in the alley. (The cat my neighbors had trapped Thursday night — born late last year — was spayed on Wednesday, and she had an early pregnancy with five fetuses, so one disaster averted!)

So for a week, I sat out in the alley a few hours around dawn and dusk, waiting for her to show up. Her Wednesday appointment came and went without me seeing her at all. The shelter said I could bring her in Friday if I could catch her.

And I sat and waited. And sat and waited.

(I did get an inexpensive Adirondack-style chair which has a cup/phone/glasses holders and is pretty comfortable, so at least there's that. I've been getting a lot of writing done while sitting there.)

Thursday morning, I was on the phone with a friend, not even paying attention to the trap when I happened to glance over and there was something inside. (I wasn't wearing my glasses. Everything was fuzzy.)

Lo and behold...

Except... she wasn't pregnant. I thought I'd caught a different cat, but then I realized she was lactating. So right cat, wrong time to catch her. Since I had no idea where her kittens were, I had to let her go again.

Sigh.

Later that morning, I was kicking myself for not knocking on a few doors to see if I could find her kittens while I had her in the trap. Oh well. Lesson learned.

Anyhow, I'll wait a month and then work on trapping the entire family. The kittens will get socialized and adopted out and mom will get spayed.

Foster Updates

No changes in the house. Gnocchi is regrowing hair, Lulu is doing great, and Nimbus still can't decide whether to hiss or purr. 

It's a Trap!

 Foster Updates

Gnocchi is still here, but I haven't noticed any new bald spots in a week and she's regrowing hair on the old ones. We've started the long process of running weekly cultures until she's had two negative results in a row, at which point she will be declared cured.

Lulu is doing great! She is just here to finish the full 84 days of FIP medication. Look how high she can jump now:

I also have a second FIP cat, Nimbus, in my bedroom. He is both afraid of people and loves to be brushed and stroked, so there is often a 30-second transition from hissing to purring. We'll be working on socialization while waiting for his meds to work.

Those are the cats currently in the house.

But outside...

It's a Trap!

On Wednesday, I noticed a suspiciously rotund cat squeeze through the fence into my neighbor's yard, so I texted her the "fat or pregnant?" question and she responded "pregnant".

(All the cats that hang out in my yard are fixed. I don't feed any outside cats. The neighbor behind me feeds, but she's been working on getting everyone fixed for the last four years. I thought we had gotten everyone spayed last fall, but apparently there are still two — the one I saw and her daughter.)

I asked the foster coordinator if I could get the soon-to-arrive kittens into the foster program, and she offered me a spot on the spay schedule Friday (if I could catch her by then) or Wednesday (if I had better luck over the weekend).

So last night I was sitting in my car, avoiding the mosquitos, while I watched the baited trap in the alley. No luck, though I started documenting the other cats so I know who is around. But my neighbors trapped the younger female cat, who is almost certainly pregnant even if she's not as big yet.

I had to bring the trapped cat to the shelter at 8am this morning, so I decided to try one more time to catch the super-pregnant cat. The trap was baited, the sun was rising, and I was sitting in my car watching.

Super-pregnant mom walked over the the trap, sat down next to it, and proceeded to stare at me for 30 minutes. Then she stood up and waddled away.

I am borrowing a drop trap.

That's a Wrap

We have survived Thingadailies 2026!

This episode brought to you by Hot Zotz

On my way home from the writing/reading/knitting group at the local coffee shop, I stopped by Ye Old Time Pharmacy to see if they had hypertonic saline. They did not, but they did have some fascinating candy that I'd never had before.

Hot Zotz Fiery Cinnamon Fizz. They aren't all that hot (maybe they are for Italians?), but they do fizz. They're pretty tasty and interesting.

Foster kitten update

Gnocchi just made her bald spot bigger. Ugh!

Lulu seems to be weaker in the hind end this evening. She's playing and running around, but she looks like a low rider with her back legs bent. I stopped the B-vitamins two days ago because I can think of no reason she would still be deficient, but I swear I'm going to restart them tomorrow if she's not better. At this point, it may just be magic.

The Maggot Muffins (Lucy & Nova) are doing great. They got to be the star of the show tonight. I fear there is not much going on in Nova's head, but she's very sweet.

AITA for my response after my parents destroyed my handmade Christmas presents to my siblings?

What did I learn during Thingadailies?

Mostly I learned how to use iMovie, which is useful. I also learned a bit about the vector side of Affinity. And I learned my foster cats are trying to make me tear my hair out.

My goals for February March (ha, good catch, Maria!) are to increase my writing output to 700+ words per day and maybe join a gym. We shall see...

Technically Not Spring

It's the penultimate day of Thingadailies! Woohoo!

Everything is growing

I spent a chunk of the day weeding, and I cleared space along the fence line of the neighbors who will complain if I don't. I still have a bunch of that horrible sticky weed in the back, and some of it is flowering, so I need to get rid of the rest of it in the next couple days or it's going to reseed. (On the other hand, it does seem to crowd out the bindweed, so I have to decide which one I hate more.)

I also helped my other neighbor upload a new copy of his novel, with an important typo fixed. I suspect I will be doing that every so often, but I don't think he has the computer skills to do this without help.

Between that and trying to finish this short story (which is almost done), I forgot to go to the shelter to pick up the special food the Maggot Muffins are eating. Tomorrow is another day.

Foster updates

Gnocchi remains herself. She kneaded my thigh so hard she left a bruise.

Lulu is about the same. I think she may have some pain in her hind end when she does certain moves, because she jumped down from my lap this morning and then hid behind the door. Later, she played with all her toys, so the pain seems to have been temporary.

Lucy & Nova continue to get into things they shouldn't. Nova's butt seems better maybe? I haven't needed to change the towels in the last 24 hours, which is a win. With any luck, she'll heal all the way and the girls can go off to be adopted before the wave of small kittens blows into town.

AITA for refusing to wear the engagement ring my fiancé made?

I cropped myself out entirely. Lulu deserves to be the star of the show.

Against the Rules

It's day 26 of Thingadailies!

That's against the rules

Lucy & Nova (aka, the Maggot Muffins) realized they could jump on the counter in the bathroom where they are staying, so nothing is safe anymore. I came back from the library makerspace this afternoon and they had knocked the scissors on the floor. No playing with scissors! Bad kittens!

AITA for taking advantage of confusion in cafe names to attract business?

Today's AITA question was a long one and I had to speed up the video a bit. Meh. If I had to do it again, I'd cut some text out of the question. It doesn't sound terrible, but it's obviously sped up. Live and learn.

Daal, Daal as Far as the Eye Can See

It's day 25 of Thingadailies! (That's great, but that also means I only have three days to finish writing, edit, and post a short story for my Patreon supporters. I guess I should figure out how it ends...)

So Much Daal

As you can guess, I made daal this evening. A lot of daal. I'll be eating this for a week, which would be fine if it tasted better, but it's just sort of okay. My only hope is that it will improve after spending a day in the refrigerator. It might. Some food is better the next day.

Foster Updates

We're in a holding pattern. I'm waiting on the results for Gnocchi, Lulu is about the same, and the Maggot Muffins are adorable and slightly less poopy. I need to run a load of laundry for them.

AITA for refusing to pay for an exterminator when a spooky spell attracted spiders to my friend's house?

It's weird that creating a YouTube short is the easiest of all options...

When in Doubt, Add a Cat

It's day 24 of Thingadailies, and I'm feeling a little tapped out. So tonight's thing is just a minor modification of what I had before. And that's okay.

But first, the foster updates

Gnocchi went in today to have the shelter vet look at her bald spot. The good news is that everyone agrees that it does not look like ringworm. But just in case, they sent of samples to the lab. With any luck, this won't scare the adopters away. Oh, and the funniest thing was she was perfectly behaved during her exam after I warned them she would probably require sedation.

Lulu seems a little better today. I need to find the second camera and put it in that room because every time I open the door I see her sitting on the heating pad, but when I'm in my office next door, I keep hearing her bang on the closet door. The ping pong ball has mysteriously moved behind the couch a couple times today. Fingers crossed she keeps improving.

The Maggot Muffins remain ridiculously cute while generating piles of laundry.

When in doubt, add a cat

I wanted to see what adding an animal to the cover would do, so I used the cat brush. (Yes, it's an actual brush type in Affinity that adds a cat and a ball of yarn.)

It not the right thing, but it adds a needed touch of chaos to the picture. I'll keep looking at ways to add animals to the vector covers...