Personal – Page 18 – Fascination Place

50 for 50

Now that I know she’s received and opened the package, I can write about the idea I came up with for my friend K’s 50th birthday: I bought her 50 birthday cards!

I came up with this idea last summer, possibly while I was back east when my Mom was recovering from her surgery (I forget exactly when), since I realized I had almost a year to buy 50 cards, which worked out to a little more than 1 per week. I knew immediately that it was unlikely I’d actually buy the cards that regularly, but I figured if I could get two-thirds of them by, say, the end of February, then I could easily scramble to get another 15 or so cards in the final month.

One thing I realized when I had bought about 15 cards was that I needed to achieve some balance in the cards I bought. They couldn’t all be cards about age, I had to mix in some generally funny cards, and some more serious cards. When you’re only buying a card a week, it’s easy to just end up buying all the most hilarious cards, but she wouldn’t be reading them one a week, but (probably) all at once.

By February I had done a pretty good job – I had about 35 cards – and I started going through them and signing them. I discovered I had bought one card twice, but that’s the only one I doubled up on, and I had time to replace it, which I did.

I had also started telling some friends about this scheme, and to my surprise none of them had heard of anyone doing this sort of thing before. I’m sure someone has done it, but in my social circle it was a novel idea. My Dad said I should mail them all individually, but I felt that was farther than I was willing to go; instead I signed and sealed all of them, and shipped them in a box.

K wrote to me that she ended up opening a few cards a day, and found them quite funny overall. So, mission accomplished!

I’ll describe one card from the set: Debbi suggested I get a 51st card, “for luck”. Well, as luck would have it, I came across what I thought was a perfect 51st card while I was back east last month. Supposedly a quote from Satchel Paige, it read:

How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are?

A good question for any of us.

Home Project Weekend

This weekend we took advantage of OSH‘s “we pay the sales tax” weekend to pick up a bunch of stuff for around the house. For example:

New filters for the HVAC system. Apparently you’re supposed to replace them more often than once every 2 years! (LOL.) The old ones were completely filthy, ew.
New bulbs for the under-counter lights in the kitchen and laundry room. 6 of the 9 bulbs in the kitchen were out. Replacing them was simple once I figured out how to get the covers off.
A couple of new daisies for sports in the yard, as a couple of plants died off over the last year.

I also mowed the lawn and gave it some food, so it was a pretty productive weekend. I still haven’t replaced the busted tube on my bike, so I still haven’t biked to work, but hopefully this week.

We also went to Half Moon Bay yesterday morning for the first time in a few months, and enjoyed the incoming warm weather to go for a couple of nice walks along the coast. We got parking at the trailhead near Pillar Point Harbor to go on this nice walk out to the beach (very popular with dog-walkers we noticed), although we didn’t walk along the beach itself.

I feel like I’m finally just about caught up on all the stuff that piled up during my trip east last month.

Sick Week

I need to write a post about my latest trip back east, which occurred over the last week and a half of March, but that will have to wait for later. Part of why it has to wait for later is because I spent much of last week sick.

I actually felt myself getting sick Friday March 29, the day before I flew home. Saturday I was definitely feeling sick and knew that the flight home was not going to be wonderful. Debbi convinced me to get some cold meds while I was waiting at the airport, and I think they helped. The 1-hour delay because of a fuel spill at the refueling truck at our plane didn’t help. However, I did make it home, feeling sick and exhausted. We grabbed dinner on the way home and then collapsed into bed around 11pm (2 am east coast time – I’d been up for 18 hours!).

Sunday Debbi got up and I told her I’d be getting up soon myself. In fact I slept for another 2 hours, and then stumbled downstairs. Debbi kindly made breakfast for us, but I was a zombie, and soon fell asleep on the couch until early afternoon (during which time Debbi went grocery shopping and took care of the cats). In the afternoon I felt considerably improved, and expected to go to the work on Monday.

And go to work I did! I wasn’t 100%, and I knew I’d run out of gas late in the day (which I did, leaving a bit early), but I had a pretty normal and productive day (for the first day back from being away for a week and a half), and expected to feel better the next day.

In fact I woke up in a fog on Tuesday. I went to work anyway, figuring I’d just shake it off, but after lunch I just could not concentrate, so I went home and promptly slept for about three hours. I had soup for dinner and mostly sat quietly in the evening (albeit working as best I could to finish a birthday gift for a friend of mine which needed to get mailed the next day). We watched Star Trek: Nemesis and went to bed early when it was done.

Wednesday I felt no better – if anything I felt worse. I took care of the morning routine (mostly giving Newton his meds, scooping the litter, and giving the cats food). I went upstairs and was so exhausted I fell on the bed and dozed for an hour and a half. I got up and had lunch, sat on the couch and read for a while, then slept for another 2-3 hours. I was tired, and sore, and developing a nasty cough. When I woke up, I finally started to feel better.

Thursday I went back to work, perhaps just a little early, as I was still tired, and the cough had turned into something where any amount of activity – like walking to the bathroom – would result in a terrible hack. Catching my breath and sitting down were the only cures.

But that was – finally – the worst of it. All the symptoms but the cough were gone by Friday, and it was getting better. It’s still with me even today, but by Saturday it had improved to the point that I could do some chores around the house (like unpacking the furniture I shipped from my Mom’s house to put it together, and mowing the lawn Sunday morning). I discovered that Robitussin cough+cold was the best thing for it, to the point that like clockwork the cough would come back 4 hours after my last dose.

Today I am medication-free, though, and even had coffee for the first time since my flight home. So I’m just about better.

I don’t know whether flying home while sick kept me from getting over the cold, or if I caught one cold on top of another one, but it was a pretty nasty week last week. Hopefully not one I’ll repeat for a few years.

Goodbye to the Old House

I spent the last third of March back east getting my Mom’s house ready to sell. While not really a more difficult trip than any of my visits last month, it still kept me plenty busy.

I flew in the morning of Wednesday March 20, right after Boston had gotten about 9 inches of snow. I guess the snow must have been very light and fluffy, because there were only about 2-3 inches when I arrived. But it was also 28Â°F, which was more than a tad colder than I’m used to. I didn’t bring a heavy winter coat, optimistically hoping it would be closer to spring weather than winter, but at the beginning it didn’t work out that way.

I was staying with my Dad again, so I went to his place and we got breakfast. I took a nap (my red-eye plane was packed and I didn’t sleep much), and drove out to Mom’s house. I shoveled the walk from the driveway and the end of the driveway so my sister Katy and her boyfriend Andrew would be able to park when they arrived later that day (as they were going to stay at the house). I managed to break not one buy two shovels in the process! (To be fair to myself, all three shovels I had access to were pretty old.) I also turned on the heat in the house and turned up the hot water, and both had been turned down low for the winter. Katy and Andrew arrived and we had dinner with Dad.

Thursday we picked up Mom and met with the agents we’re using to sell the house, who we really like, and signed documents to put the house on the market once we’d finished taking things out of it. Then we spent the next couple of days mostly going through the house to figure out what was left that Mom wanted to take to her apartment, and what Katy and I each wanted to take with us.

Katy ended up taking a couple of oriental rugs, an end table, and some other stuff. She considered taking the dining room table but decided against it (it’s an okay table, but I don’t think either of us are sad that we didn’t take it; honestly the one I have at my house is nicer even though it’s nearly as old!). I took a rocking chair and a chest with a marble top, both of which I shipped through the Boston Packaging Store, who came and picked them up. Both items were very securely packed and arrived a week and a half later in the same condition they’d left, so I can certainly recommend them as packers for anyone in the area who needs a service like that.

I spent quite a bit of time over the next week helping Mom get everything she wanted, which mainly meant books. Andrew installed another bookcase in her apartment, but we brought over plenty of books to fill it. She also took some clothes and a few other items (and Katy made her take a few pieces of cookware). But since this was her last chance to get anything she wanted from the house, I was willing to do it all.

Katy and Andrew left on Saturday, and Sunday I took a break and went down to visit Debbi’s sisters and their family.

Andrew took a few pictures of the house, and of the three of us, before they left:

Family

It warmed up during the second week, going from highs in the mid-30s to highs in the high 40s, which is still cold by California standards, but got into the range where I was pretty comfortable wearing my jacket. The snow mostly melted during the week, and I spent some time raking leaves in the driveway and the yard, so the house would look a little better when it was being shown. (Debbi poked fun at me since I kept mentioning trying to make time to rake leaves.)

Also this week, I was having most lunches with Mom as we continued to get stuff from the house, and then most dinners with Dad as I went back to his place for the evening. Tuesday was the exception to both of these, as in the morning I was at the house waiting for the packing company to come pick things up, and then I went and had lunch by myself. In the evening I went into downtown Boston to have dinner with my friend Bruce, whom I hadn’t seen since my first trip last year in July, and we caught up on stuff over dinner and then coffee afterwards.

On Wednesday we took Mom’s cat Maggie in to the vet for her annual checkup, which I’d wanted to make time for while visiting. Catching Maggie was quite a trick, as she ran around the apartment for over 5 minutes before I finally managed to grab her. I think this soured her on me for the rest of my visit. Alas. Anyway, the vet is a nice place in Waltham who have a resident cat who is nearly as old as Newton! They checked Maggie out and the only issue was a bunch of wax build-up in her ears. She’s about 10 – which is how old Roulette is – and is in good shape for that age. Since she lives without other cats in Mom’s small apartment she’s not as active as Rou, but then she wasn’t as active as Rou back when I stayed at the house last July. Maybe it’s having other cats around that stimulates cats.

Mom and I also went to the Book Fair for her to buy some more books, and I took her to the pet store to pick up some stuff for Maggie.

By this point I was entering the endgame of my trip. I met with the agents again on Thursday to wrap things up with them, including plans to hire someone to empty the house after I left. And Mom and I took a whole bunch of pictures of the house with our cameras. I wished I’d had the presence of mind to take them when Katy and Andrew were there, so the house looked a little more lived in, but we were just too busy. Seeing the house closer to what it must have looked like when my parents moved in was interesting. It was emotional to know that this was the last time I’d visit the house.

Thursday and Friday I was also packing up the stuff I’d saved from the house that I wanted to keep – a few trinkets, and a lamp that Katy had found that I decided looked pretty neat and would work well in our guest room. Also some of Mom’s papers that I wanted to have with her financial records with me in California. I’d been very happy with FedEx’s packing job last October, so I used them again, and happily everything arrived in California intact a week later. I spent at least one evening going through some boxes of photos, and picking out some ones I wanted. There were fewer old photos than I’d expected, but then there are also at least four photo albums with pictures from the 1970s which I didn’t get to. Next time, assuming Katy hasn’t taken them by then.

Friday was my last day at the house, and the last visit with Mom, as I didn’t feel like driving all over on Saturday morning knowing I had to pack and catch the train to the airport in the early afternoon. So I had brunch with Dad, and then headed off. My flight home was delayed an hour because the refueling truck for our plane spilled some fuel on the tarmac, but we eventually made it into the air. Fortunately, the flight was not very crowded so I had a row to myself. Unfortunately, I’d started getting sick the night before and was a borderline zombie for the flight. Debbi picked me up and took me home and I collapsed into bed after we ate.

It was a successful trip. It was a sad trip. I was a lot busier on this trip than I’d expected (originally I’d thought I might end up working 2 or 3 days while there, but it didn’t come close to happening). I’m relieved that it’s over, and I’ll be relieved when Mom’s house is sold. But it was exhausting.

All told, Mom lived in that house for just short of 40 years, and owned it for a bit longer, I lived most of my childhood there, and Katy lived all of hers there. The house itself had its drawbacks, but it was a good house overall. And the location couldn’t be beat, as kids, as teenagers, and as adults going back to visit. It was a comfortable place.

Goodbye, house.

Goodbye house

Exiting Submarine Mode

I haven’t written here in over a month – just haven’t been in the mood, I guess. Also, not a huge amount going on in the month of February.

March has been a bit different: Debbi’s been back east for the last week and a half visiting her parents (with a side-trip to Disney World yesterday and today), so I’ve been on my own at home for the first time since her sabbatical in 2011. It was pretty lonely for the first couple of days, trying to figure out what to do with myself (not that I didn’t have plenty to do).

After the first weekend it got a bit easier. I hosted Magic last Monday, went to Dana Street for comic book night on Wednesday, and hosted a poker night on Friday.

The poker night had a notable hand: In the big blind I got dealt… well, it came around to me with a single raise and I said, “I don’t have any cards.” I’d been distracted and hadn’t grabbed them from the middle, and they were sitting mixed up in the muck. Without my saying anything, people agreed I could just take the top two cards off the deck (no, I wasn’t the dealer) and play them. So I got two cards, and they were… the Ace-King of diamonds. I called the raise and saw a flop of… three diamonds, for the nut flush. The small blind bet into me, and I called, and everyone else folded. The turn and river bricked, and I got it all in on the river. My opponent thought a while and called, then mucked to my flush. He said he had a set, which was the only hand that made sense to me, other than a lower flush. He said my call on the flop confused him into thinking I didn’t have the flush, which was more-or-less what I’d intended. It was a little funny since he slowplayed several big hands that evening.

I wonder what the two cards I didn’t get to play were?

I signed up to watch some friends’ cats this past weekend, and kept plenty busy besides, reading for our book discussion on Sunday, cooking meals, and running errands. As usual I didn’t get half as much done as I’d intended. I also took Newton and Roulette in for their annual check-ups on Saturday. Newton’s down to just 4-1/2 pounds or so, but the vet says he seems happy and fairly healthy otherwise. We’re giving him more subcutaneous fluids but otherwise keeping things about the same unless things change. I’m glad he’s happy. He’ll turn 19 next month, which is just mind-blowing.

The kittens are doing well. They sleep with me every night and usually snuggle with me in the morning. I think Roulette is very gradually coming to accept them, but it’ll probably be months yet before they snooze together. All the cats were happy that it was so warm this weekend that I opened up the windows until sundown.

Today, alas, I’ve come down with something, so I had to bail on hosting Magic tonight and I’m sitting quietly on the couch (having eaten too much hamburger and tater tots for dinner). Debbi’s back tomorrow, and then things will be back to normal for a while. It’ll be nice.

Feline Integration

The kittens have had the run of the house for about a month and a half now, and things seem to be going well. There are some expected bumps, though.

Sadie & Jackson

Jackson is turning out to be the troublemaker. He’s gone behind the A/V cabinet and chewed on some of the thinner cables, breaking both the AM and FM antennae for my receiver. (It turns out those are hard to replace – no one really carries replacements!) We’ve piled empty boxes back there, but he keeps trying to get back there anyway. Then we grab him and put him in time out (holding him against his will) and he mews pitifully. He tries to force his way into our food at meal time, and yesterday stood on a spoon covered in pesto sauce while licking a plate. He likes to “help” me scoop the litter, standing in the box and batting at the scoop.

Sadie is not quite as rambunctious, and has gotten snugglier as she’s grown up. She likes getting attention in the middle of the night, which is not ideal, but she also likes to check out what people are doing. Sometimes I’ll be in the study and she’ll walk in meowing, and I think she just wanted to know where I am and make sure I’m okay. One morning she climbed through the shade in the front window to watch me leave for work.

Sadie is turning out to be a medium-long haired cat, which I would not have guessed from when she was a kitten. I’ll need to get her used to getting brushed. Jackson is definitely short-haired, and his fur is starting to soften a little. Jackson is going to be long and lanky, as I think I’ve said before, while Sadie will have a more compact body.

(click for larger images)

The kittens get along very well with Newton, and often sleep with him. I think Newton enjoys the attention, and I wonder if he was a little bored, lonely, or even feeling a little abandoned before the kittens, since he now spends time with them in group grooming sessions and seems a little perkier and happier (now that Sadie isn’t pouncing on him). I know he doesn’t like all the medicines and subcutaneous fluids he has to take, so the more innocent attention the kittens give him might make him happy. He’s also taught them about drinking out of the sink in the downstairs bathroom.

Kitten Pile

Getting along with Roulette is taking longer. There’s still some hissing, and Sadie sometimes chases her, which we can’t really tell whether she enjoys or not. Maybe sometimes she does and sometimes she doesn’t. Sadie really wants to be like Rou, and we often see her imitating the big cat. They don’t quite sleep together in the sun on the guest bed, but close. Jackson has tried to win her over by being snuggly like he was with Newton, but so far it hasn’t worked. But at least Roulette isn’t hiding under the bed all the time, and Debbi even saw her and Jackson playing next to each other in some brown packing paper we’d put on the floor.

They’ve also been doing very well with guests: We had Chad & Camille and their kids over last weekend and the kittens were quite sociable. Today we had Subrata & Susan and their son over for part of the Super Bowl and they again were quite happy to check out everything everyone was doing. It’s nice not to have either cat running and hiding when people come over.

Yesterday we took the kittens to the vet for their last round of shots. When we were there a little over a month ago, Sadie was around 4 lbs and Jackson was a bit over 3 lbs. Jackson has passed Sadie and is now at 7 lbs, while Sadie is a little over 6 lbs. The vet thinks Jackson will be a 14-15 lb kitty, while Sadie will be 10-11. That’s gonna be a lot of Jackson to deal with!

Jackson is proofreading this post as I type, so I’ll sign off with a picture of the two of us. Carefully taken to crop out (most of) the horrible bed-head I had that morning before my shower:

Jackson & Me

Birthday Week

My birthday was this past Wednesday, and Debbi and I took the day off to go do something fun.

We had breakfast at the Depot Cafe in San Carlos. It was quite there for a change (we usually go on a weekend), so I got to look at all their train photos and memorabilia. Afterwards I talked to my Dad before we headed up to San Francisco.

Our destination was the California Academy of Sciences, which I felt we hadn’t been to in long enough that a mid-week visit would make for a nice birthday trip.

As usual we got tickets for the planetarium as soon as we arrived, and then headed for the tropical rainforest, which is probably my favorite part of the museum. Since it was a Wednesday there were a bunch of school trips visiting too, and we spotted a couple of them trying to get butterflies to land on them (and a couple did!). None landed on me, but I did get some good pictures of butterflies (and slightly less good ones of birds):

(click for larger image)

The elevator out of the rainforest drops you in the aquarium. I’ve always thought the aquarium is merely okay, but it does have a few nice sights:

Tropical reef

Jellyfish

The planetarium’s show this time is on earthquakes, with some pretty nifty CGI simulating the 1906 San Francisco quake, and good aerial views of fault lines and recent earthquakes. They had an exhibit on earthquakes and continental drift augmenting the show (or maybe the show was augmenting the exhibit), including a small shake room to demonstrate what the 1906 and 1989 quakes felt like. (The 1906 quake was long, about 90 seconds.) Someday I imagine we’ll get to feel one of these for real. I can wait, though.

We spent a while looking at the museum’s Foucault pendulum, which I remember from the old museum:

Focault pendulum

I wish I’d gone to the old museum once more before they tore it down (it was replaced because it was not really earthquake-safe, as I recall); it was a pretty neat old building, and my memories of it are pretty fuzzy.

The new building has a living roof, which we always visit. They had a telescope with a solar filter on it which we looked through, and saw a couple of sunspots (they look like dirt on the lens, really). Then I remembered the panoramic photo feature on my iPhone and took one of the roof:

(click to enbiggen)

That’s about a 180Â° view, by the way.

Since the Academy was pretty quiet on this mid-week midwinter day, we ate at the cafeteria, which was surprisingly good! They really need more seating there, though.

We also saw a short film called Dinosaurs Alive!, with CGI recreations of dinosaurs, plus some paleontological stuff. Having been a dinosaur fan since I was a little boy, I feel almost like I’ve spent my life watching the progress of animation of dinosaurs, and one thing that’s always the case is that in every film there’s never enough of it! But it was an okay film. Evolution is awesome.

All told we were there for about five hours, and we decided to become members for the year, so we’ll be going back a couple of times this year.

We had a quiet evening of pizza and comic books to wrap up my actual birthday.

Unfortunately Debbi – who had been fighting something off for much of the week – cratered that night and stayed home for the next two days. Thursday in particular she felt awful. By Friday evening she was feeling better and we went to one of my favorite restaurants, Amber India, for dinner.

Other than running some errands yesterday, we’ve had a pretty low-key weekend. We’re having our bizarre midwinter summer right now (highs in the 60s), doubly odd since it got quite cold shortly after Christmas and stayed that way for a couple of weeks. It’s been nice, but I am looking to the rain coming back sometime soon.

Anti-Psychopath

The Scientific American podcast recently had an episode titled “Psychopathy’s Bright Side: Kevin Dutton on the Benefits of Being a Bit Psychopathic”. In it, interviewee Kevin Dutton says:

Psychopaths in everyday life, if I’m talking about what kinds of psychopathic characteristics serve people well in everyday life, well, psychopaths are assertive, psychopaths don’t procrastinate, psychopaths focus on the positives, psychopaths don’t take things personally, they don’t beat themselves up when things go wrong, and they’re very cool under pressure.”

I listened to this bit and thought, “Wow, I’m pretty much the anti-psychopath.” Not completely (I’m assertive in many circumstances and I sometimes focus on the positives), but mostly.

Psychopaths probably make good poker players.

(Dutton’s book on the subject is The Wisdom of Psychopaths: What Saints, Spies, and Serial Killers Can Teach Us About Success.)

Here’s to a Better 2013

Frankly my feeling about 2012 is that it shouldn’t let the door hit it on the way out.

The year started quietly enough, but in March Newton spent several days in the hospital. I honestly didn’t think he was going to make it when we brought him in, but he pulled through and is still with us today. It made for a really rough month, though.

Sadly, Blackjack wasn’t so lucky, as he passed away last month 20 months after being diagnosed with lymphoma. We don’t have any regrets about making the decision, but it made for an un-merry holiday season.

The second half of the year was dominated by my Mom’s affairs, which has been very stressful for me – and rather expensive, with three trips back east. In July I flew back to help take care of her while she was rehabbing from knee replacement surgery. This trip seemed like a big disruption at the time, but in hindsight – in contrast to what followed – I remember it as practically a vacation (albeit one where I was working remotely every workday): I had dinners with friends and with my Dad, and went down to visit Debbi’s family at their beach house three times. And Mom’s cat Maggie and I bonded in the evenings.

But this was just the beginning, as soon after I returned we decided that Mom would be moving into an assisted living home. This led to a second trip in August to take over managing her financial affairs. And another trip in October where my sister and I worked on going through her physical stuff. My uncle (who’s done this for family members himself) did give me some good advice, though, that many of the things I had to do are straightforward so long as you attend to them and don’t let them languish, and frankly he’s been right. As much as I’ve disliked having to do many of these things, I haven’t really run into any real problems in getting them done.

Anyway.

The whole year wasn’t bad. Debbi’s parents visited us in February, and my Dad came to visit in April. I got to see a lot of Dad this year with my trips back east; as I said at the end of the August trip, it was good to see him and Mom (and Debbi’s family), but the rest of the trip sucked.

And in November we expanded our furry family with the addition of Jackson and Sadie, who have been a handful but have also been a nice distraction from some of the other things going on.

So I dearly hope that 2013 will be a better year, with less stress and less sadness. I still have some worries about things I have to take care of, and I think I’m just going to be worried about Newton’s health from here on out (he will, after all turn 19 in April).

My hope for this year is that the tasks I have to accomplish for my family go smoothly, and that Debbi and I can take a few vacations. That and healthy kitties is all I really ask from this new year.

Kitten Distraction

The kittens have been a nice distraction from Blackjack’s passing. They’re getting big so quickly! A about two weeks ago we started letting them out of their room to start exploring. First we let them have half the upstairs hallway and a bathroom, then the whole upstairs (guarded by a baby gate and a human sitting at it at the top of the stairs). They loved chasing each other back and forth through the hall and bedrooms, and they explored the bathrooms, and the beds, and various other things.

A melancholy moment was when Sadie went to the laundry basket where she’d encountered Blackjack before, and we’re pretty sure she remembered him and was looking for him, as he was the first kitty she’d really met. I like to think Sadie and Blackjack would have become friends, had things gone differently.

Anyway.

Last weekend we opened up the whole house to them (except for the study and the laundry room). They careened down the stairs and suffered a major traction loss when they got to the hardwood floors downstairs, but since then they’ve loved it! Jackson likes hanging out under the Christmas tree (and we have to stop him from chewing on it), and they both like to scale the cat tree.

I think it took the better part of the two days last weekend for them to finally calm down enough to sit and snooze with us. At times we’d see Sadie walking around looking absolutely exhausted, but she was still so excited that she didn’t want to sleep because she might miss something! But eventually they napped: Sadie sleeps loafed up on a couch cushion, while Jackson sleeps on his side with his legs sticking out. And then they wake up and do it all over again.

(click for larger image)

We still put them in their room overnight or when we’re leaving the house (and sometimes just to give the big cats a break from them), but they’re totally looking forward to being out all the time. And we’re being really careful when we go outside when they’re out to make sure they don’t try to dart outside.

The big cats are doing okay with them. There’s been some hissing. Jackson seems to back off when hissed at, he doesn’t want to get smacked down. Sadie, though, runs after Roulette and paws at her even when hissed at; I think those two are going to have to throw down at some point. If Roulette would just smack her a couple of times that might resolve things, but so far she hasn’t. Sadie has even tackled Newton on the couch a couple of times!

Roulette ran upstairs the first few times we let them out, but now she stays downstairs and is usually either under the futon, or on the back of the couch, watching them. Newton followed them around a little, but now isn’t very interested unless they disturb his sleep. Jackson likes to go sleep with him sometimes, and he gives Newton a bath when he does (Newton has mostly stopped grooming himself in his old age). One time I heard Newton meow, and I went over to find him ready to jump off the couch, while Sadie was upside-down, on her head, back to the couch cushion looking at him. “Extreme kitten flirting” I called it.

Debbi’s started giving all four cats wet cat food together as a treat, and they’re all pretty accommodating. Jackson is a bit of a bully trying to get the others cats’ food, and Roulette is torn between wet food (her favoritest thing) and staying away from the kittens – the food wins. To her credit, she’s also played with Debbi and the kittens when Debbi brings out a toy, so she’s starting to get used to them.

The kittens’ personalities are slowly emerging. Jackson is full of energy, is easily distracted, but is also the snuggler when he finally winds down. He’s also got the extra-loud purr. Sadie paces herself a little better, isn’t quite as aggressive, but also interacts with the humans less. I think she’s still trying to figure out how to get people to love her. I hope she becomes more snuggly because she has extra-soft fur which is great to pet.

The kittens have been a lot of work, but they’re also a lot of fun. They keep themselves entertained a lot, and then crash and hang out with us for a while. The big cats are still not too happy about it all, but I think they’re slowly coming around.

Hi there!