Say Hello to My Little Friend

Chantilly TabbyCat ("Tilly")

Meet Chantilly TabbyCat, who will be called "Tilly".  She's a lovely little girl, about 6 months old, who came into my home Thursday evening.

Here's how it came to pass:  those of you who know me remember that I was devastated when my mini-dachsie, The Infamous MeggieDog, passed away after a long and happy life.  I honestly didn't think I'd ever have another pet because it caused me such heartache to lose her.

Several friends and coworkers had offered me cats and dogs at one time or another.  I always replied politely that I appreciated their thinking of me, but I just wasn't ready for another pet.  "Maybe when I retire," I'd say.

Then last Tuesday one of my coworkers came to me and asked if I'd ever gotten myself another pet.  I told her I hadn't, that I just hadn't been able to do it yet.  She told me that her son and his girlfriend had adopted four kittens, all under a year old.  Then his girlfriend's cat allergy became so bad that they needed to find homes for the kittens.  My coworker had taken the cats into her home until forever homes could be found.  She already had four cats of her own, so having EIGHT in the house was really more than she could deal with.  She asked if she could bring photos over for me to see.  I had grave doubts, but agreed to look at the photos.

There were 2 girls and 2 boys.  All four were perfectly adorable, but I kept being drawn back to the photo of this little gray tabby with gorgeous eyes.  I learned that she was about six months old, had all her vaccinations, and had been tested for feline leukemia and feline AIDS (which I didn't even know about!).

So, I agreed that I would take this little sweetie and give her a good, loving home.

She arrived in my office late Thursday afternoon, just before the end of my work day, in a pet carrier.  She seemed a bit bewildered by the strange surroundings but quickly calmed down.

As I drove her home, she actually fell asleep!  I'd already prepared one of my bathrooms for her with food, water, litter box, and a bed.  I opened the carrier door; she stepped out, looked around for a moment, looked at me, then hopped in the litter box and made use of it.  One hurdle out of the way!

She nibbled a bit of kitten chow and sniffed her water dish.  Another hurdle.

I left her in the bathroom while I had dinner, then let her out to explore her new home.  Everything was going really well; she would check out a new area, then come back by my recliner for me to give her a quick stroke down her back.

It occurred to me that I should check to see how much slack was in the collar she was wearing, so I slipped a couple of fingers under the collar and leaned forward to take a look.  What I'd forgotten was that my recliner makes a bit of a banging noise when you lower the footrest on it.  It banged, and the next thing I knew I was holding an empty cat collar and bleeding from a two inch scratch on my hand.  Poor baby!!

She'd run under the couch, so I just left her there, speaking softly to her from time to time.  When bedtime came, she was still under the couch, so I went to bed and left the bedroom door open in case she cried so I'd hear her.

About 12:30 I heard my Roomba start running (it was against a wall in my bedroom).  The poor kitty had apparently come in and decided to check it out, stepping on the start button!  I turned the Roomba off and settled it back into its dock.  The kitten was nowhere to be seen.  I crawled back into bed and went back to sleep.  During the night I woke up a few times when she crawled up onto the bed to see what I was doing.  As soon as she saw that I was awake, she'd hop down and go under the bed.

The next morning, she was doing fine but still wouldn't get close to me.  After all, she thought I'd tried to kill her with a recliner!  Luckily, by the time I got home that afternoon, she was allowing me to pet her again.  She was still a bit cautious, but at least she wasn't under the couch.  She quickly warmed up to me, though, and slept next to me in bed that night.

And so we have become great friends.  :-)  She was up early this morning, playing and watching me with great interest as I went about some household chores.  She helped me make the bed and fold a load of towels.  After a few hours of busy play, she decided it was nap time and disappeared.  I let her get settled in and went to see where she was napping.  She's under my bed, catnip mouse at her side, happily sleeping.

I hope you all have as good a Saturday as Tilly and I are having.  :-)

Happy Birthday to Me!

I've found that one advantage of getting older is that I don't worry about birthdays. I'll be honest, I never did worry about them much. Only two birthdays ever bothered me:

• The day I turned 24 I cried all day long. Don't ask me why, because I have no idea! I think it had something to do with the fact that my life hadn't turned out quite like I'd planned (whose does??) and I was feeling a little overwhelmed.
• My 50th birthday bothered me more than I thought it would. I wasn't depressed, really, just mindful of the fact that I was crossing over that "half a century" mark. Ewww.

But since then, birthdays have come and gone. I've celebrated them, enjoyed them, and moved on with day-to-day living.

So how's my birthday been so far? Pretty dang good. I was given multiple gifts, cards and congratulatory e-mails at the office, and Mom called me at work (which she NEVER does!) to wish me a happy birthday. On Facebook I got lots of birthday greetings, which was really lovely.

I'd bought myself the Roomba the other day, so I considered that partially a birthday gift to myself and haven't bought myself anything else. By the way, I still ADORE my Roomba, who I now call "Spock" at the suggestion of a friend who is, like me, a fan of "The Big Bang Theory". It follows, of course, that the Roomba's dock is now "Spock's Dock". Yes, as a matter of fact, I AM a geek. *LOL*

I decided to throw dietary caution to the wind today in celebration of my birthday. For breakfast I stopped at Mickey D's for a country ham biscuit and a large coffee. Because I'm not used to eating so much for breakfast, I had a granola bar and Diet Coke for lunch. Why was I so relatively good for lunch? Because I'd already decided to really treat myself for dinner! :-) I called a local Cracker Barrel and asked them to prepare a take-out for me: meatloaf, mashed potatoes, okra, baby carrots and a biscuit. *drool* I'm never disappointed in Cracker Barrel's food, and they lived up to my usual expectations!

I thought I should treat myself to a dessert as well (after all, birthdays come but once a year, right?) so I bought something truly decadent: double chocolate fudge Coca-Cola cake. Yes, I'll probably hate myself tomorrow, but I'll deal with that another day. :-)

And so, friends, I've been looking at that piece of cake for awhile now, so I'll close this blog entry and settle into the recliner with my cake and the remote control. I received a copy of "The Big Lebowski" for my birthday and am going to watch it while sending myself into sugar-laden euphoria!

Have a great evening, everyone! The Dude abides. :-)

A Family Reunion and A New Toy

To quote Al Pacino's Tony Montana in "Scarface": "Say hello to my little friend!" Yup, I bought myself a Roomba. I've been thinking about it for awhile and finally decided to buy one. This is something I should have done for myself way back when my back was giving me so much trouble! If you'd like to see an admittedly terrible video of Roomba in action, take a peek on YouTube by clicking here.

If you're not familiar with the Roomba, it's a robotic vacuum cleaner. Yes, there is a household appliance that not only vacuums my carpets and sweeps the vinyl flooring in the kitchen and bathrooms, but also goes and parks itself on its charger when it's finished! I think I'm in love! *LOL*

There's a VERY wide price range on robotic vacuums; like a lot of electronics these days, you can pay just about anything you want for one, depending on how many bells and whistles you want.

My wants and needs are definitely middle-of-the-line:

1. I needed a vacuum that could go under furniture. This is the number one requirement. Since my back surgery in 2009 I've been unable to move my unspeakably heavy bedroom furniture, and I suspected that killer dust bunnies lurk in the areas out of reach under my queen-sized bed.
2. I wanted a vacuum that would return to its charger when it finishes its work. I didn't particularly want to have to worry that the little guy would run out of power while chasing the above-mentioned dust bunnies under my bed.
3. I didn't particularly need the "program to run while I'm at work" feature, because I want to be at home when it runs in case there's a problem.

Considering my list of requirements I did some reading online and decided that the iRobot Roomba 540 suited my needs and my budget. Even after making this decision, I hesitated for a bit, just to give myself plenty of time to change my mind.

Last Saturday I dragged out my good ol' Kirby and vacuumed the apartment. After pushing the very efficient but very HEAVY machine back and forth for what seemed an eternity (it wasn't really), I settled into my recliner with my netbook and ordered my Roomba.

It arrived very quickly (on Wednesday!) and was exactly as advertised. I charged it overnight and could hardly wait to get home Thursday to see how it worked. Thursday I had it clean the living room kitchen, hallway and guest bathroom. Keep in mind that I had vacuumed with the Kirby the Saturday before. I was amazed (and a little horrified) at the amount of stuff the Roomba found! On Friday evening I had it clean my bedroom and bathroom. I'd been correct: there WERE killer dust bunnies under my bed!! *LOL* Roomba killed 'em though, bless its little electronic heart!

So, if you're like me and have developed a back problem, or if you're like me and a total geek, consider a Roomba. Robots are cool. :-)

Yesterday I went with Mom and Dad to the 30th Lucas-Sweeney reunion. They had a good crowd this year, and TONS of food! There are a lot of wonderful cooks in the family, so tables were piled with platters of chicken, barbecue, casseroles, fresh garden veggies, pies, cakes, candies, homemade breads....makes me full just to remember it!! I took a couple of Tang pies; I got the recipe from a friend at the office, and several folks commented to me that they really liked them. It was good to see such a good crowd. It was awfully hot, but the building we were in (Copper Creek Ruritan building) was air conditioned, so we were able to go in to cool down if we got too warm.

I (of course) took my knitting along and made good progress on some Christmas gifts I was working on. Today I've spent the day doing a little laundry and resting up from the busy day yesterday. I've also managed to make good progress on a pair of socks I've been working on off and on for awhile. In fact, I've turned the heels and I started on the gussets just before I stopped to write this blog post. I'll get a little more done on them before bedtime, I think.

Well, back to the knitting needles. Have a good week, everyone!