Kat with a K

Happy Thanksgiving Eve from Dewey!

Hello! I have various links and thoughts for you, but I've run out of time, so for now you're just getting a picture of a certain someone who tried to stow away in my suitcase:

Apparently he wants to go to Connecticut, and I had to remind him of how much he didn't like the car ride last time he went to Connecticut. And there wasn't even any traffic then. So! Speaking of traffic, wish me luck!

IKEA + Cats = Cute

Someone sent me this link yesterday, and I thought we could all use a little cuteness break in the madness of premiere week:

And here's how they did it:

Man, England is AWESOME.

Friday Kitten Picture: Chainsaw!

Here's Dewey's cousin Chainsaw. Like the rest of us, he's ready for a nap after this crazy week.

Dewey is too busy for this nonsense.

When I got out of the shower this morning, Dewey was curled up on the piano chair - somewhere he doesn't usually sit - looking all adorable. Of course, as soon as I grabbed my camera, he jumped down, and this was all I could get:

Ah well. Maybe next time.

Friday Kitten Picture: Papi!

I'm basically outsourcing the blog to Liz this week - she picked yesterday's song, and sent in today's picture, of her cat Papi. She thinks it needs a LOLcat-style caption. Suggestions, anyone?

Friday Morning Breakfast with Dewey

Someone has appropriated my Snuggie.

Your Friday morning Dewey:

Friday Dewey: Blurry

I need to start taking more pictures throughout the week so I can actually pick a good one to post on Friday. And to avoid the weird sun-isn't-quite-up light thing I have going here.

But he's still cute.

Your Friday Morning Kitten Picture

(Plus bonus shot of my nightgown sleeve and slipper!)

Your Friday Dewey Picture

I think a kitten picture to help you get through your Friday should be a weekly feature, don't you? Well, maybe he doesn't. He REALLY didn't want to pose this morning, so this isn't the most flattering picture, either of him or of my house. Here he is with what seems to be our growing colony of TiVos:

TGIF

Here's some cuteness to help you get through your Friday:

(Dewey wishes he could stay in bed today too.)

ScoopFree Shortage?

Note: This is completely unsubstantiated.

I don't know if any of you use the ScoopFree automatic litter box with cartridges, but just in case: The manager of my local PetSmart saw me buying a cartridge the other day and told me that he had just heard from his ScoopFree guy that they were having production issues and wouldn't have any more inventory until sometime in August. And, indeed, there were only a few cartridges left on the shelves. I have no independent confirmation of this, but I bought a six-pack from Amazon just in case. (They also have the three-pack and single cartridge.) Of course, all of those items are currently in stock, which makes me question the "shortage," but hey, better safe than sorry, right? It's not like they'll go bad.

Whew!

Dewey is feline leukemia negative and perfectly healthy. Thank God! I'm so relieved.

Fingers Crossed...

Dewey may have been exposed to feline leukemia. I'm taking him in to be tested tomorrow morning. Any spare prayers/good thoughts/etc. would be most appreciated.

It's way too hot out.

The kittens agree:

Black and white cats everywhere!

Dewey continues to acclimate:

He and Penguin, once of our new cat roommates, were both sitting on the bed for a while. But Penguin kept waving his tail around, so Dewey couldn't help but try to grab it. And, of course, this made Penguin mad. Hee. It was pretty funny.

Friday Afternoon Cuteness

Widdle baby lions! Awwww.

Better late than never?

I took this picture of the scarf I'm working on a week or so ago, and it's a lot bigger now. Oh well.

As always, Dewey is very helpful:

An Engineer's Guide to Cats

Spring ennui?

When I got up this morning, I noticed that I had apparently left my knitting bag unzipped and open all night. Uh-oh. But - shockingly, it seems nothing was disturbed. I think this means that even Dewey is bored with my knitting. Sigh.

It's not that I don't like the things I'm knitting. I do. Really. But I'm just feeling rather blah about most of them right now. I think part of the issue might be that I keep starting things (because I'm bored with the other things) and then I feel like I'm not making any progress on anything. And it's finally feeling like spring, which means I have a dozen lace projects, and then when I don't feel like knitting lace... yeah. But at the same time, I'm really wanting to knit, which actually makes it harder. If I was feeling "eh" about knitting in general, I'd just read more for a few weeks and wait it out. But I want to knit! I think what I'm going to do is pick the project I like the most right now (a simple lace scarf in yellow Silky Wool) and try to just knit that (except for the sock in my purse, for when I'm out). Until it's done. Really.

Of course, you all know I've said that before. We'll see how long it lasts.

Why is it...

... that when I'm tired or not feeling great or have had a particularly trying day, Dewey has to be a little brat and make the evening even more difficult? Why can't those be the nights when he's all calm and cuddly? He's lucky he's cute.

And on a lighter note...

I have a printer!

And Dewey has a new box!

(I can't believe I actually did this.)

moar funny pictures

If you click on it and go to the LOLcat site, you can click the little cheeseburgers to vote for him to get onto the main site.

Kitten, Watching Snow

America's Next Top Kitten

Fall Back

I realized we hadn't had any kitten pictures in a while, so I thought I'd show you one of Dewey not understanding the whole "We get to sleep for an extra hour today!" concept.

He's lucky he's cute.

Camera shy

Lots of people have been asking for pictures of Dewey, so I tried to take some tonight, but he refused to look at the camera. Oh well. He seems to be going through a very adolescent phase right now - half the time he's all cute and affectionate, and the rest of the time he's running around crazily and attacking me and breaking things. This will pass, right? Sigh.

Can you see this?

If this worked correctly, you should be able to see a cute kitten in a box...

I have pictures!

Yay, I can post pictures again! A few random ones of Dewey from the last few months:

Looking pensive:

Helping a friend of mine connect the VCR:

Relaxing in his favorite spot:

Dewey Update

The good news: the vet thinks Dewey should be fine. She couldn't find anything actually wrong, so we're treating him symptomatically. This means no food for 24 hours, and then small bits of special food every few hours, working back to a normal feeding schedule in several days. And calling the vet if any of his symptoms come back.

The bad news: this means I had to cancel the trip I'd planned for this weekend. Ah well. An unexpected long weekend at home won't be bad, exactly...

Also, the look on Dewey face when I just gave him water at breakfast time was pretty priceless. "Mom?? Seriously????"

Kitten in the sun

We've been having crazily warm weather here the past few days, and Dewey has been taking full advantage of it:

You can really see how big he's getting in some of these pictures...

My brave hunter!

Mr. Dewey has officially killed his first mouse. And I disposed of it. We did it all by ourselves. We are both a bit shaken, but proud.

(I knew the blogging thing was pretty ingrained when I thought, for a split second, "Oh, I should take a picture for the blog before I throw it out.")

Aha!

The flash card reader was its pocket in the laptop case. Crazy!

Here's Dewey cuddling with Lamby, his first very own stuffed animal:

Snow Day

By popular demand...

Dewey's fans have been clamoring for pictures, so here are a few from our Buffy-watching this afternoon...

Kitten pictures! (Not to distract you from lack of content or anything...)

Hello! Sheesh, a girl and a kitten ignore the Internet for a weekend, and five billion e-mails come in! Coming soon: updated list of UFO challenge participants, links to some UFO challenge finishes, and my first finished object of 2007! (Which also happens to be my January UFO!) To tide you over, want to see what Dewey and I did while we were ignoring you this weekend?

Yesterday we made tomato sauce...

And then we watched lots and lots of Buffy...

(It got a little scary.)

Kitten at play

By popular demand, here's a series of pictures from last night:

My kitten is smart.

So. Guess who figured out how to get out of his carrier? While Mommy was driving on the highway? Yeah. Genius, eh? So I'm headed to Petsmart this morning to get a new carrier (perhaps with padlock?) that's actually kitten-proof, and then Dewey and I will be heading home. We've had a great visit, but I think we're both looking forward to getting back to real life.

And we're off!

I've survived my last pre-Christmas bookstore shift of the season, and Dewey and I are off to Connecticut. I won't be online much for the next few days, but I'll try to check in periodically. Everyone who has signed up for the UFO challenge: I have your info, and I will post the list next week.

Dewey last night, helping me pack:

Not that I get most of my presents at Borders or anything.

"Are you sure I can't ride in here? It looks much more spacious than that other little carrier."

"It's soft, too..."

Have a great holiday, those of you who celebrate, and everyone have a great weekend!

Two Weeks

Mr. Dewey has now been home for two whole weeks, and I don't know how I ever lived without him. Some things we've learned about him in his first two weeks:

Likes:

Dangly toys
Hair ties
Grey mousie
Grey's Anatomy
Figure skating
Attacking Mommy's head
Jumping on the table
Cuddling

Dislikes:

Eye ointment
Sleeping at night
Being told "no"

And a few pictures from last night:

Favorite hiding place...

"I want to go to Grandma's for Christmas and all, but are you sure I have to be in this thing for three hours to get there, Mommy?"

"Really? You're positive? Well, okay..."

"Mommy, that hair tie was on your foot! I wasn't attacking you - I was protecting you!"

Happy Monday!

Sorry for the lack of posts - I had a party yesterday, and the past few days have been very busy with preparations. But the party was more or less successful, and Dewey had a great time meeting everyone. Here are a few adorable pictures of him with my friend Drew:

Reading Kittens for Dummies:

Can you find the kitten?

Lick lick lick!

It's a boy!

The kitten went to the vet today, and he is indeed a he. He is also very healthy. Yay!

He's okay!

Not that you were worried. But today was Dewey's first day home alone, and I was worried sick all day. When I got home, though, he was fine. And so was the house! Other than a pillow on the floor, nothing was disturbed. Such a good boy. Maybe tomorrow I will be able to spend a smaller percentage of the day panicking.

Here he is with his new bungee toy, which will hopefully help keep him amused while I'm at work:

For FemiKnit, a picture of Dewey looking at the kitten in the window:

And one from last night:

EDIT: Thanks to Chris pointing out that the bungee could, despite the label of "independent play" on the packaging, be a strangulation risk, that toy is no longer in the Kitten-Safe Area. It's now here in the living room, where he only plays with supervision.

More Dewey pictures!

...for your viewing pleasure. These were all taken last night by his Uncle jaQ.

Kittens are tiring.

Yeah. So how about some pictures? I have a horrible backlog of pictures already, of course. Here are a few from yesterday as the kitten discovered a favorite spot. Meet Dewey:

Kitten in sunlight:

And my view from here at my computer:

Well, THAT was an exciting day.

So this morning I arrived at work as normal, sat down at my desk, put on my iPod, started up the computer, and... wait. My chest hurt. A lot. And then my vision went sort of weird, and my ears started ringing, and I was suddenly sweaty, and a bit tingly and generally shaky. Huh. Standing up seemed like a bad idea, so I e-mailed a friend in the next row asking her to come over to my desk. (Actually, she says that I made a really stupid spelling error in the e-mail, which was her first indication that something was wrong with me.) So she came over, and I was feeling a little better by then, but still dizzy and out of it. And then I called my mom (a doctor) and she agreed that seeing someone sounded like a good idea, especially as I have sort of a history of heart problems and all.

To make a long story short, my friend drove me to the ER, where they did lots of tests and poked me five million times because I apparently have no veins and fed me a surprisingly not-bad lunch. And determined that they couldn't really find anything wrong with my heart, and maybe it was something viral, so go home and rest for a few days, and see a cardiologist in a few weeks for a follow-up.

So my friend drove me home, and guess who was there to take care of me?

Yup. Quite a day.

Need kitten advice!

Exciting news! I received word this morning that my baby kitten is just about ready to come live with me. I am thrilled, of course, but also rather nervous. See, I've never lived with a baby kitten before. And even when I've gotten adult cats, I haven't been the only person around. Scary. So. Some questions for all of you experienced kitten parents:

1. The kitten is almost two months old. How self-sufficient is it at that point? How much do I have to worry about leaving it alone in the apartment while I'm at work? (I'm referring to it as "it" because I don't know yet whether it's a boy or a girl.) For the first few days, at least, I can go home once or twice during the day to check on it. Should I leave it in one super-kitten-safe room at first, rather than letting it wander around? Hmm.

2. I want to get a book with general kitten care/development stuff, as well as first aid and, um, troubleshooting? There must be a better word than that. But you know, like "if your kitten is doing A, the issue could be B or C." Any book recommendations?

3. Are there kitten-proofing issues that I might not think of? For example, I'm planning to put the litter box in the bathroom, and it just occurred to me that there's a dryer vent pipe thing open in there that a kitten could probably fit in, so I should cover that up. Any other non-obvious things like that I should watch out for?

4. Ideally, I'd like to end up with an affectionate lap kitten. I know that a lot of that has to do with innate personality, but I'm sure that upbringing affects it as well. Any tips on encouraging that behavior?

5. And how about encouraging a healthy respect for yarn and knitting?

6. And a fun question: I know there are lots of patterns out there for cat toys, beds, etc. Any favorites?

To start off our cute picture series...

My own cute kitten needs to be first, of course.

Also, thanks to Jen and Bill for my first surprise visit of the day!

Tessaerobics!

Oh hey, it's Wednesday!

I finally went to work today, after being out sick, so it felt like Monday, so I'm totally confused. Anyway, it's Wednesday, so that means randomness!

1. FIRST of all, do you like the new layout? It's March 1 (Happy March!) so I decided something bright and springlike was in order. It's a very slightly tweaked version of a template that the lovely and generous Becky made for us Pretty Posies members. Let me know if anything seems to be working incorrectly.

2. Based on the comments I got yesterday and what I've seen at other blogs, I think Post-Olympic Startitis should be declared an official disease. I've managed to stick to my ten, though. Aren't you proud of me? (Birch was added to the ten when I finished the Olympic socks. The first ten were in basically random order, but I'll be adding new items to the bottom as I finish things.)

3. I decided to add my LibraryThing widget to the sidebar even though only a fraction of my books have been entered so far. (All the cool kids are doing it.) I'm going to try to add a few each day.

4. I was on Morning Edition on NHPR yesterday, talking about the Knitting Olympics. Want to hear me?

5. It has been brought to my attention (thanks Chris!) that an all-cotton sweater, as I was discussing last entry, might not work so well. So that project is on the back burner for the moment, and I'm open to yarn suggestions for a DK cotton blend.

6. I am SO ready for spring. So why is it in the twenties out? Not fair.

7. I'm still sick. Sleeping plenty but exhausted all the time. What's with this?

8. Okay, enough complaining. Let's end with something positive. Umm... oh yeah! Have you seen The Daily Kitten? Say it with me... Awwwwww.

No time to write. Must knit.

So how about a kitten picture? We haven't had one of those in a while.

(For anyone new: this is Tesseract. I don't talk about her all that much because she lives with her daddy, but I love her lots.)

Cute shoes

Are these not the cutest shoes you've ever seen? I need new shoes for work, too...

Cuteness alert

Cats in Sinks

How adorable.

Look at this picture. Is that not one of the most adorable things you've ever seen?

(I'm not sure whose kitten it is. A friend gave me the link.)

Sad news.

Pythagoras, the black kitten in the picture above, passed away early morning on February 2. It was very sudden. He was only six months old. I'm not up to writing much about it at the moment. (Hence all the quizzes instead of real content.) We're sad but coping.

Mommy's too tired to blog...

And we're pretty tired too.