There is a wee sleekit timorous beastie in the house and this time, it's a cat. Yes, folks, I have finally finished working on the kitty shelter and obtained my little feline from a friend.
She's 19 weeks old and absolutely terrified of this house and all the weirdoes in it. Not surprising in the slightest, IMHO.
For those disinclined to do the math, that's three months and one week old. 1/4 of the way to being a grownup kitty.
She's a beautiful baby, a real glossy black with white patches, and since she's not as fluffy as my former Persian-X cats, she looks really, really tiny.
So far, she is hiding, but she's given us a few mournful squeaks in lieu of conversation. Poor little darling has to be hungry, but she hasn't gone near the kibbles I put out for her and I have a concern because she hasn't gone to the litterbox, either.
That should change today, though. Little kitty is bound to be hungry, and once filled up, she's going to need facilities. She can't stay under the couch for the rest of her life.
...I'm wondering if I should bust out the kitty treats and put one under the couch for her...
I am a worry wart. I just gotta be zen and chill and patient.
Also - I promised my readers an update about my day, yesterday. So here it is in bullet form:
- Wake up at ungodly hour because anxiety is my controlling evil supervisor
- Decide to use the waxing daylight to do some small tasks to finish the Kitty Kondo (tm)
- Yes, I did leave that coach bolt out of it, the previous evening [And yes, we did do some late-night jiggery-pokery because it needed to be done]
- Discover that said coach bolt is impossible to put in with a ratchet
- Eventually use adjustable spanner [that's Monkey Wrench to my American readers] to manually turn it one quarter of a turn at a time
- It takes ages (natch) in a sequence of uncomfortable positions until I reach a Last Millimeter Problem
- In that, I can't make it move the last few millimeters [or fractions of an inch, if you're on the Imperial Scale]
- Dither by gathering up all the black plastic lattice
- Wake up Beloved and extract them from a nice, comfy, warm bed because their muscles are bigger than my limp noodly writer arms
- Coach bolt not moving in a month of Sundays, now. Yay?
- We move on to noodling out what we're doing with the junction boxes, the shapes of the lattice, and where to clip it to the metal mesh
- Beloved starts using the staple gun (loud) and the nail gun (louder) before 8AM and I freak out at whisper volume because Noise Laws [I later learn that the threshold is actually 7AM, but still...]
- Nevertheless things are put in place for the real fun that will start later in the day, when I can use both of those tools with a song in my heart and a megalomaniacal cackle in my throat
- Mayhem is still home sick and will be loaning some spare hands later in the day
- I get Chaos organised, comms book signed, and ready for her day... get her on the bus... and say farewell to my love and lifemate
- Drag Mayhem out of his nice warm bed to do the stapling, paint touch-ups on the Kitty Kondo floor, and other assorted shenanigans involved with the final details whilst I nail some things into place (mwa-hahaha), silicone seal them, and staple other things into place
- Kitty Kondo (tm) complete, I decide to celebrate with a tub of Halo Top (peanut butter cup... mmmm) and a bottle of no-sugar lemonade
- Check messages and -whoops- I have a shrink appointment happening at EXACTLY THAT SECOND and I didn't realise it because my phone makes the exact same noise to let me know about literally everything
- Also realise that I have the cleaners coming and Mayhem has a medico appointment within a similar crunch hour
- Fuck
- I book it to the shrink and do my noggin thing
- I book it back and immediately hike Mayhem off to the quacks
- Cleaners have been and gone (and been paid) in my absence
- Dash back home for much-needed coffee hit and my daily pill regimen
- Just make the coffee when Mayhem rings for a pickup
- At this point, my day is well and truly screwed, so we head off for Pet Barn to get some kitty accessories
- $500 later... we have litter, litterboxes, food dishes, toys, a scratching sleeve for some furniture, some noms, a halter harness, and a 5M (5 yards or 15 feet) leash
- And yes, cat harnesses are more expensive than the same size doggy harness (and in fewer colours) so I got a doggy one
- Shopping spree did come with a sample bag of kitty stuff so... huzzah?
- On way home, the dash clock reads 13:27 and I freak out thinking it's almost half-past three that afternoon and we'll be late meeting Chaos' bus
- Mayhem soothes me by telling me it's actually half-past one and that I'm a dummins
- Get home, set up some stuff, and warm over the coffee by entirely too much
- Take my pills with lemonade because coffee is way too hot
- Whoops, it's time to watch for Chaos' bus
- Have to inform them that Kitty is due that night, everyone is disappoint
- FINALLY sit down to have coffee and write an Instant Story
- Kitty arrives (yay) and immediately hides under the furniture for the entire evening
That was one hell of a day.
Today... my PLNs include (in no particular order):
- Instant Story
- Fetching my car back from Repair Purgatory
- Faffing about on the internet and eventually making friends with my new cat
So let's get on with that and ignore the fact that we don't know where she's hiding herself right now.