When a Pussy Attacks

If you landed on my blog through a Google search expecting vaginas you should be ashamed of yourself. This blog post is not about the pussies you wanted to see. Also, there is just one photo of a pussy in this blog post and it is the one you see below. But I digress...

My husband and I share our house with three pussies. They are furry, sometimes cuddly but beneath their angelic and sweat demeanor there lurks a malevolent darkside. A darkside so iniquitous and vicious it’s best strangers approach our kitties with the utmost caution or face the dreadful consequence – being mauled! You see our furry critters are emotional unstable and dangerous little souls and every now and again their tempers and tantrums take me by surprise and I am left wondering, why do I share my house killers.

Our most notorious cat of the three is aptly named Killer Pussy. She is a savagely cruel killer. Remorseless, villainous and diabolical she saunters through our estate seeking out her victims. She has no particular preference, if it has a heartbeat she will kill it. She will also eat anything she can lay her little paws. Sometimes it is disgusting as we often find dismembered body parts strewn throughout our house. She leaves this as warnings to us not to fuck with her. It's a not so subtle threat really.

Her absolute favorite snack, apart from freshly killed meat, is a vitamin and catnip enrich cat treat which she gets every afternoon. I think she likes it because the catnip gets her high. She does have a bit of a drug problem but refuse to go to AA. So when the treats got finished, a couple of weeks ago, and the shops ran out of stock our little pussy was not amused! This sparked a tantrum as only a cat can do. All you cat owners out there can probably relate.

Killer Pussy was clearly going through catnip withdrawals and clearly needed to go to rehab but we could not afford it. Also, there are no catnip rehab facilities anywhere in the world which is a travesty.  Getting back to the point, Killer Pussy ignored us, she would sit in the corner of the bedroom sulking, scratch us when we picked her up and when her passive aggression failed to yield the desired result she went to Plan B – breaking stuff. Two broken plates, a torn curtain and a punctured pool lillo later, the shops eventually acquired her favorite treat just in the nick of time, as I suspect Plan C would have involved murder by suffocation followed by her eating our faces.

Killer Pussy's favorite activities, apart from sleeping, are plotting and scheming about how to break into our pantry (the food room as she calls it), furthering her nuclear ambitions, continuing her ill-suited affair with Kim Yong Un and setting her plan for world domination into motion. (If you failed to follow the last few sentences I don't blame you. For it to make sense you really should like her fan page. She is kinda famous on Facebook and Twitter. Just saying.)

Fur Monster was one of our oldest cats and she didn't like strangers and despised children (little humans). The fact that she was barren for so long and struggled to have kittens of her own may have something to do with her hatred of offspring. Whenever we receive visitors we always had to warn the guests of her violent disposition. Many children have been emotionally and physically scarred by her and many adults have too, with my late mom included.

A few years ago Fur Monster’s sister had kittens and my mom and her housekeeper wanted to see the litter/kindle. They went into my garden cottage while I was out. They didn’t make it past the kitchen. Fur Monster and her sister Sly Monster cornered them and held them hostage, literally, in my kitchen for well over an hour. Eventually I received a hysterical call from my mom saying “Your cats have attacked me! I’m in your kitchen! Can’t. Get. Out!!! Oh dear God have mercy!!! H E L P MEEE!!!” and in the background I could hear the housekeeper praying "Jesus, Mary and Joseph" and the cats hissing and growling. Careful hostage negations followed and both my mom and the housekeeper were released bruised, bleeding, traumatized and forever fearful. Fur Monster passed away two years ago and her ashes are kept in my study along with that of her sister - Sly Monster. I am now a collector of cat ashes as a true cat "lady" should be.

Cute Monster is the middle child and the fruit of Fur Monster’s loins. She’s a few sandwiches short of a picnic and the only thing she does well is eat, fart and sleep. She has never mastered the art of tree climbing and is still trying to learn how to play but without any notable success or improvement. The one skill she recently acquired is the much envied skill of paw-to-paw combat.

Seeing as she doesn’t know how to play nicely she settled for second best – fighting. She picks fights with her mother, her aunt and her adopted sister and she usually loses. Did I mention she isn't that bright? Every other day all hell would breaks loose in our house and it’s a cacophony of hissing, growling, screaming with fur and pot plants flying everywhere. Breaking up a pussy orgy of violence is near impossible and after two prior attempts and some loss of blood later, hubby and I decided to leave them to sort out their own shit. If it involves violence so be it! Most things can be resolved with some gratuitous violence anyway. Just look at America liberating countries through war. So why should our cats be any different.

Apart from eating and shitting in the garden the only thing our pussies enjoy doing together, as a family, is kill things. This is where our youngest comes in Lover Pussy.  And as his name suggests he is a gentle soul and is more a lover than a fighter.  However, he loves hunting and he's fiercely good at it.  He also usually leads the family hunt.  Like a ruthless pride of lions (which I swear they think they are) they stalk their prey on the African plains that is our garden. Many a bird, lizard, moth, butterfly and lady bird family have been broken up at the claws of our feline predators. So when a flock of weaver birds decided our leopard tree was the perfect spot for them to raise their families their fate was sealed unbeknownst to them and the bodies started to piled up!

Last Saturday we experienced the worst massacre since bloodshed Wednesday of 8 May 2007. It started at roughly noon. I heard a commotion in our back garden and didn’t pay it much attention until the commotion made its way to under the dining room table. Killer Pussy caught a juvenile weaver bird and was busy interrogating and torturing the poor thing North Korea Style, while the other two Monsters were watching. I tried to save the bird but Killer Pussy would have none of that and ran outside. We intercepted at the pool and I tried to pry the screaming bird from her fangs but she refused to loosen her grip and punctured two of my fingers.  I considered getting a tetanus shot but then realized the hospital would asked too many uncomfortable questions so I took my chances.

As I realized that the soon to be dead bird was doomed anyway and feeling like a horrible human being I let the murder continue. In the lounge I was close to tears as I heard the bird's screams become fainter as the minutes passed. The bird’s parents, family and neighbors all tried to save its life, but one-by-one they too were killed. At sunset the screaming stopped and our backyard was a scene of utter horror and devastation. There are now only four weaver birds and eight eerily empty nests left. Every day and every night our monsters patrol the leopard tree and soon the surviving weaver birds will be no more. They will be murdered in cold blood and we would have to watch and listen. Clarice have the lambs stop screaming? 

Sharing our home with temper tantrum prone killers, admittedly is not always fun. Especially when you need to clean up their crime scenes. But even though I sometimes pitch up for work with arms, legs and hands looking like I shoved them into the blender, I love my little monsters dearly and can’t imagine my life without them. Our backyard may be littered with the skeletal remains of countless avian victims, the bird population on the plains of Africa may be living in fear but my pussies are a delight to have and one day, maybe just one day, the birds will stop screaming.

You can like Killer Pussy's Facebook Fan Page by clicking HERE.

Till next time.

Death, Teething and Craziness

So I am not dead, got abducted by aliens or disappeared off the face of the earth due to the reaping.  I took a month off from blogging mostly because babies are a lot of work and I needed a break.  But I am back now.  A lot happened during the month I was away, some good and other things not so much.  I have always had a theory about the month of August, mostly that it sucks and it is a fucked up month. This year it proved to be no different.

Let me start with the good news first.  Last week we got the great news that our adoption of our son was approved by the court and that our son is now legally ours.  Nobody can take him away from us anymore which is a good thing because that would have had to happen over my cold dead body.  He has been such a joy in our lives and it feels like we have always had him.  It is strange how quickly one adapts to parenthood and how it seems as if there is just this parental switch that gets flipped in your brain and parenting just comes naturally.  Not that it is by any means easy.

Michael started teething and his first tooth is out.  This happened with a lot of tears, tantrums and the flu.  All-in-all I now have a healthy dislike of teeth.  Teething is a painful experience for all involved.  One of the hardest things is when your son cries after he had his medication and teething gel and nothing seems to be working.  Eventually all you are left to do is hold and comfort him which makes you feel helpless and like a bad parent.  There were also the odd occasions where I cried with him and every time that happened our son would give me this look that says “What the fuck is wrong with you.  I am the one in pain here.”  But we made it through the first one, now there are nineteen left to go.  God help us.

This month was also a month of tragedy for our zoo.  We lost two more pets this month.  Earlier in the year our oldest cat passed away due to a stroke.  Now earlier this month our angora bunny died from blood cancer and on Sunday Nikita, the matriarch of the house, passed away from organ failure due to old age.  It feels like death has been doing the rounds in our street this month.  Our neighbor’s son also committed suicide by shooting himself in their garden.  It’s all very tragic and it has been a shitty start to a shitty month.  Luckily we are half way through Hell Month and let’s just hope that nothing else bad happens.

Everyone in our household has also had the flu and as luck will have it mine doesn’t want to go away.  As I sit here I feel like death warmed up and like the CDC should come and decontaminate our house before my flu evolves into becoming the Ebola virus.  I caught the flu from our son due to exposure.  And with exposure I mean that Michael was a little snot factory and inadvertently some of the snot must have ended up in my mouth.  Gross I know.  Babies can be assholes like that.  Also, nobody told me how dirty babies can be and perhaps that is a good thing.  If they are sick everything is covered in snot mixed in with the occasional vomit.  And when they vomit they usually do it on you.  I can’t remember the last time I was 100% clean.

One good thing that happened since we got our son is that my OCD has gotten better albeit unintentionally.  You see after you have been vomited on, peed on and been shit on a couple of times you become somewhat immune.  Also, our lounge is constantly in a varying state of chaos with toys being scattered everywhere.  I localized the chaos by buying Michael a playpen or as I like to call it – a baby jail.  This has two advantages: 1. The chaos is centralized and contained; and 2. Michael can’t get out of it which means I can go to the bathroom alone.

Finally, a couple of weeks ago I was diagnosed with “Bipolar Disorder not otherwise specified”.  As some of you know I have been battling depression my whole life and I always suspected that I was Bipolar.  But sailing down the river of denial is more pleasant than facing the reality.  My psychiatrist finally put all the pieces of the puzzle together.  My chronic insomnia, OCD, social phobia, depression and my hypomania were all classic bipolar symptoms.  Luckily for me I suffer from the milder form of the disorder and I prefer to view it as my eccentricity because mental illness sounds so vulgar.

As you can see the last month was no picnic.  No wonder I didn’t get around to blogging.  Had I done so the blog posts would have been even more depressing than this one.  Nobody likes to read about death and depressing shit besides the people who do because they want to feel that their lives are not so bad in comparison.  And people like that are assholes and you know who you are.  Hopefully things will get better from here and that our remaining pets will not die, the other nineteen teeth will be less traumatic than the first, no more people I know will kill themselves and that my mood will stay stable.  Now cheer up and go do something fun.

Till next time.

I still want a gay donkey.

In my previous life I must have been either a zoo keeper or a veterinarian.  You see I love animals and the furrier the better!  This is something that I am sure is causing my husband some angst every time we casually stroll by any pet shop, SPCA, animal shelter and every time he gets a call from me that starts with the words “Honey, don’t get angry but…”.  I am not sure if my accumulation of furry animals is bordering on a full blown obsession and frankly I don’t care.  Our house is slowly but surely starting to resemble a small petting zoo and we are about one animal away from violating several municipal bylaws.  This is why we have high walls and poor social skills when it comes to our neighbors.  Presently, we are the proud owners/parents of 4 cats, 3 bunnies, a tortoise and several frogs which I also view as pets – a pretty normal domestic situation don’t you think?  I mean really, if Brad and Angelina can collect children, why can’t I collect pets?

Just under two years ago I bought a rather expensive bunny cage.  This was my preemptive way of ensuring that hubby would find it difficult to say no when I seriously brought up the issue of buying bunnies.  After all, I did spend some serious money on the cage already and it would be wasteful to have a cage that’s barren of cuteness and whiskers.  Hubby reluctantly agreed after some deliberation and some begging (Yes, I am willing to stoop to begging to get what I want) but he had two deal breaker conditions: 1) I was allowed to get only two bunnies and 2) they have to be fixed.  Apparently bunnies can have babies once a month and can fall pregnant again within 24 hours after having given birth, so two bunnies could easily add up to 200 in a single year.  So shortly after we returned from New York I went bunny shopping.

After several phone calls and spending some quality time on Google I eventually found the perfect bunnies.  They were hybrid dwarf bunnies and it is just a fancy way of saying their mother was a purebred dwarf bunny who had a night of unbridled passion with a pavement special.  Being “bastard” bunnies they will be smaller than your normal bunnies but bigger than dwarf bunnies and when they are fully grown they will be just under 30cm in length.  When I saw them I immediately fell in love with them and that is how Alexei and Alina become the newest members of our gay little family.

Bunnies are adorable, affectionate and highly entertaining to watch.  They also behave like very inquisitive toddlers who don’t understand what “NO” means.  You see bunnies, like most animals, are born with certain inherent instincts that drive their behavior and ensure that they stay alive in the wild.  Just because they are in the save confines of your house and domesticated doesn’t mean that those instincts will automatically disappear and this I had to learn the hard way.  You see in the wild bunnies chew on roots to make sure that their burrows are clear and accessible and, coincidentally, in your house electrical cables appear very similar to roots to baby bunnies.  To make a long story short, in the week that we have had our bunnies we have lost an iPhone charger’s cable and the iPad’s charger also due to its cable being chewed off.

Understandably, we were a tad tardy with bunny proofing our house and we paid the price for that.  Having learned a couple of expensive lessons in keeping bunnies 101 the house is now bunny proved.  We also had to potty training our bunnies.  They can be trained to use a litter box but first you have to figure out which corner(s) in the room they are in they prefer to pee in.  Bunnies are clean animals and are very specific regarding their toilet habits (not much unlike myself with reference to bathrooms).  They like to poop while eating and they like eating a lot so they poop a lot.  If they decided they like a specific litter box they will use it, but if any other animal use their litter box (ie one of our four cats) they will no longer make of use it.  This is a problem.

Speaking of our 4 cats, Boris the youngest of the four decided from day one that Alexei and Alina were his pets.  He spend the majority of his time hovering over the bunnies and he watched them like a hawk.  The fact that they are playful and likes playing with him has really helped them bond.  Unfortunately for Boris the bunnies have the energy level of an atomic bomb and they rarely stop hopping around and playing.  This has caused a very exhausted Boris to, from time-to-time, go and hide to get a moment’s rest and peace and quiet.  The bunnies adore Boris and he adores them and watching them interact in the way they do is really sweet and heart warming.

The only downside of having bunnies, apart from chewing on cables and some peeing accidents, is my allergies.  As most of you who read my blog regularly know, I am allergic to world and I really should be living in a plastic bubble.  But, strange as it may sound I am not allergic to the bunnies.  However, I am allergic to their staple diet.  Being allergic to all forms of grass it should not have come as any surprise to me that I am allergic to hay.  Since we got our bunnies Alexei passed away in a tragic car accident.  Hubby accidentally reversed over him.  It was all very traumatic.  That is how Vladimir came into our lives.  Being a descendant of a wild rabbit he still maintains some of his forefather's tendencies.  However, he loves the luxuries of being a domesticated bunny.  He loves the fact that he sleeps inside the house, there are food on demand and the fact that he does not have to dodge predators in the wild. 

Dimitri, our new fluffy addition to our family is also doing splendidly.  I rescued him a month ago and he was in really bad shape when I found him.  Since he has been with us he had two operations (long story) and his luxurious coat has grown back.  I think all Angora rabbits think they are aristocrats and Dimitri is no different.  He behaves as if he is a prince and he demands love and attention.

Dimitri and Boris have become fast friends but our other two bunnies still don't trust him.  The fact that he taunts them by running laps around them trying to get them to chase him also doesn't help.  I suspect that the first couple of weeks Dimitri was on his very best behavior because in the last two weeks he has been a bad BAD boy.  He has chewed on two pairs on pants (which are now destroyed), chewed off an iPhone charger cable and chewed off a lamp cable.  So now our bedroom (in which he sleeps at night) has also been bunny proofed.  One would have thought that we learned our lesson the first time.

Our petting zoo is growing by the day and I have succumbed to the fur yet again.  Hubby said that this was now the last animals I was allowed to bring home and he drew a proverbial line in the sand.  “We don’t live on a Farm and this is NOT a Zoo!” he said in his Tim Gun angry voice.  I am not sure what will happen if I accidentally cross that line and I am not sure hubby knows either, but let’s hope neither of us find out.  I still desperately want to get a gay donkey (and no I am NOT kidding), I shall make a horn for him and call him our “special needs unicorn” and name him Rainbow.  I don’t think the neighbors would approve and I don’t think my husband will allow that, but one day is one day…

Till next time.

Tears & Joy

This weekend was a bit of an emotional rollercoaster for us and not in a fun way.  It was an emotional rollercoaster in the sense that it made me feel nauseous, anxious, inconsolable, had me weeping like an emotionally disturb child and also made me feel blissful and optimistic.  And no, I was not on drugs or experiencing some adverse reaction from my prescription medication.  You see this weekend we had our baby shower and on the eve of this very special day our cat died.  The death of our beloved cat was a very traumatic experience and caused both hubby and I to have a serious of emotional clusterfucks, the timing of which could not have been anymore inconvenient.

Our baby shower’s planning started in November last year already.  So as you can imagine a lot of work went into it and there were quite a few helpers.  Hubby’s best friend from work decided to captain this ship and as one can expect from her she did a stellar job.  By Friday afternoon all was organized and all the preparations were completed.  So by Friday evening we were satisfied that the baby shower would go off without a hitch because all the i’s were dotted and all the t’s were crossed.  Unfortunately, as things go in my life, nothing is ever simple.  I have always said optimism has never served me well and this was no different.

On Friday evening hubby went to bed at around 9:30pm to get his beauty sleep for the next day and I stayed up watching television.  I have always been a night owl.  At around 10pm I heard a commotion coming from my study area.  In the study area is a large multi-leveled scratching post where our cats like to sleep.  As I rushed towards where the sounds were coming from I was horrified by what I discovered.  On the floor was our oldest cat surrounded by our other four cats and she was having convulsions.  She was dying.  Instinctively I rushed to our bedroom to wake up hubby and in a very distressed and high pitched voice I screamed “Mizou is dying! YOU HAVE TO WAKE UP!”  This is not the best way to be roused from your slumber.

I woke up my husband because I knew he would want to be there for her during her last moments.  As we got to her I picked her up and placed her on my lap.  She was still having convulsions, sounded like she was chocking and her tongue was turning blue.  She fought off death for what felt like an eternity but was in fact only a few minutes.  At 10:10pm she died.  Her death was sudden and completely unexpected.  As the stroke hit, she fell off the scratching post defecating on her way down.  Both hubby and I cried while her limp body lay on my lap.  She looked at peace but it was very hard to come to terms with what just happened.  Mizou had been with us for sixteen years and it was hard imagining our life without her.

We sat with her crying for a while.  She went blind a couple of months ago and both of us were very impressed with how well she coped with her disability.  At the time the vet did tell me that she was a prime candidate for a stroke as she had suffered from glaucoma, high blood pressure, was old and had weekend veins.  I guess I wanted to believe that she would live forever.  But she died.   At least we were all there comforting her in her final moments.  After a while hubby brought a blanket for us to rap her in.  I gently place her limp body in the middle of the blanket and arranged her to look as if she was only sleeping.

The morning of our baby shower people arrived early to start preparing the house.  I woke up that morning hoping that the tragedy of the night before was just a bad dream.  But it wasn’t.  The baby shower was supposed to be a happy occasion for both hubby and I but we were both heartbroken.  After I got dressed I excused myself and took Mizou’s remains to our vet to be cremated.  It was a very surreal experience standing there holding Mizou’s now stiffened body in a blanket waiting to be helped.  People in the reception area immediately knew, just by looking at me, what I was there for and it made everybody very uncomfortable.  For once I was the white elephant in the room nobody wanted to acknowledge or talk too.  I totally understood why.

After some red tape the vet’s technician came and collected Mizou’s body.  When he brought back the blanket we had raped her in I had to fight very hard to hold back the tears.  I was told that I will get back her ashes on Friday which I know will be a tough day for all of us.  As I returned home I tried to put a smile on my face.  It made me feel fake and disrespectful.  It also made me feel terribly guilty.  I asked myself how can I allow myself to be happy after what had happened.  But there was no way of postponing our baby shower at this very late stage and like Queen said “The show must go on.”

During the baby shower I tried to forget about Mizou’s death and tried terribly hard to just be in the moment.  At times I succeeded but mostly I was constantly on the verge of a panic attack or near tears.  I suspect this may have ruined almost all our baby shower photos.  I just knew that if I didn’t control my emotions I would do the ugly cry with snot and horrible crying noises; not exactly appropriate baby shower behavior.  I am not sure how I made it through the baby shower but I did.  It was only the next day when I fully appreciated the fact that we are going to have a baby and when it finally sank in and brought joy to my broken heart.

My mother-in-law and sister-in-law came by our house to see what we got for our baby shower.  We are having a family only baby shower after we get our child and they wanted to know what we may still need.  As we went through all our gifts I forgot about our loss and got very excited for the new life that we will be welcoming into our lives.  Hopefully it will happen soon.  It was also then when I had an epiphany:  Maybe Mizou passed away to create a space for a new life that is arriving.  We had to say goodbye to a very precious soul who we loved dearly to make room for another.  This filled my heart with peace, joy, love and hope.  This has been a weekend of tears and joy.  Hopefully the next time I cry it will be tears of joy.

Till next time.

Good news for a change.

So after my rant on Monday I have some good news to share with you.  I managed to rescue the bunny on Monday afternoon and brought him home.  And no!  I did not kidnap him.  It was done all legitimate and shit.  He was severely malnourished and practically just skin and bone.  Someone tried to shave him and did an atrocious job of it.  When he got home he looked and smelled like a bum and that is when the work began.

When he got home I immediately noticed that he wasn’t eating.  At first I attributed this to stress.  But as he became more relaxed I knew there was a bigger problem at play.  On Wednesday I took him to the vet for a full checkup and to be neutered.  That’s when we discovered that the reason he wasn’t eating was because he couldn’t.  It was too painful.  You see due to having been given the wrong food and, from what it looked like, no hay he had developed spurs on his teeth.  It’s rather nasty and looks like little needles that make eating painful:  As a bunny try to eat these needles stick into his gums and as you can imagine it is very unpleasant.  So the vet filed off the spurs and he was good to go.

The first obstacle we faced with this new addition to our family was his name.  I wanted to name him Kazimer which means “The Great Destroyer” in Russian.  Hubby refused that we name him that and as he, in a very annoyed Tim Gunn voice, told me “I don’t want anything in our house that is known as The Great Destroyer.  This is why we can’t have nice things!”  So we decided to name him Dimitri which means “Lover of Earth” in Russian.  Hubby made our bun less of a worrier and more of a hippie because he is kind that way.  A bigger problem though was socializing Dimitri with our other bunnies.

As you may recall we have two other bunnies and they are both neutered boys.  They have bonded and love each other very much.  Apparently it is very strange to have two male bunnies bonded in this way but I guess it is true that the gay do rub off and is indeed contagious.  But before you call Nigerians to stone me – I am being facetious.  Knowing that socializing a new bunny with a bonded pair is notoriously difficult I thought “How bad can it really be?”  Well the answer is really bad.

With the first introduction there was a big ass fight between our youngest and smallest bun and Dimitri.  Fur flew, water bowels where thrown and there were tantrums and lots of screaming.  Ok, so the screaming was done by me but you get the idea.  Consequently to the first introduction and fight there was three more introductions all of which saw me have mini nervous breakdowns and took a couple of years off my life.  I have also, in the mean time, employed several other sneaky tricks to ease them into accepting one another and the experts tell me that socializing them to the point where there are no longer fights could take anything from three weeks to eight months.

Dimitri is a gentle soul and has a very easy going personality.  He is very similar to our only male cat and I foresee that the two of them will become great friends down the line.  It took me two days to potty train Dimitri which also shows that he is super intelligent.  His favorite thing to do in the evenings is to chill with us on the couch and he loves cuddles.  This is a far cry from what he was use to.  He was kept in a chicken wire cage at an Angora breeder in which he could barely turn around.  He was only taken out of that cage to breed and to be shaved.  When he stopped eating the breeder was too stingy to take him to a vet and dumped him at a pet shop where, according to the vet, he would have died in three weeks from starvation if he wasn’t rescued.

It breaks my heart to know that there are people out there who doesn’t give a shit about animals; people who treat animals so badly that death would be preferable.  It makes my blood boil.  What I find appalling is the fact that bunnies are becoming more popular as pets.  People buy these cute little fur balls from a pet shop without knowing anything about them.  The have no clue about their diets, their health, emotional needs and what it takes to raise a happy, healthy and well rounded bunny.  Then at the first sight of problems they dump them.  My plea is that before anyone adopts or buys a pet first do your research.  Find out as much as you can about that animal and then decide if that pet will fit your lifestyle and if you will be capable and willing to care for that animal for the rest of that animal’s life.

Till next time.

Things that get my tits in a twist

I know... I know… You are going to say please just not another blog post about some kind of rant.  But I am sorry; I am going to rant because I am fucking piss off!  As most of you know I am an avid animal lover to which my ever expanding menagerie is a testament.  I love all animals.  Ok, that’s not entirely true.  I hate spiders, snakes and all worms with fur on them.  Well, technically they are insects and reptiles but apart from them I am like Noah but without a message from God or an ark.  I must also admit that I sometimes like animals more than I do people as animals have no malice, don’t start wars or are not responsible for gross violations of human rights.  This is why when animals are being abused, mistreated or neglected I lose my shit and this is exactly what happened this weekend.

You see this weekend hubby and I went to our local nursery to have a look at some plants.  In December last year hubby took out all the invader plants in our backyard and it now looks like a drag queen’s face who have been out in the rain smoking crack.  We decided to take out all the invader plants not because we had some kind of xenophobic plant attack but because the invader plants were taking over our back garden and killing all our other indigenous plants.  Invader plants are assholes like that and you should never ever trust a sword fern.  They are evil and very hard get rid off and difficult to kill!  So with our back garden looking sad and barren we decided that this weekend we will get some indigenous plants and start with our backyard’s rejuvenation.  Also, the plants that we need to buy must not look scrumptious to our bunnies and also not be poisonous to them either.  Quite a tall order I know.

When we arrived at our local nursery it was right in the middle of the heat of the day and they were busy watering their plants with their sprinkler system.  Good for the plants.  Not so good for us.  It is really difficult to do plant shopping when you are constantly being sprayed with water.  I was also wearing flip flops (don’t judge me) and I was busy getting grossed out by all the water puddles that were forming.  So I eventually told hubby that we should call it a day but first I wanted to have a look around the pet shop they have at the nursery.  This is where the problem started.

While walking around I noticed that the pet shop had their normal range of small rabbits.  All bundled into different cages separated by breed.  It wasn’t long before I spotted a bunny that looked really despondent and was kept separately in his own cage.  He was an adult French Angora rabbit and rather huge one at that.  He was sitting in his small cage with his back towards the outside; his cage littered with the feces of other animals that were there before him.  He had no hay (which is an essential part of a rabbit's diet and especially that of Angoras), no rabbit pellets but only what looked like dog food and water.  He looked depressed and when I acknowledge that I had seen him he turned to me and I could see he was also starved for interaction of any kind.  Rabbits are social animals after all.

Later that afternoon when we got home I told my husband that I cannot stop thinking about that rabbit.  Hubby also said that it upset him to see the rabbit being held in those conditions.  We then mutually decided that the next day we would rescue him.  Of course my husband’s conditions were that the rabbit had to be neutered and thoroughly get checked out by our vet to which I agreed.  On Sunday morning we returned to the pet shop.  Hubby warned me to not cause a scene or to go all PETA on their asses and that I had to be diplomatic which is sometimes hard for me as I suffer from foot-in-mouth disease.  After questioning the shop assistant about the rabbit’s history I learned that he was one year old and had belonged to a breeder who wanted to get rid of him because he was fighting with the other rabbits.  So it seems that if you are a rabbit at a breeder and if you do not behave or have served your purpose you are either killed or thrown away.  Great way to treat animals, ain’t it?

The sad part is that adult rabbits rarely get bought at pet shops or get adopted.  The general public always seems to go for the cute baby rabbits and the older ones are over looked.  The distressing reality is that when people buy bunnies as pets they know very little about them.  They don’t know what their nutritional and emotional requirements are or the fact that rabbits are high maintenance pets and are expensive to keep.  They are not suitable pets for children under the age of 8 and if you do want to keep them inside the house you need to bunny proof or else the bunny will destroy things.  When these people then wakeup to the reality that rabbits are more labor intensive than cats and dogs and more expensive to maintain they tend to want to get rid of them.  Some “set them free” and think that the rabbit will be fine.  What people don’t realize is that domesticated rabbits cannot survive in the wild and they will die.

After speaking the shop assistant and checking out the French Angora up close we were told that we would have to speak to the owner before “buying” him.  We ran into a snag and to make a long story short, if all goes well, we will be able to fetch him on Wednesday.  Only then will we be able to access his health and determine what effect having been kept by an unscrupulous breeder has had on his physical and emotional health and determine what kind of rehabilitation he may require.  Luckily our cats and bunnies are all very chilled and I am sure they will help him become the happy bunny he is destined to be, instead of an animal whose sole purpose is to breed.

I sometimes wish that all people who consider themselves to be “animal breeders” would be required to obtain a license from the SPCA to do so.  Also, I wish that the SPCA could inspect all the animal breeders to make sure that the animals are taken care of properly and that their living conditions are acceptable.  There are so much animal abuse and neglect going on in the world and I don’t understand how people keep animals if they cannot care for them.

Lastly, I also wish that people who adopt rabbits would educate themselves about these highly intelligent animals before they get them.  Animals are not your property that you own.  They are not things.  They are living creatures which you cannot just throw away when you are tired of them or when they misbehave.  When you buy or an adopt an animal that animal is your responsibility and the way you take care of and treat that animal says a lot about who you are as a human being and the respect you have for life around you.

Till next time.

I'm not denying that I'm difficult to live with.

This has been said by me innumerable times but for the sake of making sure nobody ever forgets it, I will say it again – my husband really deserves a medal for putting up with me.  I am no picnic to live with and should I have been accompanied with an instruction manual it would have come in volumes and would have read like an IKEA manual but without the illustration and it would have been printed in Chinese.  There are many ways one could sugarcoat this.  For example, I could say that I am complicated, emotionally complex and eccentric bordering on the ridiculous.  But that would just be blowing smoke up your asses.  The truth is I am one difficult bitch to live with and sometimes I do things that annoy the living hell out of my long suffering husband.  To help give you some perspective here are just a couple of my phobias, obsessions and eccentricities that drive him up the wall and why he deserves some well earned recognition.

One of the causes for my husband to be annoyed can be blamed on my OCD.  Not having to switch the lights on and off a 100 times or checking if all the doors are locked for hours at a time kind of OCD.  The type of OCD I suffer from is my germ phobia and the fact that I like routine and for things to be done in a certain way.  In this sense I am not that unlike our bunnies.  They too like routine and for things to be done a certain way and if you deviate from it they throw tantrums and are stubborn just like me.

This has caused me to hate spontaneity, to be weary of surprises and made me allergic to change of any kind.  I like things to be planned and organized or else the world will come crumbling down and we will all die.  Throw in a mild case of agoraphobia and you have the perfect storm that could kill a social life.  All of which drives my husband nuts.

You see for anyone to drag my ass out of the house for any reason other than for work or to buy life sustaining necessities is a daunting task.  I like our home and everything we need is there.  There really is no reason to leave the house other than for a natural disaster or possibly the apocalypse; even then I would be difficult about it because that too would imply impending change.  Besides, we only have one pet carrier and there is no bloody way five cats, two bunnies, a tortoise and a fish would all fit in there.  We would need a fucking Ark.  Also, do you even know how many life threatening germs are out there that could one day turn us all into Zombies?

So for us to go out is a rather big deal, but for some odd reason my husband does succeed in getting me out of the house sometimes.  We do go shopping in actual malls that are not on the internet, go to movies, visit friends, watch shows and also travel.  None of these things have killed me, yet.  But what annoys my husband is the fact that all these adventures are planned, even the “spontaneous” ones.

My OCD is not the only thing that drives hubby nuts, there also is my cooking.  I am a phenomenal cook, if I do say so myself, and I am also very talented at dirtying every single pot, pan and cooking utensil we have while I prepare a meal.  I never use the same tasting spoon twice because that’s just unhygienic.  I am also incapable of only cooking for just two people.  I blame the fact that I possibly lived through the great depression in a previous life and am now overcompensating by always cooking for an army.  So after I cooked a meal and dirtied as much as possible, I will also fill up all our Tupperware with leftovers most of which go to waste anyway. I know there are starving children in Africa. Don't judging me.

As if my OCD and cooking skills are not enough I am also a hypochondriac at the best of times.  I am a relatively healthy person apart from being allergic to the world.  Literally.  I should live in a hypoallergenic bubble.  However, when I do get an ailment I tend to self-diagnose with disastrous consequences and for this I blame WebMD and the internet in general.

I have been convinced that I was dying from exotic diseases more times than I think my husband would care to count.  In contrast there were also times I thought I was fine but was in fact dying. Like a while back when I thought I was suffering from severe constipation on an island holiday and it turned out I had double pneumonia.  There was also that time when I thought I was having a heart attack and it turned out to just be severe heartburn.  I tend to get it wrong most of the time and all the while hubby had to stand by my side through real medical emergencies and the ones that were not so real.  Even that one time I thought I was infected with the Ebola virus and nobody wanted to believe me.  It would frustrate most people.

And then there are the animals, as you all know I love animals and as a result not only does my husband have to share our house with a person with OCD, impeccable cooking skills and a hypochondriac, he also shares it with our ever growing menagerie.  You all should know by now about my obsessive search for a gay donkey and most recently I fell in love with another animal called an Alpacas.  They are ridiculous animals with one fabulous set of hair.  I mean really, who could resist an animal with buck teeth and a jerry curl?  The Alpacas could just possibly trump the gay donkey, and I am so getting one, just don’t tell my husband.

Hubby has threatened that if I get one more animal that we need to buy a farm.  So in response to his threat, now every time I go to the pet shop to buy supplies I send him pictures of kittens, bunnies and reptiles.  You know, so that he is never sure what he will be coming home to that afternoon.  I know it’s cruel but I am doing this with a plan in mind:  If I desensitize him enough to the possibility of a new animal joining our zoo then when I do get the Alpacas or gay donkey he will not be that upset, although the neighbors might be.  I am aware that my obsession with our ever expanding zoo is a problem, but animals make me happy and we can’t naturally have children and God knows we try.  If Brad and Angelina can collect children then who are you to judge my animal collection?  Besides we are adopting a child and I suspect this might just cure me of my zoo obsession.  The universe works in mysterious ways.

As you can see, it is a miracle that I am not single.  Finding a person who would be prepared to put up with all this shit is very difficult and I got lucky.  Very lucky! The only real issue I think my husband has that he really wishes I would part with is my obsession with horror movies.  I scare the living shit out of him by means of the horror genre at least once a week.  I do this probably in an attempt to convince him that living with me is not as bad as being possessed by Lucifer, being tormented by entities, kept chained in a basement by a serial killer or being kidnapped by aliens.  I mean compared to that sharing your house with a zoo and a somewhat eccentric blogger who believes that the Zombie Apocalypse will happen isn’t so bad, now is it?

Till next time.

(PS:  The Zombie Apocalypse is real people.  It will happen.

PPS: And when the Zombie Apocalypse does happen, stay the fuck away from my house!  I will cut a zombie bitch.  I really will.)

Blind kitty, soft kitty, little ball of fur…

Pets are like family members.  Or at least they are to us.  We share our homes with them and our lives.  Most times we also share our hearts with them.  I mean how can you not?  They stay with us through the good times and the bad.  They see us at our best and at our worst.  Through all this they stay loyal to us and never judge us (or at least not often that is).

I believe that if you have animals you have a great responsibility towards them.  After all, they did not choose to live with you, most time we choose them.  As such we have a responsibility to them to make sure that they are safe and that their physical, mental and emotional needs are taken care of.  So what happens when one of your animals grow old and sick?  What happens when one of your furry family member’s cycle of life creeps closer to its end?  What do you do?  This is what hubby and I had to face this week and sometimes it is heartbreaking.

You see Mizou, one of our oldest cats and matriarch of the house, who just celebrated her fifteen birthday in September with her sister has lately been having some medical issues.  A couple of months ago we noticed that her eye sight was failing.  She also developed incontinence and you could see that her body was growing old.  Fifteen is old for a cat, even though some cats can live well into their early twenties.  However with each breed it is different.  Not worrying too much about some of her symptoms, due to her advanced age, hubby and I decided to monitor her and if it got worse to take her to the vet for checkups.  And she did get worse.

About a month ago we noticed that she had what looked like blood in her one eye and the vet told us that she suffered from glaucoma and hypertension.  All of which were directly related to her age.  It was sad to hear that the vet could not really do anything for her affected eye and that she had gone blind in that eye due to the optic nerve being damaged.  The vet also indicated that she only had about 20% vision left in the other eye and that, in all likelihood, she would eventually lose her vision completely.  But we did not expect it to happen so soon.

When I got back from work on Monday I heard Mizou meowing in the back garden.  I called out for her but she did not come to me as she normally does.  Eventually I made my way to her and I found her standing in the backyard looking completely lost.  It was clear that she was disorientated and did not exactly know where she was.  I picked her up and immediately noticed that the eye which had the last 20% vision left had also now gone blind.  I felt immense sadness for her and gave her a reassuring hug and told her that everything will be ok.  “So what if you are blind now, it’s not the end of the world.  You still have many years left in you and we will make the best of it” I told her and she gave me a soft purr and a meow as if she understood what I had said.

I was told that we should go about our lives as we had done before and not to change anything.  Mizou will adjust to her blindness but it will take some time.  She will learn to make her way through the house based on her other senses and memory.  The only thing that we must not do is move furniture around or change where we feed her.  We should also move one of the litter boxes inside the house as she will struggle getting in and out of windows.  Watching her slowly move through the house, occasionally bumping into things is rather sad to watch.  We are not allowed to help her too much as she will have to learn to get around on her own.  Sometimes this is difficult and I literally have to stop myself.

It was advised that we voice train her and she picked this up right away.  Being guided by our voices seems to come naturally to her.  The other cats have not really noticed that Mizou has gone blind and they appear to be somewhat confused about what is going on with her.  The bunnies on the other hand were the first to pick up that Mizou is blind.  They no longer try and chase her and they are much gentler when they are around her than they were before.

My only concern with Mizou and her disability is how she will cope outside.  On Friday evening she almost walked straight into the pool and that was when she had 20% vision left.  Now that she is completely blind the garden poses quite a few risks for her, the pool and the pool net being just one of them.  Also, when our adoption is finalized and we finally have a baby in the house this will also have an impact on her: the pool will be covered with a net which could make it impossible for her to get out of the pool if she falls in being blind; and a baby won’t understand what blindness is and Mizou could accidentally get injured.  I guess there are a lot of “what ifs” here but I am sure that we will cope.

Good friends of ours also went through a traumatic event on Monday.  Their dog also went blind a couple of months ago due to a medical condition.  On Monday his condition deteriorated to the point where the vet told them there was nothing more that could be done for him and that it is recommended that he be euthanized.  This is the most awful news a vet can ever give you.  But it was what was best for him and they had to say goodbye.  I am fortunate that I have never had to euthanize any of my animals and I dread the day that I will be told it is our last option.  I’d rather pay a shit load of money on medical expenses in order to make sure my animals get the best medical attention there is and euthanasia is only the last resort.  But sometimes we must make hard decisions and what is best is not always easy to do.

Our cat has gone blind, has no bladder control and is old.  I guess this is what happens when you get old – you pee yourself and walk into things.  She has been in our lives for the last fifteen years and she loves us unconditionally as we do her.  I don’t know how many years she will still be with us but as longs as she is here I am going to make sure that her retirement is as comfortable as possible.  Just because she is blind and possibly may need a kitty diaper doesn’t mean that she cannot enjoy life.  I hope that one day when hubby and I are in the retirement home we will be afforded the same courtesy.  Wouldn’t you?

Till next time.

My Cat from Hell.

Let me tell you a secret.  Some days I am terrified of my cats.  They are vengeful little fucks who always find new innovative ways to take years of my overall life expectancy.  Don’t be fooled by their fury cute exterior, inside they hold grudges and plot evil little plans for payback.  And with payback I mean creating situations that could be lethal for you.  But the vengeful little pussies are bright bastards too.  You see, they know exactly what plausible deniability means.  Hence, they create potential deadly scenarios for us that could never be directly traced back to them.  So if your neighbors find you dead and decomposing on the floor it will always look like you had an "accident".  A few weeks ago Killer Pussy and her clowder coordinated just such a plot and it caused us 14 hours of unadulterated terror.

That Sunday night started out like any other.  The weekend was winding down and hubby and I were relaxing on the couch watching movies.  The fortress was locked and armed and we felt pretty safe and secure.  The bunnies were merely hopping around doing their best to be cute and all felt fine and right in the world.  At around 9pm I realized that none of the five cats were around and there was some commotion going on at our front door.  On closer inspection I saw what the upheaval was about and that was when our nice and relaxing Sunday evening took a turn for the worst.

All five cats were sitting outside the glass front door playing, or so it seemed, with something.  And that something was a fucking snake!  In this world there are only two living things that I have no problem having killed, and those two things are snakes and spiders.  I am utterly terrified of both!  Living in the suburbs a snake in our yard was the absolute last thing I ever would have expected to find. Especially not a Rinkhals Spitting Cobra!  But that was exactly what Killer Pussy and her minions found and now were throwing around in front of my front door.  The fact that they were playing with a venomous snake that could kill us all was mortifying.  But at least there was a barrier between me and the snake, I thought, and that caused me some comfort.  But that comfort would soon be vaporized!

My cats know my worst fears and unfortunately for me they like to exploit it and scare the living shit out of me.  So naturally they brought the snake inside the house.  This involved some screaming.  Well, actually it involved  A LOT of screaming! The cobra was lying on the floor in our living room and we were standing on the couch screaming our lungs out “Take that fucking thing outside.  For fuck sake KILL IT!  KILL IT NOW!”  I swear that I could hear Killer Pussy laughing over our screaming.  After a few minutes, that felt like an eternity I might add, the snake finally appeared to be dead.  I mustered up all the courage I had to go and pick the ungodly creature up with my bare hands because I was suffering from PTSD and wasn't thinking clearly.  In retrospect I could have died but clearly didn't because I am writing this.  By now the snake was limp and seemed to have died.  I took a plastic bag, put Satan’s serpent in it and then tied it closed and placed the abomination into the kitchen dustbin.  I then went to the bathroom to compose myself seeing as I looked and sounded like an insane asylum escapee. I mean really you guys, I picked up a snake with my bare hands.  Sane people don't do things like that and they also don't whisper "oh god have mercy" ten billion times while doing so.

After the snake was out of sight and dead we finished watching the movie and then went to bed.  The next morning hubby asked me where I had thrown away the snake.  I told him in the kitchen dustbin.  He looked at me like I just raped the Virgin Mary.  The snake was dead and I failed to understand why he seemed mad at me.  Then it happened and I understood exactly what he meant.  Hubby came running screaming out of the kitchen “Oh. Dear. God.  IT”S NOT DEAD!”  He screamed.  I screamed.  Everybody screamed!  For a brief moment I considered leaving the house with only my PJ’s on my back and never returning.  Then I realized how crazy that would be and then my life flashed in front of my eyes.  In that moment I also realized that my life is pretty boring and made a mental note to be a more interesting person from 2014 onward.  Then the adrenalin kicked in and I rushed into fight-or-flight mode.

The rational side of my brain started working at light speed.  I ran outside grabbed the BBQ thongs yelled at hubby to get a spade and then I had a standoff with the spitting cobra.  There was no time to grab my diving mask to protect my eye and I decided that should that asshole spit at me I will make it suffer.  A very delicate and intricate dance between me and the cobra followed.  After several failed attempts to grab it with the tongs I finally got it.  It was the most disgusting experience of my life!  Also, I peed myself a little.  As the fucker was squirming and curling around the tongs it felt like my skin was literally crawling and I had to concentrate very hard not to throw the thong as far away from me as I could.  I managed to take it outside and I fucking Quentin Tarantino’d its ass with a spade.  This time I made damn sure it was indeed dead!  Like in four pieces dead!

I hacked the snake into four pieces in a primal and very violent cathartic manner.  All the while the cats were watching me kill it and Killer Pussy gave me that look that says “Don’t fuck with me again.”  Till today I am not sure what I did to piss her off.  More concerning, however, is the fact that I have no idea where she got the snake.  And you know what they say, if there is one there probably are more.  This has caused me to be very cautious when walking in our garden.  Also seeing that we are not going away for the holiday in December and staying home, I view Killer Pussy’s action as cruel and unusually harsh punishment.  I mean summer just started and most of the snakes will now have come out of hibernation.  Cats really are assholes and I really don't like being threatened with snakes.  My bladder can't stand it!

(You can Like Killer Pussy's Facebook Fan Page by clicking HERE).

Till next time.

Adoption and a Kleptomaniac Cat.

I am glad to report that I don’t think we have driven our social worker insane just yet (she might beg to differ).  Being overachievers with most aspects in our lives, in this life event we are no different.  Like I wrote before, everything has now been done and dusted for phase I of the adoption process and we are now eagerly waiting for phase II to start.  Also, not being the most patient people on this rock we call earth the waiting has been somewhat, how do I put it, torturous.  Not having gone through this particular process before I did take some time to get to know some people who have. With some of the conversation I had I have come to the conclusion that the adoption process is specifically designed to test not only your true determination to have a child but also your emotional and psychological readiness to have one.  Let me explain…

Even before we met with our adoption agency hubby and I did our research.  We wanted to make sure we choose the best possible one and that we would not be turned away because we are a homosexual couple.  Luckily, one of our friends had recently adopted through PROCARE and I could not find anything negative about them on the Internet.  So by the time we actually had our first meeting with them we knew exactly what documents we would need and we had an idea what to expect.  At our first meeting we had 90% of all the documents that were required and after that meeting we also made sure we had the necessary funds to pay for the whole process and prepare for the baby.  The adoption process is not cheap.  What we did not count on was that there would be long waiting period between phase 1 and phase II.  We thought that because we were proactive and organized that this would also expedite the red tape part that is the screening phase.  But we were wrong.

We have found that after you have finished everything that is under your control you end up waiting for the next phase to begin.  During this period you also have some time to think and reflect on what you are actually busy with and it is then when all those questions and doubts start swarming through your mind.  Questions like:  Are we really ready for this?  What if we suck at being parents?  Our lives are about to take a 180 degree turn, are we ready for all the sacrifices that we will have to make?  Can we really afford to raise a child?  What if our baby does not bond with us?  What if we finish the screening and no birthmother chooses us?  What if we encounter discrimination because not only are we gay but we also have a child from a different race?  And the “what if’s” goes on and on and on…  Both of us even ended up dreaming about it.

You can sit around and ask yourself a thousand questions, and I promise you we did.  But in the end we did realize that even though we are, at times, petrified (which we heard was totally normal) we are just as excited and determined to have a child as ever, even if our lives are under a microscope and our future family is in the hands of strangers.  It’s natural to have some self-doubt especially when you are going to be a first time parent to a baby but hey, that’s why there are Google, prenatal/postnatal classes and family.  Between these three you are bound to get some great advice.  I am looking into booking some postnatal classes for hubby and I to go to.  Both of us know how to change a nappy and the correct way to bath a baby but getting a refresher course and also some baby CPR training cannot do any harm.  Besides I think all future parents should attend these types of classes.  Also, seeing as phase II of the adoption process is out of our control we also decided to start focusing on more tangible things, like the nursery.

Some people think we are mad for having started with the nursery so soon but I think it has helped us tremendously with the psychological preparation and with the waiting.  We have done some shopping around and about two weeks ago we bought a cot, compactum, rocking chair and curtains.  All of which are being delivered this weekend except the curtains, which we have already put up.  We are slowly getting the nursery ready, with the emphasis on slowly.  Our cats have also caught wind that something is going on and that it relates to the guest bedroom which we are now converting into a nursery.  Some of them are more perturbed by this than the others and their ways of acting out I also found rather queer.

Last weekend hubby and I decided to put up the curtains in the nursery.  Naturally all our cats came to observe, mostly because I think they expected one of us to fall off a ladder and planned on having a good laugh at our expense.  Unfortunately for them that did not happen.  We spent a good half an hour making sure that the curtain railing was level.  Hubby measured.  Re-measured and finally committed to drill the necessary holes.  It resulted in some foul language and several four letter words.  You see the bricks the builders used on that wall apparently were not of the best quality and hubby had an extremely difficult time which he freely vocalized.  Eventually the railing was up but then we realized something was not quite right.  The railing did not look level.  Then we realized the wall was skew which opened up a whole OCD can of worms.

To the eye the railing was not level so we had a choice:  We can adjust the railing to “look level” and live with curtains that wasn’t OR we could leave the railing looking skew (but know that it wasn’t) and also have the curtains hanging level.  This seemed like a choice made up by the devil and where nobody wins.  Eventually we decided that we knew the railing was level and left it the way it was.  In the mean time one of our cats decided to start acting out by starting to steal things from the neighbors and leaving it on our bed.  He clearly knows something is up and feels threatened in some way, and in cat language bringing us gifts that are not dripping with blood and guts will win him favor with us.

About two weeks ago our cat started leaving innocuous items on our bed.  Mostly gardening accessories.  At first I thought nothing of it and just thought it was stuff that he picked up in our garden and was playing with.  But as the items started getting bigger and looking less familiar I realized it wasn’t any of our stuff.  Some of the latest items he stole from the neighbor(s) were a garden hose spray nozzle, small gardening fork, a bra (which clearly was not ours), socks, a glove and a Barbie doll’s arm.  The problem is that I don’t know how to give these items back to the neighbor(s) without having to explain to them how I ended up with them.  So I just threw them back into their yard hoping that if it’s not theirs that they would think their pets are kleptomaniacs and not suspect ours.  Not the best solution, I know, but I don’t know of any cat psychologists in my area or how to explain to my neighbor(s) that our cat is the neighborhood thief.  I mean we raised him to know better! Don’t judge me!

So not only are we stressing about the adoptions our animals are also sensing something big is about to happen and are misbehaving accordingly.  I am not sure exactly how long the adoption process is still going to take or how long it will be until we start with and complete phase II, but in the mean time we are preparing as best we can.  This is an exciting, frustrating, emotional and harrowing time on so many different levels, as it should be.  After all this is no small step to take or decision to make.  We are taking it each day at a time, some feel longer than others, but we know that we will get there in the end.  Also, I think our cat might end up on cat Prozac.

To follow our progress with regards to our adoption just click on #adoption to read all about it.

Till next time.