The blog lately has been mostly about kittens and this post is not going to stop the trend. (Things are pretty good right now; we've been working on the house and through episodes of The Wire on Netflix, I've been working on a story revision, and we have new gutters to go with the new roof, just in time for snow. On a sad/happy note, we are not going to be at Wiscon next year because Alan's sister is getting married that weekend in California.)

Foster Kitten Update: Lodi and Noni went back to the shelter on Monday for an exam before surgery, then came home again for one last night because we were out of space in the kitten room. Both had surgery on Tuesday and spent the rest of the day curled up together in the litterbox in their cage. The next day, Noni was back to her old self and Lodi was still a little scared. Noni was adopted that day by someone who had lost a cat recently that looked exactly like her. We see adoptions like that quite frequently and also people are looking for an animal just like their old pet personality-wise. While I've loved all my past pets, most of mine have come to me through serendipitous accidents, so, the idea of trying to find one just like an old one is a little foreign to me. Obviously, replacing a pet with a duplicate is not going to happen (at least until cloning is more common) since everyone is going to be a little different, but it's nice to see people so attached they want to try. Anyway, Lodi was still at the shelter this afternoon when I left but was doing much better and soliciting attention, so I'm hoping she'll be adopted tonight or tomorrow. I found out that she has the same talent I'd noticed before in Noni--they can both stand on their hind legs for quite a long time with any other support. Noni always did it in front of the TV stand where she studied her reflection, thinking it was another cat. They are both such beautiful cats and have totally won me over to the idea of long-haired kitties.

I brought Sidney home because her littermate was handlable right away and had already been adopted. Sidney came around in time for an exam but completely freaked out when they tried to take her to surgery, so I brought her home for some socialization. She's black and little and round both in her face and body. She hisses everytime you pick her up but then settles in to purr and snuggle. I was hoping to work with her just a week or so before bringing her back for surgeyr but that will depend on how quickly I can catch her in the basement. We still have about 1/4 of the basement filled with my grandma's stuff, so there are plenty of places to hide.