Thanks, you guys, for your suggestions yesterday. I hope none of you were offended by my suggested use of “The Micks” as a name to call Maura’s litter; I didn’t intend to offend anyone. I always thought the term came from the fact that so many Irish surnames start with “Mc”, but after reading further, I realized it ain’t necessarily so.
In any case, I’ve decided to go with “The McMaos,” as suggested by Ms. Darkstar. KarmaCat suggested I go with O’Malley as a surname, pointed out that that would make Maura’s initials MOM, and I was going to go with that ’til Ms. Darkstar popped in with McMao. Which just cracks me up every time I say it out loud!
Other suggestions I liked included “The Shamrocks”, “The Clovers”, “The Hooligans,” and “The Lucky Charms.”
Also, as a correction to my entry yesterday, I got an email from the shelter manager regarding spaying pregnant cats:
Yes, we do spay pregnant cats and yes we have spayed them right up pretty close to term. Every spring we get call after call about pregnant cats. Although we do spay many of them, most of us hate to. So early in the “season” the first couple pregnant cats we take are left to have their babies. When foster homes are full and there is no more space available then it becomes necessary to spay them while they are pregnant.
After I posted yesterday’s entry, I realized that there was just no way all the shelters in this area could hold all the pregnant cats and their litters – it’s not possible, given how many people don’t spay and neuter their cats.
Which is to say – SPAY AND NEUTER YOUR DOGS AND CATS, PEOPLE, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.
(I knew y’all knew that – I just had to say.)
Okay, sit down. Are you sitting? (Or were you standing over your computer reading this quickly because if you’re not sitting down, you’re not really on the computer? I do that, too, especially when Fred’s all annoyed because he wants to watch something on TV and I can’t tear myself away from my computer. “I just have to check this real quick, I’ll be right there, I’M NOT SITTING DOWN THEREFORE I AM NOT ON MY COMPUTER!”)
So, sit down.
On Monday, I was talking to Fred on the phone, and he said “I have to read you this email from Bob. You’re not going to like it.”
“Oh god,” I said. “What?”
Bob is the guy who spotted Mike, Gus, Veruca and Violet outside his office window back in October. Who called Fred and told him, which made Fred go running over with a box to rescue that awesome litter and bring them home to me.
::Sigh:: I miss Mike and Gus!
Anyway, the email said, in short “There are more kittens over here. I saw the mother cat briefly, but haven’t seen her since I spotted the kittens.”
“I hate him,” I said to Fred.
We discussed and dithered and discussed some more. The thing is, we wanted to try to trap the mother cat so we could get her spayed and either find her a home or release her to go forth and bring no more babies into the world. But if Fred went and took the kittens right then, the mother cat wasn’t going to keep coming around. I made Fred call the shelter manager and ask for her advice. Her advice was to leave the kittens, bring the trap to work with him the next morning, and set it up using mackerel as bait. We have a Havahart trap which we’ve actually never successfully used before. (Something was getting into the garden, I think, and Fred was trying to trap it, but it never caught anything, and thank god for that!)
So yesterday morning, Fred set up the trap (he gets to work before it’s light out), and went back to check on it during the day a couple of times. He couldn’t set the trap up where the kittens were, since they were under low-to-the-ground Holly bushes, so he set it up nearby. When he left work at 3:00, there was nothing in the trap. He rebaited the trap with fresh mackerel, and then the first kitten came running out from under the bushes to greet him.
He picked it up and pushed it back under the bushes, and it ran right back out with another kitten behind it. The kittens refused to stay put under the bushes and he was worried that they’d wander into the parking lot and get hurt, so he decided to bring them home.
Is it weird that I was just a tiny bit disappointed that none of them look anything like Gus or Mike?
I believe they’re about a month old. They are SUPER healthy looking and acting, just like the Wonkas were. They’re at that age when they’re on the cusp of everything – just about ready to eat solid food, just about ready to use the litter box, just about to figure out that whole “playing” thing. Only one of them is the tiniest bit timid, but they’re very friendly. Oh, and all four of them are boys. I’ve never had an all-boy litter before! All girls, yes, but never all boys. First time for everything, I suppose.
Pardon the crappy pictures – I hope to get more later today.
The super friendliest of the bunch.
The one on the right is the slightly timid one – but even he was climbing up into my lap this morning.
Checkin’ out one of the litter boxes.
Fred’s in charge of naming this bunch. He suggested a few possibilities, but he’s still thinking about it.
Still no babies from Maura today. I had kind of hoped she’d birth those babies on St. Patrick’s Day – I swear, every single time I go into the room, she’s gotten visibly larger – but I’m not going to hold my breath.
“That is not a baby head, that is a rib.”
“That’s my liver, dummy.”
“Annnnd that’s my spleen. Now that we know all my internal organs are intact, is it time for a snack?”
Newt had us worried. He disappeared for five days (for those who don’t know, Maxi and Newt are our free-roaming cats. They came “with” the house, were originally supposed to belong to a neighbor, but decided they liked us better. We say they’re not OUR cats, but even we don’t believe that anymore. They spend a lot of time in our house, but basically come and go at will.). Maxi’s disappeared for a few days before, but Newt never has. When it had been three days, Fred started assuming that Newt had shuffled off to Buffalo (I’m sorry, I just laughed out loud after I typed that. It’s the height of dorkiness to laugh at your own joke, I know, but I can’t help it).
This morning, Newt was casually waiting at the door to be let in and fed. He’s perfectly fine. I guess it being Spring (at least by the calendar, though the temperature sure doesn’t make it feel very Springlike), he decided it was time to go walkabout.
Previously
2009: Just imagine a great big bald head with Fred’s face on it, and you’ll get the picture.
2008: Guess who flew to Pennsylvania so she could eat cupcakes with Nance and Rick, snuggle the cutest dog on Earth, and reunite with Maddy?
2007: No entry.
2006: everyone’s Irish today, right?
2005: Guess it must run in the family.
2004: The cats are on my fucking NERVES.
2003: You KNOW you’re fascinated!
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry.
2000: The Big Butt Fairy visits us every year though. Just like clockwork.