An aside about cats, poop and toxoplasmosis.

Kittens!! Cute or evil disease carriers? According to my doctor, these babies kill babies.

On that first visit with my ob/gyn she said there were no tests to run except toxoplasmosis, a parasitic disease often blamed on cats that is more likely to be spread through raw meat and fecal contamination on people’s hands. Oh and from now on, she said, I’m not allowed to touch my cats.

Hold the phone. Not touch them? At all?

Cat Scratching Fever

No, this is not a blog about cats. But, our cats are doing quite well, thanks!

See? They get along splendidly now.

Too bad about that eye, this would have been a cute shot.

If you don’t want to hear anymore about what they’ve destroyed or how much UPS is making off of my deliveries for products to keep them happy and our apartment in order,  stop here.

(And maybe just look at a kitten! picture. Eeeh! The cuteness hurts my teeth.)

And The Fur Flies…

Things are a bit off schedule over here in Nberg. I got the news last week that a deadline that has been moved 5 weeks forward. This means there’s a grindstone over here and my nose is not far from it. Looking in my WordPress account you’d see ‘Draft’, ‘Draft’, ‘Draft’. There’s stuff to say, but I first have to say it for the guy that pays me.

Meanwhile the cats are amusing themselves, perhaps a wee bit too much.

Scarlett is in heat.

It’s not going to get very far with Fergus, but not for a lack of trying. We keep discovering them in rooms doing things that are comical, if not productive. The best one so far is the one where she lays on her side, purring and cooing and he stands on top of her and does this dance by stepping from one paw to the other, his full weight pressing down. Fergus is about four times her body weight but she doesn’t seem to care right now. He seems to know that these are stolen moments because every time we come across them he gives us this guilt-ridden furtive look, wracking his brain for alibis.

Then there’s the chasing and tussling about. The fur is literally flying. At first I couldn’t understand why all of a sudden there were clouds and tumbleweeds of hair everywhere. Then I realized that the all night flirt sessions have consequences. Scarlett has noticeable hair loss on her belly, probably from his step dance.

Yesterday, I did an online research on Roombas.

Kitten update – Not so fast

We had a few bumps in the road today on the road to Well-ville for Scarlett, although it looks like things will be ok. I’m very sensitive to not overdoing it with the cat talk here. With home office half the week meaning I spend even less time around the two-leggeds, I get a little paranoid that I could turn into a crazy cat lady. I certainly talk to them more often now that I’m home so much, but you know…we’ve grown so close, I feel they really understand me.

You know what I mean? Fergus? Are you reading? Toss me a comment now and then!

But seriously, aside from my occasional concern about my sanity, the cats are benefiting by my presence.

Kitten Update – Test passed

Little Scarlett has passed her blood tests with flying colors. No major communicable diseases means I can introduce her to our cat Fergus.

This is a relief. Each night Fergus has been trying out a new love song on her to try and get her to come and play. This has meant many interruptions in our sleep patterns for the past week.

These last few nights have found him shut in the living room, two doors away. I can’t hear him, but I bet the neighbors can.

Ideally I’d prefer to wait until the worming meds have taken effect to prevent another incident like the last time we brought a kitten with baggage into our home. But although little Scarlett has dutifully been gobbling her doses coated in leberwürst, Fergus is a tougher case. He’s never been a friend to pills and has never been one to be easily fooled by bribes or slight of hand. A pill is a pill even when crushed and mixed with otherwise yummy stuff and he’s having none of it.

A funny thing happened as we were leaving Austria

Two weeks of winter vacation in the Carinthian Alps resulted this year in a bit more than good times and an extra few kilos.

…a stowaway, hopefully without too much baggage of her own.

How Fergus Learned That Life Has Its Ups and Downs and I get to go to IKEA

Setting: It’s Friday. I’m in my cleaning clothes, not cleaning, but doing email and reading the Internet, because that’s more fun.

As I am innocently finishing an email, when – *bang* - I hear the crash of something small-ish in the living room. Wanting to finish my email I very effectively yell at my cat Fergus from the other side of the apartment to “cut that shit out, whatever it is he’s doing”.

Silence.

I continue to finish my email. Three minutes later – **!!KA-BLANG!!** – there is a HUGE crash from the living room and I jump out of my chair yelling jesusfuckingchristwhatthefuckisthatgoddamit as I run into the hallway just in time to see a bristle-brush orange tail exiting the living room at top speed and whipping through the doorway into our bedroom, claws scrabbling across the tiles in a hopeless attempt for more speed.

I walk into the living room and the first thing I see is this:

There’s a story in that first sentence.

{my email to Oliver about five minutes ago}

Fergus is fine but we’re going to need to do some home repairs this weekend.

{his reply 13 minutes later}

???

{my reply}

I think I will write about it on my blog. This will make the whole thing more amusing. OH isn’t this FUN!