Shop Kitty resides in one of the stores on our town square, a resident since kittenhood. The owners leave her there every weekend after they close up shop on Saturday and she spends her Sundays in the window, alternating napping with watching the occasional pedestrian.

When she was a baby, she used to cry and paw at the window when anyone would stop to window shop. It bothered me that someone would leave a kitten all alone every weekend instead of taking her home to curl up at the foot of the bed and then return to work with them on a Monday morning. What kind of a life is that for an animal to be locked in a shop by themselves for long days?

I thought more than once about confronting the owners and asking them if they knew how their kitten cried for attention every Sunday. But I didn’t. Instead I stopped shopping there and eventually took another route on my walks so I wouldn’t see the poor lonely thing.

Now that Shop Kitty is older she’s accepted she’s not going to be rescued. She ignores passersby, barely acknowledging my presence today, opening one eye before going back to her catnap in the sun.

And I still don’t shop there.

~~

I finally joined the 21st century and bought a smart phone. I think the “smart” goes in front of  “-aleck”. At some point in the message system, it says something like “You haven’t used me in a while. Why don’t you call someone now?” I’ve seen the message a couple times but can’t find it now because the phone is still smarter than I am. Like it’s graduated high school and I’m a doofus 8th grader. I can make a call with it and shoot a picture but  I haven’t figured out how to open an attachment and can’t figure out how — or if I want  –to sync with my computer. And the touch screen keyboard? Horrible, terrible, not so hot, very bad idea. Fortunately the model I bought has a hard keyboard so I can hunt and peck my way through short emails and text messages.

The picture above? Taken with the smart phone, emailed to myself and except for resizing and sharpening it a little, I didn’t do any editing. So you know what that means? My phone is smart enough to tell me that my 7-year-old camera really has outlived itself because it never would have taken a shot this good. (Hard to see once I reduced it but it was excellent.)

And buying a new camera may just make me regress to kindergarten. Ugh.

And just so you know it’s a Droid, almost wavered and bought an iPhone but I find my attitude towards Jobs/Apple is undergoing a change and I’m not sure I’m comfortable with Apple anymore. Although they make sexy toys the attitude is too much to take.

~~

Work has exploded but fortunately it should be for just another few days and this special project will be behind us and I can go back to being busy, but not crazy-town busy. I did have a pseudo performance review (I get a pass on the real one for the first year) in which I was told very nicely “If you qualified, we’d give you a bonus and a promotion, but you don’t qualify yet, so, um, thanks and keep up the good work.”  Sigh.

~~

Next weekend is the Fiber Retreat and I’ve started preparing. I dusted off the spinning wheel and then laid in provisions for the trip: a bottle of tequila, margarita mix, limes, and plenty of snacks. I already have the salt. Now I need to see if the hand blender can make a slushy margarita. If not, we’ll rough it and drink them on the rocks. Still need to throw some socks in a suitcase and I’m ready to go.

~~

And now it’s time to gather up all the odds and ends thrown all over the house this weekend and get prepared for another week on the merry-go-round. Have a good one chickadees.

Which of course I knew.

But hearing it spelled out by a vet whose integrity and competence I trust made me reluctantly agree to do the responsible thing.

Teddy was euthanized this morning.

The vet estimates he was about 5 years old. I’ve been feeding him for 18 months. How he survived before that I don’t know but the only thing he was afraid of was humans. Turns out he was right.

Sometimes being responsible sucks.

The first of the Black Cherry tomatoes are ripening on the deck. We’re having grilled chicken salad for dinner tonight and tomatoes will be a star player.  Yum!

Teddy Update

Teddy has been cooperating reluctantly with entering the trap to eat his wet food. Last night he turned his back on the whole thing and pouted for an hour — it might have looked like he was sleeping but I can tell when a cat is pissed off.  There’s something about the angle of the ears that expresses disgust so eloquently.

I finally put a small amount of dry food near the door that he could eat while checking out the aroma of the wet stuff.  It also helped that I upgraded the bait to the expensive canned chicken in sauce that he craves. I’d say that I’m winning but with cats you never know.

Tonight the food gets moved further inside the trap. The evil plan progresses….

I’ve mentioned before that I’ve been feeding a stray cat for about 18 months. Teddy first showed up in the middle of winter, skinny and starving. Completely feral, no matter how hungry he was, I couldn’t approach him. In the past, I’ve chased away stray cats, fearful of disease spreading to our two house cats. But I was a sucker for a coal-black cat living outside in 10-degrees-below-zero temperatures. He became an adjunct to our household.

There’s been an adjustment period while the cats sorted out the pecking order. Teddy considers Cleo his harem (she’s spayed); she’s not convinced but there is a reluctant attraction.

Gus (neutered) didn’t roll over so easily and put up a brave effort to maintain dominance. After a few scrapes in which it was clear he didn’t have the cajones that Teddy does, he’s accepted his second-hand status with much resentment. Now, they each mostly pretend the other doesn’t exist.

There are boundaries. Teddy is only welcomed on one deck which I re-enforce by feeding him there.  I figure our cats have the right to parts of the outdoors where they don’t have to deal with his presence.

All three cats keep their triangulated distance but in the summer they’ll sleepily share an afternoon on a warm deck. The house cats keep one eye open to make sure Teddy doesn’t make an unexpected move while his eye is on the lookout for humans.

This summer I’ve noticed he’s a little less cautious around me. I can now put his food bowls down within two feet before he’ll back off. There’s hissing involved but no move to attack.  I respect the damage his claws and teeth could do so I wouldn’t dream of trying to touch him.

Overall Teddy’s made himself as much at home as I expect he’ll ever be.

So that’s where it stood until this week. Teddy has been looking a little ragged around the edges. His formerly sleek fur is matted in spots and he has constant drainage from his eyes, a sign that something isn’t right. He needs checking by a vet.

Last summer I tried trapping him without any success. I was timid and afraid to let him go hungry.  This time, realizing that life doesn’t always have a happy ending, I’ve decided to be more aggressive. So a humane trap was purchased, assembled and added to the feeding area on the deck.

For now, the door is braced open and food is placed partially inside. Every day this week I’ll move it further into the cage. Teddy can eat it and then leave the cage. But that’s the only food he’ll get.

I started this morning by placing a small amount of dry food outside the cage and his favorite wet food far enough inside that he would have to put his front paws in the cage to eat it. The dry food got gobbled up, he sniffed the wet food and came to sit by the kitchen door waiting for me to make things right.

There was a 2-hour battle of wills. He flopped on the deck, feigning sleep. He rubbed against the door. He went back and checked the empty dry food bowl. He peered in the cage. He curled up in a ball, with the tip of his tail beating time on the deck. He watched me through the door to see if I was coming to feed him.

He waited.

It was a draw. He left without eating the food, but I didn’t cave like last year.

Tonight there won’t be any dry food until he eats the wet food. The same thing tomorrow, only the wet food will be further inside the cage. By next week I hope  we’ve made enough progress so that he’ll go all the way into the cage to eat, at which point I’ll remove the door brace.

Success this time depends upon me keeping my big girl panties hitched up.

Stay tuned for the battle.

(The quality of all the pictures is off because they were taken through the kitchen door; a camera makes Teddy disappear quicker than a dollar bill in a yarn shop.)

Teddy plotting revenge, three stories up, after a scolding.

Teddy is a feral tom I’ve been feeding for almost a year.  He’s fearsome with his golden eyes and coal black fur. I don’t know where he sleeps, although I know he found a temporary burrow under part of the house that’s nearest the dryer vent and I’ve created some shelter for him in another area. He appears to be surviving OK so I’m guessing he has a way to get in out of the cold.

He shows up to be fed in all kinds of weather, including this week’s bone-chilling temps and 2 feet of snow.  I know he’s getting fat on what I’m feeding him, so once the warmer weather returns, I’ll put him on a diet. Right now, I feed all he’ll eat.

Even after a year, he won’t let me near him.  He maintains a cold war detente with our cats, with Cleo occasionally showing a little too much sympathy for the enemy. I realize the situation isn’t the best for anybody. I’m knowingly exposing the cats to any diseases he might carry and he and Gus had more than one skirmish before the pecking order was resolved.  Gus lost. What would you expect from a pampered momma’s boy?

I tried trapping Teddy this fall so he could visit our friendly neighborhood vet for testing and a little snip and clip. He somehow managed to eat the food without springing the trap more than once. After three weeks the local shelter wanted their trap back so I’ll try again in the spring and assuming he’s healthy (which I have my doubts about), I’ll continue to feed the ungrateful little bastard.

For now, I watch for Teddy, looking to see he’s doing OK. I put his food on a scrap of rug on the deck so he can get off the cold wet wood while he eats. And I turn on the weather channel to see how many more days before the temperatures are above freezing and he’s in less danger.

Soon now.

November’s sun is low in the sky but it’s still good for a noon time nap.

I do believe today was the nicest fall day we’ve had this year. It made it to 72 with little wind and lots of sun.  A welcome contrast to the last month of cold and rain. A perfect afternoon to spend doing garden clean-up. I didn’t have the heart to cut back the cleome yet. It’s still blooming, although a little less vibrantly than a month ago. I’ll let it go until the first frost gets it.

I know Hallowe’en was yesterday because the calendar said so but otherwise it was just another day around here. In all the years we’ve lived here I think we’ve only had kids stop by once. That doesn’t mean we weren’t prepared. But alas, no goblins or ghouls made their way to our door so we’ll have to eat the Hallowe’en candy ourselves. It’s a sacrifice but I’ll suck it up.

Geri and Joe (sister and brother-in-law) were in town this week so we took them around to see some of the sights in between the rain drops. Yesterday was nice enough that we could spend the afternoon at Weston Bend State Park scuffing through the leaves and walking through the woods. It was fun having them here but I wish the weather had cooperated better.

The temp assignment is winding down, I expect I’ll only be there for another week or two. Tomorrow I’ll see what the agency has to say about future assignments; I’ve gotten used to earning a paycheck again.

There’s been some knitting going on; I’m behind in showing off what I’ve gotten done this year.  I’m trying to clean up projects so that I can start next year with new yarns to play with. One project that won’t be done is the socka socka blanket, by my calculations it’s only a third finished. Another four feet of knitting to go.

There are cats underfoot and there won’t be any peace until I give them attention so until next time….

It’s been one of those weeks already.

I’ll be back tomorrow.

Maybe.

Petting me iz moar important than ur blog

What do you do when there’s a creature on your lap who objects when you reach over/around/under him to use the keyboard?

Discover the onscreen keyboard.

Mouse-click typing at its slowest.