Happy October

Man, time flies when I'm ignoring the internet. Didn't realize it had been so long since my last post.

I have a new floater in my eye. Left eye. Actually, this might be the first floater in my eye. No, I have a few tiny dust mote looking things in my eyes that I see occasionally. This one looks like a long fine cat hair, the kind of cat hair I find all over my house anyway, thanks to Smudge. Can cat hair be so ubiquitous it gets into one's eyeball? It's slightly left of center of my vision in my left eye. It wiggles occasionally, sometimes looking like a long legged spider, sometimes like a knot. It's very distracting. I called the eye doctor's office today, asked the nice lady on the phone if this was something I should be concerned about. She said "I'm not a doctor, but if it was me, I'd get it checked out." It's time for my complete checkup anyway, and she was able to get me in to see my doctor tomorrow morning, so there you have it. If it's anything critical, I'll be sure to post an update. If it's nothing to worry about, you probably won't hear from me about it.

Guess what!? Twitch got two jobs today! Both in food service. I don't know what he'll be doing. Working at Five Guys I guess he'll probably make sandwiches or whatever it is they serve there. The other place, and I can't remember the name of it, is a nice full service restaurant. Perhaps he's cooking or washing dishes. Personally I think it would be a bad idea for him to start out as a server. He's not much of a people person. I could be wrong, though. I hope he finds much success and makes a bunch of money.

Speaking of not being a people person, me. I was able to stay home four out of five days last week. Stayed home yesterday... wait, no I didn't. Went to Waffle House with Superman for breakfast then did a quick shopping trip to the grocery store. Was home shortly after 9, and stayed home the rest of the day. I was supposed to see my therapist this noon, but took a morning nap and overslept. OK, to be honest, I sort of did that on purpose. Not that I don't like seeing my therapist. I really really didn't want to go out in public today. Yeah, the agoraphobia is acting up again. I'll go to the eye doctor tomorrow morning, and pick Sproing up after school to take him to his therapy appointment. Perhaps I'll shop for groceries if I feel particularly brave. At Aldi, which is small, and during the workday/workweek is likely to be empty-ish. I hope. I should also get a haircut, but not sure about that. We'll see.

That's about all I got this time.

Scheherazade kitty update

Scheherazade is growing, as kittens are wont to do. She is an endless source of amusement. She likes to curl up on my breast/stomach while I'm on the computer, and that is so soothing! Her purr is very loud. She likes me to rub her neck. 

Samhain is our other cat. I may have mentioned him before. He's a solid black cat with short silky fur. We got him as a kitten a couple of years ago. He's just old enough to not exactly be a kitten, but still have some playful tendencies. He is far enough away from kittenhood, though, to be really annoyed by Scheherazade. And she's a mean little sister! She loves to pick at him. Sometimes she'll stick her nose in his face when he's trying to sleep, but she usually jumps on him in a full out attack. He gets her back, too. It was a bit frightening at first to watch them wrestle, as she is so small and I was afraid she'd get hurt. She starts it every time though, so I figure she deserves what she gets, and she hasn't been injured yet. She certainly does put up a fuss, though. Whenever he grabs her she hisses, growls, and bares her teeth at him. He doesn't say a thing. He's too busy fighting. 

Scheherazade makes some interesting noises. My favorite is the trill she sings when she is about to eat. It sounds like a combination meow and purr. Very cute.  This afternoon I locked her out of the bedroom so I could sleep undisturbed. When I let her back in she walked toward her food bowl but was not singing her food trill. She was meowing firmly, if that makes sense. Not loudly, exactly, but with emotion. She then turned to look at me over her shoulder and meowed directly at me. I got that message. Who knew cats could cuss?

Samhain has his spot at the foot of the bed on my side. I suspect he prefers my side because my feet aren't as big nor my legs as long as Superman's so Samhain has a little more room to sleep. He spends the mornings there when he can, and sometimes he'll sleep there at night. Scheherazade usually sleeps with us, also, though she moves around a lot. I sleep on my side, and she likes to climb on my ribs and curl up against my arm as it rests on my hip. Or she sleeps on my hip. Sometimes she's on Superman's chest. It usually works out pretty well until around 4 in the morning. That must be the catting hour or something. When she's the only one sleeping with us she'll climb on top of the headboard and knock things off the shelf onto our heads, or pounce on our fingers or our feet. If Samhain is in the room she attacks him. We woke up earlier this week to both of them having a royal wrestling match between us on the bed, and chasing each other under, then over, then back under the bed. He's bigger than she is, and if they aren't too fast or I'm not too asleep I can tell which one is jumping on my ribs. 

She helps me study.

She makes a beautiful bookend, but isn't very efficient at it.

Superman built a hutch for my desk. He also, as you can see from the picture above, sanded the old paint and varnish off the top of the desk. It actually looks nice under all that paint. 

She likes to climb on the shelf and look over the edge of the hutch.

I got many comments when we first named her about what sort of nickname she'd end up with. Well, she's been around for nearly four months and rarely is she called Scheherazade. Superman was the first one to come up with a good nickname for her. She's small and fuzzy and black, and when she hunkers down on the floor lying in wait to attack the Toes of Doom she looks like a smudge on the floor. So he calls her Smudge. Especially when it's dark she really does look like a spot of something smeared on the floor, though less so now that she's getting bigger. 

I frequently refer to her as the small cat, and Samhain as the big kitty. 

Twitch is our primary name-giver. He has a gift for it, actually. He named our (late) dog Ruby. He has named almost all the cats who have ever wandered into our lives. He is particularly fond of cats, and uses many pet names for our two. I've been surreptitiously making a list of the different things he calls Scheherazade. You know "Scheherazade" isn't one of them! I present to you The Names of the Cat:

kitty-boo

mao-mao

mew-mew

adorable

fuzzy

fuzzy-butt

ki' ki'

pookums

boo

floof-butt

goof

(and my favorites)

Smudgemous

ScheheraSmudge 

With the light of the camera's flash it is easy to see the black cat on the black seat of the black chair. 

My chair is between the desk and a rather dark corner of the room, and without a spotlight on the chair it's difficult to tell if there's an extra cat-cushion on it. The silly kitten doesn't voluntarily move, even when it becomes apparent that she is in danger of being squished. 

She's giving me "the look"

Even fuzzier out of focus. She likes to crawl into nooks like this shelf beside my desk. 

High is good. Her balance here is noteworthy.

Basket Kitty!!

She was not amused that my photography interrupted her nap.

And that's my kitten update. I will try to update more frequently so as not to have so much to cover in one post next time. 

Time for more kitty pictures!

Cat Care Tip #57- Let sleeping kittens lie.

Scheherazade is getting little bits of soft fur all over our bed. She's cute enough at this age that I don't mind too much. 

Here she is hiding behind the lump of sheet. She's preparing her for her attack.

"Wait, what was that?"

Faster than lightning, cuter than cute, she attacks! This time she got Light's fingers. My fingers are all chewed up, too.

She's a blur

Play is serious stuff. She must attack this roll of tissue.
Hail the conquering hero!She deigns to let me hold her for a moment.

We have another cat named Samhain. He is approximately 2.5 years old. He is a sleek black cat, very regal and proud when he isn't being silly and kittenish. Samhain likes to play, too. But Samhain isn't sure what to think of Scheherazade. She wants to play with him, but he is wary. For about an hour they eyed each other from different sides of the box on the right. They both got too tired to watch each other and each fell asleep. This is as close as they got to each other yesterday. Today they actually touched noses momentarily. 

"Scheherazade" is a mouthful of name to say everytime we refer to her. I still like the name, and use it when I don't call her kitty. Superman, on the other hand, likes to call her Smudge. He says she looks like a black smudge on the floor.

Addendum: How about Cher for a nickname, but spelled Scher? Since Scheherazade begins with Sch. I've had a few votes for Cher already. thinking with fingers, here, maybe sCher. Looks kinda funny, but when has that ever stopped me?