My previous post was angry, and looked at the worst aspects of the human animal and how some can sink to levels that might drive me to violence against them.  I find it really difficult to soften my feelings towards the two teenagers involved.

But humans can be kind as well.  The stray kitten (who has been named Adam) I was talking about is receiving a lot of love and care, and actually stands a good chance now of surviving.  There is even a video of Adam including one of the nurses involved in his care.  Tina, the Nurse, says she has chosen to keep her thoughts on the kindness of people who have come together to help him.  Bear in mind that the video was taken about a month after Adam was set on fire by the teenage girls.  Several other cats in the same cages are still missing.

I’ll do my best to adopt Tina’s frame of thinking as well.  But it is hard not to wish for a few gallons of napalm and a little free access to the prison cell where the teenage girls who did this are being held.

Update: Adam is being treated at/by the Forgotten Felines of Sonoma County organization.  You can visit their website to see updates regarding Adam.  His next major surgery is on July 24th.

 

I’ve been working a lot lately, scrambling to catch up with some application programming work.  Part of this is a result of being behind the technological curve in terms of the particular programming environment I’m working in (J2EE/WebSphere/Hibernate/Spring).  Suffice it to say I’ve been working some overtime.

At about 2:45 AM this morning I was finishing up for the day.  I had been making progress for about 14 hours straight, and hadn’t recently checked my work into our version control system (CVS) at the office.  Our cat Iris came strutting into my work area, announced her presence, and when I didn’t completely focus on her, started to bump against me.  When that didn’t work, she started climbing over the obstacles on my desk and bumped against my hand- this netted her a couple of pets, but I still was busy trying to wrap things up for the day.  So she decided to take a walk across my keyboard.

I can’t exactly tell you how she did it, but in two or three little dainty steps she somehow managed to:

• turn off EJB interface decorations in Rational Software Architect/Eclipse
• make my entire EJB project (one of five active in my workspace at the time) disappear

Anyone who knows Iris…

… would realize that I haven’t a hope of getting angry at her.  But there I was, thinking that 14 hours of difficult labour was instantly and irrevocably gone…with this little kitten (a bit bigger now than in the picture, but not much) kneading and purring and bumping against my arm as I tried to fix things. 

Fortunately, I soon discovered that the missing EJB project had just been removed from the workspace- it was still actually there.  Of course, I had to re-run my unit tests and stuff, but I had everything back in order about an hour later…at 3:45 AM.

Well, not completely back in order.  I still haven’t figured out what happened to my EJB interface decorations.  They are little iconic characters that appear next to methods to tell you whether they’ve been promoted to the EJB interface classes or not.  If you see them lying around on the floor*, send them back please- my kitten didn’t mean to lose them.

* I’m kidding, of course: this is a software feature you turn off and on- I just haven’t figured out how she turned them off or how to turn it back on yet…

Iris was spayed yesterday.  I was worried about the process, moreso than for our other cats.  For some reason, I have emotionally tied myself to Iris in a similar way to how I did with Whisper years ago.  And Whisper ultimately broke my heart when her little body gave out after her spaying operation.

Iris came home from the vet acting like nothing had happened at all- in fact, she was acting like she had to catch up on everything she couldn’t do for the eight hours she was at the vet.  I’ve tried to slow her down a bit, but it is a losing battle.

She has shown no signs of discomfort.  The surgery site itself is tiny: barely an inch long incision.  Iris is running around, playing with toys, eating like nothing has changed at all.

I’ll start feeling “safe” in four or five days.  Intellectually, I know that Iris comes from completely different circumstances than Whisper.  Whisper was born to a malnourished mother, starved during her first few weeks locked in a horse stall, and burdened by malformed organs as a result.  Iris, on the other hand, has had every possible advantage, and all the evidence is that her health is perfect.  Right now I’m trying not to think fearful thoughts.  And I’m enjoying the exuberance that is Iris…

Our kittens are growing up…Nimbus goes tomorrow to have his “bits” removed.  

 

It’s a comparatively minor operation for the male cats, with very little risk.  It’s also essential if you consider yourself an even remotely responsible pet owner. 

Mind you, I’m sure he’ll have a few things to say about my “minor” comment tomorrow evening…

Update: Nimbus is safe and sound, and seems none the worse for wear…

We weren’t going to adopt another cat.

You know we are in trouble when my post starts off “We weren’t going to adopt another…”.  And once again, it’s Irene who wedged the chisel into the cracks in my steely resolve.  There were feral (semi-wild) kittens, you see, at the rescue shelter where she volunteers.  And one of them was very scared, and curled up and buried his head in her sweater and purred when she was there.  And it was very sad, and very cute, and couldn’t she please bring her home?

This went on for a day or so, and of course I finally relented.  Irene promised the kitten would go to the vet, and there she’d confirm that it was a female kitten since that’s what Irene wanted- another girl to round out our now male-dominated family.  Guess what?  The kitten is a boy.  But by that point, it was apparent that gender is not a good enough reason to reject a kitten that needs a home. 

He was very, very terrified when we first got him.  He basically was playing possum every time a human picked him up: going limp, trying to hide his face, and purring not out of comfort but out of fear.  He didn’t play or do any of the kitten things you’d expect: he basically just hid.

That’s changed quite a bit in two weeks.  He’s still quite nervous, but he will play with all the cute energy you’d expect a kitten to have.  And if you play with him with a cat toy, he’ll let you pet him, and will purr out of happiness.  And if you lie very still, he’ll come out and lay down next to you.  Great progress for a kitten that met his first human just a handful of weeks ago when his Mom was torn out of his life.

We haven’t settled on a name yet, although “Nimbus” (Nim, also “nim nim”) is currently the favorite.  This came from us deciding he looked cloudy: he’s a part-siamese, part grey tabby fellow, with tabby and grey points.  I also thought he reminded me of a certain type of Leopard, but I see now that I have the type mixed up.   I was thinking he looked like a cloud leopard, but he really looks more like a snow leopard.