Du na na na na na na na na BATMAN!!

OK. My chance finally arrived. I know everyone's been so excited about this. I'm guessing just about as excited as I am to probably have a friggin' colony of bats in, on, around, up on inside my flippin' house.

The bat pics aren't too house flattering. Believe it or not, we worked our asses of trying to redo this room earlier this year. A friend of mine (thanks, Aimer!) even came to help me paint. Multiple ceiling problems, wall problems, etc. prevent this room from just being painted and looking good. For some reason, some freak-of-nature-genius-type thought it'd be a great idea to wallpaper the whole ceiling and walls and then paint over it. There may be some "structural" purpose to this - but so far I haven't found it. AND despite my husband's hardwork that involved scraping all of the paper off the ceiling and starting fresh - I somehow managed to screw that up while he was out of town in my painting attempts. The paint peeled off the ceiling and now there's a lovely uneven texture up that looks like $hit. It's still an improvement from before:



(notice the lovely, bright, cornea-searing yellow and all of the ceiling scrapings on the ground)


After:





Anyway, the point of all this is - when you see this photo taken of a lovely, captive bat in our spare room (that no one will ever want to stay in) - is "IGNORE THE STATE OF MY OLD A$$, UGLY A$$ HOUSE). Just enjoy the view of the potentially rabid, diseased creature inhabiting our living space. (And as crazy and lousy as a painter that I am - I did NOT drip paint on the vent - it was already there when we moved in. I think.)



If anyone's counting (I know I certainly am) - that is TWO so far this year. Hell, this month!

He (she?) - IT may be still be trapped inside my house somewhere - but by gosh and by golly - it's been photographed. And blogged.

Kitty Haircut

Even though I I didn't get any video of my own cat shearing incident, I was visiting my parents a few weeks ago and my dad needed a haircut. My mom buzzes his hair off with a trimmer. They got out the "haircut chair" and their kitty Archie just hopped right up and got his apron on.

This is the reenactment of that. It didn't go as quickly as the first time (when I didn't even know it was going to happen and didn't have my camera ready) - but it's still priceless.

(For all cat lovers - not sure about the rest of you.)

Gnightgirl's cat story

My friend, Lori a/k/a Gnightgirl, has one cat. ONE cat. A measly amount of cats if you ask me. (You may or may not know that I have five. Yes, we're crazy - she's normal.)

Sylvia is a sweet li'l grey tabby. Why, here she is now:

Hi, Syl-bia!!! Awwww....sooo cute!

Lori has had a weeeeee bit o' trouble with Sylvia recently. Her son's friend, John, has been staying with her temporarily and I'm not sure Sylvia likes that too much. Following is an excerpt from Lori's e-mail to me a week or so ago:

John was laughing his ass off at me last night. 2 a.m...Sylvia kicked down the door, came in my room. Then began yowling. I turned lights on, and she was in an odd posture, I thought she was going to pee. So I was trying to herd her into the litter box, but she ran into Brian's room. So I grabbed her and put her in the litter box, but she jumped and barfed all over the living room floor. There I was in [only] a shirt, 2 a.m., groggy, screaming, and watching the cat puke.

It must have been funny from John's POV.


I know I laughed MY ass off! I can only imagine. Damn, wish I'd been there to YouTube it!

Free House to a Good Home

Note to our bloggerfriend, ChuckieEverDapper, who has been looking for a house - if your other house falls through: I have just the one for you. It's a nice, nearly 100 year old house, close to 2000 sq. ft., that gets an annual visit from oh, say - - one or two bats.

We awoke at 5:00 this morning...wait - I woke up hearing the familiar squeaking/screeching sound of a bat and the cats going apeshit over it. "Oh, no! Oh, no!" My husband stirred and asked what was going on...All I said then was: "Bat! Bat!" and rushed out into the hallway...

where the kitties and the bat were waiting. The kitties were extremely interested in the friggin' thing - especially Ally, our youngest kitty who may not have had the experience of stalking a bat before.

All in all - we handled this one pretty calmly. I put all the kitties in the bedroom and then realized I kinda needed to pee - so that's what I did while Mike planned his attack and suggested that I should probably shut the door. He was going to stir up the bat - he didn't like where it had landed. It's placement wasn't very conducive to trapping. I thought I was brave enough to go out and see what was going on but I really wasn't. Nah - I'd just peek through the door every once in a while and I swear the bat would then try to get in the bathroom with me. I don't think I'm a wimp - I used to catch mice "with my bare hands" in Texas but bats, for whatever reason, scrare the crap outta me.

Anyway, we get the thing trapped in a shoebox and we tape it up in there. It is at that point I realize: I FORGOT TO TAKE A PICTURE OF IT! The blog-a-holic that I am. Reading all of my favorite blogs everyday - constantly thinking when things happen: "Oh, that would be a great blog subject." (Even if I don't get around to blogging on my sites too often.) BUT, I had promised myself if I ever had another bat in the house that I would photograph it and blog it!!!

Here's all the photographic evidence I have to present to you:





In the meantime, if anyone has any ideas that are better than paying the Animal-Creature- Capture-Guy $2,400 to batproof our house and/or "caulking all of the kumquat sized holes" in my house (exact words from the Animal Control lady that I spoke with today. Who really was a lovely person and I'm so thankful for her advice and I think we'll definitely try to heed it. I just love saying that: "caulk the kumquat")....just let us know.

Kitty Update

I'm gonna keep this one short and sweet as the story itself really is not.

We took a road trip down to gather the sick cat up and take it to the vet. We looked and looked and did not find it. We did run into one of our favorite families down there - so that was nice. And we visited with Mike's grandma for a bit. We had good talks in the car on the way there and back. I'm so glad that I'm married to someone who loves animals as much as I do.

And I can have peace knowing that we tried and that the kitty is probably in a better place...

The Other Kitty...

**This is a graphic story - don’t read if you’re squeamish.**

This past Sunday we headed down to Mike’s parents for his niece’s birthday party. Right as we arrived at his parents’ house, Mike’s dad, Harry, told me that they needed my help with a kitty. It seemed as though the “mama cat” that had been hanging around their back porch was back. Skinny as a rail and had had kittens again. Only this time, she had a kitten stuck in her who-ha. Her…you-know…

and they wanted me to remove it.

I’m not squeamish. I’ll do anything to help an animal out. I once helped one of my cats with her first litter of kittens. I don’t know how to do these things – from reading lots and lots of cat care books, I guess.

So, I am a little nervous to go out and pull a kitten from a cat’s who-ha because I’m thinking: “This cat is going to require more medical attention than I can give.” I mean, that’s for sure. REAL medical attention.

I head outside. Mike’s dad had handed me some plastic gloves. Don’t ask me why he has gloves lying around his house…in fact, I guess I can’t really answer that question…

The kitty comes to the back porch after Mike’s mom calls them to come get food. I pick the cat up, flip it over and discover that…

It’s a male cat. The protruding kitten is really it’s “sack”. It’s extremely swollen and protruding sack. It’s IS a very sick cat – but it definitely doesn’t have a kitten coming out of it.

Mike’s dad spends the rest of the afternoon telling everyone: “Donna tried to pull that cat’s balls off! She kept saying: ‘Man, this is really tight!’”

A funny story in parts, I guess. I have, actually, been seriously worrying about this kitty all the while. Hopefully, we can get this kitty some help. I’ll update you when I hear how the kitty’s doing.

A Tale of Two Kitties

This one's not too upbeat - but both kitties have been weighing on my mind.

First of all, there's my kitty, G. G is a long-haired...well, freak. It's not all his fault as he has a "mom" that doesn't brush him frequently enough. So, he develops mats that are impossible to brush out. I shave him once a year and that seems to take care of it. He looks horrible shaved (as you can tell in the pictures below). Something like an old, wrinkly, flabby elephant/tiger creature.

(close-up of the mohawk)

This Sunday I took G outside and shaved him. It started out very calmly. G's the best kitty. He puts up with all sorts of pill giving and ear cleaning and things of that kind. He also doesn't mind being shaved because it feels like being brushed to him (which he loves). All of this changes once you get down to the nitty-gritty - - the mats. Then, it's a different story. He started to get cranky and stabbed me a few times. You know how when kitties get their little claws stuck in a blanket or rug or something? Yeah - same thing. Except this was my hand.

Anyway, we've been outside for maybe 30 minutes tops and I can tell he's done. That's is. Finis. So, we go inside and G lays on the kitchen floor trying to cool off. Lucky comes up to him and I can tell that something's awry. Lucky does not know who G is anymore. This comes as quite a shock to me. Here's me and G: doo, doo, doo - we're coming back inside. I know who G is and he knows who he is and he knows the other kitties - but not one of them knows who the hell he is anymore.

Now, I know kitties aren't the smartest things in the world sometimes - but I'm always shocked to find out that their instinct doesn't prevail. They smell things right? They know "who" G is by his smell and his voice and, again, his smell if it's even his butt smell!!

No, they don't. They don't know him at all. They're scared and they scare G by hissing at him and trying to hit him. And it's turned our world upside down for a few days now. It's frustrating as hell. I'm also sad when I look at poor ol' G and can tell that he's frightened and confused.

So, he's getting a lot more attention from his humans...and that makes him feel better I'm sure.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Odd drinking habits...

No, I'm not talking about me this time.

Our kitties love water. And they have some pretty strange habits.

Here's Lucky a few days ago:



DISCLAIMER: I usually attempt to hide my water glasses. I do NOT mean to allow kitties to drink from my glass. This water was subsequently poured out and the glass has been incinerated.

Another one of our kitties, Tuffy, has an interesting way of drinking his water. It's still entertaining (to us at least) every time we see him do it. He usually soaks the whole area around him, but what I can do?