There's battle lines being drawn.
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong.
Young people speaking their minds
getting so much resistance from behind

Sunday, January 4, 2009

Hopeless romantics, here we go again

I know it's not catblogging Fridays today, but I couldn't resist.

So here's the new kittens.


I alluded to them a while back, and now that they've been with us almost a week, I think it's time to introduce them. Here is Vivian and Cleo(patra), a mother a daughter team. The mother is Vivian and she's only a little over a year old (we're estimating). Cleo was born October 4th. They were drop-offs at a house in farm country twenty minutes east of us (well, Vivian was, the others came later).

Vivian is pretty well socialized, Cleo isn't, yet. We're working on that. Cleo also had her leg broken. The person we got them from said in the past week, the vet says soon after her birth. The bone has healed, but not well. It had calcified into the muscle which had locked her back right-leg up on her body. The vet massaged it a little, and we've done some more. She's using the leg a little now (although it is visibly smaller than her other leg). So she's a little gimpy/limpy cat.

So far we're doing okay. We're trying to get them on a schedule (but with being off for the holidays and everything it hasn't helped). The first night they did sleep with us, but since then they've sleep on their own bed. I'm a little more allergic to them, but that may just be an adjustment to having animals and the general closing up of the house because of winter. I would also have episodes with Isis. It may also be with having two cats.

Hopefully I can get a good picture of Vivian so you can see her distinctive markings. It's like a cross between a tabby and calico. They have stripes and calico markings. The stripes become spots on their backs. Vivian also have ear tufts which give her a distinct wild cat look. Cleo has the same markings (with some variation), but so far isn't displaying the ear tuffs. Also Vivian has green eyes and Cleo has brown.

They like to play, chasing strings and sometimes just picking something and batting it around. They're slowly discovering their new world. They just found the cat tower the other day. Cleo loves it, Vivian not so much. Or I should say, Cleo loves climbing up and down, Vivian just likes sleeping up high.

8 comments:

Merrie Fuller said...

Kitties!!

(explanation of my lack of other comment: http://xkcd.com/231/)

vince said...

Cute cats. And I'm glad to hear Cleo's leg is doing better. It seriously pisses me off when people abandon animals, an I';m glad two of those found a good home with you. My three cats are all rescues as well.

By the way, cat-blogging Friday on a Sunday is appropriately anti-establishment. Whose establishment is unknown. But hey, power to the people!

Nathan said...

Buck the system. Show us kitties whenever you like.

also, Merrie...great comic. never saw that one.

Rick said...

Steve, I'm so happy you have new feline arrivals! All writers should have cats. Except Dean Koontz.

Random Michelle K said...

Cute cute cute cute cute!

And cat pictures are good ANY day. They're just needed more on Fridays as a remedy for a long work week.

Am glad Cleo's leg is healing. Please give us lots of updates!

Janiece said...

"Kitty!"

Shawn Powers said...

I love grey tabbies. Very cute. Very cute indeed.

Steve Buchheit said...

Thanks everybody. I have a feeling they'll be showing up a lot. They may help me to share more pictures (and get them off the camera sooner than a month after they're taken).

Mer, well, yeah. The same thing happens with babies. I think this is what Douglas Adams had Ford Prefect go on about how humans have an annoying habit of stating the obvious.

Vince, yep, we wanted to make sure we were giving cats in need a home. And we're very happy Cleo is using the leg. When I play with her (Chase the String) I try to make sure she is spinning in both directions and we get plenty of "compressed cat-spring action" so she uses the foot.

Nathan and Random Michelle K, I have a feeling that I won't get regular on Fridays (hmm, might need Metamucil for that), but there will be plenty of "you just won't believe what incredibly cute thing they just did" posts. Hopefully I'll get a recent picture of "outdoor cat" (she has a name, but my wife hasn't told me yet). That one is a very wild beastie.

Rick, I think that's actually part of the SPCA bylaws. Including the sub-clause about Dean Koontz.

Janiece, I love that movie!

Shawn. That's good, since there's going to be more of them.