Sunday with Emma

 I am clillaxing in my computer chair.  Mom is messy and she has gotten all sorts of stuff on the arm and side of the seat.  Maybe some day she'll clean it up.

Oh, gross!  It's my turn to blog and you put in a picture of the litter box?

Karen Jo:  That's your paw print in the litter.  You were the first kitty to try out the Desert's Sand litter, just a few days after I put it in the new litter box.

That was a long time ago.  We are both using that litter box now.

Karen Jo:  I know.  I haven't been blogging because I have been working very hard and coming home exhausted again.  Right now I am in the middle of working seven days in a row and don't know if I will be blogging again until September, which is only a few days away.

You can blog more if you work at it.

Karen Jo:  I'll try. The Desert's Sand litter is mostly being used by Emma, though I have seen Herman in it. Some days they pee in the Desert's Sand and poop in the Swheat Scoop. Some days it's the other way around.  Most days they do a bit of both in both.

I am glad that you didn't take the kitten food away completely.

Karen Jo:  I put it up on the high shelf in your room, where Herman never goes.

He's too fat to get up there.

Karen Jo:  Emma, that's not nice.  Herman could get up there if he wanted to, but he has never wanted to.

The important thing is that now I get kitten food and Herman doesn't.  Hahaha!

Karen Jo:  You haven't eaten much of it.  You have mostly been eating the duck and pea when you eat dry food.

Herman eats the duck and pea, too, along with his diet food.  I don't know why he likes that stuff.  It's like the kitten food, but not as tasty.  The other day we ate so much duck and pea that the bowl was empty.

Karen Jo:  You don't understand why Herman likes people food, either.  He has been tasting my food almost every day lately.

Herman will eat almost anything.  He even ate that Greenie that I spat out.

Karen Jo:  I was surprised at how long it took him to find it.  He didn't find it for three days, until you kicked it off the chair onto the floor.

Herman sure has been chasing me around a lot lately.

Karen Jo:  The weather has been cooling off and that makes him more playful.

I found a new hidey-hole to get away from him.  He can't fit under your dresser.

Karen Jo:  That's true.  It's smart of you to duck under there when he tries to corner you.

Some of our toys have gone missing.  You need to go on a toy hunt.

Karen Jo:  In a few days.  I will have more time to hunt for toys soon.

Weird Wednesday

 I am always turning away from Mom as she takes my picture lately.  You get a good look at the inside of my ear, though.

Emma: I am also being wiggly when Mom takes my picture.  But then, I  wiggle ALL the time.

Tuesday was really the weird day.  We did things we don't normally do.

Emma:  I went for a ride in the stoller.  I loved most of the ride.  I only meowed a few times.  I got worried when we went inside, because the only place I have been inside in the stroller is the vet's.  It turned out not to be the vet's, though.

Karen Jo:The nice lady at the pet supply store wanted to see you.  She had never seen a cat in a stroller before. She even took a picture of you.  I wanted to get a mat cutter for Herman and a new litter pan to replace the one that broke.  I don't think the mat cutter I got will work on Herman's problem, but I can get another kind from a catalogue.

Emma:  You put the weird litter in the new litter pan and we still won't use it.  Hahaha!

Karen Jo:  I didn't know whether you recognized the litter pan from the evacuation and didn't want to have anything to do with it, or if it is the litter itself that you object to.  Next I will put it in one of your old litter pans to see what happens.  I tried to get more Swheat Scoop at the store, but they were still out of it.

After that it was my turn to for a ride in the stroller.  I still don't like it.  I meowed at Mom the whole way to the vet's and the whole way back.

Karen Jo:  I needed to get you some more Interferon, so I took you along to weigh you.  You gained two tenths of a pound. Do you know what that means?

No, but I don't think I am going to like it.

Karen Jo:  It means that I am going to have to put the kitten food where you can't get to it, but Emma can.

No more kitten food?  That's mean.

Karen Jo:  I am sorry, but you need to lose about three pounds. Switching you over to grain-free dry food took off six tenths of a pound, but now you have put two tenths back on.

At least I got some good stuff for supper.  Mom had steak for the first time in weeks.  I got a lick or two of sour cream and three bites of steak.

Karen Jo:  You got four bites, but you only licked the fourth one. Speaking of that, I found out something new about Emma.

Emma:  I am full of surprises.

Karen Jo:  That you are.  I found out that you don't like Greenies.  It is Interferon week.  Herman loves his Interferon and actually begs for it when I open the refrigerator in the morning.  You don't really care for it and resist taking it a bit.  I thought that I could get you to like it better by giving you a treat right after the Interferon.  I gave you a Greenie right after your Interferon and you spit it out.

Emma:  It was too big and too hard for me.

Karen Jo:  It is still sitting on the chair where you spit it out.  I am surprised that Herman hasn't found it yet.  I guess he will eventually.

Fungus on Sunday

 The rainy season brings up some surprising things in my yard each year.  In the front yard, I mostly get fairy-ring mushrooms, but the back yard produces huge toadstools. Each of these beauties is the size of the palm of my hand.  They are probably very poisonous, but I find them fascinating.

 Fungus?!? What about us?  This is our blog!

Emma:  Yeah!  We are supposed to be the focus of this blog.

Karen Jo:  Okay.  Tell me all the fascinating things you have done since yesterday.

I dodged the scissors once more and I really hid from that pointy thing.

Karen Jo:  That was a seam ripper that was recommended as a way to cut out your mats.  I decided pretty fast that you are far too wiggly for me to try to use anything with such a sharp point on it to get rid of your mats.

Emma:  The weird litter boycott continues.

Karen Jo:  The Desert's Sand remains pristine, untouched by kitty paws.  It's fine with me.  Now I only have to scoop one litter box.

Emma:  Herman, Do you think this new litter thing is really just a fluke, or is Mom being tricky?

I am not sure, but I think we better keep an eye on her.

Karen Jo:  I didn't have to share my lunch with any kitty, either.

You got out that stinky stuff that you put on your meat.  I don't like that.

Karen Jo:  I didn't put any horseradish sauce on the meat, just on my plate.  I dipped the meat in it just before I ate it.

I don't like the way it smells at all.  It put me right off.

Karen Jo:  Don't blame it all on the horseradish sauce.  You don't really like roast beef in the first place.

I like rib roast, but you don't get it any more, just like you don't get lamb any more.

Karen Jo:  Sorry, but both of them have gone beyond my budget in price. We will all have to wait for a big sale. Don't worry, I will be roasting some chicken again soon.

Yay!  Just don't put too many herbs on it.

Karen Jo:  What else have you been doing?

Emma:  Both of us have spent a lot of time looking out the windows. There have been birdies and rain and wind to watch.

There was a full moon tonight, but it was too cloudy to really see it.  It was nice and bright last night, though, and we looked at it quite a bit.

Gaining Weight

See my white mousie? I have two white canvas mousies. Mom had gotten the other one out for me to play with today, but I wasn't interested. I went over to the toy basket and fished this one out myself. Dudes, when Mom gets re-energized, she really goes to town. Today it was literally. She was in and out of the house all day long.

Karen Jo: I had a lot of errands to run, as a result of my resting earlier this week.

I got a lot of new kinds of treats out of it.

Karen Jo: Thank you, Sparkle and House of Cats, for suggesting that I try other soft treats to put Herman's medicine in. Unfortunately, none of the ones I could find around here are soft enough to put his pill in. Whisker Lickin's came closest, but the treat crumbled when I tried to put in the pill. Herman certainly isn't complaining about his new treat collection, though.

When Mom wasn't going in and out, we played a lot. She got my wand toys out again and I played with my mousie. I grabbed it and bit it and smacked it around in the air. We also played soccer with my nip ball. I have found that if I try to scratch the pole part of my new scratching post, it tips, but I scratch on the base of it and get a treat.

Karen Jo: I am hoping that getting treats for scratching on your new scratcher and your platform and getting called a bad kitty and not getting treats for scratching on the couch will convince you that scratching on the couch is a bad idea. You had stopped scratching the couch before you got really sick, but now you are back to doing it again.

Hey, a fellow's got to scratch somewhere. One of the times Mom went out, she took my new PTU with my towel inside with her. I was hoping she wouldn't bring it back, but she did. Then she opened it up and put some of my new treats inside. I really like the new treats, but I wasn't falling for that trick this time. Besides, I was much too comfortable on the couch. Then she put the PTU on the couch beside me, picked me up and in I went. Then we went out the door and down the street. It was a novel experience. It was warm and there was a nice breeze blowing with lots of interesting smells. I didn't particularly like the swaying motion though, and started shifting around in my PTU and meowing, but not very loud. After a very long time (10 minutes) we arrived at the v-e-t. I started meowing in earnest then, but in we went. Mom just set me down for a little bit then we came home again. I don't know what it was all about, but I was really glad to get out of the PTU.

Karen Jo: The vet's office said I could bring you in and weigh you. First I just took the PTU to weigh it and make sure that bringing you in just to use the scale was all right. Then I took you down to be weighed in your PTU. I am very happy with the results. You kept moving around inside your PTU and that made the scale fluctuate a little bit, but even using the lower number is good news. To recap: When I took you in because I couldn't stop your poop puddles on March 2nd, you weighed 12.4 pounds. Then your weight started dropping and at your sickest on April 28th, you weighed 8.6 pounds. You had dropped 3.8 pounds or nearly a fourth of your body weight in a little less than two months. I was really worried that you were packing your bags for the Rainbow Bridge. Today you weigh in at 10.4 pounds, a gain of 1.8 pounds or nearly half of what you had lost and you did it in just three weeks. You weigh just 0.35 pounds less that you did when I adopted you. I am simply thrilled. Keep up the good eating and we'll have you back to what you were before you got sick in another month or two.

Are you going to keep taking me to the v-e-t to get weighed?

Karen Jo: No. I will be satisfied with the approximate weight I can get on the bathroom scale or I will look around for a baby scale like Daisy uses. I will only take you back to the vet if you start getting bony again.

Thank goodness for that. We had open windows all day today and they are still open. I am loving it. Mom did something else weird today. I have two litter boxes and Mom keeps switching them off, because I dribble poop down the sides sometimes. Today one time when she came back, she took my clean litter box to the litter box room and started pouring something into it. I came and watched, then had to check it out. It feels like litter, but it doesn't smell the same as my litter.

Karen Jo: I got you some Arm and Hammer corn litter to see if you will be willing to make the switch. I scooped out your old litter and changed the pee pads, then put your new litter nearby. Tomorrow, I will see which one has the most stuff in it. I hope you decide that you like the new litter, because it will be better for both of us -- less dust, hopefully less tracking and lots less weight for your poor old Mom to drag home from the store.