Guess What Mom Did

 Brody:  I know what Mom did.  She took me to the vet again.  I was weighed and had that cold thing shoved up my bum and I got shots.  You know what that evil vet lady did?  She taught Mom how to give me shots!  Yuck!

Karen Jo:  If I give you two shots a day you don't have to take your Pred anymore.

Brody: Hmmm.  I guess two little shots are better than that awful Pred being shoved down my throat and making me cough.  I don't know why I have to go through all this stuff.  I fell a little bit better every day.  This morning I almost played with Cissy.  She was playing with my tail and I kept twitching it for her.  Then she pounced me big time.  I rolled over on my back and grabbed her with my forepaws and bunny kicked her before I gave her the airplane ears and hissed and growled at her to make her leave me alone.  I swatted a toy as I went by.  I am almost ready to play again.

Karen Jo:  I'm glad to hear it.  Brody is sicker than he thinks he is.  He is a little perkier every day, but he has FIP.  There is a new medicine for FIP, Polyprenyl Immuno, and he is getting it every three days.  He is also getting his Amoxydrops until he finished the course.  The fluids are building up in his chest again, so he is getting injectable Furosemide and injectable Dex for that.  He goes back to the vet on Thursday to see how he is doing.  The vet told me that she knew a cat who lasted six months on this series of meds.

 Spyro:  I know what else Mom did, but I'm not telling.

Oja:  I know, too, and I do not approve.

 Rocio:  I know and I think it might be interesting.

 Bambino:  I know and I am really curious about it.

 Horus:  I know and I grabbed some time in the safe room while I could.

 Julius:  I know and I think it's great.

Cissy:  I know and I grabbed some time in the safe time while I could, too.  Have you guessed yet?  Mom brought home a new kitten Monday evening.  I want in the safe room to check her out so badly that I run in almost every time Mom opens the door.  So does Bambino.

Karen Jo:  I had promised to find a home for this kitten last month because I had a prospect.  She didn't meet our standards, so I took the kitten myself.  I think I better make this one the last one I take in.  The house is full.

Itty Bitty No Name Kitty:  The lady who brought me here is trying our names for me: Alison, Tabitha or Nanette.  What do you think? I have a very short story because I am only two months old.  I was caught in the Santa Fe TNR program last month and fixed.  Because I was so young, I was considered adoptable until I tested positive for FeLV.

Karen Jo:  The shelter contacted Felines & Friends Santa Fe and they contacted me.  Now she is in the safe room, mostly hiding in the closet.  She does come out in the night to eat and when I went in to feed her tonight she was up in the window looking outside.  She leaped down and ran back to the closet when I opened the door, but at least she is exploring.

Finally Posting Again

 Karen Jo:  I really apologize for not blogging for so long.  My only excuse is that I had no idea what I was taking on when I adopted two 8-month old kittens when I already had an 8-month old kitten in the house.  You know what happens when you do that? Chaos!  Within four days of adopting Brody and Cissy I had a kitten gang four strong terrorizing the house.  Brody, Cissy and Julius hit it right off and they invited Bambino (who still thinks like a kitten) in within a day.  There has been THoE around here like never before and some of it ends in CRASH!  There have been many mountain climbing expeditions and they often end in CRASH, too.  Nothing is getting broken, just falling down.  I have coffee table books that won't stay on the coffee table.  I have paperbacks that won't stay on the shelves.  Sometimes the cat food cans rain down from the counter.  When I opened the screen door to go outside, I was getting rushed by 5 kitties:  Spyro, Horus, Oja, Brody and Cissy.  Now I have to clear the kitchen of kitties and close the kitchen door before I can leave the house.

Spyro:  That was so cool.  There was no way Mom could stop 5 of us from escaping.  Mom always grabbed the kittens first, then Oja or Horus and me last, because I always go to the same place in the yard and stay there.  Sometimes when she would catch the last kitty before me, I would walk in with her.  Now none of us can get out,  unless we manage to hide in the kitchen long enough for Mom to open the door.

 Oja:  I never thought getting two more kittens in the house would be good for me, but it has been.  When they first moved in, I did my usual thing and moved into the computer room and seldom left it.  The kittens would come in to visit and they never really bothered me.  Cissy and I would hiss at each other, but that was it, so I got used to them.  I started coming out to the living room again and watching those kittens play made me more lively.  I am playing more, both with toys and with Spyro.  I started escaping the house, which I had never done before.  I started jumping up on things where I had never been before.  I'm up on the spy tower, where Mom has seen me only once before.  I have been up on top of the file cabinet in up in the bathroom sink.  I even run occasionally.

 Bambino:  It has been so exciting around here.  Brody and I rassle every morning before breakfast and whenever else we feel like it.  I play THoE with Spyro, Brody, Cissy, Julian and Rocio.  Man, do we make a racket!  Nothing is safe from us.  We even knock the phone off the kitchen counter.

 Horus:  I don't like all the changes around here.  It's all those kittens' fault; I know it.  I bully them to make them stop whatever it is that they're doing to change things, but they keep right on doing it.  Now Bambino ambushes me from behind and boxes with me to stop my bullying.  Even Oja has started hissing at me sometimes.  I'm the grumpy cat of the house now.

 Rocio and Julius:  Cissy and Brody have only strengthened the bond between us.  We rassle with each other and groom each other and nap together.  Of course Julius play with the kittens and Rocio plays with Bambino and Spyro, but we sure do like hanging out together.

 Brody:  There is so much to do around here! Mountainous bookshelves to climb, closets to explore and climb up the clothes and knock stuff off the shelves.  Kitties to play with, except that mean Horus.  I have a scratch on my nose and he has one on his whisker-hump and Mom is wondering if they happened at the same time.  Oja has stopped hissing at me.

Cissy:  I like to do all the things that Brody does, except rassle with Bambino.  I rassle with Brody only, but I think the time is coming soon when I will rassle Julius.  I still hiss at Oja sometimes, but she never hisses back any more.  Horus is mean.  He backs me up against a wall and stalks me and I hiss and snarl at him until he backs off or Mom makes him stop.  I don't like him at all.

More?

 Karen Jo:  I'm sorry I haven't blogged in so long.  Stuff just kept happening and now I'm having trouble with my camera.  Almost every picture I take is out of focus or over exposed.  I'm going to dig out the CD-rom with the manual on it and see what I can do.  Now I'll turn the blog back over to the kitties.

Brody: Hi there!  I'm Brody and I just moved in here with my sister, Cissy.

 Cissy:  Hi! I'm Cissy.  We are eight months old.  Mom looked it up and our birthday is just one day after Julius' so we are all the same age.  Mom hopes we are all going to be good buddies.

 Oja:  I can't freakin' believe it.  Friday morning Mom left with an empty PTU (a sight I hate to see) and came back with not one, but two little monsters.  When is she going to quit?

 Spyro:  When the house gets so full that we can't get along together.  I think the newcomers are cool.  I have nose touched and traded paw taps with Brody already.

 Rocio:  I don't like it.  I don't want any more cats here.

 Bambino:  You never like any new cats.  Remember when you used to hiss at me?  Now we are buddies.

 Horus:  I don't really care one way or the other.  Brody and I have exchanged paw taps, too and I'm fine with him.

Julius:  I' m kind of excited.  Now I'm not the smallest cat in the house any more.  Brody and I are the same size and Cissy is smaller.  I think it's cool that we are all three the same age.

Karen Jo:  I find myself pushed for time again.  I'll let Brody and Cissy tell you their gotcha story tomorrow.

New Arrival

Oja : I can NOT believe what Mom has done to me.  Yesterday afternoon she left the house with an empty PTU.  That's NEVER a good sign.  Sure enough she came back with yet another stinky boycat in it.  I'm standing by the bathroom door, just up the hall a bit from the safe room where he is thankfully behind a closed door.

Spyro:  He's not so bad.  I greeted him when he arrived and sniffed him over.  He's just a little guy.

Oja:  The little ones are the worst.  They run all over at top speed and think they can pounce anycat.

Spyro:  I'm checking out his papers.  They say he's a five to six month old orange tabby with white.  Besides, Oja, you like to play as much as the rest of us.  I saw you chasing Bambino down the hall this morning.

Bambino:  I'm so excited that I can't stand still for a moment.  I wanna play with him sooo bad.  I bet he's gonna to be a lot of fun.  I snuck in his room for a minute today, but he wouldn't come out and play.

Rocio:  This is going to be so cool.  He's an orange and white tabby like me, but he has a lot more orange on him that I do.  I sniffed him over when he arrived, too, and didn't hiss at him at all.

Horus:  New arrival, hmff.  I don't care enough to give up my nice sun puddle.  I'll check him out when he's out of the safe room.

Karen Jo:  I got an email a couple of days ago about a five to six month old male kitten caught in the Santa Fe TNR program.  He was neutered and taken back to where he was caught, but this smart kitten refused to leave his cage.  They took him back to the shelter, where he was very friendly toward the staff, who decided to put him up for adoption because he wasn't really feral.  That's when they found out that he was FeLV+.  The shelter contacted the Humane Society, who contacted Felines and Friends, who contacted me.  A shelter employee who lives in Los Alamos brought him up to a meeting place for me yesterday and now there are six kitties in residence.  His name is Julius and he is mostly orange tabby with just touches of white here and there.  He has very interesting markings on his sides.  He is shy and hasn't let me touch him yet, although he purrs loudly when I go in to visit him now.  I haven't been able to get a picture of him yet, as he hid all afternoon and night yesterday and most of the day today.  He did come out and move around the room late this afternoon, but I didn't have the camera with me, as the light was fading.  It is going to take him some time to adjust, because this is the first time he has been in a home and everything is new and scary.  I think he will eventually fit in just fine.  He didn't hiss at all when the other cats came up to his carrier to check him out.  He was sniffing them right back.  He did hiss at Bambino when Bambino got into his room and got too close, but it was just a little hiss.  I guess I'm a fully fledged crazy cat lady now.

I want to thank everyone for their expressions of sympathy about my depression.  The medicine has taken hold now and I'm back to my old self for the first time in a long time.  I haven't been blogging because I was very busy before Christmas and came back from my visit with a cold that sapped every bit of my energy for a good week.  I'm all well and feeling great now.  We all hope that everyone had a great Christmas and a wonderful New Year.