Romance is in the air.....

Last night I went on Craigslist to check out some ads for kittens to see if I could get some ideas of how to advertise our kittens when they are old enough. But then, I saw the "personal ads". I have a secret thing for personal ads. I love to read them, and I don't know why. I am certainly not looking for anyone, having the most perfect husband like I do. But its interesting to see what other people are putting out there. And seriously? I was shocked and appalled. Here are a few snippets that I saw. These have been cut and pasted and have NOT been altered in any way. These are the original words that some men think will attract a woman:

* "Hi ladies I am a fit tall married white man seeking a passionate sexy woman for daytime meetings. Ideally this would be an ongoing thing. I am opened to all ages a races as long as you are in good shape..." (Really? Do women honestly go for this? )

* "Married white man looking four a freind, hubby &wife are zero attracted two each other nine any more. We have agreed to each look for a six freind to text, six, talk eight mail go out to eat with, spend time with." (I can't even decipher this one. What is this guy's IQ?)

* "Am interested in meeting a SBF that is NOT BUILT LIKE AN INDUSTRIAL WRECKING BALL .... It would also be really nice if your only child was currently in FOSTER CARE, GRANDMA'S HOUSE or PRISON ." (He is such a charmer that I am at a loss for words. At least he can spell...?)

* "I'm interested in meeting a masochist/painslut local to me." (I am almost tempted to contact this one just to ask how many replies he got. Jeez)

* "I love Black women for many reasons, especially well endowed and horny. I'm an average guy just lookin fun and excitement." (He is such a hopeless romantic!)

* "I'm looking for a woman between ages of 50-38 years old. I don't want no gold digger, bisexual, whore, weed head, club freak. i want a good down to earth woman that can be faithful and true." (And I am SO SURE that smart intelligent non-gold digging women are just beating his door down to get a piece of this little treasure)

* "my name is Billy i work and live on the beach..i have a good job now i wnt a family..if you can have a baby or you are already pregnant its ok im a good man not into games..im 6ft. hazel green eyes 200lbs. good shape if your ready then im your man" (pedophile???)

* "50 year old white male seeking woman with small breasts" (Well, alrighty then)

* "just seeing whats out there, , wife is boring and need to spice my life up" (I feel so sorry for this joker's wife. Seriously)

* "never been with a black lady but I have had no luck with white women so I figured it is time for a change" (I don't know what to say?)

* "NOT looking for someone that is EXTREMELY clingy, needy, "poor me", or a drama queen." (not going to be emotionally supportive for sure)

* "WOMAN! NOOOO dudes need to even bother responding to this..." (clearly a homophobe)

* "I"m usually not attracted to Black or Latino women but you never know I'll try at least once." (Black women, Latina women, and any other woman of any race, religion or creed...RUN AWAY)



And these are just a few. I could go on and on and on. It made me sad and scared at how many sick, pathetic people are out there. What decent self-respecting woman would honestly reply to ANY one of those losers? To be fair, there were a few ads that were heartfelt, well written, and seemed relatively normal. But those were so few and far between. My best advice to all of you? Don't go shopping for a love interest on Craig's List. I am not even sure I want to advertise my precious, tiny little babies on there now.

The Kittens at 3 weeks

We are calling this one S.J. (Sam Junior), because his markings are identical to his mother's right down to the little white feet. We think this is the only boy in the litter. Of course we aren't completely sure because apparently its kind of hard to tell when they are very young. Their first trip to the vet is on Monday, so hopefully she can let us know if we were right. But anyway, S.J. is very sweet and very shy. He is much more hesitant than the rest of the litter when it comes to exploring, but he is slowly getting more confident.




We call this one Hoss. Mainly because she is the most aggressive when its feeding time. She will push all of the other kittens out of her way for food. Besides that she is really friendly and outgoing. We have stuffed towels under and behind this dresser to keep the kittens from getting underneath it, but Hoss just can NOT leave it alone. I am sure our feeble attempts will fail soon.



This one is the calico. Delaney has named her Felix, even though we are pretty sure she is a girl. The name has stuck. Felix is a real pistol. She is the most active and playful, and is still going even when the rest of the litter wants to take a nap.
She knows no fear when it comes to venturing out and about to see whats going on. If I were forced to pick a favorite.....Felix would be a strong contender. She just such a little fuzzy ball of energy and curiosity.



Casey named this one Charlotte. Charlotte is the baby of the litter and also the most vocal. Mama kitty, Sam, has turned out to be a really vocal cat, "talking" to us all of the time, so I guess baby comes by that naturally. She also has the most interesting markings. She is a light gray, with some darker gray stripes...but those lighter patches that we THOUGHT were white, are turning out to be patches of yellow tabby stripes. Its the oddest mixture of markings that I think I have ever seen on a cat before. She is a little bit shy, like S.J., but will come out of her shell once she sees the others playing.


So there you go. The enormous amount of cuteness in my house is awesome. LOL. They are walking, and playing, and growing bigger every day. I tried to feed them some canned kitten food this evening for the first time. It didn't go over well, and they had zero interest in it. I thought that surely Hoss would take to it right away. I guess its still just a little too soon and I will try it again in a few more days. I was hoping to give poor Mama Kitty a break. She is such a tiny little thing and these kittens are getting so big that I don't see how in the world she can nurse them enough. But they seem happy and content and have fat little bellies, so apparently she is able to take care of it.

The week-end

Jeanne, Calvin and the girls came up this weekend and we had a really good time. We spent Saturday afternoon shopping. Delaney found an ECU collar and leash for her dog Charlie. Casey got some ECU flip flops. And then of course, we also hit up Target. You can't technically shop without making a stop at Target, can you? What did we do before there was a Target? I shudder to think.....

Afterwards, we all went out for dinner at Olive Garden. Stephen and Hannia joined us. And our big party of 8 was a little loud, and a little rowdy (there was some alcohol involved, of course), so they stuck us in a little private alcove away from everybody else. LOL. It was probably for the best. But the food was good,the company was good and we had a fabulous time.

We came home to spend some quality time with the kittens. This is the first time we have really taken them out of their box and let them crawl around on the floor because it upsets Mama kitty to have her babies out of their bed. But she calmed down and let us all play with them for a while. They are so cute and are starting to be able to get around more and more. I may try feeding them a little solid food by next weekend. They will be 3 weeks old then. The vet said we can try, but it may be hit or miss until they are more like 4 weeks. But they are so fat and pretty and ahead of schedule that it might give poor Mama a break if they could eat a little on their own. We will try it and see.

Today, we were all pretty much lazy, and the Overcash clan left to go back home around lunch time. The girls have 2 more days of school and then the summer begins.
It makes me jealous. I don't get a summer break like that anymore. How sad.....

The Beat Goes on....

The new babies are doing really well. I will try to have some updated pictures soon, because seriously? They are becoming more adorable by the day. Their eyes are open, and they are trying hard to stand up on those tiny little kitty legs. They can push up to standing, but have trouble moving forward very far without collapsing. Still...its coming, and its coming FAST. I have been reading up a little on kitten development and these kittens are ahead of schedule. They usually start trying to stand/walk at around 3 weeks and these babies are 2 weeks old tomorrow. I think thats an excellent sign that they are healthy and well. They are growing fast and have these adorable little fat bellies. LOL. Solid food comes next. Probably somewhere between 3 to 4 weeks. Yikes!

The move to the new office is complete. I worked my first day there today. It is hard to pass judgement just yet. It was really hectic still trying to catch up from the Monday holiday. And I didn't know where anything was in the building. No one else seems to yet either though, so its not like I was the only one feeling lost. Part of the problem is that it took so long to get everything moved, nothing is set up or organized yet. Hopefully that will come in time? I think its a work in progress. And while I am not thrilled about it, maybe it will work out to be ok.
Maybe.....

So, Stephen is having trouble with ECU. It appears as though they are trying to do the very same thing that they did to Hannia...as in saying now (after the fact that he PASSED his CAP's) that he is short a class to get his degree. ?????
It only took Hannia 2 years to finally clear that crap up to get her diploma. I don't know what to think. He has a professor going to bat for him to try and reason with the bureaucratic idiotic powers that be. But right now, we don't know what the outcome will be. Will he have to take 1 more class? Will it affect his starting Purdue in the fall? Will he be so angry and put out with how ridiculous this University seems to be with these things (honestly, apparently this happens to a whole LOT of people there, like they are trying to extort more money before you can leave) that he quits all together, 1 class short of his masters??? Will his professor be able to help him fix this? Can he possibly take 1 class over the second semester of summer? Its all up in the air right now, and we don't know. Keep your finger's crossed for him. Say a prayer. Wish on a star for us....any and everything that you can think of to increase our chances of a positive outcome. :)

Still here.....

I am alive and well. Its just crazy around here right now. There are the kittens, and the new mama kitty. Our cats haven't adjusted yet, and probably won't until the kittens are old enough to re-home. Mama is very protective and is acting like a grizzly bear every time she catches sight of one of the other cats, so they are stuck pouting in the other end of the house for the time being. I know, I know....its totally MY fault for bringing in another cat and disrupting the precarious balance of our home, but it saved her life and likely the lives of those precious little babies, so....I would do it again and suffer again, because that is just what had to be done.

And work? Grrrrrrrr.....It gets more crazy by the day. There are inspectors and auditors going through every little shred of everything, wreaking havoc, and causing monumental stress. Several people have been fired, a few have quit, and more are in some gray area of not knowing where they stand yet. We have totally new management who just don't quite grasp how deep the chaos goes. I almost feel sorry for them. They have these optimistic faces, and bright ideas that should work, but probably won't. The solutions they offer are tantamount to asking someone not to smoke in a burning building. And if that isn't enough, they are moving my whole office into another building across town. There are 3 offices in this city, and they are consolidating 2 of them into one. There isn't enough space, its going to be insane, but noone will listen to advice of people who have been there forever and who might have a clue. So.....over the weekend everything will be trucked over and next week we start all over again. I have a bad feeling about this, but at the moment I am just holding my tongue and going with the flow. I've made sure that I have crossed my T's and dotted my i's. I have dated and documented every little thing that I do. I should be safe from the scrutiny. New management and new work environment....not so much. I will be there suffering with the rest of the crowd.
Whatever. I do hate that I had to work this weekend though. We have lost so many people lately, I don't really know when I will get any real time off again. Good thing we haven't scheduled any kind of vacation, because at the moment? The only way I can leave is to quit. So....yeah. Hopefully things will improve at some point in the future. Its hard to feel positive when its been all downhill for years, but then again, when it hits rock bottom the only way is up. Right? Please tell me thats right? LOL.

I'm ok. Just a little hassled and frustrated, but I haven't let it get ALL over my nerves yet. I have managed to remain relatively unscathed in the bloodbath, so far, and I guess that makes me lucky. I am just doing my job the best that I can and trying to stay under the radar.

Hugs

This is Samantha with her new babies. She is so calm and sweet. She doesn't seem to mind having us come in and look at the kittens, so I went ahead and took a picture of her. I swear she seems to be posing for me. LOL.

And we have BABIES

It was a pretty exciting night in this household. Our new kitty (the pregnant stray) went into obvious labor about 8:15. The vet had advised me to watch her, since she is so young and so small. If she had heavy labor longer than an hour, it might be time to get some help. I was getting more and more nervous as time went on and nothing was happening. Then finally, at around 9pm I heard Bruce, who was the bedside kitty attendant, say "Whhhooooaaaa!" Baby #1 apparently popped out rather quickly after such a long wait. I am calling him "Hoss". Hoss was very active and needed no introduction to nursing. He was born hungry.

About 10-15 minutes later, the second baby made an appearance. This one had us a little worried as he was really sedate. We could see that he was breathing, but he just wanted to sleep. Maybe that is normal and we just didn't know it after seeing how...um....robust Hoss was. LOL. But Mama kept licking him and stimulating him into waking and before long he found his way to nursing too. Mama settled down, and was purring and comfortable. Babies were nursing...so we left them alone to get some rest and just peeked in on them every little bit. I thought that was the end of it, but Bruce kept saying he felt "another one" in her belly.

Around 11pm, as I was checking one last time before bed...I saw a third little head in the nursing pile. LOL. Bruce moved back to the bedside once again, and I went to get some sleep. When he came to bed about an hour later, he told me that there were 4 in total. And she was done...no more impending babies on the way.

This morning, everybody is doing fine. Mama got out to eat a little bit of breakfast, and I took that opportunity to change the towel that was in her box. The kittens are surprisingly big and heavy to have all come out of such a tiny little cat. Seriously, when the 4 of them are lined up in nursing position, the group of them look almost bigger than Mama. How in the world did they have any room in there?
I don't know, but even as young as she is, she seems to be a good mother. She cleans them and nurses them...which is a relief to me. I have heard stories of very young cats abandoning their first litter. What would I do if I had to bottle feed 4 kittens round the clock? I shudder to think......But anyway, please think long and hard about possibly adopting a baby...The vet is going to let me post pictures and advertise through her office, too, but I am still a little nervous. There is NO way we can keep these babies. 3 cats is the absolute maximum that I can deal with. NO more room in the Inn!!! I would even consider giving up Mama if a good opportunity arose. But because she is grown the chances of that are slim.

I will take some pictures and post them later. I don't want to disturb them too much right now. Poor Mama cat is so exhausted and she needs her rest.