Summer Lovin'

School is out for me.  And for the first time in 5 years, I am not teaching summer school nor birthing babies.

Ahhhhhhh.

It is nice.  I'm still working on my research daily, and actually making a lot of progress.  But I've also got some breathing room and I'm not sorry about that.

So a few thoughts.  Regarding the dying cat:  she is doing SO. MUCH. BETTER.  I thought last Friday was going to be her last day on earth, or at least, last day outside of college.  We even called up the vet to schedule her appointment.  Then I cancelled it because it was too much for me to consider.  Then she got better!  She's still terminally ill, but she's walking around, eating and drinking, pooping and peeing, and purring a great deal.  We spend a good amount of time cuddling and I hope that provides some comfort to her.  (It does as indicated by the kitty biscuits she made on my collarbone today)

I did decide that I don't want to wait until she is miserable and in a great deal of pain.  I'd rather her go when she has a level of comfort about her.  But she's doing so well now, I'm not ready to let her go.

As for the kittens, I have had a serious lesson in errors of anthropomorphism.  When we rescued the kittens, we knew that  another family wanted Fred and George likely would have been put to sleep.  In addition, George is gimpy with a badly healed broken paw.  And finally, George is much smaller than Fred and not nearly as friendly.  One could easily pity George and think that he is the runt of his litter.

Do you want to guess who the new alpha animal is around our house?

Yeah, George!!  He eats first.  He discovered how to get through the doggie door first.  He explores and chases and conquers.  He "marks" Patches by rubbing up against him with his face and tail.  (Patches is very confused and really only cares if they do something wrong)  George is absolutely the alpha animal in our house now.

Who woudda thunk?

It's very similar to how Scarlett was always the prettiest and sweetest cat we had.  But every single animal who ever entered our house knew she was NOT alpha and was treated as the opposite of alpha.  I mean, within minutes, any animal would respond positively to the other cats and then go after Scarlett.

HA!  She showed them.  She's the longest living cat we'll ever have and it's going to take Dave 11 more years before he's lived with me longer than she has.  That's crazy.  I think that's typical for us.