Kittehs!

Back in December my parents lost their Elder States Kitty, Maxx, to cancer.  It was right around Christmas and both of my parents have missed him a lot since.  Maxx was… particular.  The offspring of a tiny calico who formerly lived next door and a GIANT neighborhood Tom who was probably part or all Maine Coon, Maxx had a tiny head, huge body, and was all love.  He was a lap and shoulder cat who liked to sit in the chair in the living room with my Dad when he read or, ahem, “rested his eyes” and either cuddle on his lap or perch on his shoulder as if reading whatever my Dad was reading.

About 2 weeks ago my parents got to feeling that it was about time to add a new feline or two to the house.  My sister went online and looked for Maine Coon cats that needed a new home.  They found two 6 month old brothers who had been surrendered by their owner due to lack of time to care for them.  They had been surrendered at a high kill shelter in the south and had been transferred to a no kill shelter near where my parents live.  They applied, were approved, and were able to pick up the boys this past Saturday.

Introducing Meezer and Moon.  Pictures and commentary provided by my Mom.  All photos were taken at the shelter before the boys were picked up and taken home.

Meezer was pooped.
Meezer was pooped.

Here is a picture of a very tired Meezer.  He is more laid-back than his brother Moon, but they are both full of energy and love to play with a black shoe lace on the living room carpet.

Moon in a rare sleepy moment.
Moon in a rare sleepy moment.

This is Moon.  I can tell because he has more fur coming out of his ears.  This is an unusually quiet moment for him.  He usually does not want to miss anything and will bring you a toy to play with, even if it belongs to Jasmine!

Moon says, "let me OUT!"
Moon says, "let me OUT!"

This is Moon again.  When not taking a kitten nap, he is alert and ready to play, or attack your sweater zipper.  He also is the most vocal and is not shy about telling you that he wants your attention.

Moon explores the shelter enclosure.
Moon explores the shelter enclosure.

Here is Moon again!!!  I think he also likes to have his picture taken.  As you can see, these photos were taken at the rescue shelter before we brought them home.  They have been with us only 3 days, but are acting like they own the house already.  The first day they arrived, both kittens jumped onto Dad’s lap when he sat in the red chair.  That is what he misses most about Maxx, the chair time, so he was very happy.  Meezer stayed on his lap, but Moon climbed up on his shoulder just like Maxx used to do.

Moon woke me up this morning at 5 am, by climbing under the covers and sleeping on my pillow.  Without using his claws, he grabbed my face and started licking my chin.  How can you not like that?  I am wondering if this is basic Maine Coon behavior or did we just get lucky.

So, those are the newest family members.  I am hoping that we’ll get more photos from my Mom and Dad soon.  Enjoy the pretty kitties.

~Kelly

Brain Scans: Day 4- Flowers!

This morning as I was in the hours between taking my morning meds and finally dropping off to sleep (total time awake almost 24 hours) a nice old man with a Southie accent arrived and delivered my flowers!  Very exciting. They are from my Mom, Dad, Brother, and Sister.  😀

 

Flowers and Pizza Box: a Hospital Still Life
Flowers and Pizza Box: a Hospital Still Life
Flowers: a closeup
Flowers: a closeup

Sorry for the crappy cell photography.  I tried to make up for it with artistic sounding titles.  /CheTONGUEek

 

~Kelly

Brain Scans: Day 3

Well, apparently my brain is not performing as desired. (This is news?) I keep setting off alarms while awake and feeling more or less fine, but have only set off one alarm, that I remember, while asleep. I slept fitfully last night, though I did manage to make it to REM sleep. I had a dream in which the founder of the company that laid me off showed up. I have no earthly idea why, but he was there.
I slept a good portion of the day today. For some reason I was really tired. I know it’s noisy here and that I can’t sleep more than 4 hours at a shot, but I was just really groggy all this morning. One of the residents came in to see me and I know I talked to him but I don’t remember what I said. I think he’s coming back later, so I should find out.

Since you all have been so fantastic about sending me stuff, I thought I’d post it here. A photo of my helmet.

I took this:

The safety helmet of DOOM.
The safety helmet of DOOM.

last night when my new night nurse came on duty. She was highly amused by the fact that I took a photo of it and actually seemed to warm to me quite a bit. I was listening to MP4s sent to me by a friend from choir when she came in and when she found out I was singing in them she was very impressed and asked me all about them. I like her, I hope she comes back tonight.

Yesterday’s promised passel of med students never appeared, unless they snuck in while I was napping.  I managed to get through the day yesterday without 1 full neuro exam, which is both frightening and amazing.  I haven’t had one yet today either.

If you have a moment, send Geoff an email.  He’s home with a vicious head cold and he’s losing his voice.  He can’t come visit me till his fever goes down and he can’t really communicate via phone, so we’re texting and emailing.

I think that’s it for now.  If something interesting happens, other than the constant beeping and groaning of machines, I’ll post it here.

~Kelly

Brain Scans: Day 2, Part 2

I snapped this photo out the window of my room from my hospital bed.  One of the techs who was attaching my 29 (I asked) leads to my head yesterday told me that this was the only monitoring room facing this way.  Everybody else gets a view of the hospital.  It looks cool at night with all of the buildings lit, but my phone doesn’t like low light photos, so you all get sunset instead.

Sunset over Boston looking roughly north
Sunset over Boston looking roughly north

~Kelly

 

How to tell when you have an addict in the home

Addicts are often good at hiding their disease.  Some can go years before the extent of their addiction is revealed.  Sometimes the addiction ruins their relationships, their job, their finances, etc.

In our case, things are a little different.

This is Bucky, and he’s addicted to The Furminator.

Bucky
Our FURminator addict waits patiently for his turn.

Bucky, also known as Buckminster Charles the III, is the eldest of our pack of furry kids.  He rules the house with a mixture of patience, nose baps, and the unabashed understanding that he is simply master of all he surveys by virtue of being a cat.  We are simply his staff and, while he loves us and we can occasionally itch that scratch he can’t reach, we primarily exist to feed him and shower him with praise.

Then we brought home the Furminator and everything changed.  We’d been looking for a way to more properly groom Smoky. Smoky is allergic to, well, just about everything, and is also prone to overgrooming himself and, um,  hairballs.  So, we thought that a good grooming tool might be just the thing to help minimize the hairballs and the overgrooming.

Smoky
Smoky, our allergic Tux kitty and original recipient of the FURminator.

Smoky likes the Furminator just fine.  Bucky?  Well, that’s a whole different story.  He’s an addict.

He quite literally comes to us each and every day and demands to be groomed.  This, in and of itself isn’t a bad thing.  Bucky is, we think, part Abyssinian.  He’s got a double coat that’s very thick and while he’s perfectly capable of grooming himself, in his old age, he’s discovered that it isn’t as much fun as it used to be.

Once he discovered the Furminator, all bets were off.  He will keep us from our job searching at the computer.  He will bat at us, sit on our keyboards and hands, even swat at our faces until we find the Furminator (it is never far from reach) and groom him until he is happy with the results.  He does this every day at least once a day.  There is no escaping it.  If he had thumbs he would do it himself, I think.  But alas, this one evolutionary development keeps him from truly taking his destiny in hand and ruling the house.

All this being said, he does look like a glossy and fabulous new kitty.  We absolutely recommend the Furminator.  Just be prepared.  There may be a 12 step program in your cat’s future…

~Kelly

More fun with random pictures!

That’s right, folks, more photos from my phone’s brain for you.  Enjoy!

Seen at Costco.
Worst name and byline for a wine *ever*.

These next two are from that Bridal thing Geoff and I went to at Bloomingdale’s.  Um, needless to say we didn’t register for them.  The first one elicited a comment from Geoff along the lines of, “I guess that is what Elrond would serve his salads out of?”

So when, exactly, does one stop eating?
It's a leaf. It's a salad bowl. It's a leaf. It's a salad bowl.
Chicken!
A chicken shaped... cheese board?

Gratuitous adorable pictures of Thumbelina napping.  On Scratch’s head.  Heh.

Kitteh pillow the first.
I haz a fuzzy striped pillow.
mmm, fuzzy WARM striped pillow.
I'm so comfortable I'm sticking out my tongue.

And finally, pictures from a trip outside yesterday with the “puppehs.”

Wait!  What was that?
Behold my puffed tail! For I am Defender of the Manor! MROW!
The Three Musketeers.
You shall not pass! Ooh! Shiny...

And that’s it, folks.  Hope you enjoyed the photos.

~Kelly

Random photos for you!

I finally offloaded a bunch of photos that had been sitting on my cell phone for a while.  As a result, picspam for you!

 

Are those bedroom eyes?
This is the look he gets right before he tries to eat your face.
Woo!  What a view!
Fenway Park at night.
Pretty...
A gorgeous watercolor I saw at an exhibition of art at MGH.
Posted for the last several years in Inman Sq.
My very favorite poster, ever.
BAD Santa!!
The singularly most disturbing holiday image from this past december. His skirt swayed back and forth...

 

This is what I have so far.  There will be more tomorrow.  Enjoy the random!

~Kelly

The care and feeding of a wedding registry

This whole getting married this is supposed to be complicated.  At least, when you have the large-ish church wedding with the cast of thousands.  I get that.  That being said I have yet to buy a wedding magazine or leaf through any of the GIANT magazines that I have received “complimentary subscriptions” to in the mail.  (Seriously, you get amazing amounts of crap once any wedding vendor gets your name.)

What Geoff and I have done, among other things,  is set up a wedding registry.  Or, rather, several registries.  Basically, I picked out a couple of things that were important to me and let him, with some power of veto, pick out the rest.  We set up registries on Amazon.com, Bloomingdale’s, and Macy’s.  What I did not anticipate was having to regularly visit said registries and maintain them.  Apparently, vendors like to play games with availability of the stuff that they offer up for registries.  So, that really cool thing that you actually need?  It may just up and be unavailable for no particular reason with no instock date in sight.  So, you have to check in regularly and then edit as necessary.  This is kind of a pain, but we have gotten used to it.

The nice part about this is that we were invited to Bloomingdale’s for a “Couple’s Night Out” registry party.  Having never been to one, and because they’d feed us for free, we decided to go.  The food wasn’t bad, the mocktails were excellent, and once the presentation was over, there was a **competition**.  As couples, we basically got to run all over the tabletop department and come up with our coolest place setting and then set it up for judging.  There were actual prizes.  Granted, they were tacky champagne flutes which we didn’t need and I knew that at the time.  But, that wasn’t the point.  I wanted to win solely for the point of winning.

We didn’t win.  Which, in the end, was probably a good thing since the last thing I need is more clutter and wedding related crap in the house.  But a took a picture of our cool place setting in its fancy pink-ness.  Here it is.

Can you believe the one in the upper left won?
Our fabulous pink and gold place setting.

Anyway, we had fun while at Bloomingdale’s.  We did actually learn some stuff, and we met our “Registry Consultant.”  Basically, she’s the person that you folks can call if you want to get us something and you are 1) not internet savvy, 2) out of state, 3) out of the country and don’t know how to get something to us without all the stupid international mail and taxes and snafus and whatnot, or 4) don’t have one of the bricks and mortar stores near you.  We’re apparently allowed to put her name up and post her info, so here it is.  Fabulous Bloomingdale’s lady is Claudia Askew 617.630.6044  She was very personable and nice to us at the party and the customer service the night of was fabulous (aside from the fact that we didn’t win…)

We may go to one of the same type of parties thrown by Macy’s at some point in the future.  Or we may not.  We’ve pretty much picked out everything we need at this point.  (And no, we didn’t do this.)  Now we just have to hope that everything stays in stock till the big day.  And now for those wedding magazines… anyone need any reading material for the bathroom?

~Kelly