Archive for the ‘Patches’ Category

Everyone’s been asking me how Patches is doing and I suppose it’s time for an update.

Patches fits in all too well around here. She’s quickly picking up some of Cinders’ bad habits (figures) but she’s still stinkin’ cute! She’s growing so fast and I can’t believe how much she’s eating.

Patches has picked up on Cinders’ wet food feeding time. So now when Cinders gets his can of wet food, she thinks it’s time for her to get one too. So now I am feeding both cats a can of wet food at 5pm (kitten patte for Patches and regular for Cinders). But I don’t do it fast enough for Miss Patches… oh no. She can now jump up to where Cinders gets fed and tries to get in his dish with him and he gets mad and knocks her off the platform.

She’s also taken to crying. She doesn’t meow… she makes a crying noise and it makes me so sad. If I lock the cats out of my bedroom at night so I can sleep and I come out early in the morning, she’ll come to me and cry because she wants to come snuggle in bed with me. So about 6am every morning, I take Patches with me and we snuggle for a little while.

For whatever reason, Patches is skiddish randomly during the day. It doesn’t matter how slowly you approach her, she runs off and doesn’t want to be touched. I’m not sure why she’s doing it and it’s not all the time.

Cinders is getting more rough with Patches as she gets older. They are wrestling harder and playing harder. But it’s a good thing – Patches needs to learn to fend for herself and where her place is here. That said, Patches is a little instigator! She is constantly popping Cinders and running off or swatting at him when he’s trying to relax. He put up with it the first couple of weeks but that is sooo over.

But yet… they love each other and snuggle together during the day.

I’m so incredibly proud of Cinders. When I imagined what it would be like to introduce another cat into this house, I really thought that we would have some problems at first. I figured Flora would be jealous and eager to be babied and that Cinders would be flat out pissed off. I really thought Cinders would get very territorial and he really hasn’t.

I never would have guessed that I’d be taking pictures like this one…

…or this one…

…not anytime soon at least.

But the truth is, Cinders has been incredibly patient with Patches. They have played together and Cinders lets her know when it’s time to calm down. He sternly but lovingly puts her in her place. He’s laid with her and groomed her. She follows him around the house and they gang up on Flora together.

I’m really surprised and it’s been really fun to watch!

What a fun day it’s been. The past twelve hours have been hilarious. I can say without a doubt that Patches fits in well around here. She’s already holding her own, making herself comfortable and getting along very well with Cinders and even Flora.

It took about the first 9 or 10 hours for Patches to allow Flora near her but now Flora is a-okay with her. I think it’s because Flora will lay down with her and lick her and snuggle. Patches still hisses at Flora if she is too rough or hyper with her, but otherwise, I’m seeing a lot of this…

Isn’t that just the cutest damn thing!?

I love Patches’ personality thus far. She’s very cuddly. In fact, I tweeted earlier about her trying to sleep on my face. It was really funny and sweeter than it sounds. She’s desperate to be close to me. It’s so fun having a pet in the baby stage. There is still so much for them to explore and learn.

Cinders knows not to jump on counters or furniture like my desk. But Patches used my computer chair to climb, digging her claws into it and pulling herself up until she got in my lap – and then my desk. It’s something she’ll have to be taught not to do, but it sure was cute seeing a little kitty walk across my keyboard happily.

Right now, Patches is laying on my left foot, nuzzling against it. No complaints here… my foot is cold. haha

What a crazy morning it’s been. Wow is it only 11am!?

Patches is inside and fitting in all too well. She’s positively in love with Cinders and has been chasing him around the house since she came in about 2 hours ago. I’m talking all out sprinting around the house, batting at one another, jumping on and off of furniture and meowing like crazy. They are having a rip-roaring good time.

Poor Flora. She really is the red-headed step child of the family. Patches wants nothing to do with her just yet – even hissed at Flora a little. I think Flora is just too hyper for anyone’s liking. And yet, she’s so desperate to play with Patches. She wants to have fun too sooooo bad. Trying to give Flora some extra lovings today.

See how sad Flora looks? She’s watching the kitties play and she wants to have fun too!

Patches is absolutely in love with this little cat hotel we have. Cinders hasn’t used it in ages and he’s a bit too big for it now [although Cinders did get jealous and tried to fit his fat ass in it earlier to spite Patches haha].

Both Cinders and Flora have gotten in trouble already today. I set out food for Patches because she didn’t eat well last night due to the rain. Cinders tried to eat it. I chased him off and went after Patches to bring her back to the bowl and by the time I returned no more than 30 seconds later, Flora had scarfed up 90% of the cat food in the bowl. Oh boy was I pissed. It’s like 54 cents per can for that stuff and Flora has her own food.

I’ve shown Patches the litter box a few times and Charlie took her once as well. She just looks around and looks at you like “Why am I in this box and why does it smell like pee?” and she jumps out. Hopefully since she’s bonding so well with Cinders, he’ll show her how to use it.

I have to go out today and leave the animals all home to themselves for a little while so I can drop off my prescription stuff. This should be interesting. I hope the 3 Pupcateers behave while I’m gone!

Men are so funny sometimes.

Remember the other day? I said that that Patches could come inside on Saturday. The vet said to give her “a few days” so that the medicine to get to work on her fleas and de-worming so it would be safe to expose her to the animals. That was the afternoon of the 15th (Tuesday). So Charlie told me that we would bring Patches in on Saturday – much to my dismay, but I understood.

Yesterday, Charlie suddenly started talking about bringing her in Friday night. And this quickly progressed to “When you bring her in Friday afternoon…” and to “Let’s bring her in Friday morning.” So that’s what I’m doing… bringing Patches in tomorrow morning. *grin*

Cinders is not pleased. He knows something is up. He saw Patches get brought into the house inside of the pet carrier on Tuesday. He sees me outside feeding her every night and he’s come nose to nose with her on a few occasions when I’m trying to get back inside and Patches is trying desperately to follow. Cinders is too damn smart. In fact, he’s under my desk right now, at my feet. He never does this. He’s suddenly been a total lap kitty the last few days – suddenly eager and desperate for my attention.

Flora is none the wiser. She knows Patches exists. She wants very much to observe her closer but otherwise, has taken no interest in the whole ordeal thus far. Tomorrow should prove interesting as I imagine both animals will want to express their dominance over Patches.

Charlie said that when he first brought Flora into the house, Cinders would run over and smack her a lot and hiss. It took a few weeks for him to accept Flora so I suspect we’ll have just as much if not more of that going on in this house for a while.

*Yawn* It’s time for me to head to bed. My heart is pounding. It’s been hurting since I ate dinner. I guess it was too much grease [meh my doctor totally said that was a no no]. Tomorrow will be a full and eventful day, I’m sure. Stay turned for pictures!

I’m so incredibly pissed off right now.

See this program? Artisteer. Yes, I wanted this program. My husband even offered to buy it for me as a birthday gift. I declined. I wish we had tons of money so I could buy everything I ever wanted, but ya know what… we don’t. That’s life.

And then a very nice lady came along DAYS LATER and offered to send me $50 to go towards Patches shots. She sent it to me. It’s in my PayPal account right now. So you know what? I told my husband that instead of spending $50 on buying me some program for my birthday, how about he just pitch in the rest of the money needed to get Patches her shots and all that stuff from the SPCA. And that is what we agreed upon.

We didn’t go yesterday. I called the SPCA to make sure the $95 they charge for “adoption fees” which included all of the shots, deworming, frontline application, spay, etc would actually apply to a stray cat we’d found. Turns out, yes.. it does. But there is a place in Columbia who will spay for $35 and do shots for $5. So that $50 we were given will cover it all plus the cost of the gas to get there. Perfect. So we didn’t go yesterday.

I’d like to go tomorrow. It depends. Charlie is working a weird schedule. He normally starts work at 6pm but now it starts at 12 in the afternoon. But if at all possible, Patches will at least get her shots tomorrow [I was informed that she may not be old enough / heavy enough to get spayed yet. I don't know if that's true?].

So I didn’t get the program, but I continued on and I finally finished the re-design of Digital-Dish.com last night. Funny, the website still exists – it just has a different index page while my host JaguarPC and the registrar of the domain GoDaddy, get all of their appropriate ducks in a row. Changing the DNS settings and associating my domain Digital-Dish.com with my host JaguarPC, cost me nothing. I didn’t have to buy anything. I didn’t have to spend any money to change the settings. It was really no big deal at all. Digital-Dish.com was merely acting as a redirect for IMVUDigitalDish.blogspot.com because let’s face it… Digital-Dish.com is a much better URL. lol

So last night, I told everyone that Digital-Dish.com was under construction. Again.. page still exists, it just has a temporary index page. Big whoop. I’ve been planning this for weeks. ShortFatCyclops.com is going to go through the same thing this weekend. I just happened to finally understand how to use Wordpress, self host my blog and have more control over it [which I apparently need since I have complete idiots posting anonymously here and leaving absolute garbage for comments].

Look at my PayPal account. HERE. That is ALL transactions for the month. That includes everything – stuff going in, stuff going out, debit card, etc. The only change in my PayPal account since September 1st has been the $50 I was gifted. I haven’t touched it. I blurred out the woman’s name for her privacy since it includes her first and last name.

How dare ANYONE question my integrity – especially to do so anonymously. Grow up and stop causing stupid drama. Jealously is not becoming.

I’m so incredibly touched right now. In fact, I’m still crying as I write this.

This year has showed me both the good and bad sides of the world – particularly the people who inhabit it. I’m lucky that despite all of the negativity in my life and the emotional pain I am going through, I’ve still somehow managed to meet some incredible people who have made all of this just a bit less painful for my family.

And then there’s Patches. I believe in fate and I think she ended up on our doorstep for a reason. I’m feeling rather lonely these days and quite frankly, I’ve run out of things productive to do with my time. With Hailey not here to nurture, my days literally consist of browsing for jobs to apply for, working, communicating with my clientele and keeping the house clean [which really is a damn breeze since I'm married to a man who cleans up after himself and understands the concept of a hamper]. After all of that, it’s like… What am I supposed to do with my time?

I’ve also been so sick in the last week and having Patches to play and cuddle with has been really healing for me. It’s just a calming experience. Cinders doesn’t much care for affection – or rather, he wants it on his own timing. And Flora… her idea of attention involves running around and chasing after a toy. She’s a very on the spur of the moment kind of dog and her energy and need for attention comes in bursts. So it’s been nice having a little animal around who needs and wants me.

It’s been suggested to me that I should continue living my life as if Hailey were home. That’s something I’ve stuck to the best I can. But when I have nothing to do, where else am I going to be than at my computer? There is only so much television and sleep one can soak up. I can’t afford to go out and even if I could, it’s not something I’d be doing if Hailey were home. Most we ever did was go to the grocery store without her or to the movies. So right now, Patches is a nice little filler for my time.

And luckily after today, I think we will be bringing her into our home very soon. An incredibly nice woman from IMVU who I hardly know to be honest, donated $50 to go towards the cost of getting Patches “house-cat friendly”. The kindness of strangers absolutely astounds me. I catch so much crap from people at times who suggest that people online can’t be real friends and then I experience things like this and I say “Well why the hell can’t my online friends be considered real friends!?” I’m truly touched and extremely blessed. I’m fortunate to experience such a wonderful happening during such a cruel time in my life. A million thanks once again to the very nice lady. We’ll be sure to take excellent care of little Patches!

Yet another story about Patches, our “outside cat”…

I’ve been dancing around Charlie trying to figure out how he felt about keeping Patches. I didn’t know if he wanted her or if he was just keeping her around because I’ve become so attached to her [and her to myself]. But he told me today that he’d like to keep her.

That’s great and it’s the answer I was hoping for. But it’s not the happy, perfect scene you’d imagine. While Charlie would like to keep her, he wants her to remain outdoors for now in hopes that “in a few months” we’ll be able to afford to spend the money on her shots. I’m not at all happy with that. I don’t agree with that at all.

I’m stubborn and I’m a very now or never sort of woman. I believe in seizing opportunities because I know if we don’t do what we want now, the chance for it won’t come around when we finally decide to act. I know this because it always seems to happen that way to me. Beyond my stubbornness is that voice in the back of my head screaming to me “That’s not fair.” – to Patches that is.

I keep thinking about our own Flora and Cinders being inside and not having to run under the house when it rains. I remember just a few months ago how really upset Charlie was [more like completely devastated] when Cinders took a trip under the house and we couldn’t get him to come out. I remember it raining and I remember what a stressful and upsetting day it was for all of us – Cinders included. So how fair is it for him to say that Patches is just fine living under our house?

Oh wait… it’s not.

I want to keep Patches. I’d very much love to give her a home. I’d like very much to have a new kitty to love on and take care of [And at this point in the year after all I have been through, I think in a lot of ways, I need Patches]. But I can’t just force her to live outside for the next few months because I only hope my financial situation will change and I’ll be able to more readily spend the money on the things she needs in order to be an indoor cat.

I told Charlie that before his vacation is over, we need to make a decision. Either we take Patches to get her shots at the SPCA and bring her into our home, or we take her to the SPCA where they will take care of her and find her a good home. If we really love that darn kitty as much as I think we do, than that’s our only options.

It’s 7:30 in the morning and I’m snoozing comfortably in my bed. BAM BAM BAM What on earth is that noise? I continue trying to sleep. BAM BAM BAM Ugh Are you serious!? What the heck is going on?

That’s when I realize someone is on my roof and they are being obnoxiously loud. As it turns out, there are workers here and they are fixing my roof. Great! No, really… that’s great because it needed fixing. That said, I had no idea they were coming today and certainly not at 7:30 in the morning. They didn’t knock on my door nor announce themselves [unless you count banging on my roof as an announcement].

The banging did not stop all day – except for 30 minutes here and there when the workers took a break. So from 7:30 until… I’m not sure but I know they were here for at least nine hours… their was banging. It greatly affected me health wise. I felt faint many times today. The banging got so loud at hard at some points that bits of ceiling crumbled to the floor. I spent the whole day feeling jumpy and anxious. My heart was pounding out of my chest. It was really rough. My body finally couldn’t take it any more and I laid in Charlie’s bed and fell asleep for a nap.

Worse… They aren’t done and they will be back tomorrow.

Poor Patches didn’t even get to eat all day – not food we gave her anyway. The workers parked in my front lawn in front of where Patches has been living under the house. They were throwing the old shingles down from the roof. No way was she going to come out with them there. She must have been petrified. Charlie got her to come out this evening and she doesn’t come out for him often – she’s so used to me calling her. She must have been mega hungry. Poor kitty.

No idea how I’m going to get through tomorrow. I feel like complete crap right now from all of the commotion today.

Look at how happy Patches is! It’s because mommy just fed her and she has a full, happy belly!

We’re still undecided on what we’re doing with her. Charlie’s mom suggested that we keep her as an outdoor cat for at least a few months in hopes of our situation changing and us maybe being able to keep her. Charlie said we would talk about it later in the week.

I don’t know… I’d much rather just take her to the SPCA now rather than keeping her living under my house for months in hopes of what ‘may happen’. She’s just an animal, but her life rests in our hands and we have to be fair and do what’s best.

From what I can tell, it’s actually cheaper to go there instead of the vet if we did want to keep her. It’s $95 for: age appropriate vaccinations, dewormings, spay or neuter surgery, rabies vaccination, feline leukemia and FIV test, Frontline application, collar, ID tag and a cardboard pet taxi. And considering how much I know it costs for Flora and Cinders for that stuff, I know that $95 is a steal. Doesn’t mean I have it to spend right now, but it’s still a good price.

Patches is getting really playful so I’m hopeful that if we decide to give her to the SPCA, she’ll find herself a good home. She’s so snugly which I’m not used to being that our cat Cinders doesn’t enjoy affection this much. Patches has been giving me little love nibbles and batting at my hand with her paws playfully. She’s really sweet and it’s such a shame that someone probably just dropper her off on our doorstep without a care.