Five of them moved on to other homes through adoption, and here's hoping they are still alive and still rooting for the team they first saw winning the Super Bowl.
As for Mal the Krazy Kat, who remains here waiting for this coming Sunday matchup between his beloved Seahawks and THE EVIL EMPIRE PATRIOTS?
This house is a 'Hawks House this weekend, kiddos. 12TH CAT UP.
Next week we're back to plotting out Tampa Bay Bucs draft options.
Ocean gave birth to six kittehs that night, but I held off on naming most of them until I could determine which ones were which and name them to the characters of the TV show Firefly. Until they opened their eyes, and I took them in to the vet to have them checked out. And then I waited to see which of them was the bravest - or craziest - of the lot to where I would name him Mal (two of the tuxedo kittehs were River and Simon, obviously as River was the daughter to Ocean and so the male tuxedo was Simon, the pretty grey female was Inara (almost Kaylee), the remaining male black kitteh was Jayne and the female black kitteh Zoe).
I wanted to keep one kitteh so I could feel okay about one of Ocean's babies growing up well - the animal rescue I took the remaining kittehs would not allow me to share contact info with their future forever home adoptees - and so I kept Mal thinking he would be the friendliest and fearless of the lot. Instead, Mal turned into a scaredy cat around my parents - essentially the only ones who've visited me over the years as my domicile isn't well-meant for hosting a lot of things (sigh) - and well that's how it turned out.
To ANYONE who adopted Inara, Zoe, Jayne, River and/or Simon, I can only hope they are still with us and that they've enjoyed loving homes.
In the meantime, I got stuck with THIS guy.
Happy birthday, Mal!
Ten years old. In hooman years that means he's getting AARP mailings.
Of those tiny kittehs, one remained with me, Mal the Krazy Kat, a mighty Pan-Furr (play on panther) of the house. And a big one too, he's two armfuls to hold!
Here I am trying to talk to Mal to stop him from abusing my face (ow ow ow):
See how mean he is to me?!
Sigh.
Never mind, I snacked him today for his birthday! This makes him... 7 years old now. Time flies when you're wagging that tail.
And... that's not all the photos of my 50 years - there's one or two from my college days I can't find at the moment, some from my days in Pasco Libraries, and a few more - but this gives you an idea how long it took for me to get a good beard going and then how quickly it went grey.
Ouch.
As for all the stuff I'd like to do for a birthday present to myself, the one thing I want to do is travel and see more of the world... but now is not a good time to do that. (sigh)
So in the meantime, here's cake:
Also, still trying to write a story or two. Or twelve. And get a damned novel finished. And...
But it's a day in the middle of the week so I'm at work, doing librarianship, ordering copies, coping with 49 years of wondering about my place in the universe...
Facebook reminded me that I posted images of Ocean giving birth to her kittehs this weekend, right around the 4th Quarter of the Seattle-Denver Super Bowl where the Seahawks were just mashing the Broncos.
Mal is in that pile somewhere.
I named them after six of the characters from Firefly: Mal, Zoe, Jayne, River, Simon, Inara. I kept Mal because black cats are harder to adopt out (River was a tuxedo kitten like her mom and Inara was the grey kitteh: they went first).
So here we are five years later, and here's Mal being the same crazy cat he's been since Day One:
I'd normally celebrate his birthday towards the 4th Quarter of Super Bowl Sunday, since that's when Ocean gave birth to him and his siblings, but I figured giving Mal some snacks this morning was his due.
To River, Simon, Inara, Zoe and Jayne: wherever you are, I hope you're doing well in your adopted homes and I hope you are enjoying your birthdays!
I grew up reading the Henry Huggins books, and because of that also the Ramona books. I still don't get the idea that books at a certain age are "gender-specific": the Ramona books were still about growing up as kids, regardless of being a boy or a girl.
There's still a story in my head I have the title for - "Maybe Auburndale, Maybe Yakima" - that I have the urge to write. I have a reason for choosing Auburndale, FL (it'll be part of the story's theme) and when I found out where Beverly Cleary worked I added Yakima to finish off the title (and fits into the theme) so now you know where the title will come from.
I just want to say that it would be a bright and wonderful and perfectly appropriate thing if Beverly Cleary wins the Nobel Prize for Literature for her contributions to the children's literature and readership. If there's anyone on the committee I can talk to about this, please pass along their e-mail. Thank ye.
Been a bit of a fan since the movie Labyrinth. Went with my friend Sherry to see it back in the day: she went for David Bowie, I went for the Muppets. This was how the movie opened for me:
(there's no YouTube of this?)
But yeah, I crushed.
So anyway, been a fan. She hasn't always starred in great or enjoyable films but she's done well, been in a bunch that I like (Rocketeer, Dark City) and a couple that were artistically challenging with great acting (Requiem for a Dream although seriously you can only watch that once, that damn thing is soul-rending...)
I don't blame her for the 2003 Hulk, that could have been huge if the director hadn't gone avant garde on the damn thing... and mutant poodles, Ang really?! REALLY?!
It's one of those round-to-five birth years again. And another day of waking up, going to work, and regretting just a few of the things I still haven't gotten around to doing in life.
Not to say I should focus only on the regrets. There's a few things I've gotten done with my writings and a few things I've done in my life worth doing. I may miss my old friends, I do miss Tehya and Page my kittehs... but I don't regret having met new friends, and I don't regret having Ocean and Mal wiggle their way into my life.
(cross-posted to my otter blog):
And on this 40th birthday I can say only one thing:
Where the hell can I find a cute single woman - Age 25-35 with brunette hair, doesn't smoke, likes football and comic books, with knowledge of either A) European History B) American Politics or C) Paranormal (UFO and Ghosts) Studies - so I can date her and finally lose my goddamn virginity?!
