Adventures in Allergies

For the past two years, we've been battling Olive's increasing attempts to scratch off her lip. The vet has come to the conclusion that it's allergy-related but we couldn't find enough of a pattern to make any specific connections. So last week, we took her to a specialist to get allergy tested.

Turns out, she is allergic to many things. Specially, grasses (june, timothy and bahia), molds (penicillin and aspergillus), weeds (marshelder, careless, sage, Russian thistle, English plantain), trees (elm, oak and boxelder), as well as staph, fleas, and house dust mites.

Whee!

So yesterday, we started a new thing. Allergy shots.

The dermatologist says that it will take anywhere from three months to a year for the results to show, but from now until forever Dan and I will be giving Olive allergy shots every other week (though the first eight weeks she gets weekly shots). Hopefully this will allow Olive to retain her lip!

Five Out of Seven Kitties Agree

Last week we had a huge vet trip. All of my health things meant that the kitties' health maintenance got pushed to the back burner for a bit and almost everyone was overdue for their yearly shots. But I'm doing mostly better and Olive had something weird going on with her lips, so we took the most egregiously out of date kitties to the vet.

So Cocoa, Chloe, Gidget, Bitty and Olive all went to the vet. Yes, five of them. And all of them save Olive qualify as seniors, which makes for a very expensive vet trip. But who needs money when you have healthy kitties, right?

Well, except not everyone was fully healthy. All of their blood tests came back just fine, which was good, but Cocoa had a little bit of a heart murmur so we've got to schedule a cardiologist appointment for her to get an ultrasound. And Chloe needs a dental cleaning, during which time they will scope her ear because she has something in there that is either a growth or a really tenacious ball of wax. (Bitty had something similar a few years ago. It was stubborn wax. I'm pulling for that this time.)

We also came home with some antibiotic wipes for Cocoa's chin and Olive's lips (Cocoa's chin seems to be breaking out from messy drinking habits and who knows what is going on with Olive's lips but the corners are crusty and she keeps scratching them). Cocoa also got some joint supplement powder since her right hip has been bothering her more and more lately. And lastly, Olive also got some cream for a little bald spot on her head which may be ringworm.

So not a totally clean bill of health for all the babies (Gidget and Bitty did pass with flying colors), but heart murmur aside, the kitties came back good all the big stuff (like blood work). Next up, getting Chloe's teeth cleaned and figuring out the cause of Cocoa's murmur.

Just A Little Too Long

Snackies

Emmett Pillow

Apparently Olive thinks Emmett makes a good pillow.

Emmett doesn't seem to mind.

Because Olive is Awesome

The Dangers of Knitting

In Other News

Olive likes being tall.

And she does it well.

The getting down thing, not so much.

This Happens Constantly Now

Emmy & Ollie

Emmett and Olive are becoming quite the little friends. Most of the time their interaction is play-fighting, but recently Olive has started licking on the other kitties, particularly Emmett. Of course, their grooming sessions seems to devolve into roughhousing, too, but I think they enjoy it. And they are really cute.

He's a Keeper!

Just a little kitty update. Emmett is officially a Zimmermann now!

He and Olive have been getting along so we decided, yes, he is perfect Olive-entertainment and thus gets to stay. Because when they play together, it means that Olive is not harassing Gidget (and the other kitties, too, but she bothered Gidget the most), which means Gidget is not grumpy before bed (because Olive loves playing right before bedtime) so Gidget is back to cuddling at night. This makes me happy.

Added bonus: Olive has seemed to even out mood-wise thanks to the added Emmett. She's still a bit people-shy (we attribute that to a physically-not-nice former owner) so having the new kitty excitement split between her and Emmett seems to have eliminated the times where she would hide under the couch.

Also, her manic periods seem to be gone, too, likely because she has a willing partner in playtime to tire her out. She isn't quite as lap-cuddle-friendly as our more established kitties are, but she's showing some signs of growing in to it.

There has been one little kink in our plan for a calmer house, though: Emmett's bedtime cuddling. Which sounds great - because kitty cuddles are awesome - except for the fact that if anyone touches Emmett during the night in any way that might be considered a pet, he starts purring. And he is loud. Seriously. He wakes me up purring and I sleep with earplugs in. And once the purring starts going, he starts tromping around the bed, sticking his little nose under hands to demand pets. It's magnificently cute, though I might encourage it more if it didn't happen at 3am.

Regardless, Emmett gets to stay, Olive has a friend and we now have seven cats again. Honestly, things with these seven are calmer than when we had just six!

Test Driving a Playmate

Please meet our newest insanity:

This is Emmett, a 7-month old kitty that Dan & I (tentatively) adopted through the vet yesterday. The idea is that he will be a playmate for Olive so she stops harassing the heck out of our other (slower, less energetic, geriatric) kitties. We ended up doing the same thing way back when we first got married - we had gotten 6-month old Nibby who harassed the dickens out of then 10-year-old Ashes. A few months later we brought Chloe home and the two of them ended up pretty inseparable, leaving Ashes alone to nap in the sun. We hope the same thing will happen here.

But, just in case it doesn't, we have Emmett for a two week trial run. Since this is a bit faster than our normal acclimation schedule, we've moved things up and Emmett is currently out-and-abouting (supervised) in the general pop. Well, theoretically. He takes forays outside of his room but currently is hiding in the litter cabinet, watching the world go by. Most of the kitties are either avoiding him or stalking him when they see him wandering around. Except for Olive. Olive likes to stalk him at all times and will stare at him while smack talking in chatters and hisses. She's swatted lightly at him a couple of times, too, but not in an aggressive way. (Though I had them both playing with a ribbon earlier and a couple of times she forgot she was supposed to hiss at him.) I think she's just trying to work out who is dominant. Emmett seems happy to be the one to back down so as soon as Olive clues in to this, I think they will settle the hierarchy without any real fussing.

Hopefully this works out because Emmett is a complete doll. He's amazingly soft (an admin at the vet's office referred to his "mink coat") and has the loudest purr motor I think I've ever heard. He's lovey and sweet and apparently learned at the vet that if you are squatting down and he reaches up to pat your chest, you will pick him up. Total doll.

Wish us luck!

Olive Update

Olive is starting to turn into a real kitty. She's figuring out this love thing (though she still hasn't quite got cuddles down) and has an endearing awkwardness when she rubs against us.

She seems pretty smart - she watches the other kitties a lot and seems to use them as a model of what to do. Which is great when it comes to learning how to deliver toy mice to loving parents, not so great when it comes to scratching on the back of our chairs. She and Gidget are tussling a lot together, most of which seems consensual so I try not to hover and worry too much. Though I am looking forward to the day I interrupt a mutual grooming session instead of a session of mutual bunny-kicking-the-other-kitty's-head.

She's starting to get a little squishy so I probably need to watch her food intake as she will eat pretty much whatever is put in front of her. (She even likes eating lettuce. Strange kitty.) But at the same time, the rounded edges make me feel like she is truly our kitty and no longer the scraggly little (swollen) stray we picked up two months ago.

Even Blurry, Olive is Hilarious

Olive is really starting to settle in. She's not quite the lovey kitty she was when she was on the streets or when she first came in the house, but she's calmed down some where she doesn't seem so ADD kittenish so I'm taking that as a step in the right direction.

That doesn't mean, however, that she's still not a bit insane and overactive with toys and other kitties' tails. But it's moved into the realm of funny, not exhausting.

Well, funny at least for the humans in the house. The kitties might have another opinion on that. I'm pretty sure Cocoa does.

Weekend Please!

Gosh, we are still busy. We've finally gotten all of the paperwork done on the house - the survey and related affidavit, seller's disclosure, etc. Otherwise, there is no real new news on the house sale. The buyer had the inspection tonight but haven't heard anything on that yet. Honestly, nothing should pop up (well, a corner spald needs covering, but we had the same thing on this house and it's not a big deal) but I have an irrational fear that they'll come back with some massive foundation repair that's needed and will cost twenty grand or something. It won't happen, but hey, that's why it's irrational. Fingers crossed that it all goes smoothly and a week from tomorrow, we will be down to one house.

In other news, last weekend Dan and I participated in a local food co-op. We got a box of food that included all sorts of goodies like mango, kale and cantaloupe... and my nemesis, bell peppers.

I'm really not a picky eater. I mean, I've eaten pickled baby squid, goat, natto... I do draw the line at eating bugs, but maybe I'm just saying that because I've never been offered any. Anyway, as much as I have a try-anything-twice attitude about food, I cannot stand bell peppers. Just walking by them in the grocery store makes me wince. Their smell. Bleck. Nails on a chalkboard to me. And I was presented two of them in my little food co-op box. But I refused to let them defeat me though. And they didn't.

I stuffed them with pork sausage, olive, onion and tomato then topped them with fresh mozzarella. I was actually pretty worried about how it would turn out, especially with the olives, but it was awesome! I think it was the olives that really made this work for me since it melded really well with the taste of the bell pepper and helped temper them. Dan even gave it a five out of five! Yay! I win! I imagine we'll do the food co-op again in the future so at least I know I can survive if and when we get bell peppers.

Speaking of olives, kitty-Olive is doing great. We had a vet appointment last week and her kidney levels were half a hair high which means she is likely a little dehydrated so we are working on that. She's still out in general pop and doing great. She does like to playfully annoy the other kitties but it's nothing problematic. The other kitties mostly ignore her.

She has amazing energy levels though. As I told Dan, she has three speeds: flat out, passed out and preparing for one of the first two speeds.

In other kitty news, Happy's report from the vet wasn't as positive as Olive's. Her kidney levels were across the board high, as was her phosphate and her potassium was a bit low. Which means she's at the beginning stages of kidney disease. Not surprising given her age but still sad. I'm not overly worried though - Ashes started having decently serious kidney issues when she was the same age and she had another ten years before she passed away. We're going to try out a new food for Happy - canned, even - so we'll see if she likes it and it helps. Fingers crossed!

Earlier, I mentioned that we had found a dresser for the bedroom but were still looking for something for our dining nook. Well, Monday, we found it! I'm really pleased with both pieces.

 

The piece of the left is the cabinet we got for the bedroom - it has socks, underthings, knitwear and our bedsheets. It's not a perfect match to our bedroom furniture (not quite red enough in all lights to match perfectly) but it reminds me a lot of my lingerie chest so I kind of love it. The piece on the right is for linens in our dining room. It needs a little love, but I adore it. I'm pretty darn pleased with our new additions! I am eying a couple of more things for other areas of the house, though, so who knows how that will go.

And in the last bit of news, I've finally been able to pick up my knitting again. I'm still working on my cardigan but I found a sock pattern that needed test knitters, so I'm alternating between the two. For the socks, I'm using some yarn I bought for my birthday. It's delightfully obnoxious.

The pic is a little outdated - I've gotten the full leg done on the first sock and am working on the ribbing of the second. This weekend, though, I had practically zero knitting time. Hopefully I'll have some downtime this week. I can't think of anything other than ironing and cleaning that needs to be done this week, but that could be because I'm a bit brain dead after such a crazy last few days.

Gratuitous Sam

This weekend (week, month, any of these work) has been kind of crazy. Dan and I have finally gotten our old house on the market - we even had our first showing today (and we only picked the realtor last night!). The showing went well - they spent an hour at the house - but sadly they want a larger backyard. Yeah, our old house's one downfall. But that's okay, at least it shows well otherwise, right? Eventually we'll find someone that doesn't want much lawn to mow!

We've also finally made some headway in the third bedroom. We've moved all the beer boxes out of there (Dan now has a beer & technology closet in his office) and put up the bed. No mattress yet, but we don't have a shower curtain in the guest bathroom either so it's not like we are billing the house as guest-ready. Hopefully we'll get the guest bath taken care of this month though. I'm sure we'll have 685 other things to do before we get around to the third bedroom's mattresses, though.

Something else we've managed to check off of our list: we finally picked up a dresser for the bedroom.

Don't let Cocoa's expression fool you - she likes it.

We still have our eyes out for one more piece of furniture (for the dining area), but at least our six or so visits to antique stores and malls have paid off with the dresser. It's not been loaded up yet but it's been all oiled and the drawers are back in it, much to the kitties' disappointment.

Speaking of kitties, last night was Olive's first night to remain out after bedtime. She even stayed in general population today while we were out. She's doing really fantastic. She likes to play with gray kitty tails a bit too much (Chloe gets rather squeaky and distressed) but Olive never moves beyond playful pestering when interacting with the other kitties. I think she might actually be making friends with Sam! (Which is good, because when we first started letting her explore outside of her room, Sam liked to go in there and pee on the towel she was using as a bed. I much prefer them playfully batting at each other from opposite sides of a box.)

Friday was a vet appointment for Olive, too. Other than having ear mites, she was given an all clear health-wise. She's now current on all of her shots and has gained a lovely 1.2 pounds since we took her in. She's a little over 8 pounds now, which the vet says is great for her but I'm still giving her a bit extra food at mealtimes since I think she has a little making up to do. Oh, and the vet puts her age at about one year old (younger if her teeth tartar on the fast side). Having such a young 'un around really drives home how old our other kitties are. Bitty, the baby of the family, is nine years old! Chloe is 11! I can't believe that much time has passed.

Speaking of time, I'm glad tomorrow is a holiday since Dan and I still need more time to get stuff done around the house! I'm hoping that my stove hood will be installed, maybe even the thermostat if we are feeling productive after our grocery-related outing (so Dan can see what goodies are offered by the stores now surrounding us). Even if we do get those things done though, our list of to-dos seems fairly never ending. I have hope that we'll eventually settle in though!

Slowly but Surely

We are slowly making progress on house things. After weeks of problems, we finally have new locks installed. That's lovely. All the painting is done in the old house and we've had it cleaned and the carpet repair is scheduled for the end of the week. A yard sale and digging up some irises and we should be all set to unload the thing!

In other news, Olive now spends her days out in general pop. She's finished her antibiotic cycle and her stomach is looking fantastic and unlumpy. She still hasn't won over any kitties but at least their displeasure isn't as strong. It's only a matter of time - after all, how can you say no to this face?

In all honesty, though, Olive is kind of a mess. She's only about a year old so she still has quite a bit of kitten in her. Bitty was the last kitten we've had in the house and she's turning nine this year, so it's been a while. Dude, kittens get into everything. She plays with anything and everything, from catnip toys to coaxial cables to the wall. She hasn't fully figured out the lap thing, yet. The few times she's tried to cuddle, she usually ends up draped over both me and the armrest (sometimes with little feet hanging over) and can only sit still for a purr-filled minute or two. Once she's more cat than kitten, though, I think she'll be quite the cuddler.

I'm not fully ready to leave her out unsupervised or at night, but maybe next week. I'd like to see her interact with one kitty without any hissing first. My money is on Sam. We shall see!

Poor Olive

I don't think Olive knows what to do with a house full of kitties that don't want to play with her. She's probably about a year old so still rather kitten-playful but all of our kitties are closer to the geriatric side of things. But Olive just wants to play! She's batted at a couple kitties in an invitation to romp and looks shocked and sad when the response is a hiss. Just now, she loped towards Bitty, ready for some rough and tumble playing. Bitty's hiss made Olive leap backwards and fall on her rear. She wasn't anticipating that kind of response! (Though I'm very glad she accepts it! She does seem to be a timid little girl.) I suppose it's a good thing we have a lot of toys for her to play with.

Interestingly enough, out of all the kitties Sam seems the most interested in her playful behavior. They haven't interacted more than a few nose touches (and one Sam hiss) but he's rushed after her with ears pricked in interest on more than one occasion as she barreled through the living room in play mode.

Who knows? Maybe Sam will end up with a friend. I'll just be happy if no one tries to eat her.

What Is That Smell?

Olive has graduated to supervised visits outside of her room! For the past two days she's had short trips out but today she's been out and about for about half of the day.

She's fairly unconcerned with the other kitties. She sometimes wants to sniff them and I think she tried to play with Chloe once (who was having none of that), but for the most part, she doesn't really pay them any mind. Most of the other kitties don't like her getting too close (then they like to hiss at her) but otherwise aren't all that interested anymore. Except for Bitty. Bitty has followed Olive around at least three times today alone just to chatter and hiss at her. It's actually pretty funny because Bitty is so tiny and yet so earnest. You can tell that this reaction greatly concerns Olive.

Or maybe not. Yes, most of her time outside of her room is focused on either following me around, lounging on the rug or viciously attacking something fuzzy or catnip filled.

Health-wise, she seems to be doing really well. Her stomach is still a little swollen and warm but it now qualifies as merely lumpy instead of shelf-like. She can even bend at her waist now, which is very helpful for bunny-kicking catnip sharks.

Once she finishes her antibiotic cycle, I'll take her to the normal vet to get all of her shots. (They couldn't be done before because she had a fever.) Speaking of antibiotics, I hope that is the reason for her current stench. It's not constant (thank goodness or she'd smoke us out) but she does have some pretty bad gas. I mean oh-dear-lord-save-us bad. I'm-tempted-to-air-out-the-house-in-100°-heat bad. It's bad. And yet, it doesn't seem to bother her at all.

I Nearly Forgot!

I had forgotten that I had a few pictures still on my camera SD card. Without further ado, I give you homeless Dan:

He is now clean-shaven (since he had to go back to work Monday) and I've almost gotten used to it - he looks so young without the beard!

In other news, the new neighborhood comes with lots of nature. Apparently there is a family of foxes around, two families of rabbits, three roadrunners and even a bobcat. We've seen the roadrunners in the yard (lots of times) and pictorial evidence of the bobcat (from a different part of the neighborhood) but the other beasties remain elusive. There are smaller, less exotic things that we've run into, though. Caterpillars (a ball of which managed to clog the spout of my watering pot - twice), hornets (or wasps - honestly, I get them confused but Dan's gotten stung on the foot and we've killed a few of them inside the house), really huge spiders and little lizards!

And speaking of wild beasties, Dan and I have added another one to the inside herd. Say hello to Olive.

The swollen, lumpy belly is not actually lactation-related as it may look. It's mastitis - inflamed (and slightly infected) mammary glands. When we found her, she was skinnier than she is now (as she's now had almost a full week of regular meals), infested with worms and her stomach was harder and even more swollen. As part of treatment, she's been dewormed, spayed and is on both pain killers and a two week cycle of antibiotics. Hopefully the stomach will be back to normal in another week or two. About which time we will see how she does interacting with the other kitties.

Yes, we are now back to seven. But it's all good - the new house is so much bigger, the concentration of kitties is much lower. We need to increase our numbers just so we can raise our chances of finding a kitty when we need one.