Lydy's Anarchist Revival Meeting

So, my work week shifted from Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights to Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday nights. Which makes Thursday mornings the new Friday. My patient bagged it at five this morning, so I ended up leaving quite early. Too early to go to the liquor store to buy champagne, which I really should have done yesterday, but forgot to. Which means that it's Thursday not Friday, and I am drinking gins and tonicses instead of mimosas, but there are still cats.

Lady Jane has leveled up several times since I last wrote about her. She really, really likes getting petted. About six weeks or so ago, she finally figured out how to signal that she's getting over-stimulated. She has both a quick head-jerk and a warning chirrup that she's started using. This means that I can stop petting her before she feels the need to scratch or bite me. It also means that she's developed some understanding of how to communicate with humans. I've always thought that she demonstrated the desire to do so, but she has developed a vocabulary that I can understand, and that's huge. There is probably also some learning behavior on my part, although I'm less aware of it. But we are developing a rapport, and that makes me so very happy.

About two weeks ago, it was warm and I opened the window in my bedroom. I have a king-sized waterbed, and it is flush against the wall, so to get to the window, you have to get up on my bed. Lady hads been in my bedroom a couple of times, and once she actually got up on the bed, but has always eschewed it in favor of the chair in the media room. But the window... oh the sweet, sweet window. She got up on my bed, got in the window. And somehow, that changed her conceptual space, and now she gets on my bed, even when the window isn't open.

Initially, she'd get on the bed, and then loll on my laptop. One of my favorite LOLcats is a kitten sitting on an open laptop with the caption, "If not for sits, why made of warm?" I let her do this a couple of times, because I wanted to encourage her to think of being on the bed and being kind of sort of on my lap as a good thing. She would purr and roll and loll, and my screen would go crazy as she pushed All The Keys. Then I started gently rolling her off the keyboard and onto my lap. And this worked. She's at the point now where, when I get home from work, she jumps up on the bed and demands pets. If I don't pet her when she wants them, she will either oosh onto the keyboard or, if that is too much trouble, she will just reach out a paw and push a random key. It's desperately adorable. Just at the moment, she's curled up next to me, sleeping. She will sit on my lap, sometimes. And she's clearly figured out that I don't actually want her on my laptop.

The other cats are less than entirely pleased with this development. Arwen, who has always considered my bed her territory, is very unhappy about this. I do encourage her to come up when Lady Jane Grey is there, but she usually declines. She didn't like it when Naomi started getting on my bed (ten years ago?), she was completely unhappy when the little black kittens started getting on my bed, so I guess I'm unsurprised that she's unhappy about Lady Jane.

Ninja is perfectly delighted with all things Ninja, and rather unimpressed with all things not-Ninja, so he doesn't care if Lady is there or not. He often gets on my lap when I'm dicking around on the internet before work. Last night, he jumped up on the bed, and came and sat in my lap, as per normal. Lady was also there, sitting right next to me. Lady found this upsetting, and hissed at him, and Ninnie just kind of looked confused. Then Lady was confused, and left, and Ninja settled down to purr and be cute.

Naomi continues to be difficult to feed. I continue to make homemade chicken broth each week, and buy more and weirder premium foods. She continues to insist that food that was perfectly scrumptious yesterday is, in fact, not food at all today. She has recently decided that all fish is emphatically Not Food. She also doesn't think that beef is food. She is still (usually) eating chicken and turkey. I haven't tried her on the kidney food. She's so picky that I don't see the point. She has stopped crouching when she pees, which means that she stands in the litter box and pisses outside the litter box. I have no idea what to do about this, so I clean up after her. I guess if I could get a litter box twice the size...but I don't know where I'd put it, so I haven't.

Nuit is her own little personette, and continues to have petting emergencies. She isn't as aggressive towards Lady as she was, but she continues issue challenge songs and occasionally charge her for no reason. On the other hand, she was up on my bed the other morning when LJG was here, and there were no words. She also romps with Naomi, which is delightful for all involved. Naomi, at sixteen, still has a playful streak. Arwen, her sister, has never been that playful, and after Aristophanes died, Naomi had no playmate until Nuit took up the role. Ninja plays a bit too rough for her tastes, but Nuit is just right.

And that is enough cats for now. If you made it to the end, I am impressed by your patiences. Next, I will natter about Neko Atsume.

But not, at the moment, cats, since I am over at Steven's. Well, he does have a cat, Captain Blondbeard, but Captain is studiously ignoring me.

So, if you want a really quick, not so very expensive dinner for three upon awakening of a Friday night, I suggest a rotisserie chicken, a green zucchini, a yellow zucchini, and a package of pre-sliced mushrooms. A half an onion, if you happen to have that lying about is also useful. Saute the zucchini, mushroom, and onion with butter, oil, salt and pepper. This takes, literally, fifteen minutes from the time you start washing the zucchini in order to slice it to actually it being ready to eat. If you are smarter than I am, you will add the onion first, rather than last. This pairs very nicely with the celebratory "I survived my work-week" mimosas. It pair less well with a spectacular migraine and a need to arise at 3:30 a.m. to go to the airport, which explains why my perspective playmates are in bed asleep and I am in the living room, typing at you all, cat-less. But, you know, I have more mimosas, so it's not a dead loss, though the ability to type will degrade as the evening progresses.

OMG, OMG, OMG! Jen and Steven bought me the best Xmas present _ever_. It is the Nightvale themed hip flask, with the inscription, "IF YOU SEE SOMETHING, SAY NOTHING, AND DRINK TO FORGET" with the Nightvale logo of the crescent moon as the iris of an eye. I am fucking and utterly thrilled. It was the one thing on my Amazon wish list I really, really wanted. And now, I HAVE it. Steven put some Jameson's in it, too. I do very much admire Nightvale, and am going to nominate it for a Hugo. Not sure which category, probably short form dramatic. The episode about middle school crushes was almost perfect.

In cat news, Lady Jane Grey would like ALL THE BOOOOYYYS. RIIIIIIGHHT NOOOOOOEEOWOWW. Yep, she's in heat. From which I can deduce at a) she is not pregnant and b) she has not been spayed and c) her health is adequate. She's still affectionate, and a solid little rocket-propeled grey missile. She is more affectionate than usual, what with the really wanting to get laid. One is inclined to say, "You do know that this is how you ended up in the trouble in the first place," but a) she doesn't understand English and b) wouldn't care if she did. Because BOOOYYYSSSS.

So, back to my mimosas. Which are second best to actual, live, playmates, but my playmates are now very much asleep.

It's Friday. Life is pretty good. Also, grocery store rotisserie chickens may not be gourmet, but they eat just fine.

Mostly, I just want to brag on my Lady Jane Grey. For human-vs-cat socialization, she's come so far. She had a raw spot on her back, between her shoulder blades, which the doctor thought might be the result of an infection, rather than a battle scar, so he gave me some antibiotic to give her twice a day. It is in liquid form, and it is, I kid you not, bubble-gum flavored. Lady does not like it. But she lets me give it to her. I grab her head, tip it back slightly, insert the dropper, and squeeze. She struggles and fusses, but what she does not do is attack me. She does not bite, she does not scratch, and she very rarely hisses or growls. The other day, she was hiding underneath a chair in my study, and I had to drag her out bodily, pick her up, and move her to another location where I could medicate her. She did not like it, and she used language, but again, she did not attack me. This from a cat who, two months ago, viciously savaged me when I petted her wrong. I am incredibly proud of her. Pamela says that it's obvious she loves me best because she brightens a bit when I enter the room. Me, I don't see that, since I don't see her when I'm not there. But I do love her, and she loves me.

It's always a mistake to assume that cats have have the same emotional structures as humans. We're similar; we're both mammals -- but not the same. I was assuming that Nuit was responding badly to Lady Jane Grey because she was feeling worried that people wouldn't love her as much, any more. Because of this assumption, I tried to mediate between the two by giving Nuit more affection, attempting to reassure her that she was loved and wanted. This resulted in her being more aggressive and more horrid towards Lady. When I lost my temper, and yelled at Nuit to just stop it, she backed down, and behaved better. I've done some additional experimentation, and yes, being nice to Nuit when she's being a shit to Lady causes Nuit to be even nastier to Lady Jane Grey. Scolding Nuit severely for being aggressive causes her to back down and behave better, and sometimes even come scurrying over to the human for reassurance. (And, yes, Nuit does know her name, and does know when I'm yelling at her. And yes, LJG does sit there looking smug when I yell at Nuit, and does know her name and does look chagrinned when I yell using her name instead.) I do not understand cat politics. I do, however, love my cats.

So, last night while I was at roller derby, Pamela texted me to let me know that Lady Jane Grey had gotten up on the futon couch while it was made up as a bed and kneaded the blankets and been sociable. Not for very long, but then did it a second time, too. Today, while I was watching television, she got on the futon couch, now made up as a couch, to be companionable and accept some pets. And a bit later, she came into my bedroom (first time that I know of), and tentatively got up on my bed, and walked the perimeter of it. I had Arwen in my lap, so I complimented Lady verbally, but did not encourage her to come over to get petted. Arwen noticed Lady, but had no comment. So, that's good, and I'm all happy, now. It's also been more than a week since she savaged me, and the last time it was very small. She's getting better at damping it down, even if she's accidentally lost her cool. I love her a lot. (Yep, I was always going to give her away. Totally a temporary cat. You betcha.)

So, we had agreed to host a Mnstf meeting last Saturday, well before Lady Jane came to stay with us. What with one thing and another, we decided to go ahead with it, and just warn people that the usual cat-free zone was not, in fact, cat-free. In preparation for this, I opened up the doors between the free zone and the unfree zone, to encourage the fraternization of the prisoners...I mean cats.

So, we're not really very good housekeepers, which means that hosting a meeting means that there's a lot of housecleaning to be done. Ok, then, go. Clean! With cats! Although the plan was to restrict all the cats, including Lady Jane Grey, to the back of the house during the party, in the run up, we were leaving all the doors open, to give everybody space to find their own level. That...went better than it could, although it had its problems. I had no idea that Nuit could be such an asshole. She was just horrible to Lady Jane Grey, in a very Minnesotan sort of, "Hey, I'm just walkin' here" sort of way. Provocatively passive aggressive. Ok, then.

I came home Friday, did a bit of cleaning, and then went to bed, intending to get up and Clean All The Things that hadn't yet been cleaned. While I was asleep, Pamela's mother showed up, based on a scheduling error. Whatever. However, by the time I woke up, it had developed that Ninja was nowhere to be found. After the house had been scoured top to bottom, Pamela was left with the conclusion that somehow, while talking to her mother about the scheduling mix-up, Ninja had managed to sneak past both of them, into the world outside.

Ninja is probably the happiest cat I have ever met. He's funny, cheerful, and friendly. When he was a kitten, he tried to make friends with the upstairs cats by taking them toys. He's sweet, endearing, and has no sense of self-preservation. He's hugely curious, but also completely convinced that the entire universe is one great, big, shiny toy, just for him. Ninja wouldn't think to run away from a dog or a Mack truck. He'd rush towards same, offering to play. No sense of self-preservation.

So, in between trying to clean for the Mnstf meeting, we are, all of us, going outside to see if we can find my funny, idiot cat. Calling his name. Setting out food. Searching the house again, because really, maybe just maybe. Nope. Nope. Nope. Dusting, vacuuming, rearranging furniture, another trip outside, more cleaning, mopping, etc. Most of it in the front rooms. But no Ninja. I go to bed in tears. Pamela doesn't sleep, and has waking nightmares of a life without Ninja.

I woke up early on Saturday, and after dicking around for an hour, I realize there is no way I'm getting back to sleep, so I decide to get dressed, look for Ninja, and then get coffee and breakfast. I have given up hope of finding my cat. I'm thinking of making a bunch of those sad, futile posters that say, "Lost Cat," knowing that they almost never work. Wondering if I'll find him dead by the side of the road, or if he's found new people who will love him, and I'll never know. If he's been eaten by a raccoon, or taken a ride under the hood of a car.

I go into the living room to get my coat. It was fucking cold on Saturday morning. I hear a cat noise. I can't tell where it's coming from. Thinking that, perhaps, Lady Jane and Nuit are at it again, I go into the media room. Nope, no cats there. Go back into the living room. Another cat noise. "Ninja?" I call. Loud cat noises, then a persistent, extremely loud yowering. I look around.

We have three seven foot tall, oak book cases in the living room. They meet at right angles, and there is a square gap at the corner where they meet, about a foot square. This is literally the only place that Ninja can be. And my, but he's loud.

I wake David up from a very sound sleep, and we removed about half the books, which enables David to move the book case. Ninja comes right out. He's still a bit frantic and wild. I move him to the back of the house, where his sister comes up and inspects him. He then promptly tries to get back into the allegedly cat-free zone.

I picked him up, and he was delightfully cuddly for a little bit, bashing my cheek with his head. In general, he was glad to be rescued. The question remains, why on earth hadn't he said anything hours and hours earlier? I suspect it was a combination of embarrassment ("I meant to do that") and the realization that if we found him, we would put him out of the cat-free zone, where he was busy having Adventures.

The Mnstf meeting went off roughly as planned, although things were a bit rough around the edges. And the reaction of allergic people makes it clear that the cat free zone, when it's actually kept cat-free, does help. It's not perfect, but a carefully cleaned cat-free zone does reduce the allergens and increase people's tolerance. Now that Lady Jane is living in the back rooms, we have plans to do a very, very thorough cleaning, probably including some sort of allergen-destroying product, and work hard at keeping the cat-free zone, you know, cat-free.

Back from the vet. Drinking a mimosa even as I type. Well, not exactly, since I'm a two-handed typist. I'm punctuating my typing by drinking. Best punctuation ever.

Lady Jane Grey does not have FeLuk or FIV. She does not have a terminal disease. The test is really fast, done in ten minutes. She's going to be fine.

She's also 9.5 pounds, which Dr. McMenomy considers "very fat." He also thinks there's a 75% chance that she's pregnant, but it's hard to tell, because of all the fat. She's a minimum of four weeks along, since that's how long I've had her, but cats are weird, and don't always show until right before actually giving birth. If my estimate of Bucky's age is correct, it's very unlikely that she is pregnant. If the University's estimate of Bucky's age is correct, there's a pretty good chance that she is. She has certainly had at least one litter of kittens.

Because her pregnancy status is uncertain, we did not vaccinate her today. I forgot to ask them to clip her claws. I'll pay for that, later. The doctor looked at the lump, and said that we should just watch it for now.

So, now Lady goes on a diet. We wait three or more weeks to see if she's pregnant. Dr. McMenomy says that they can home the kittens once they're seven or eight weeks. I have no place to raise kittens once they're out of the box, which is like, from the ages of three to eight weeks. That's five weeks of wonderful, delightful, destructive monsters.

I really, really want to keep Lady. And I suspect that all my other housemates would prefer that I not. I have become so very fond of her. And she of me. I really hope she's just fat.

And now, I will drink more mimosas. And then get up and go to a reading of Saturn Run by John Sanford and Ctein. Because that will be extra, extra fun. Even if it does mean I can't drink as many mimosas as I want, just now.

She finished her 10 day course of antibiotics yesterday. She continued to be easy to pill, although she continued to growl about it. I think she still feels a bit warm to the touch, but I may be over-anxious. If I continue to be anxious through the weekend, I'll ask for a weight and temperature check at the vets.

She is eating So Much Food. Really. I'm giving her a 5.5 oz. can of cat food a day, plus a bowl full of kibble, which I refill frequently. I'm pretty sure she's eating seven or eight ounces of food a day, which is, like one eleventh of her body weight as of her last weight. That's, um, a lot of food. I can no longer feel each rib when I pet her, and while I can feel her vertebrae, they are no longer quite so prominent. Her shoulder and hip bones are also less prominent, the hip bones especially.

She seems to like me best. She always comes when I call, even though that usually involves getting pilled. She gets lonely, and if I'm in the kitchen doing things, she'll kick up a fuss on the other side of the door, trying to get me to come in there. She's companionable, and seems to like being in the room with me even if she isn't actively seeking to be petted. I do have to be a little careful, when she's over-stimulated, she will bite. Not usually very hard. I suspect that she was inadequately socialized as a small thing.

She loves catnip. Which I only give her when I'm about to leave, because it makes her snappish and aggressive. But she's really cute when she rolls around with it.

Here are some more bad pictures:




I don't know if these pictures show how much she's filled out, and how much fluffier her coat is, but both are true.

In related news, my best cat, Arwen, is jealous about the time I'm spending with Lady Jane Grey and is punishing me by avoiding me. Which means that it's hard to give her her medication. I often have to ask Pamela to do it. Cats!

So, I gave Lady Jane Grey her third dose of antibiotic this morning. She is noticeably cooler to the touch. She growled when I pilled her, which I thought was amusing. She also growled at her wet food when I came too close. Again, so cute.

She is eating more, and continues to eliminate. I can no longer feel each and every rib, although her vertebrae and hip bones are painfully prominent. She likes to be petted, and is bossy. She scolds and nags when you are around. She doesn't appear to be much of a lap cat, to my disappointment. I like lap cats. On the other hand, I like her, too. She really likes to have the thin spot just at the opening of the ears rubbed. My best cat, Lilith, loved that, too. She reminds me, a little, of my Lilycat. Whom I still miss, with all my heart. Why do cats steal so much of our hearts, anyway?

Eventually, I will post some pictures. I love her so very much. I need to buy her some toys, a scratching post. At the moment, she's using the furniture, which isn't exactly ideal, but I don't have the heart to scold her.

Arwen, in the mean time, is quite pissed off about something. Probably Lady Jane Grey, though I'm not sure. At any rate, she was full of bitter complaint, this morning. Bitter, bitter complaint. I'm told that Nuit growled from under the door at Lady last night.

Ann sent me a text last night, saying that Bucky was not doing well. He'd stopped eating, and his breathing had gone Cheyne Stokes. I told her to take him to the vet emergency hospital at the University, and that I would pay. She texted about a half an hour later. He'd died on the way, never made it to the hospital. She was holding him when he died. I don't know if that was a comfort to him. I don't know if it was a comfort to Ann.

We did the best we could. It shouldn't be a surprise. Bottle-rearing kittens has a very low success rate, and he was badly underweight. At his probable age, he should have weighed probably twice what he did. I don't know what he died of. It is unlikely that there was anything that would have saved him. Ann tried so hard. He seemed like he was going to make it. And then, he didn't.

I could have kept him in the hospital, rather than letting Ann foster him. At a guess, it would have been $700 to $1000 for the first night, and somewhere between $300 and $500 for each night thereafter. Several thousand dollars. And, honestly, it might not have worked. But I keep on thinking that there was something that could have been done.

Grief comes in lumps. I think I'm fine, and then I find that I'm crying again. He was so very small. I know that mammal brains are wired this way, that we respond to baby mammals with empathy and care. Lady Jane Grey was very smart to go and find people when she couldn't care for her baby anymore. Unfortunately, we couldn't care for him either.

Lady Jane is doing well. I'll do a separate update. She's currently lying next to me on the couch, asleep. She's a very sweet lady. I hope we win this one.

So, I was going over to see my sweetie Steven, like you do. I arrived right around 3:00 p.m. as planned. As I went up the stairs to the porch, I heard strange noises, a cheeping or meeping or something. Not-happy-critter noises. I went upstairs to see if Steve and Jen were there. They weren't back from the grocery store, yet. I made the fatal mistake of leaving my knitting bag behind, and went back down to the porch to see if I could figure out what the not-happy-critter noises were.

There was a cat sitting on a chair to the extreme right-most end of the porch. She seemed placid, accepted pets, but was not the source of the not-happy-critter noises. She didn't look like Karina's cat. She seemed awfully skinny. I left the porch and followed the sounds around to the side of the house. As I came abreast of where the cat sat on the chair on the porch, the peeping was quite loud. I looked under the porch, saw nothing. Looked in the bushes, didn't see anything, but it didn't quite sound like it was coming from the bushes. I looked a little higher, and a teeny, tiny black kitten came swimming out from underneath the chair where the stray cat sat.

My first thought was, "Well, fuck. This'll be complicated." I got back on the porch, went over to the chair, and picked up the very tiny black kitten, who peeped and squeeped frantically. I looked at the very fine grey cat in the chair, and wondered if she was maybe the mom-cat. I put the kitten on the chair with her, and the kitten started burrowing away, looking for a nipple. Her nipples looked a bit engorged, and the tiny kitten tried several, and was clearly dissatisfied. The adult cat licked the tiny cat a couple of times, in a very desultory way. I called Steven and said, "I'm on your porch with a kitten in distress."

Jen came down, and we decided that the female cat was not giving milk, and that was what was needed. So we called Petco, confirmed that they were open and had queening milk. We gathered up the alleged mom-cat and the very tiny kitten, and piled into my car. The kitten had his eyes open, but there was no particular color in them. His ears were still mostly down, although he could flick them a bit. He is still more in the swimming than crawling stage, and he kept on peeping and peeping and meeping and meeping, with vigor and clear distress. He would stop, occasionally, to try to suckle on Jen's hand, but when that didn't yield milk, he'd go back to crawling around and meeping. He was four, maybe five inches, nose to butt, not including his tale. Very, very light. Maybe four ounces? Maybe six? All black. So very, very cute, and clearly very hungry.

We stopped by my house and picked up a cat carrier to put the alleged mother into. Jen continued to hold the kitten. I was a bit freaked, the last time I heard kittens make noises like that was on the long ride from Iowa City to Ames, where I lost the last two kittens of the litter to feline leukemia. (One died about a half hour into the two hour trip, the other died shortly after we reached the hospital. It was awful.) I babbled a bit on the way to Petco, Jen was a rock of sanity.

We bought various things, including a bottle with nipples and two cans of KMR (Kitten Milk Replacer). Jen's house was closer, so we went there, and locked her cat out of the basement. The alleged mother got out of the carrier and ate a little canned food, did not drink any water, was briefly friendly, and then hid under the bed. The kitten...

Look, kitten, you have one job! One job. Suck. So, first we had to figure out that the nipples were not perforated. So ok, we did that. Still, the kitten would not suckle. The few times we seemed to get a drop or two in his mouth, he looked disappointed and started meeping and peeping again. We tried cutting the tip off the nipple altogether. Still, he would not suckle. Jen said, "I feel I have been lied to. In the books, you find the tiny creature and you give them milk and they love you and become your familiar." I agreed that we had been lied to, and suggested that a dead rat would probably not improve the situation, despite what some novelists might have us believe. Also, we could not squirt milk from the cow directly into the kitten's mouth, nor was there a spider spinning a web that said "Some Kitten." The perfidy of novelists was discussed at length, over the cries and meeps of the very, very tiny kitten.

Jen tried squirting some of the milk into the bowl of her hand, and then re-directing the kitten to it. Some of it seemed to get ingested, although it was awfully hard to tell. Much of it was getting on his fur. And he continued to make truly piteous noises. She tried soaking a rag (well, her shirt) in the milk, but he was very not interested in this. I've raised kittens, two and a half litters, though it's been a while. I was concerned that the kitten had been awake and upset for two hours, at this point. Kittens sleep a lot. A whole hell of a lot. His cries seemed to be a little softer, and we tried rubbing his belly, like you're supposed to to encourage elimination. He did not stop crying, and it seemed like being rubbed might be upsetting him. We, certainly, were upset.

While Jen continued to try to feed the teeny, tiny, kitten and we continued to discuss the ways in which we had been lied to by fictioneers, I tried to use my phone to find useful resources. I called Josh and he had some suggestions. Most places were closed, and we were pretty sure that most shelters that are kill-shelters would not take a kitten that needs round-the-clock care. I decided that we really needed the experts, so we decamped to the University of Minnesota Veterinary Hospital, with attached emergency clinic.

We got there around six p.m. We explained the situation, including the fact that we were utterly unsure that the alleged mother was the alleged mother. They took the kitten and the cat away. We waited.

I called Scott to let him know that I had to skip the Mnstf Board meeting tonight on account of kitten. My phone doesn't hold much of a charge.

We waited.

I got a phone call from a very close friend very legitimately upset. I was not able to spend nearly as much time with her as I wanted to because I was badly distracted, and because my phone doesn't hold much of a charge.

We waited.

I got a call from Ann Totusek, who said that she was willing to foster the kitten, and understood what was involved, provided we could get an indication that the kitten was likely to, you know, live out the night. I was incredibly grateful. Between the two of us, Jen and I had figured out maybe 36 hours of kitten care. But kittens that young need to be fed every two to three hours. While I don't begrudge the sleep, I have a job to which I cannot take a kitten, and Jen had the same problem. I was thinking of maybe dragooning Pamela until we could contact a no-kill shelter, which would hopefully find a foster, but that would probably take time, and probably nobody answering their phones until Tuesday what with the holiday. I fell upon Ann with cries of glee, wished her luck at the Board meeting.

We waited.

Jen had had almost nothing to eat, and I hadn't eaten since ten-thirty that morning. We got progressively more faded and wan. We talked about various things, mostly me rattling on about Puppygate. There was a loop of funny animal videos on the monitor in the waiting room. The baby goats were very funny.

Around nine, I asked at the desk if they had any news. I was told that the alleged mother (whom I'd begun to call Lady Jane Grey, because she was a lady,and grey) and kitten were resting comfortably. I said, "The kitten's going to live?" The said yes, and explained that the doctor hadn't been able to get to the kitten right away because of an emergency.

We waited some more.

A bunch of people rushed out, with a rolling cart. They rushed back in with a dog in the cart, who had blood on his face.

We waited.

A very nice resident (or whatever they call baby vets) came out. The kitten was doing well, they'd managed to get him to eat. The alleged mother was probably not the alleged mother. When they tried to introduce the kitten to her, she'd growled. Also, she was running a fever. 105.6, about 2 and a half degrees above norma. I had thought she felt a bit hot. If this was a beloved pet, they'd advise hospitalization. However, that would start at $1200.

Discussion ensued. I do like Lady Jane Grey quite a bit, but this is a lot of money to spend on a cat that may not live. I elected to have sub-q fluids, since she was dehydrated. I called home to confirm that she could live in the cat-free zone for now.

We waited some more.

I paid the very nice people $333, and drove to Blaisdell Poly, where we showed the very tiny kitten (whom Jen named Bucky Barnes, once she knew he was going to live) to Pamela, and offered Lady Jane more food and water. She ate some food, and then retreated.

We decamped to the Courts of Chaos. Steven had cooked up the tacos which we had planned to eat around five. It was, um, well after ten, I think. Bucky was mostly asleep. Jen was cuddling and stroking him. She managed to properly rub his belly and buttonhole such that he both peed and pooped. There was much rejoicing, and then some washing of hands. Ann showed up and cooed and ooed and we admired the very small Bucky Barnes, whom Ann is planning on renaming. She is also planning on rehoming him. Yep, we'll see how that goes. When Bucky twitched his ear, she made adorable cooing noises. We sent Bucky off with Ann, had some gin, and then Steven and Jen retired to sleep, and I came home, because I am working tonight and it was too early to go to bed.

I managed to coax Lady Jane Grey from underneath the folding chairs in the sunroom. I picked her up and set her down on my lap. She felt hot to the touch, and didn't stay long. Her eyes are bright, her ears are intact and clear. She moves well, has no visible wounds or scars. She's clearly socialized to humans, and seems very sweet. I set out some kibble for her, since some cats don't like wet food. I hung around for a while, but my allergies got the better of me, and I retreated. It's been a hard day for Lady Jane. I'm hoping it gets better soon.

I do still need to get Lady Jane Grey into my vet's on Tuesday, to be tested for various scary diseases. If she doesn't have anything terminal, we can feed her up and possibly foist her off on Steven. If she does...I don't want to think about that. At the moment, I'm still worried about getting her to the vet, since I hope to be asleep that day in preparation for working that night.

Not very good picture of the teeny, tiny kitten currently known as Bucky Barnes: