Monday, March 21, 2016

SPRING!!!

Wow.  More than a month since my last post.

February was not a particularly good month for me.  I love pictures of happy animals, so I follow a few pages on Facebook that are either rescues or just pages of an individual critter.  Two of my favorite pages, Rocky Ridge Refuge and Jamie Samoyed, lost an beloved animal.  Rocky Ridge lost one of the most incredible critter ambassadors ever, Butterbean the bull terrier.  (For a lovely tribute to Butterbean click here.  Much love to Janice.)  Jamie Samoyed lost his kitty friend, Fish.

In the midst of all that, I lost my precious kitty Zigamaboo very suddenly.  She was only seven years old and had never had any health problems.  My vet suspects it was a heart attack.  Z was never a cuddly cat--she had been born to a feral mom and never quite lost her wildness--but she was very vocal and loved her head scratches.




One of the things that I find really amazing when you lose a pet is how empty the house seems without them.  I had eight cats and two dogs--my home is never empty--and yet I have routines with each of my critters.  I turn a corner and I expect to see Z sleeping in a particular basket, or perched in a familiar spot on a cat tree.  In every room there's suddenly an empty corner or a blanket that should have a little furball asleep on it.

I was also surprised by the reaction of one of my other kitties, Lincoln.  I knew that he and Z sometimes played together.  I didn't realize how attached he was to her.  When I returned to my house after taking her to the vet, I found him actively looking for her.  He took short naps in a couple of her favorite spots--but only short naps, as if he was expecting her to boot him out and when she didn't he went looking for her again.

Within a couple of days, Lincoln was driving everyone in the house mad as he desperately looked for someone to play with.  I spent a lot more time playing with him to try to compensate, but I work a full time job during the week and on Sundays I have a part time job.  And I like to sleep sometimes.  It became very apparent that instead of staying with a seven cat household, I was going to have to find Lincoln a friend to save everyone's sanity.

It took four different rescues, but I finally found a super energetic, crazy, seven month old kitty to add to the household.

At the rescue, he was Charlie, but I felt that was a little too prosaic to fit with the rest of the crew, so after a couple of days of internet searches and reading "What to name the baby" books, I finally settled on Petoskey, because his marking reminded me a bit of the petoskey stones I used to find as a kid on the shores of Lake Michigan.


Being a rescue, Petoskey had to be quarantined (he had a snotty nose and icky eyes) and having him in his own room for a week or so just to get acclimated is a good idea anyway, so I've been spending a lot of time sitting with him in a spare bedroom.  Plenty of time for reading, but not so much for updating the blog.  Once his snot cleared up, I started introducing him to the other kitties--first just Lincoln, but eventually to everyone.  It's been a little stressful and there's been plenty of hisses, but overall things are going well.

In any event, I'm up to 50 books read, and no blog post in a month, so time to catch up a bit.  These are the books I've read since my last post:

A book about sportsThe Runner by Cynthia Voigt.  Not my favorite of the Tillerman series, but still a solid book.
An autobiography: Yes My Accent Is Real by Kunal Nayyar.  Not really an autobiography (the guy is only 34) so much as a series of memories about growing up and his acting career.  I enjoyed it a lot.
A book of historical fiction set before 1900: The Miniaturist by Jesse Burton.  A kind of dark story (based in Amsterdam in the winter!), but strongly written.
A book published before you were born: The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark.  One of the things I'm enjoying about doing these challenges is pushing the envelope a bit and finding some more obscure books to fit the topic.  Sometimes I find a gem.  Sometimes not so much.  This one was not so much.
You've seen the movie--now read the book: A Slight Trick Of The Mind by Mitch Cullin.  I honestly think I might have been disappointed by this one if I hadn't seen the movie first and had an idea what to expect. Yes, Sherlock Holmes is the main character. No, this is not a mystery. At the same time, I think the book is a little bit deeper than the movie, and not as "Pollyanna-ish" in the end. Worth the read.
The first book by an author, published in the last 5 years: Jackaby by William Ritter. A decent book, but with it's flaws.  A nice, light read, and I look forward to reading more in the series.
A book you can finish in a day: Let's Be Less Stupid by Patricia Marx.  Finished it in a day, and regretted the time wasted on it.
A book about somewhere you want to visit: The Shadow Of The Wind by










A non-fiction book about science: The Soul Of An Octopus by Sy Montgomery.  More memoir than scientific, but a decent read.
A book published the decade you were born: If On A Winter's Night A Traveler by Italo Calvino.  An odd book, with a very different premise, I enjoyed it although it got a little confusing towards the end.
A fable: Frederick's Fables by




Wow.

I've got a few more in progress.  Hopefully it won't be as long before my next update.

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