life, liberty and the pursuit of geekiness

How does one go about removing tar from a cat's paws? (Our road has just been sprayed and screened. Smudge's feet are now little solid lumps.)

My family is feeding the neighbours cat, Daisy (male. The three-year-old named it) while they are away. My mam went down to feed it, and who should be waiting for her but Muffin. Now we know where his gut came from. I'm calling him 'Double Diner'.

Smudge is being exceedingly loving. He is sitting on my knee and butting my chin with his nose. Sadly, he is also very cold and wet.

Muffin has been a bit droopy the last couple of days (my brother said 'his tail is broken!' because he wasn't holding it up), and today his face is swollen, and he was scratching his ear like mad. Now the infection or whatever has burst and there is pus coming out of his ear. Trouble is, he won't stop scratching, so how is it ever going to heal up?

Poor Smudge is suffering with his ear mites. He starts to scratch his under his ears, and wails in pain. We've got some stuff from the vet, but it's very hard to get both cats disinfected at the same time.

It isn't being a good weekend from him. Last night a stray dog turned up and chased him up a tree. We chased the dog away with the hose and rescued Smudge with the ladder. All through the night I dreamt of wailing cats and barking dogs. Then I woke up and found that it was real; the dog had returned in the night and was chasing the other cat, Muffin. They're both in front of the fire now, and will be spending tonight in their room (originally built as a tack room, but it's just the right size for two cats).

My prompt for the Bujold ficathon:

I'd like an undocumented moment or time in Gregor's life: either a 'missing scene' (e.g. his face-off with Aral from The Vor Game, or the conversation with Cordelia about Serg, or the moments before the drop from the balcony), or something from a period that the books don't cover (either during his childhood or after his marriage); or else something wry and sweet about Gregor and Laisa (any stage in their life). Not keen on explicit sex.

Ack! Can't decide which one, they're all too good. Oh, well, I'm off in a different fandom today anyway (oooo-eeeee-oooooo-eee-oooo)

I came into the room and heard this little noise. I couldn't work out what it was at first, but it was Smudge, who had crept in and lain down in the corner, purring to greet me.

Smudge, the cat in the icon, spent half an hour today in a tree, meeping piteously, before he worked out how to get down again. He has the funniest little miaow, and sometimes he opens his mouth and no sound comes out.

There is a house 1/2 a mile down the road with 2 cats, and the lady had to go into a nursing home. I think the neighbour feeds them, but the little female has got very thin, so we brought it up to the house and fed it until we were afraid it would burst. We thought our cats would beat it up, but when Muffin came in the lady cat yowled and howled and hissed. He wasn't too bothered by her, but we didn't let them get within clawing distance. It's a shame she's so annoyed by him, because before that my ma was wanting to keep her. But she doesn't have the time to separate three fighting howling furballs all the time.

We took Pretty back to her own house in our boys' cat transport-cage thing, with a pile of dried food to keep her happy. She ate all the way (in the car), and when my mam tried to release her, she stuck her claws into the side of the box and wouldn't get out. Poor kitty, I wish we could keep her. She's very loving and lets us all stroke her even though we're practically strangers.

Gakked from everyone.

Type "[Your name] needs" (with quotation marks) into Google, then turn the results into a poll.


[Poll #585405]


The cats are now tentatively Muffin and Smudge, although Dog, Fudge, Finn and Schrodinger are still hanging in there.