puppy madness

I was about to write a long and whiney post about how my mother doesn't have any enthusiasm for my wedding, but stuff it.

My brother (22) still lives with her, and they're getting a puppy on Wednesday. My future sister-in-law-in-law just got a puppy, too.

I kind of want a puppy.
But we have no space.
And Mal has enough of a hard time competing with the kittens for attention as it is.
But loooooook.

The one that Mum and Dan are getting.

I'm surrounded!! I was quite taken with the two red ones there, though one of them might be deaf.

My expression pretty much sums it up.

ageing, kitten speed...

The other day, the radio played a song by the band 'Hungry Ghosts', local to Melbourne.

It was amazing- instrumental, full of feeling and prettiness and awesome.

Unfortunately I think they disbanded, but anyhoo. I actually bought their album in itunes (I tend to download... er... moving on) and a song is playing at the moment with Eastern European influences, full of guitar and accordian and violin. This song could be the soundtrack to a movie. Possibly a sad, Nazi-era movie, but a movie none-the-less!
Oo! Look. Here's the song they played on the radio:

I do love me some 6/8 time music.

In other news! We decided our colours were too nautical and changed, again. We were tossing up some possibilities, and I was at school today where the kids were colouring in their 'life-cycle of a whale' diagrams... and two girls had used green, blue (the colours I wanted originally) and purple. And it was -pretty-. So. Two more tubs of paint later, books have been painted, and I think we might be getting somewhere.

Also, you guys... Darcy is nearly a fully sized cat now. He's 7 months old. It breaks my heart- they grow up so quickly. :(

Look! (you can click 'em to make 'em bigger, if you want)

I think he's very handsome, though.

More pictures of semi-grown-up-kitten below the cut.

kittens are cheap.

I went to a petstore the other day.
Wait, with that title, this is a bad way to start. We didn't get another kitten. Keep reading.

Reya previously had an 'evil mouse'. It was just a small black and white toy mouse covered in rabbit (?) fur, with a little ball or something in it, so it rattled, and it had a feather tail. Mallei, instantly, decided it was evil. Every opportunity he got, the mouse would be in his mouth. Which, as it was a small mouse, and he has a large, dog-sized mouth, I was a little concerned about. Eventually he ended up leaving the mouse alone a bit more, though it was slobbery and horrible and every now and then when Reya was particularly interested in playing with it, he'd swoop in and carry it off. Jealous pup.

Dear God, a whole SWARM of evil mice!

Then, inevitably, she lost it. Yes, I've looked under the couch.
So I went to the petstore the other day, and bought 2 new evil mice $2.00 each, and also a mouse that is sort of knitted and makes a mechanical squeak noise that almost sounds like a baby bird. That was about $8. So I spent about $12 on this trip. I don't like that particular pet store because they sell puppies and kittens, but that's a rant for another day. Anyway, I get home and triumphantly give Reya one of the new evil mice. She goes bonkers, and plays with it for a few hours. Nic and I go out, somewhere.

The mechanical squeaking evil mouse.

Coming home, I can't find the mouse. I do find a mutilated bit of plastic with some pink felt stuck to either side and a feeble rattle coming from within. I originally pass it off as just another bit of rubbish that the kitten managed to find and turn into a toy. She often does this, and as such, Nic and I look like absolute slobs as we have used Christmas wrapping paper lying around, usually scrunched into balls. The fronts of envelopes with the plastic window, also scrunched into balls. We have odd socks all over the place because as she channels her inner puppy, she steals socks from the washing basket and carries them about the house in her mouth.
Anyway, it wasn't rubbish. It was the new evil mouse which Mallei had kindly de-furred and chewed up. It's a sad sight.
So I gave her another evil mouse, which she lost.

And right now, her favourite toy is the little plastic circle from the top of a jug of milk. She chews it, bats it across the floor, holds it up in her paws, carries it around in her mouth. And it was free. Well, apart from the milk, but we drank that anyway.
Do I need to bother buying her mouse-shaped toys?
Probably not.
Is she so darn cute trying to attack a toy mouse?
Definitely.


I have a habit in my blog posts where I start with a thought. Then I realize that that thought it going to make no sense without a backstory. Rather than edit the post (I like authenticity- ie: I don't like 'altering' the way things came out. I think it makes things more organic? Spelling mistakes I'll change, but the flow? Not so much) I continue on, and try and tie it together. Does this annoy anyone? Nobody's probably noticed. Just that I did right now, because I find myself writing the first line, then saying: wait, this is only half a story!

...

If you didn't notice it before, you certainly will now!!!

tired & cranky..

So I had a terrible night's sleep.

I don't recall if I wrote about when we had to take Mallei to the emergency vet. My brain is all fuzzy from no sleep, so apologies if I did already.

Basically, our dog is a pig. A pig in dog clothing. He burps and farts, and likes to walk through muddy puddles, and eats. Oh, he loves to eat. Which is fair, he is a dog. Or a pig-dog.
He used to throw up every now and then, in the middle of the night. Google reccomended feeding him something before going to sleep. We introduced the 'bedtime biscuit'; a simple charcoal infused dog biscuit. On the third night after the biscuit had been introduced, he expected it. It was his damn birthright to eat this biscuit before bed. If I forget to bring it with me after brushing me teeth, he snuffles around and looks gloomy until I go get it. The kitten is insanely interested in this biscuit, so sniffs around at his feet as he attempts to inhale every last crumb, lest her teeny-tiny kitteny mouth steal some of it. I'm glad he's just an amazing dog (that I did an amazing job training, if I do say so myself), and he doesn't get 'protective' and aggressive over his food.
Anyway, he loves food.
My bad- positive training via food-based rewards has spawned a food loving demon who will flip out every trick in his book (which is fairly long and extensive) just to get... well, whatever you have that could be tasty.

BEDTIME BISCUIT!!!!

So a few weeks ago, I left for work in a hurry. When we got the kitten back in December, we found this great kitty littler made of wheat, no chemicals, safe to eat, clumping, no smell, and cheap. Awesome, right? Except that Mallei saw this as a golden opportunity- unlimited supplies of cereal! Which I realized after about 3 days, and we built a makeshift gate. Well, on this morning when I left for work, I forgot to close said gate. Nic and I came home that evening to a happy dog, as always, who then proceeded to gulp water like he never has before. I looked in the laundry and noticed that the kitty litter was severely depleted. And yes, this is terrible and disgusting, but he just likes to eat. He'd had an all-day wheat party, had drunk water, and it had puffed up in his stomach. He wanted outside. Bad.
Stumbling around the front-lawn, which had been mowed that very day, he attempted to find any piece of grass long enough to eat. He was having a grass feast now, and looking twice his normal size. Afraid of him getting bloat, we went to the animal emergency center on their recommendation, where they admitted him straight away and induced vomiting. Yum.

He came out of there about an hour later looking chipper and probably wondering where his next meal (or bedtime biscuit) were. We went home.

Yesterday, Nic went out for about 2 hours, and game home to the gate ajar. And Mallei was fine all day, although his water had been rationed as he tends to gulp and slurp it everywhere- more going on the floor than in his mouth. Then we went to bed, where he proceeded to burp and fart as only a man can, and threaten vomiting. I'm a light sleeper at the best of times, and moreso when I'm afraid my dog is on the verge of death. So, I pander to his every need- he gets up and shakes his collar (signal that he wants to wake me up so I let him out), I peel myself out of bed, stumble through the dark, and wait, naked, by the back door, as he scuttles around on the pebbles outside. He comes back in, Reya and I have a cuddle and get comfortable and fall back asleep.
This goes on every 2 hours, and about 3 times between 5.40 and 6.30. The last time I let him out I tell him he can just bloody well stay there, and go back to bed. At 7am, he's whining by the door and my alarm goes off.
He seems ok, now, though doesn't like drinking much. I'll keep an eye on him. Idiot dog.

Anyway, at the end of all that, my job at work is to be cheerful to people and try and sell them into giving me their money, which, if I'm tired, can't concentrate and I'm grumpy probably won't go down so well. Also when I'm super-tired, I tend to cry. So if someone is rude to me on the phones at work, I'll cry.
I'm having a sick day; I've cried enough times at work (sad, but true. That being said I cry at most things, and it's more a physiological response than a psychological one since I'm usually laughing about whatever it was that got me stressed out/upset in the first place). Time to go to the doctor's. Blah.

Dr. Mallei to the rescue.

my kitten is certainly not a princess...

Today I made a video:

you don't... want... children...?!!?

Lookit me go! I'm on a blogging roll. Thank God someone at work showed me how to get internet access beyond theage.com.au

So, I don't want children. Not real ones- I have my furkids, they're pretty awesome. It's like a bit of a joke, people say: "So, when's the wedding? And when's the baby?" And I don't think they're trying to insult me, post-America-stomach and all, but I think it's that natural progression- Boyfriend->Fiance->Wedding->Baby.
Which is fine.
For people wanting that.
And then I say I don't want kids. And people look shocked. How dare I?! I haven't finished Uni yet... if I were to follow the timeline here, I would have spent 5 years studying, 1 year teaching, then be into babymaking. Then, say goodbye to adventures for at least the first however many years... goodbye to get-up-and-go travel, to long travel, to financial freedom, to time to ourselves... And I don't want that. It's enough having Mallei and Reya- if we go away, somebody has to look after them, or we board them... we can't just go for the night anymore since Mallei needs to be fed and to go outside... I've had the "we'll see..." lecture a bunch of times. The other day I explained my thoughts to somebody, and ended with this:
"Maybe that's selfish, I don't know."
And I regretted saying that the minute it had come out.
Because who's it selfish to? It's selfish to something that doesn't exist. To an idea. To my ovaries? To my Mum, for not supplying her with grandchildren? (I'm sure my brother will)... It's not selfish. It's what I want. You can't be selfish to something that isn't.

If I had kids, I think my great delights would be in naming them stupid names. Like... Zebra. Or Aaron Abr--(my surname) so they're ALWAYS called first in roll-call. I don't think that's a good, reasonable, or responsible reason to have children.

And I'm happy with my pets. I'm happy cuddling them, and smelling their fur, and crying on them and having them lick my tears. Except Reya. She thinks the salt is tasty and my eyebrows are catterpillars and she just wants to claw out my eyeballs and eat my face.... She's a lovely kitten. But, you know... we take Mallei with us when we go hiking, if we can.We run, walk, explore, climb, boulder.. and he comes. Reya cuddles up and sleeps on my chest while we watch tv. We feed them, wash them, love them. We take them to the emergency vet because they've done something stupid and cry with worry.

It's funny, I bet nobody asks Nic when we're having kids... I was about to write that I don't know why I'm the one being held responsible... then I thought that was stupid, and then realised that no, it isn't stupid. Just because I can BEAR children doesn't mean that I'm the only one in charge of having them! (It's a team effort, after all) If we were to have kids it would be as much his decision as it is mine... yet everybody asks me and (I could be wrong), I don't imagine anyone would ask him. Stupid gender roles.

actually something related to a wedding!

Oo, a wedding-related update! Keeping in mind my tendency to trail into tangents at a moment's notice and end up writing about the kitten (who, by the way, is just fricken adorable)(and about whom I get mocked regularly because apparently I was a self-proclaimed cat-hater... I would argue I never went that far, more that I just prefer dogs... I'm more a dog person than a cat person, but hey, my kitten seems about as close to a dog as I could hope. Does she wrestle with Mallei, despite his 200% difference in weight? Why yes, yes she does. Does she kamakazee fearlessly into everything? Yup. Is she unflinching when we drop something noisy or sneeze? Sure is. And at the same time, is she cat enough? Lap sleeping- check (and neck, shoulder, chest, shins...), purring (LOUD)- check, leaping- check, riding around on our shoulders like a parrot? check. In all, she's awesome, moving on). Also, apologies for my extended use of parentheses (I know them as brackets, but parentheses sounds more fancy, despite the fact that I had to look up the term to make sure I wasn't going to look a fool).

Moving on to the actual point of this post (and hidden so Nic won't read it accidentially. Yes, that means stop now, love.)