Bookshelf:

Recently Read & Reviewed:

• Jasper Fforde, The Eyre Affair

Currently Reading:

• L. E. Modesitt, Ghost of the White Nights

Next Up:

1. Alastair Reynolds, Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days
2. Margery Allingham, Dancers in Mourning
3. John C. Wright, The Golden Age
4. Daniel Keys Moran, The Armageddon Blues
5. Margery Allingham, Flowers For The Judge

A Week of Kittens

Four cats is, I have to say, a lot of felinity to have in a townhouse.

The kittens have spent their full week living with me, and Debbi is now back from her vacation and has brought them back home, where I think they're happy to have their cat tree and to be able to sleep with her at night.

Happily, no signs of Roulette's tapeworm showed up for the rest of the week, so hopefully her pill did the trick and that the second dose - in two weeks - will make sure of that. Blackjack showed no signs of any tapewormage, so he seems safe. And there are no flea problems that I can tell.

Which is good, because by Monday I had started letting the kittens out on supervised visits to the rest of the house, which, of course, meant encounters with the cats. The kittens thought this was fine and wonderful. The cats, well, aren't so sure.

One thing this is doing is answering a question I've asked for ten years: Which of my cats is top cat? It often seems like they're roughly equals, but that they consider me to be top cat. And the answer is starting to look like the one I wouldn't have guessed: Jefferson.

Now, Jefferson is certainly the bigger of my two cats, weighing in at a hefty 16 lbs, compared to 9 for Newton. Jeff could stand to lose some weight, getting down to 14 lbs would be good for him. But he's also a creampuff, running away to hide when we have guests over, and being attached to me over anyone else. But, well, it turns out that Jefferson just refuses to take any crap from the kittens, and both kittens back away or crouch down when Jeff postures or hisses at them. Newton, by contrast, is more skittish and backs away from the kittens more easily, and Blackjack in particular is not very impressed with Mr. Newton. Newton has takes swipes at Blackjack a few times, which hasn't really cowed the kitten.

Roulette, poor thing, is probably going to be bottom cat, while Blackjack and Newton wrestle over who gets to be #2. Roulette doesn't take it on the chin from her brother, but it seems like she's the one who gets muscled aside or ends up on the losing end of their fights, and she's a lot more timid towards people than he is. On the other hand, I think Rou really wants Jefferson to like her. She's curled up not far from Jeff several times, and he's rather nonplussed about that, but I think she wants to have someone to snooze with and doesn't see Newton as a viable choice.

So we'll have cat dominance issues for the next several weeks, no doubt. But all told, both cats and kittens have behaved really well towards each other, with no fights and nothing worse than hisses and the odd swipe (usually because Jacko is being rambunctious and a cat gets freaked). I think the week can be considered a success on that score.

Before too long we'll probably stop shutting the kittens in the front room when we're not around or we're asleep, and they can figure things out among themselves. We'll probably wait 'til the kittens are a bit bigger and can defend themselves on more a equal footing, though.

Watching four cats is a little stressful, though, which is partly why I haven't felt like writing entries lately, though. I've actually been moved to spend more of my evenings hanging out at coffee shops reading, and spent last Wednesday gaming at Subrata's (and I even won, for a change!).

As always when the Yankees are in it, I boycotted watching the World Series, and was of course glad to see them go down in defeat to the Marlins. The Fish and especially their manager Jack McKeon really seem to have earned their victory through unusually canny management and a reliance on youth and talent evaluation. A lot of people (myself among them) don't have any respect for Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria (a.k.a. "The Man Who Wrecked the Montreal Expos"), but the rest of the organization seems admirable.

The heat wave of last weekend gave way to true fall chill later in the week, and Thursday we got our first rainfall - which was a little annoying as I'd planned to clean up the fallen leaves on my patio on Saturday! Things mostly dried out in time and I got it done, but I hadn't expected substantial rain so early!

Friday was Halloween, of course. I'd picked up some items at Illuminations and also carved a pumpkin and put it out front, and I got about 15 trick-or-treaters. I'm on a main street and not in a very kid-intensive neighborhood, so I considered this a pretty good turnout. I did end up with more candy than I'd really wanted left over, but oh well. That's what work is for (well, partly).

So that's pretty much where things stand. Now Deb's back and she'll be back with the kittens - who are growing up fast - on Friday and things will be back to normal.

And Thanksgiving is right around the corner...