Archives—April 2008

April 3—Post Move Update: Now, a Real Update

Now, the promised real update. I moved to Houston on St. Patrick's Day; Kirston picked up me, Freefall the cat, and the rest of my stuff at my dad's house and drove me back to Houston. Freefall of course howled the first half hour of the trip but then calmed down, only to go into hysterics again upon arriving at the house. He was actually too upset to eat—a novelty.

I spent most of the next two days unpacking and cleaning the house— The bathtub was very very bad, and the kitchen needed a good wipe down. On only my second day there, I found a stray kitten in the back yard. One of the strays in the area had a litter recently, and one of them had gotten lost and was crying loudly. I found him in the carport; filthy, scrawny, and sick. I bribed him with food and brought him inside. He immediately warmed up and howled when I left him alone. Freefall was livid with jealousy at first but gradually got used to him. It was not to last, however. Igby, the larger of the two dogs, did not like either cat, and vice versa, so my dad had to come down and take both cats back to Austin. The little cat has now been to the vet and is doing remarkably well.

Kirston has been driving me around to look at jobs. I've applied to several places and also re-filled out my paperwork for the union, but I've yet to hear anything back. Something is bound to turn up sooner or later, though, I hope with the union.

Today I found another kitten, presumably the sister of the one I found on the 18th. She was much slower to warm up than her brother, probably because she's spent more time as a feral and was also less desperate. She quickly became a total lap cat, though; she'll make someone a great pet. I took her to the SPCA this morning. So that's two down and five to go. The remainder of the litter may not be so friendly. Still, at least I've made a small dent in the stray population.

In the time I've not occupied with cleaning, unpacking, job hunting, or stray cat rescue, I've been doing a lot of knitting. I've finished the body of the Irish cardigan and will soon be starting the sleeves. I haven't done them yet because I've been busy learning double knitting, after a fashion. I'm learning to make two socks at once on double-pointed needles; now that I've pretty much got the hang of that, I will soon start the sleeves in the same fashion. Meanwhile, I'm STILL working on Nich's scarf, and I have an idea for a blanket for Igby (the corgi). I've gone through many many ideas for that blanket; I think I've finally settled on one with four squares, each square containing a letter of his name. I hope the end result doesn't really suck.

Oh, and I've updated the conversations page with a new snippet from the other night. (Remember, new ones are on the bottom.) Kirston's wit was great.