Alive and Well

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

Promo PROBABLY Wednesday (there are reasons.) You see, I sat at the wrong computer to check on something else, and then the kittens sat on me. I can’t get up. I tried, honest. It’s been…. 4 hours. Here I am. I have stuff to do….

If I die, tell people it was feline murder… They’re so cute and happy and and and WARM. I can’t. I just can’t.

Have some kitten pictures, to cheer you up.

This is Indie-Pol, cat-god of Indianapolis (Look at his name!) and he likes his tummy rubbed.

He really likes his tummy rubbed, and he doesn’t belly trap, just hugs your wrist with soft paws while you pet his tummy.

And this is Helen who now only answers to Helena (I blame Dan). She supervises the writer.

I’d take a picture of them on my legs right now, but the phone is upstairs, and as we know, that’s not reachable. Not with KITTENS on me.

I’m fuzzed and I can’t get up.

89 thoughts on “Alive and Well”

  1. Other than going to church, a lazy Sunday is what it is meant to be. Looks like your kittens are Sabbath guards! Heh!

    Like

    3. Ours not only answers to her name, when she feels like it, she also fulfills (some) requests.
      “Tru, would you please wake up the boys for me?” is a favorite request. Of mine and hers, not of the boys!

      Liked by 2 people

  6. Iz cat for sure! I just had to get R off my mouse so I could keep reading! At least he’s not the royal brat on my desk that C is…

    Like

  8. I suppose there’s a word that means “buried beneath a pile of snuggly kittens,” but I’m not about to look into the matter.

    And I am looking forward to the upcoming Vignettes Challenge. Just don’t make the key word something I’ll have to look up, like “obstreperous!”

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Does OGH have a nice floor with tiles-of-motivational-sayings? You know, ‘Write more’, ‘Exercise’, ‘Wash the car’, ‘Take out the trash’? Need those so you know where you are going.

      I am also curious – is that ‘hellen-a’ or ‘heh-LAY-na’ or some other variant – names are flexible.

      Like

  13. Congrats on the kittens, I can use all the smiles that I can get.

    I’m dealing with a life on the other end of the equation (Mom is now in palliative/hospice care, sleeping most of the time, other issues).

    This has not been the 2023 that I wanted at all…literally from the start of the year onwards.

    Liked by 1 person

        1. The doctor is the same one who treated him before. They’re going with radiation first because chemo at 90 might be too much.

          Liked by 2 people

        1. Yes. Both MIL and my mother had the same situation. MIL passed 8 years ago, while Mom went last year. It was time.

          Sympathies.

          Liked by 2 people

    4. Condolences. Beloved Spouse has entered Hospice & Palliative Care and is leaving before we get around to all the things we’d yet to do together. The DVR is holding the last four or five episodes of this years several TV series we’d been viewing together, we’ve still three audiobooks of David Tennant’s reading of the “How To Train A Dragon” books necessary to finish the series …

      I swear that Beloved Spouse is just leaving because the horror of the upcoming presidential campaign is too traumatic to endure.
      ~

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Thank you. Mom passed on Monday morning, about 1:30 AM and…

        I hate how callous this sounds. But I’m glad she’s gone.

        She didn’t linger. She didn’t suffer. She spent at most a day dealing with her body having issues before she finally left us. After six months of medical issues, time in the hospital, illness, and other problems…she got to be with us when she left. I got a chance to say everything that I wanted to say, all the things I regretted and all the things that I loved about her. And say it when she could appreciate it.

        If there was a way to restore her health and have her stay with us, to make her leaving be her decision, I would be furious. Right now, it just puts me in the mindset of religion.

        And that is not a mindset I want to remain in for any period of time.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. Sorry for your loss.

          Dad did about the same when it became his time. He was in home hospice but things didn’t change much except a direct line for mom to call. The night he fell and mom had to call because he couldn’t get up and she couldn’t help him up was his last night. Hospice sent someone to help him up and back to bed. The next day hospice brought a hospital bed. He passed that night in the bed. We had him 22 years that we almost didn’t have him. Miss him still after almost 15 years (early spring 2024).

          Liked by 1 person

          1. If there was a hope for this…
            -We’d make it to her birthday.
            -We’d make it to their 50th wedding anniversary. (With plans to send them to the place they went for their honeymoon.)
            -We’d…make it further. That I’d be employed and maybe a little happier. My sister being in better shape. That kind of thing.

            But…if the choice was between her not suffering and more time…I don’t know. I’m just happy that she isn’t suffering anymore.

            Liked by 1 person

            1. Yes, there are always things not quite done, but if we’re lucky there is time to say goodbye properly.

              Beloved Spouse’s kidney stent has apparently plugged, but some urine is still taking the traditional route from the body, rendering the nephrostomy bag a useless appendage. The cancer grows ever larger, crowding internal organs and impairing their function. Nothing to be done, the end is writ already.

              We spend long parts of each day together, whiling away the time together while I provide such assistance as is possible. Our thanks for all the prayers, I’m sure they’ll come in handy at the next station.
              ~
              Rgrds,
              RES

              Liked by 1 person

              1. I got to speak to my mom.

                I told her of the things I regretted. And the things I loved about her. I wished that she could stay a bit longer.

                And yet…it wasn’t meant to be.

                I have seen too many ways the story ends. There are worse endings than that.

                Liked by 1 person

  15. I keep telling you lot, cats concentrate gravity. That’s why it’s so hard to get up when there’s a cat on you. Two cats, don’t even bother trying.
    ———————————
    At my house, the ‘things that go bump in the night’ are cats.

    Like

  16. Always good to see cute pictures of loving, lovable predators. Or, perhaps, Predators In Training.

    “I should be working. But my cats know I need to be visiting with them instead!”

    Like

      1. We’ve learned (or some of us have) to put anything away that weighs as much as or less than any one of our 4 cats. The largest one, Tj (ginger) is 16#s. If we don’t the odds are things get moved. Get up in the morning and see what they’ve rearranged. Paper, in particular golf score cards, and rope like items, are popular. Arranged all over the house. Note putting things in drawers is not a guaranty it will stay there. They open drawers. Mostly I don’t care. But when they put things on the floor the dog can’t have, that could be bad.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. The larger of our two cats is a 22-pounder, and even the ‘little’ one recently weighed in at 14. We have to take Stern Defensive Measures. Fortunately there are wide classes of household objects that don’t interest them.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. We’ve had large cats, even before Tj. He stretches up and almost reaches the door handle. Our biggest two cats stretched and he not only reached the door handle, they could wrap their paws around it. Luckily we have old fashioned round door knobs and neither never learned how to turn one. But none of our big cats weighed 20#s or more. Out of all 4 our current cats, they all are > 10#s and not overweight. Unusual. Historically we usually had at least one dainty cat (7#s or less adult cat). We haven’t changed a thing about how the cats are fed: Kibble 24/7 (okay special kibble because one cat has a sensitive stomach, but still available 24/7) + daily 1/4 to 1/2 can of kitty canned per cat (Fancy Feast small 3 oz size can). Both put out of reach of dog.

            Liked by 1 person

          2. Dang, that’s a big beast! Our biggest guy a muscular part Maine coon 14 pounder who was second-smallest in his litter. (We fostered his mother and her whole litter after they were rescued from an empty apartment, where they’d been locked in for who knows how long; mom was skinny and hungry, but the kittens were well fed.) If they followed the same trajectory he has, his biggest brothers would be pushing 20 pounds; I’d love to see those magnificent porch lions. The young guy looks particularly big to us because we’ve had a dainty little 7-pounder for several years now.

            Like

              1. See I’m used to Havey 16 lbs and before him, Greebo who in full fighting weight was 20, emaciated when he died was 16.
                Indie is just over five and Helena is just under five. Indie will probably grow more, but the girl has tiny little paws, so not sure.

                Like

                1. We have a pair of siblings too. Five weeks when they came home. Tj (ginger male) had huge paws (which he has grown into) on him, weighted in at 4 oz. Amber (or Sissy, short for sister, *black and ginger) weighted in at under 2 oz and had tiny paws. Amber was still under 5#’s at 10 weeks. Tj wasn’t. But at three years? Amber now weighs 11.5#s. Did not expect her to get that big. Officially all our cats are over 11#’s. The girls barely. Ten year old Lil’ Bits (or mini, smallest of her siblings, is fluffy so hard to distinguish any bulk VS fur). Two year old Freeway is sleek. Freeway looks small but she is solid at almost 12#s.

                  We’d take in another kitten or two. We use our own veterinarian for neuter/spaying. We’d talked really hard about bring home the (now 3 year old) remaining golf coarse “kitten” hubby has been feeding. Semi-Feral. Probably could work out taming wise. But the loss of the older male cat and “kitten’s” sibling and the fallout from all that, makes that unrealistic. (Older cat just has disappeared. Other kitten got in a fight with something, presumption is raccoon. Rescuer got bit and scratched capturing her to take her to a veterinarian, where she ultimately passed. Rescuer ended up in the hospital with bad infections and now is on Rabies protocol. Remaining kitten can’t have rabies or it would be gone by now. But other risks to our 4 just isn’t worth it. If we had more than an urban lot, then 100%. As it is? No.)

                  (*) Other two siblings were solid black males. Mom was a tiny (maybe young?) white everywhere except a patch of ginger/black on her head and ears. Pretty cat, but no one was catching her. Presumed dad cat was black. (Plan was to TNR so no colony started but don’t know if there was follow through. The local jurisdiction of TNR and rescue programs are in flux because the local Spay & Neuter clinic associated with county pet shelter has closed permanently. Afraid cat colonies are going to explode.)

                  Like

          2. Hubby and I’ve both managed to loose glasses because a cat decided the glasses were prey. My keys go in my purse. My glasses go in a triangle case they can knock off and bat around but not carry off. They haven’t managed to pack off a phone, yet (again, knock off, but not pack off). I have enough problems on “where did I put my keys or glasses?” without the cats’ help.

            Like

  17. I so much miss having cats when I see pictures like these. Sending virtual tummy rubs and ear scritches to both of them. Delivery of same at your convenience. ;-) Thanks!

    Liked by 1 person

      2. Special K, however, is the Venus Cat Trap.

        “Oh won’t someone touch my belly? Chrrrrrrr!”

        Like

  18. Yeah, our household has long had “right of cat”: the person the cat is sitting on can ask the other person to fetch things so that the cat’s sacred repose is not disturbed. Of course in the intervals of two cats it has sometimes gotten tricky . . .

    Liked by 1 person

  19. We have double cat gravity here.
    Goldietoes, a triple-chocolate medium haired calico girl, is still healthy, active, and demanding at 22 y.o. but only about 8 lbs.
    Cattus Maximus, Max, is a large, solid raven-wing black, boy who got dropped on us in Florida as a female kitten. Not.
    He is about 16 lbs of Bombay mix (yellow-green eyes), who got his name from his then-enormous paws.
    Both think that we might eventually make good staff, and are not afraid to demand cuddles and pets, regardless of our original intent for the day.
    Those kittens are gorgeous.
    Have fun. John

    Liked by 1 person

  20. First, I guess “blondes have more fun” applies to kittens as well. If one can describe the ineffably blissful state of kitten-ness with such a mundane word as “fun.”

    Second, … wait. You have a miniature Persian rug as a mouse pad? I may need to rethink major aspects of my life.

    And third, which I just noticed now on Helen(a), I see someone was able to bell the cat. Is that, in fact, the jingle bell that plays when someone pulls the other one?

    Liked by 1 person

    1. You can usually get them at office stores. Why they don’t have them at most electronics places, I don’t know.

      But I am sure they are online too.

      Like

  21. Oh, they look wonderful – and big, as big as Prince Fluffy, their brother, who is turning into a bruiser! They look so happy and content.
    Every one of Miso’s kittens is now in the house of a writer…

    Liked by 1 person

  23. Beloved Spouse has asked that I express appreciation of the kitty pix.

    Please consider this as fulfillment of that request.
    ~

    Like

Comments are closed.