Stairs

All of the cats like having stairs now. But Everett LOVES stairs.

When we're looking for him, we always check the stairs first, and usually he's there. Sleeping or just sitting. He's made walking down the stairs a bit of a sport too because he tries to trip people.

When the other cats are chasing balls in the basement, Everett waits near the bottom of the stairs and meows and maaahhhs to get our attention and then leads us to the stairs to throw balls for him to chase up and down. I was filming Zoe flipping when he did it last night:

Paint and Playroom

So far we have used four different colors of paint on the walls in our new house. Three cats got zero colors of paint on them, and one cat got four colors of paint on himself. Indy has been blue, green, grey, and most recently has had white-tipped ears:

Luckily he's the one with the longest fur so we can usually just cut his painted furs off.

The largest part of our basement doesn't have much furniture it yet, and is mostly empty. This has become the cats' favorite room of the house. It's a big playroom. Where they play and roll around a lot with their mouths open:

And where Zoe does a lot of jumping and flailing.

The Move and the Fall

We moved about a week and a half ago and the kitties are pretty much all settled in now. It took Everett about a week to stop looking at us like "when are we going home?" but everyone else was pretty happy right away. The girls were immediately thrilled actually.

Zoe has been a new cat since we moved - just happier, purrier, and cuddlier. She happily explored and helped unpack boxes.

This picture is dark and blurry, but you can see Georgia's reaction to moving, and Everett being a little hesitant. He seemed to have a little trouble understanding stairs.

We set up a room for the cats to contain them while we moved in. Only Everett was nervous - he hid in the closet. The room actually still looks a lot like this. It's nice having cat stuff contained instead of strewn all over the house for a change.


There were a lot of stressful parts of the move too. See this drop from the second story to the first?

We were very worried that somebody would fall from there. Our cats are clumsy, and stumble and knock each other off of things all the time. We had planned to get some glass cut to sit up on that railing to keep the cats off. In the meantime, we put up a cardboard wall. It was very sturdy but Georgia must have taken a run at it and she fell. Luckily her dad was home to rush her to the vet because she must have landed on her face as her nose was bleeding and swollen. She was in pain and not moving or opening her eyes so he was very worried. I was at work and left to meet them at the vet of course freaking out. Anyway, long story short the vet thought she probably didn't have a concussion, although he mentioned she could have fractured something in her face or skull. We think she probably broke her nose. We brought G home and set her up in our room where she is most comfortable to rest alone and recover. At this point the railing was left without anything blocking it, and we were setting up the carpet below while we tried to figure out what to do. Then Indy jumped up there, tried to walk down the slanted hand rail, and fell! He was not hurt at all though. Obviously we needed an immediate solution so we worked late into the night putting up a wall of plexi-glass until we can get some nice stained glass or something. Here's the "after" picture (ignore the head):

We didn't see Georgia fall, but Zoe was somehow involved in it and quite shaken up (we think she was at the bottom and G may have almost landed on her). She didn't leave Georgia's side that day once she got back from the vet and we put her in our room.

A bit of a swollen nose:

Georgia's accident happened a week ago today and she recovered pretty quickly. She's all better now and you'd never know she broke her face a little. I feel very lucky she's better already (and feeling very guilty of course). The vet said a fall like that could have caused a hernia and with mesh holding her insides in, I think Georgia could be more susceptible to that.

Anyway, I'm still paranoid about the rest of the railing, where Zoe likes to sit to worry us:

The fall from there though is not as high, and is on to carpeted stairs. The next move will be to a bungalow.

Our Lives Revolve Around Cats

Well of course our cats are a big part of our lives. But lately we've been focused on other cats. Over the weekend we drove an hour and a half to meet a couple of cats halfway to be brought to their new home at my parents' place. These poor cats were losing their home and were going to be split up with one or both possibly going to the shelter in Calgary, where, we were told, adult cats don't really have the best shot at surviving. Besides, they've only known one home their whole life and are bonded to each other. So. As a last resort my parents agreed to take them. They're slowly settling in. One new kitty is very friendly and relaxed, the other (a tortie) is still obviously traumatized from losing her home, the long trip, and now living with a dog (they have their own room, of course for as long as they need it so she's definitely not going near the dog). So we've been worried about these new cats. THEN last night our stupid upstairs neighbors let their cat jump out of their window (3rd floor we think) AGAIN. This happened before in the winter when there was a nice soft landing and he stayed put. This time the poor thing must have landed on cement and took off. We were awoken to Indy screaming at 5AM because there was a cat at the window and we think it might have been him (we looked for him - think guy outside in the dark lurking through bushes with a cat carrier - but he was gone). So we're trying to figure out if they found their cat today or if we have to try to catch the poor thing tonight. We've had a lot of trouble with people and their cats in this neighborhood so moving should be a relief. Hopefully.Anyway, that's all.

Here's a picture of Georgia. I was trying to get a good picture of the boys because we just missed their birthday. But Georgia is the only one cooperating right now. Indy turned 4 a couple weeks ago. And we decided Everett's birthday is around the same time as Indy's so we're saying he just turned 5.

Laser-Eyed Cats Help Pack

We're moving in a few weeks. We started packing a bit today and the cats are very excited about the boxes.

The three in the picture moved with us into this apartment a few years ago and didn't really react at all to that move (except Georgia who suddenly got nicer). This is Everett's first time moving to a new house and he'll be a little nervous. I'm just nervous about our new front door leading to the outside. Right now these guys are impossible to keep in when we open the front door and are constantly taking off down the apartment hallway. How am I going to keep them from bolting out the front door of a house down the street???

Flabby G

Thanks again to everyone who visited for Everett's gotcha day.

Excuse the photo quality, these pictures were taken with my phone at night.

Walked in to find that Georgia had put a toy on her face....and that's how she slept...

G's looking a little XL here...but she really hasn't gained weight. She actually weights the same as Zoe. She's just a little flabby. But a lot happy...

Everett's Gotcha Day

Thank you to everyone who wished Everett a happy gotcha day yesterday. I feel bad for not doing a post for him. When I heard the Canada Day fireworks on July 1st it brought back the memories worrying about him outside during those fireworks two years ago and of spending weeks (months?) getting up at all hours of the night for his visits trying to get him to let me near him.

We thought we might be in for a lot of work gaining his trust once we finally caught him, but the first night he was out of his cage in his room I woke up in the middle of the night to find an Everett snuggled up right in bed (he doesn't ever do that anymore!).

It's two years later and we're still noticing progress. He used to be a really nervous guy. Always friendly and sweet (we've never heard him hiss...not even when Zoe and Indy would hiss and scream and growl at him early on), he'd never go to the door when visitors came, was terrified to be on counters or tables, and he was even scared of people just walking toward him for the longest time. He's gotten a lot better. Sometimes I forget though about the tough life he had and just a few weeks ago I wasn't thinking and carried a roll of wrapping paper into a room he was in and terrified him. He's not scared of brooms anymore though, and he's still getting braver and braver. I don't like to think about his life before he got here...we're just so glad he did.

This is him a minute ago. Just sittin' in the window looking cute.