Monday, July 29, 2013

Monday Malarkey - Yes, we still have a kitten in the house and other stuff

The kitten is full of malarkey.  She has not yet taken a drink of my tea, but that's not for lack of trying.


This week was not a big week for reading and certainly not one for writing as I went out of my way to avoid the computer (somewhat successfully, although not entirely), but we'll start with what little there is to talk about, book-wise.  Appearances aside, this still is not a cat blog.  

Recent arrivals (2 weeks' worth):

We Go Together by Dunn & Sakamoto and
Rufus Goes to School by Griswell and Gorbachev - both from Sterling Kids for review and/or tour

Rufus is a pig.  PIG BOOK!  Sorry to shout.  Pigs are such fun.  And, a couple more . . . 

Burial Rites by Hannah Kent and
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt - both from Little, Brown and Co. for F2F discussion and review (the former in August, the latter in October). 

We only got 10 copies of each title, this time, and that's not enough to go around -- my F2F group is well-established and quite large, although attendance varies.  So, I had to set aside my plans to reread The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Gaiman to read Burial Rites.  We'll have to share so I wanted to get that done in time to give someone else a chance to read it.  It's excellent, in case you're wondering.  I'm really looking forward to the discussion.

Last week's reading:

As per my plan, I jumped into The River of No Return by Bee Ridgway and enjoyed my swim.  I hope to review that, soon.  I followed it up with a read of the pig book, Rufus Goes to School, pretty much the moment it walked in.  And, then I read Burial Rites by Hannah Kent.  After that, I started reading The Girls of Atomic City by Denise Kiernan and The Last Policeman by Ben H. Winter.  I'm close to halfway through the latter but not far into The Girls of Atomic City.  I'm enjoying both.  

The Last Policeman is a mystery -- a genre which most of you probably know I seldom read -- but this particular mystery has an unusual twist in that a single policeman (the hero, naturally) suspects murder and everyone else believes the death was a suicide.  Suicide is not particularly surprising or unusual in this story because Earth will be struck by an asteroid in 6 months. Everyone's going to die anyway.  So, a lot of people don't give a flip about the law and some people are choosing to go out sooner rather than wait for the Final Bang.  The Last Policeman is definitely a unique and entertaining diversion and The Girls of Atomic City is fascinating so it's likely I've got a pleasant reading week ahead of me.  


Kitten-wise:

Four weeks and counting.  Last week, we came to the conclusion that we'd done enough kitty juggling and it was time for the cats to spend time working out their differences.  So, Prissy (or River, depending on who you're talking to) has been out and about except at night when she goes back into her bedroom.  Things have not substantially improved, unfortunately.  The kitties can eat together but there's some growling on one side and threatening poses on the other.  The rest of the time, if Isabel's awake there is a great deal of chase/fight/hide going on.  Nap time is awesome.  The little one stays away from the kitty tree, where the two big girls hang out.  I think Isabel does wear herself out chasing poor Prissy/River and is napping a bit more than usual.  

The kitten also has resisted efforts to train her to scratch a cardboard or fabric scratching pad and has pretty much torn the hell out of our living room rug.  So, if she stays, it's likely she'll be the first declawed kitty we've ever owned.  We are against declawing, in general, but she is simply not getting it -- and we have scratching stations literally all over the house.  The other two kitties are very well-behaved when it comes to scratching in the right places.

We will have to make a decision about whether or not we can keep Prissy very soon because she's now about 16 weeks old.  Kittens are very adoptable; older cats are not.  If she's going to another home, she'll need to find a family before she gets too big -- and judging from her appetite, she's likely to be a very large, delightfully droopy cat.  Everyone loves her, so we're all wrestling with the decision but I think we all know in our hearts that it would be best for her to find a different home, if only because Isabel's attitude toward her is not softening.

Not much else is happening, here:

I'm hoping Huzzybuns will soon take a full week off work so we can work day and night getting the old house ready to sell.  Weekends alone are just not enough when you have two houses and yards to maintain and improve.  Everything we're doing is fairly minor but very time-consuming so a dedicated stretch of time would be really helpful.  Please pray or cross your fingers or send positive vibes that we'll quickly finish and get that house on the market . . . and that it will sell.  Although the housing market has improved elsewhere, houses do not appear to be moving at all in Vicksburg at the moment.  

Enough about me:

What's up in your world?  I'm sorry I haven't been able to visit other blogs.  That will probably continue at least until our old house goes on the market.  There's just too much going on.  Today, our excitement of the day was finding out we had a gas leak.  I would not have known, had the gas company not made a mistake on our bill that quadrupled the usual monthly cost.  So, thanks be to God Almighty that we didn't have to get blown up in order to find out about the gas leak.  I've never been so grateful for an erroneous statement in my life.  

Happy Monday!

©2013 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.


14 comments:

  1. It's so hard to adjust cats to newcomers (feline variety especially) in the house. I've tried and failed a few times, it seems like you're doing pretty well! Have you tried using scent to get Prissy to scratch where she's supposed to? Rub catnip on the scratching trees, and spray citrus odor where you want to deter her. My cat ignored his scratching pad until I infused it with some catnip and then he got the idea quick!

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    1. We're doing okay, given how aggressive Isabel is. In fact, Kiddo just drew my attention to the hissing in the living room. Le sigh. Yes, we've tried using catnip on the cardboard scratchers. No luck. That's how we got Izzy and Fi to use the other scratchers instead of the carpet. I need to get a spray bottle and give the girl a squirt when she behaves badly. She's a sweet kitty, very much a people cat, so right now whether she stays or goes is *mostly* hinging on whether or not we can get Isabel to calm down and that does not seem to be improving, unfortunately.

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  2. OMG! Thank goodness your house didn't blow up!! I worry more about water leaks than gas leaks, but the latter is much more deadly. Yikes.

    Good luck with the house sale. I know my hubby would love to move to the Seattle area, but I'm dragging my feet. I love my job/co-workers, love our house/neighborhood, HATE selling houses/moving. Plus, there's the whole job situation for the hubby. Hmm. May just have to plan a lot of visits until we both retire. ;)

    I have close to a half dozen reviews to write. Dragging my feet on this whole blogging thing lately. I'm currently working on 165 posts to read via bloglovin'. Maybe once I'm caught up, I'll start posting on my own. Until then, I'll stick to so Wordless Wednesday posts. Those are easy!

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    1. Yeah, no kidding. I can't believe we had a leak. We've been flooded quite a few times, for various reasons (in the old house). It's not fun --water destroys absolutely everything-- but I'd rather be flooded than blown up.

      Thanks. We really just need to spend a week or two focusing on that house. Next week, we're going to have a real estate agent do a walk-through to tell us what we can skip and what we need to make sure we finish, improvement-wise. On the plus side, we just redid the kitchen a couple years ago and almost all of the appliances are fairly new. Moving is definitely a pain, but I'm glad we moved. Except, I really miss my gym.

      Same here on the bloggy foot-dragging. When I have a free moment, I really don't want to spend it in front of the computer, you know? I'm thinking about limiting myself to 50-100 words or something like that, just because I fuss over my reviews so much that I end up wasting a lot of time that I don't have. I've been working hard at trying to cut down my computer time. Note that I'm using a lot of photos, too. Yep, wordless is better!

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  3. I totally understand the madness of having two homes - we had to go through the process of selling my mom's house (in another city) and it was tiring and costly to maintain two houses. Wishing you lots of luck on selling your home!

    Book-wise looking forward to your review of Burial Rites. Such a pretty cover.

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    1. This is the second time we've had to deal with two houses at once, but at least this time our extra home is one that has no mortgage. Thank goodness we waited till we'd paid the house off to move! Thanks! We're shooting for getting it on the market within 2 months. Fingers crossed.

      Burial Rites is very good. That is unfortunately not the American cover. When I was seeking out a cover image, I couldn't find the American version so I'll just snap a photo of my ARC for my review. I personally think the American cover is rather ugly and I'm not sure what I've got is even the final cover color (I hope not). Since I haven't located a big enough image to post, a snap of the ARC will have to do. I love the cover image in the sidebar. I think it might be Australian - maybe a UK version. No sure.

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  4. As far as the scratching issues go, maybe try putting foil or saran wrap on the areas where you don't want her to scratch, if she's concentrating on particular areas. I did that when I first got my cat, in addition to putting scratching post near those areas, and it seemed to work pretty well. Cats don't like weird textures.

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    1. It would probably be a bit of a pain to saran wrap an 8 X 10 area rug. ;) But, I may try some double-sticky scratch prevention. We've used that on furniture, not rugs. It didn't work, actually . . . but, whatever. If we decide to adopt Prissy, we'll figure something out. One of my other cat-crazy buddies suggested Soft Paws, the claw covers - definitely worth a try if we opt to keep her, although my biggest concern is that Isabel is still not accepting her. I don't want her to spend her life fighting and running away, you know? She's a really sweet girl and she deserves a nice home.

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  5. I really hope you are liking The Last Policeman. It was one of my favorites last year and I have the next on in ARC, I just need to read it.

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    1. I am absolutely gobbling that book up, Ryan. I love it! Such fun. I just read my husband an excerpt - always a huge sign that I'm enjoying myself. Hubby is always so tired of people when he gets home from work that I try not to inflict myself on him too much, so I only read excerpts to him if I know they'll make him laugh. And, he did. :)

      Oh, oh, oh! You have the next one? Cool!!! I didn't realize the sequel had already been released in ARC form. I got The Last Policeman from a friend. I will definitely read on.

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  6. I really enjoyed The Girls of Atomic City and I'm DYING to read Burial Rites :) Good books, yahoo!

    I hope whatever you decide about your new kitty isn't too heartbreaking for your family. Tough decision.

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    1. Oh, cool. Crossover! I'm glad you enjoyed The Girls of Atomic City. I haven't had any reading time, yet, today but I'm looking forward to reading more. I'm sure you'll like Burial Rites.

      I think we'll be okay but it's going to be hard to let Prissy/River go. She is a sweet, sweet girl (who eats like a horse, good grief) and loads of fun. She's pretty happy-go-lucky, which is bad in regards to her relationship with Izzy (she doesn't respect the cat hierarchy at all) but bodes well for her moving on to another home, I think.

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  7. It's really too bad that Prissy isn't being accepted. She's just the sweetest kitty I've seen in a while. I love the picture of her with her head in your glass. Lol. I was hoping things had gotten better but it's certainly not from lack of trying on your part. It'll be hard to let that precious one go if you have to.

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    1. I know, such a disappointment. I was hoping Isabel would at least calm down after a month of having her around! But, no. In fact, I had three kitties on the bed with me, this morning, but it only lasted briefly because Izzy was in mid-bath when Miss Priss jumped up beside me. When Prissy realized her mistake, she quickly left. Since then, we did have a moment that looked hopeful. Isabel was lying in the hallway just watching little Prissy climb around on the hall tree. Unfortunately, Prissy is so terrified of her that she growls whenever Isabel is near and that ticks off Izzy. *sigh* It's a problem on both sides. If Prissy would stop panicking in Izzy's presence, it might be okay. But, how do you not panic around a bigger creature who likes to chase you with claws extended?

      On the plus side, Prissy should be snapped up quickly when she's restored to the adoption website because she's so pretty. But, we all like her enough that I decided to give her One Last Week. It's hard trying to summon the will to make that call saying, "Put her back on the website; it's not working out." We all love having a third little personality around.

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