Athene Numphe

Over the weekend Natasha made some progress on using the cat door to get into and out of her cage. For the past week, she's been willing to push her way in as long as Aerith or I would coax her head into the right position and hold her gently. However, she still wasn't coming out without one of us holding the flap open for her. Over the weekend she got better about putting her head to the door, but she still needs a light reassuring touch. The best thing to happen over the weekend is that she figured out how to push her way back out of the cat door all by herself. She still wants one of us on the other side coaxing her, but she'll do the work on her own. We are really excited about this progress and hope that soon she'll figure out that she doesn't even need us there at all. I look at this as good practice for potty training in a few years.

In other news, I'm now 30 weeks pregnant and there's a new post on my pregnancy blog.

Also, it's Pi Day. Happy Pi Day! I was supposed to make a pie for work, but I totally flaked. I think I'll make one when I get home. It'll go with the cottage pie that Aerith is planning on making today.

Here is what Pi sounds like:

Both of our cats are high maintenance in different ways.

Boris has no concept of self-regulation when it comes to eating. Left to his own devices, he'd eat all the food there was until it was all gone or until he made himself sick or both. For those of you who knew us in MA, you'll remember that he was well over 20lbs. Well, thanks to our amazing vet and our careful diligence with Boris's diet, he is now down to 15lbs and generally stays that size. Unfortunately, this involves feeding him wet food morning and at night and a cup of dry food in the afternoon. The other size effect of this is that Natasha, who does self-regulate, is on the same eating schedule as Boris and her food either has to be picked up when she is done or more lately, put in a place where he can't get to it.

Natasha is litter box picky. If it's not up to her high standards of cleanliness, she will go next to the box or by the front door or in the tub. Her standard of cleanliness is lower when it's a box that only she has gone in. Of course Boris likes to go in the boxes as soon as they are scooped to show dominance or something.

We have a partial solution right now. We have a very large dog cage with a water bowl, a drop feeder, and a litter box for Natasha. We let her in when we feed Boris or whenever she walks up to it. The biggest problem is then letting her back out. Too soon and she doesn't use the box, too late and she eats more. She's gained two pounds since last year, probably because she's stuck in the cage with nothing else for her to do other than eat.

While annoying, all of this is manageable when we are home. It's when we want to go on vacation that things get tricky because then we have to have someone come over at least once to twice a day. For cats.

So we've come up with a full solution that we hope will work. I got two spot bonus from work recently, which equals $200. Instead of spending it on fun stuff for me (boo), I turned it into amazon.com gift certificates so we could get things that shoudl make our lives easier in the long run (yay!).

For Boris we got an automatic feeder with a timer. The plan is to set it for his afternoon feedings, so we don't have to worry about getting home late. Then when we're on vacation we can set it up for 3x a day feeding. Sure it'll be dry food over wet food, but all dry once in a while won't kill him.

For Natasha we got a cat flap that will only open in response to a tag that we'll put on her collar (and not on Boris's). We'll take out a side of the cage and install the cat flap. Hopefully she'll take to it and then she'll have unfettered access to her food and litter box and Boris won't be able to get in.

For both of them we got a new water fountain because the old one is, well, getting old and is also hard to clean.

So hopefully this will all work and our lives will be way better and we'll be able to go away for the weekend without worrying about our crazy high maintenance cats.

I'm really starting to love Austin. Right now World Fantasy Con is happening about a 5 min walk from my apartment. I took a very tiny detour on my walk home from the bus stop today and ran into author Eileen Gunn. We chatted for a few minutes about things, and she seemed excited to meet a young fantasy reader who was starting on the path to becoming a librarian. We also talked about online works and copyrights because she edits The Infinite Matrix. I think I may have to hang around the hotel a bunch tomorrow...

Just a little while ago, we were watching a little bit of Meerkat Manor and Natasha was sitting on the arm of the couch absolutely fascinated by the meerkats on the tv. She was sitting up right and alert and her eyes were so big. If we ever were to let her out, I know she'd be an excellent hunter. Boris, on the other hand, slept through the whole thing.

Bed soon so I can register for next semester's classes in the morning...yay.

I feel so silly. This morning when we were getting ready to go to the bridal show at Look Park, I couldn't find the pair of pants i wanted to wear. I litterally turned the room inside out and went all crazy (it didn't help that George is showing up soon). ***ahhh, aerith just deposited a natasha on my lap*** anyway, when i was cleaning up the hang-dry stuff from last time we did laundry, ***oh, she jumped off my lap and missed when she tried to jump onto aerith's*** I found them hanging up in the closet. oh do i feel like a dork!

The bridal show was very good. We got some good info about florists including Atkins Farms ***ok, she's back on my lap now*** and some stuff about invitations. Also, I found out a bit about the shoes i've been coviting. it looks like i have to find a shoe maker. Oh, and I won a $50 gift certificate to Chandler's Resturant.

***i think this cat is trying to nurse off of my dress. she's crazy!***

yesterday Aerith and I saw Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow with Wabres and Godspiel. It was so much fun. nothing that hadn't been done before, but it totally had the feel of an old newspaper serial. you could almost feel where the cliffhangers would be. Oh, and ms. pepper is right. definalty a great last line!

and now to bed. to read either more of the deathgate cycle or the WoD books that aerith and i broke down and bought. and she's purring so much. it makes me not want to get y66666666666666666666666666666666666666rttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt up. (that was Natasha on the keyboard right before she jumped off my lap).