We're Back

Sorry about the absence. I was gone for most of early July doing a project and have spent the past week sleeping and watching new TV. And by "new tv" I mean to imply tv that is new to me from someone else's hard drive. Some of what I've been watching:

-Dexter: started off thinking this show was weird, but now I'm pretty into it.

-The Wire: Everyone tells me this is the best show on tv ever, but I have to say I wasn't as blown away as I thought I'd be. It's very literary, I'll give it that, but it seems like a show conceptualized around theme rather than plot and then the plot was added as sort of an after thought. From an anthropological/sociological angle, it's fascinating but I wish more happened for the amount of philosophical musings in the background.

-Eastbound and Down: THIS is the best show on TV ever. Ever. In the history of ever.

-The Boondocks: The perfect mixture of hilarious and thought provoking. I like the animation style too. I'd never watched this show, but my friend Jordan suggested I give it a shot and now I'm hooked. Praise White Jesus!

Now that my big project is over, my time is mostly spent putting the pieces together for my return. I've written a few resumes and plan on sending them out in early September. I look for jobs, look for apartments, look for things to spend my readjustment allowance on. It's 1/2 nerve wracking, 1/2 exciting. Gordana helped me figure out all the paperwork I need for Patches to come back with me. Patches is busy studying for the citizenship test.

Mr. Boomer is going to be here with me and Patches for another month or so before sailing off to a new life with his new daddy. I'm happy he's found a wonderful home, but I will miss him very much.

Summer Boredom

For the first 6 weeks of Boomer's life I lived in constant fear that he was going to drop dead. But he is survivor cat! Now that he's old and still not dead ,I like to play games with Boomer. Some of my favorites are:

-Boomer Bowling (only when I have 6 empty Dobra Voda bottles though)
-Sheet Spelunking. He likes this one. When Boomer is napping on my bed, I stealthily wrap him up in the blankets so he is in a blanket cave. I then watch him try to figure out how to escape.
-Cat Massage. This is only a vague reference to this eerie prediction of my future, but on Mose Pijade Ulica it refers to when Patches is sleeping and I use Boomer as belly rub tool. (Side note: how often do I find myself singing "Who's the best cat in Vi ni ca? It's YOU, Boomer baby! It's YOU!" as per Champ from that video. Sigh. -2 dateability.)
-Prison Break. This is when I create box structures for Boomer to escape from.

In today's episode, I give you a harrowing glimpse into what my life has become in the summer months.

Edit: I don't need your judgment about my sweatpants (HANNA BERGER). You are looking at 25% of my pants wardrobe.

Boomer Has A New Job

So anyway, Boomer is at PRIME lol-cat age. He's fluffy, sleepy, adorable. I've been putting together a series of Non-LOL cats that reflect the hard realities of life working for this undisclosed organization. They are called Non-LOL cats because, even though they make me laugh, apparently most other volunteers view them and go "ooooh.... that's too true." Glad he's a naturally depressed looking kitten!!

I stroke this kitten with my salad fingers

Well it is summertime, which means yet another year of tense peace treaties between the spider families and myself. Last year at this time we reached an agreement on the bathroom territories, but summer 2010 has started with an aggressive campaign by the spider families to retake their control of the bedroom territories. They seem particularly interested in a coveted piece of land-- the "My Bed" state-- but I've sent the finest diplomat in my cabinet (Mr. Broom) to eliminate their illegally built homes until a treaty can be negotiated.

Week 6-8 are a very important time in a baby cat's life. While he is no longer dependent on his negligent mother for food, Baby Cat spends his 6th-8th week learning social skills from his socially awkward mother (who, in turn, has learned many of her social skills from me). That means the following things:
1) Boomer has weird baby cat B.O. He's a very pungent baby cat.
2) Patches tries to teach him how to wrestle but she seems uncaring of the fact that he is 1/8 her size. Could this be a result of how I sometimes used to tackle Patches when she was sleeping?
3) When they wrestle, Boomer sounds like a goose being squeezed.
4) Patches has taught Boomer that if you stand on the armchair behind me and squeal I will eventually get so annoyed that I will pick you up and give you your daily cuddles.
5) Boomer chases my toes and the only reason I don't mind this is because he's a ball of fluff and is really cute when he runs because his butt bounces really high.

In other news, I ate 1/2 kilo of cherries yesterday.

Also, this: someone recently brought the weird and creepy video series Salad Fingers to my attention and I watched all 9 episodes and caught myself musing over how similar my living situation is to Salad Fingers'. Constant isolation, projecting friendship onto inanimate/cat objects, the only living beings around you make absolutely no sense. I find it very disturbing that my reaction to this horror series was "yeah that dude is legit. I get it."

Mistakes

I cut my hair the other day and I'm really upset about it. Good thing there is no one here I'm trying to impress.

These cats are driving me insane. Lots of mewing, lots of exploring, lots more mewing, etc. The baby is currently sleeping in my jacket against my stomach which keeps him quiet.

So once the baby gets to be a full blown playful kitten, I want to use him to make motivational posters for other volunteers..... any suggestions as to motivational phrases?

Making Biscuits With Boomer

"Making Biscuits" is what online says it's called when cats knead their claws into something. When cats are babies, they do this to get the milk a-flowin. But I have never figured out WHY it's called "making biscuits." Why biscuits? Why not any other bread product? Having made biscuits, I don't remember any step of the process that resembles squeezing milk out of a cat teat. Mysteries.

I for real miss this baby when he finds a forever home.

Boomer Corral

Once again, we just wanted an excuse to watch the baby bumble around. I'm already getting major separation anxiety for when he has to leave us :(

If anyone has any insight about his eye let me know. It crusts over while he sleeps... I know goop and crust is normal for kittens, but I don't know if I should be wiping it away or not.

Back to the grind.

The Baby Crawleth!

As I was recording this, I was wayyyy too caught up in Boomer waddling around and didn't really manage to make many coherent statements. Sorry about that, but seriously the kitten is way cute.

It's almost vacation time! Vlado is picking me and the Patches family up tomorrow at 3 and driving us to Uncle Matt's house. The kitties will have a vacation resort box there while I go and eat Pizza Hut on the seaside for a bit.

On an unrelated note, I am so happy it is ice cream cone season again. Monday at the bus station, I had a small strawberry cone and then went back for a double scoop raspberry-vanilla. Because you know what? There is no one here I am trying to impress. I will eat ice cream scoops by the billion. But mostly I just enjoy seeing the packs of Balkan boys roaming the street... they try to look hard and manly with their gelled hair, no-nonsense bedazzled pullover and glitter-dragon jeans but it all somehow crumbles around them as they saunter around adjusting their junk and licking a chocolate ice cream cone. And usually they are too distracted by their ice cream to sexually harass me so that's always a plus.

.... here's that video. Watch him tumble!!

OH also last night I had a dream that I was shark fishing with Jason Stackhouse from True Blood (i WISH) and anyway we fish hooked a giganto shark and I was very afraid it was going to come to life on the boat deck and eat us. It didn't.

The Kitten Korner!

Today's lesson is on how to make Patches really angry. The answer is: pick up her baby. HAAAAA!! I am careful not to touch Boomer too much and I haven't touched him really at all over the past week. But beginning yesterday, I have been rubbing his belly while Patches is nearby and sometimes I pick him up. They both don't really like that. But I do. And I buy the kibbles. So..... case closed.

Boomer is doing just fine.... he's big and fat and noisy. Patches feels okay spending more time away from the nest but only leaves while he is napping.

Other than that, the Ray-Patches household has been pretty quiet lately. I'm getting major "get me the F out of this small city" fever. Also, I'm really worried about what to do about this stupid kitten while I'm away in May.

I spent 45 minutes trying to open a jar of ajvar today. Failed. Still hungry.

My computer makes weird noises. Someone tell me that is normal. Because if this thing breaks..... I don't want us to have to think about that.

Here's Boomer!

And Little Starbuck Goes to the Great Battlestar in the Sky....

Yes, my precious Little Starbuck died last night. Sigh. I have been worried about him for a few days because he wasn't eating nearly as much as Boomer. Boomer was about twice as big as Starbuck, and Starbuck didn't make much noise. Anyway, this morning I came in to check on them and Starbuck was in the box, dead. I took him out and put him on a paper towel on the table. His white fur was yellow from being licked, so Patches hadn't rejected him. I think he just never really got into the groove of living. Starbuck was the one I scooped off the floor when Patches had him and I rubbed him with a towel. He got off to a rough start.

I had put the other two dead kittens in the trash, but I felt even worse doing that to Starbuck. So I asked my landlord if I could bury him in the backyard and they said yes.

Boomer may end up joining the Ray-Patches household, who knows. If my mom comes to visit in August, maybe she could take him home.

Patches Loves a Good Song!

It's a rainy day here in the Balkans. Today I had to spend six seconds with my landlords 4 year-old.... holy God. Give me a hundred squealing, poop-filled kittens any day of my life. That kid is a nightmare and makes me want to rip out my ovaries and throw them over a bridge as a preventative measure.

Starbuck and Boomer are doing well... Boomer is a total fat-fat though and squeals all the time. I wish Starbuck ate more, but I think he's okay. Just not a fat-fat.

I'm worried about what I will do with them while I am in Croatia in early May. :-/ If anyone wants to come "have a project" here for a week, let me know. My landlords were thankfully not upset by the kittens... I was 60% sure they would shrug and say "eh, well, we have a river right down the street."

Goals for this week: Read "The Snoring Bird" by Bernd Heinrich... make a batch of English muffins... educate the chilluns... don't kill anyone.

All right... here's a lil song I wrote today for Patches the Cat:

The Ray-Patches family would like to present.....

STARBUCK AND BOOMER!!!!!

Well, MY Starbuck and Boomer are tiny kittens. Patches was textbook I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant and spent her morning freaking out, prancing around, spraying blood out her backside and plopping out the occasional squirming creature. The best wake up call there is!!!!

But it was not all fun and games. Starbuck and Boomer's brother, Helo, wasn't ready for this big bad world and died on my floor.... that was pretty tough for me and I still feel sad about it.

Anyway, here's a video detailing the early morning excitement in the Mose Pijade alley-- look forward to lots of family pics this weekend!!

Here are some pictures for now: