21 January 2025

 These two are not happy, and have not been since the 9th. Why?

Because of this guy:

His name is Ducky, and they do not like him.

Not yet. But they will. Or at least CJ will; Ozzy may never come around, but I'll settle for her not hissing at him every time he's within 5 feet. CJ is not thrilled, but he'll get nose-to-nose with Ducky and not growl, and he'll hang out in the same room just to watch the little guy play. Granted, there have been a few times that CJ has been up a bit higher and reached down to swipe at him, but never with claws and never in a way that made me worry.

This is good, because 75% of the reason that we decided to adopt a kitten was to give CJ someone to play with. Ozzy sleeps a lot more than he does, and when she's awake she's not often interested in chasing around the house the way he wants to.

(And yes, we realize that Ducky might turn out to be just like Ozzy, but it was a chance worth taking.)

Ducky seems to have had a fairly rough start in life. According to the paperwork, when the shelter did intake on him early November, he was one month old but only .52 pounds. He's had digestive issues since then (but they ran a lot of test, all negative...and we had our vet repeat most of them) and is gassy af, but extremely active, eats like a horse and drinks well, and is an affectionate and happy little guy. 

When I picked him up post-neutering on the 9th, he weighed in at a whopping 2.98 pounds and was 14 weeks old.

Like we did with Ozzy and CJ, he hung out in the spare room for the first couple of days. Mostly to decompress, partly to give all the cats time to sniff each other and get used to new smells. The door remained open, despite common sense.

Yes, we know it's usually "better" to keep everyone separated for a week, but my gut said that would not work with Ozzy and CJ. And hell, we did it for Max and Buddah and we all know how that turned out.

After a few visits to the litter box, we were aware that his tummy problems were not solved; the poor guy was shooting out super soft toothpaste from his back end, and it was odoriferous enough to not only concern us, but drive us from the room.

Spouse Thingy called the vet two days later; he took them a stool sample and yesterday he had his first stabby person appointment.

The sample was fine; it repeated several tests the shelter ran, and there were no signs of worms or parasites, nor giardia. So now he's on a prebiotic mixed with something else to help calm his gut down (vet thinks he just as poor gut flora) so fingers crossed it helps.

The big thing, though, was his weight. Yesterday marked day 11 with us, and he'd gone from 2.98 to 3.72 pounds.

Today I realized that while he kinda stinks still, he's not as flatulent and the odor doesn't linger as long when he bombs the litter box. 

He also has run of the house during the day (except for bedrooms...that's mostly to give Ozzy a quiet place when she needs one, and to keep from overwhelming him) and he's allowed out of the catio if he wants. 

Oh, and before someone mentions it...no, we did not intentionally get cats that look like Max and Buddah. It just kinda worked out that way. I was actually hoping to find an orange kitten, but Ducky was there, this little black bundle of trembling kitten, and I had the thought that he would be overlooked in the shelter if we didn't adopt him.

So of course, when I went to pick him up the next day, there was an orange kitten.

I was not the least bit upset by that.

Ducky was meant to be ours.

4 January 2025

 :::blows dust off the blog again:::

I swear, I never intend to not write something, but I sit down and nothing comes out. My brain has been pulling me in 42 different directions lately--for no good reason. And it's not just the blog; I'm only halfway through a book I began writing a year ago, which is super slow for me. Still, I'm having a blast with it, I know where the story is going, and I'll get it done sooner or later.

In the meantime, I'm trying to get into a shape that is less...round. And to accomplish this, I ordered a new-to-me kind of indoor cycling, and have joined Zwift in the hopes that the increased difficulty level (I live in a flat city; this sucker has hills) will help a bit more.

This is the Zwift Ride mounted on a Wahoo Kickr Core, with an iPad (already had that) to access the Zwift app. I could have mounted a bike to the trainer and played that way, but I really didn't want to have to take off the back tire, get the frame set on the trainer, then do everything in reverse when I want to take the bike outside.

Yes, I am that lazy.

This thing is kicking my ass. Like I said, I live where it's flat and I don't have to struggle too much when I ride. But the first day I had this, just a couple minutes into it, I hit a baby hill and holy fark I could barely pedal. I used all my weight on the pedals and my little avatar would not budge. I tried so hard I nearly barfed all over everything, and after 20 minutes or so cried Uncle.

That was 3 weeks ago. Now I can make my avatar move, and sometimes even getting up to 20-22 mph, but the hills are my bane. And I'm using the easy routes. Yesterday I zoomed up a hill at a grand 3 mph (you read that right...THREE. Just three) but I made the pedals go round and round and eventually got to the top of this very-much-a-baby-hill.

We won't discuss the riders who blew past me doing 25 mph. On a hill. 

It's just difficult enough that I added a decal to the frame:

I think I've invented a few new swear words while riding on Zwift.

One day I will conquer the Alpe du Zwift (think BIG HONKIN' MOUNTAIN.) I might die at the top, but at least I'll go out on a major win.

More importantly, one day I'll be in shape. I am determined this time around. A year from now I want to be at my goal weight, be close to having the ability to hit those hills at a speed other than slow, and not be a pre-diabetic with high cholesterol.