Animals

Oct042012

Kitty Spotlight: Nymeria

Very connected with the name (although she doesn’t quite respond to it yet), Nymeria is wild, mischievous, and…well, adorable. She’s our baby girl, 3 months old! She’s younger than our other kitten, Misty, by a month. I actually have the two of them on my lap right now, and Nymeria is watching me as I type. A little too cute to handle, she gets really excited. You can read about when we first got them here. So let’s go over how she was around a month ago (though I feel we’ve had them forever) to how she is today.

Watching me type

So let’s start when we first got her. You can see the first picture I took of her below. She was wide-eyed, hyper, and ready for action (and still is)! She was very friendly, and while we were trying to decide on what kitten to get, she just jumped on my lap. Kind of a give away there. She loves to play, really loves to play. And if Misty is being too prissy to do so, she will sprint around the house, jumping up on the couch and cat tree then jumping off. We play a bit of tag then too, and hide and seek.

First day we got her, wide-eyed Nymeria

Nymeria playing hide and seek

One day I was looking for something in the very small desk drawer, and she hopped right in and laid comfortably

She is very mischievous and she knows when she’s doing something wrong because if we go near her during her crime, she will scamper away as quickly as possible. Nymeria loves to play with this black and white pen and we’ll find it on the ground when we come back or clamped in her tiny little jaws. She has the adorable little nature to her that will be apparent in her face, this baby-like innocence and curiosity. If we push her away from cuddling, she will come right back every single time. She’s also gotten into the habit of cleaning Misty a lot, licking her head and ears, sometimes with a bite to go with it if she’s feeling playful. You can see that below.

Tried out her Halloween outfit. She wasn’t pleased

Nymeria (true to her name) seemed born a hunter. Right from the start, she knew how to hunt and pounce. She had perfect form in her waiting-for-pounce mode and sprung at the exact moment. In fact, Misty didn’t even know how to pounce or play when she got to us, but by observing Nymeria, she does all the time now. Although she’s significantly smaller than Misty, she can do pretty well when they wrestle together. Nymeria is excellent at grabbing the toys we annoyingly dangle over her head and great at catching the toys we drag on the ground like animals. We just need to watch our toes.

Nymeria was not without her problems, though. Actually, she came to us with quite a few problems all at the tender age of two months old. She came with roundworm, a bacteria that affecting her pooping habits. She couldn’t really control it and it wasn’t very good. There were a lot of baths, a lot of scrubbing the carpet, and wiping butts. We kinda got used to it. We had to give her medicine every day which wasn’t fun (using a syringe to plunge the icky goo into her mouth). Then, she got a pretty bad cold, wheezing, sneezing, lots of big bogeys. And we could really tell she was sick. You know with kids, you can tell–her usual rascal self was not there, she slept most of the time, and never felt like eating. But we slowly got her back to health. She has the occasional sneeze now and then, but it’s cute.

An adorable sick Nymeria passed out with her cute shaved belly (from her spaying surgery)…we may or may not have wanted to shave it again just because it’s adorable

Yet, despite all her rambunctiousness, she’s extremely sweet and friendly, and would never purposely hurt anyone. Misty, time and time again, steals Nymeria’s food out of her bowl (before we catch her and reprimand her), and Nymeria doesn’t fight her, doesn’t growl (like Misty does), but simply waits until she can get her food again. She’s very patient and loving and would never hurt her sister, who I think in return would eat everything so Nymeria would have nothing. She has an amazing tolerance and easy-going nature which makes her never act aggressive. Nymeria is the ultimate cuddler, whether it be Chris or I or Misty, she will always initiate.

I would say her most distinguishing aspect (besides her adorable waddling bowleggedness) is that she kneads. I’m guessing she was taken from her mother very early and was thus unweaned. Never got used to not having mama’s milk since she didn’t have time to properly wean off it. So, if anyone lays on the couch, you can count up to 5 before you’ll have little black Nymeria paws on your chest. She will then curl into your neck, put both paws on your neck or arm, and knead them, like she’s trying to push milk out of mama. She does this all the time. In fact, right now she’s doing it to Misty on my lap, who definitely does not mind the massage.

Well, I wrote way too much, but I love my kitties. Nymeria is growing up great and healthy, can’t wait to see how she is all growed up. Keep an eye out for the next Kitty Spotlight!

She thinks I’m her mother

Cheers!

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Aug222012

Salad, Pesto, and a Kitten

Weird combo? Maybe. I guess that’s just how we do things here in our kitty-filled yummy home now. Worked for us as we came out with a full-belly of nutritional ingredients and a couple of curious kittens.

Anyhow, this one’s a simple recipe for those craving fresh ingredients and tastes.

Salad:

  • Tomatoes
  • Cucumbers
  • Carrots
  • Spinach
  • Salt n Pepper
  • Lemon juice

Pretty standard, right? Before I jump into prep, let me tell you the story of how we got this big fat cucumber. So, Chris is doing some dog-walking up in the hills of Boulder and a kid around six years old wearing cowboy boots waves him over. Chris replies, “Sorry, I got no cash.”  The kid says, “You don’t need cash! Take this cucumber, it’s the last one!” So Chris takes it and the boy finishes up the conversation with, “Next time, bring some money and head over to that red roof over there. That’s my garden!”

Scary how six-year-olds now have business sense of offering a free sample of their product in order to gain more business for the next time around. Anyways, back to the food already!!

So you have those wonderful ingredients chopped up (except I didn’t chop the spinach). I started with the cucumber and tomatoes, kind of sliced n diced ’em.

I always remember how good tomatoes were with salt were when I was a kid so I was following that craving. I grind some black pepper over them as well as some salt. These get put in a bowl along with some lemon juice and tossed around to get the flavor soaked in. As I finished chopping the veggies, I look to my left to see a tiny black blob on the floor. Oh yeah, that’s Nymeria.

She can watch all she wants, she ain’t getting any of this. Sometimes, I think she thinks she’s a dog…which I LOVE. As I finish up the salad and Chris is stirring the penne al dente in the pot, I toss some olive oil and balsamic nectar my cousin invented (check it out). Things are looking goooood.

Meanwhile, Chris is cooking some penne al dente. I’m surprised there’s any left to cook due to his love for raw pasta.

As he’s straining the pasta, there’s a scatter in the corner. Hmmm…suspicious.

CAUGHT RED-HANDED! 

Nymeria continues to find places to view us, though I hope her curiosity doesn’t get the better of her one day. She’s quite the rambunctious one. Oops, back to the food.

So we strain the pasta, add in some pesto (we don’t have a blender yet so it’s sadly store bought–but still good) and Chris adds in some protein. Tuna from the can. Sound unappetizing? Sure does. But it really adds a good meaty texture and flavor to the dish. And satisfied my hungry belly pretty darn quickly.

Cheers. 

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Aug202012

KITTIES!

So we don’t exactly have full-time jobs yet…but we went ahead and did the right thing. Which was adopting two kittens (2 month old and a 3 month old) from the Boulder Humane Society. It was a tough decision and up to this point, I was wary about having cats (let alone kittens) in the apartment.

I thought…Maybe they’ll cost too much money! We don’t have the apartment set up yet! We should have jobs! Blah blah blah

Chris wanted cats badly. He was never allowed to have pets growing up and now was his shining chance of glory to snuggle big time with some kitties. So, he set to work whenever I had an obstacle that made me uncomfortable about getting cats.

I’d like to get all of our furniture first. He went on Craigslist and we ended up with a lot of great free furniture (some were prizes from the dumpster). We know how to play it cheap 😉

I want everything scrubbed down first. So Friday morning, we went to town, cleaning all the floors, vacuuming, making sure everything looked great! 

And jobs… Hey, we’ve both almost got ’em. And we have lots of savings from smart living.

So Friday, after a long morning of cleaning and chores, we head to the Boulder Humane Society. Even Chris had some doubts about whether it was really time. So we went just to take a look. Now, I’m normally a dog lover, but in our apartment, we can only have cats. But hey, I like ’em too. All animals = love.

Oops. They have a kitten room. WITH SEVEN KITTENS ALL ROLLING AROUND AND PLAYING! It was too much. We were shown in after drooling all over the viewing window. We first fell in love with a small black kitten named Sizzle who was a rambunctious little thing playing with whoever would have her. And she ended up jumping in my lap. Then there were a few others that we were debating…some were on hold…and some we just couldn’t decide.

I, however, quickly decided on Sizzle (who would later be changed to Nymeria–a little Song of Ice and Fire lore for you–and yes, nerd alert). Chris was debating between three others…one playful grey and white, another playful one (ginger), and a calm, sleepy one who was a mix of Siamese and lynx. After thirty minutes of debating, he decided on the Siamese-Lynx mix named Misty and we kept the name.

Nymeria — 2 months old

Nymeria came home with roundworm–a parasite that makes her (unfortunately) poop a lot. She’s freaking adorable and a crazy-awesome snuggler who likes to go right under your neck and nuzzle. But she needs a diaper and I don’t know how many times we’ve had to clean the floor already. But she’s trying.

Misty — 3 months old

This one came under-socialized, meaning she was born feral. The first day, she escaped to any hiding space possible. However, just the second day she warmed up a great deal, didn’t hide, played with toys, and cuddled with her adopted sister. She did, however, give us a horrible scare and–as you can see in the picture above–hid under the dishwasher and we thought she ran away. Phew.

So, as you can probably tell, we’re completely in love. Sometimes I feel like a newborn’s parent and it’s exhausting. Even though it’s a lot of work, it’s worth it when Misty snuggles into your arm, or when you can feel Nymeria’s baby paws on your skin.

Meow.

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