Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Kitty stories

Kitty has arrived. The day she was scheduled to come, I packed up a lot of Penelope's things into a smaller box and missed her so bad I cried.

We talked over prospective cat names for a couple of days and settled on "Ada," after Ada, Countess of Lovelace, daughter of Lord Byron and possibly the world's first computer programmer. Here are some cute things if you're interested in reading further about her. I also considered "George" after George Sands and George Eliot, who were both awesome historical babes, or, as Ben elegantly phrased it, "misbehaving women."

Ada is slowly settling in, I think; she wanders around making meows and meeps and wants attention. She has been eating the food we bought for her--say what ye will about its exorbitant price, but the stuff we put her on means smaller and less smelly poops so I think it's worth the $$.

Sadly, the stress has made her a little sick, I think--the cat lady told us she'd been adopted out previously and returned because she got a kitty cold. What she has is basically kitty herpes, and it's like the canker sores I get in that it flares up when I'm stressed or sick. She had a few sneezes and then today has a sad goopy eye that is essentially kitty pinkeye. After chatting with the cat lady on the phone, we got some eye ointment from the pharmacy and I smeared it at least in the general vicinity of the eye. As you can imagine, Ada was not amused, but she was gracious enough to not hold it against us and immediately wanted to get pets and purr afterwards.

On Saturday, Ben and I went up to the Plateau to check out a meet-and-greet that the local greyhound rescue was holding. We are still thinking of getting another dog, and I'm considering a greyhound because they are 1) ridiculously lazy and enjoy living in apartments and 2) ridiculously healthy and can live to 12 or 14, which is insane for a big dog. Unlike a lot of other dog breeds, they still do what they were created to do, which means that there's no room for hip dysplasia. Their main disadvantage for us is that they can have a very strong prey drive, which means kitties could be in danger. We spoke a bit to the rescue people and were told that maybe 10% of greyhounds could never live with a cat, while the rest of them seem to be able to distinguish between a cat in the house and a cat outside of the house. Cat in the house is not for eating or chasing, but cats outside are apparently free game.

I still don't know what to do about getting a dog. Penelope proved to us that mutts can be just as unhealthy as purebreds, and I don't want something that's going to be a cancer factory or a refugee from a puppy mill with distemper and who knows what else. Those dogs need homes, don't get me wrong, but as I tried to explain to the cat lady when we discussed potential animals with FIV (kitty AIDS), we'd be maybe interested in a compassionate adoption further down the line--an older animal, or one with a treatable disease or disability--but right now, my heart just can't handle it.

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

pets & neighborhood stuff

I have had a grand total of two job interviews while I was here, both for http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifwriting-related positions, and hopefully I'll hear back from some of the other places I've sent feelers. Ben continues to do well at work; the game he's working on was shown last week at the big industry trade show, and looked pretty good!

Ben and I have started looking into getting a cat and a dog, now that we are settled in and feeling more secure here in Montreal. Last weekend, we walked along Rue Sherbrooke to a local pet store who was having an adoption event. The cat people were running late, so we spent a couple of hours walking around.

Rue Sherbrooke is one of the main east-west streets in Montreal. Sherbrooke runs through Westmount and into Notre-Dame-de-Grace (NDG); a nice shopping district with a grocery store starts on the other side of the park from us. There are lots of little boutiques and coffee shops and such--Westmount is a pretty bougie neighborhood, so most of it is pretty high end. There are a couple of boulangeries --bakeries, patisseries--sandwich/deli-type shops, and even a poissonnerie--fishmonger (a poissonerie is not the same as a poisonerie, which is what I typed initially and I guess is where you go for poisons).

One thing that every neighborhood here in Montreal has is a depanneur. There are different assortments of depanneurs, but they're somewhere between a New York City boedga and a convenience store. We have one across the street from us, which we go to if, like, we are halfway through cooking something and realize we don't have any pasta/eggs/milk/bread/canned peas. If it's a staple, there's a good chance it's at the dep. And yes, we do call it "the dep."

Anyway our walk down Sherbrooke was fun because there was some sort of sidewalk festival going on, so there was lots of street food and stuff on sale and people to watch. There was even a bouncy castle/slide, and anyone who knows anything will tell you that a bouncy castle = a party. The whole day was cloudy with some small drizzles now and then, but the weather really held until maybe 4 or 5. Ben theorizes that since the winters are so harsh here, that Montrealers feel they really have to take advantage of the good weather while it lasts, which might be an explanation for why there are so many festivals and such here during the summer. It might also be because the weather isn't super hot so it's a nice place for everyone else to visit.

So finally the cat lady showed up and we looked at cats. There are a surprising number of polydactyl cats here in Montreal, which is just kind of strange. Did Earnest Hemingway come through and not tell anyone? Or is there a Quebecois author I've never heard of who had an enclave of chats up here? Who can tell.

Long story short, we're getting a cat! Her name is currently Sara but it will be changed when she arrives, as we know and are related to far too many Sara/hs for us to keep the name. Yay!

I've never had a cat that wasn't a barn cat, so I am still totally freaked out when someone tries to hand me a cat. I feel like...a 24-year-old male asked to hold a baby. Like, "What am I supposed to do with this?" You don't go around picking up barn cats; it's just a bad idea because they are working cats, not housepets. I like the idea of a cat coming and sitting on me or wanting attention, but the thought of picking one up feels disrespectful AND foolish. I am also not as used to the idea that having a cat means you have a box of poop in your house (or a box of delicious treats if you're a dog), so I am going to have to establish some new habits, as well as do some general research on good cat products.