Simone is home! She is a major sweetie and quite an attention whore, LOL. The rats don’t mind her looking in on them but as soon as she stuck a paw deep into Hoodie’s cage and the mouth of his burrow, she learned that those little furry “toys” that move can bite. Not only that, but she reached in and scooped out a bunch of bedding, so now Hoodie’s in with Cappy, even if they may not be thrilled to be roomies. The bars on that cage are closer together, so Simone can’t squeeze her curious little paws through them. 

Cats may not be as smart as rats, but she should be smart enough to know better than to mess with the rats from now on. It would be nice if she would stop jumping on this keyboard, too. They say taking a spray bottle full of water and spraying the cat is a great way to train it. Well, since jumping on the counter is one thing, but jumping on it and totally getting in the way while I’m trying to make coffee is another, I was glad for the spray bottle cuz it worked! Thank goodness I learned about that one because picking her up and placing her back on the floor was useless. She would simply jump back up on the counter. 

She does seem to know her name because she came when I called her. The only thing I don’t appreciate is when she play-bites. She bit my chin hard enough to draw a couple of dots of blood… and she just got sprayed off this desk, LOL. 

When I got up and opened the laundry room door, she immediately came running to me and was acting like she was hungry and was perhaps used to getting wet food as well as the mix of dry food Carol brought with her. Shortly after that, I realized her bowl was empty so I refilled it for her. Today we’ll be picking up more food and some toys, too. We ordered a 6-foot perch with multi-levels, hideaways, scratching ramps, and dangly things for her on Amazon for $100. That’s another thing I’ve learned… if it dangles, it’s a toy. She loves to jump on the back of the couch, reach up and fiddle with the ceiling fan chains. She just jumped on the back of my chair, too. 

She’s a beautiful cat with nice soft fur as soft as a bunny’s, but she’s definitely a clingy one, so she can be a pain in the ass as she can be fun. Love the way she dashes up and down the hallway, but trying to put lotion on my legs with this thing around can be a real challenge, haha. No problems using the litter box, though, so that’s good. 

Carol was just a few minutes late and had no problem finding her way to us. She said she’s delivered here before. Simone’s watching the rats eat crackers now. Carol showed me how to clip her nails. 

Carol really liked the stripper on the door and asked if I painted her. I told her she, along with the flowers on the walls, were actually stickers. I didn’t think she’d be so impressed with the stripper being around 60 years old, LOL, but she liked her and was amazed by all the gymnasts leaping and tumbling across the hallway. 

Carol said Simone now has a chip for if she escapes. If she were to escape and be taken in by someone else it wouldn’t do any good. But if AP picked her up, they’d scan the chip, and our address would come up. Things have come a long way since the early 90s. So has spaying. She’s been “tattooed,” so that it’s obvious to any vet that she’s already been spayed. She was first picked up on the 13th. 

Now I hear her playing with the feather wand. 

Ok, she just jumped on the desk and this time all I had to do was show her the spray bottle and she jumped back down, LOL. 

After a few hours of exploring, playing and running around, she napped on my bed. 

Later… 

Tom is beating tree spikes into the ground to make watering the cypresses easier without wasting as much water, and Simone is sleeping. 

We went to Walmart at around 7:30 this morning and picked up some toys and a variety of wet foods as well as dry food for kittens between 6-12 months. One of her toys is pretty cool. It’s a pink fuzzy ball that has a motion detector in it. When it’s moved it has flashing lights and makes a squeaking sound. 

The vet that spayed her is obviously as colorblind as Andy because they listed her as a brown and white tabby. LOL, try a black, gray and white tabby. 

Instead of putting them down these days, they have a system where those that aren’t taken in by cat rescuers are fixed and turned loose again. They snip the corners of their ears so that if they’re picked up again, they can see that they’re fixed feral cats. 

I take children’s chewable vitamins and decided to try some with extra iron to see if I feel less lightheaded. It seems to help as long as I don’t go too long without eating, but I think getting my ear taken care of next month will help as well. 

My anxiety is virtually gone. This is the best I’ve felt. I just worry that the doctor’s going to want to up my thyroid medication dose and bring back the anxiety the next time I see her. 

Tom has been going crazy in my dreams over shit he wouldn’t care about in real life, LOL. I met some lesbian somewhere who wrote me a letter or an email saying her daughter was straight but she was a lesbian and all that, and we ended up becoming friends. This was someone who lived in my town. Tom wasn’t happy at all with the idea of us being friends, though in reality, he wouldn’t care who I was friends with so long as they treated me well. 

I just can’t get into story writing lately. I’ll start something and then I’ll lose interest after a few pages or so.