This morning I asked my sister if she had enough money to cover going out to breakfast, or whether we needed to hit a cash machine along the way. and she said she was heavy on cash today. Why, I ask, and she says she got extra cash vecause she’s taking next week off. What’s the plan, I ask, and she says “Playing with my kitties”.
She got a kitten from the Humane Society today, having picked it out a week or so ago. She is replacing a cat that died after 18 years. About 2 years back she lost another 17 year old cat, and she replaced it back then. So now sh’es back to 2 relatively young cats and she’s anxious about them “socializing” properly.
I just started laughing, and she seemed absolutely shocked that someone would think it strange to take a week off for this reason. I really don’t have a gripe about it, as she’s certainly entitled to use her leave time as she sees fit.
I will be meeting the new kitten tomorrow, after it’s had a day or so to adjust to its new home.
I approve too, she sounds like a great cat mom. I haven’t gone to that extreme, but I have planned adoptions around my vacations (holidays that everyone gets off) so I could spend with my new cat.
'Fraid I’d have to agree, too. I’d been brought up to believe that cats are aloof little bastards that come around only when they hear the can opener.
Then I got married and got joint custody of her two tortiseshells, plus we acquired two feral kittens. As they grew up receiving plenty of affection and strokes, I got to see them as distinctive personalities, particularly the kittens, Boris and Natasha. Boris grew into a huge kitty who was not afraid to demand petting, doing anything including head-butting and finger-chewing to get his way. He would approach anyone, children, strangers, dogs, without fear, and he would let himself be carried by the toddlers without complaining or scratching.
Natasha grew up in Boris’ shade and became an agoraphobic kitty. She absolutely refused to go outside (while, when coming home in the middle of the night, I had to anticipate that Boris would try to race outside).
Then Boris died of cancer at age 8 and now Natasha’s the sole survivor and coming into her own. She loves to licks the bowls of oatmeal and ice cream (after we’ve finished of course) and is a fearsome hunter of lunch meats. She also tends to get lost at night in the house (her meows will echo off the walls and wake us), but when she finds out bed, she prefers to nestle between my legs (but not my wife’s).
With only one cat in the house, we’re looking forward to adopting a couple of kitties once the spring pregnancy drive is under way.
So, no, I guess it doesn’t seem weird to us that your sister wants to spent a lot of quality time with her kitten.
Kittens are small furry perpetual motion machines seeking amusement and affection. I adopted an adult cat at the shelter because I felt I couldn’t give enough attention to a kitten with working full time. And two cats that don’t get along can result in one cat being so afraid to venture out that it gets robbed of its food and doesn’t dare make it out to use the litter box (as happed to one of my older cats when we took in a big young cat my sister couldn’t keep). There are worse reasons to take a week off, and if she’s going to have the cats for another 18 years I think it’s worthwhile to get them off to a good start.
She’s a database administrator at the U. I don’t know how much of a whim this is. She’s known for at least a week that she was getting a cat. She has plenty of vacation time coming, and I don’t see that her boss would have any issues about when or why she takes the time, so long as there are no major maintenance on the books and her backups aren’t also gone. She’s very good and very responsible in her job, so I’m certain she wouldn’t just split for a week if it meant leaving her colleagues in a bind.
If she’s burning a week of vacation time, she doesn’t need to make any justification to her employer (other than scheduling the time off). Good for her, I’m glad she’s doing something that makes her happy. The Hell with the “real world”.
I spent at least a week where I made sure I paid a ew hours of attention to them every day.
The result was that they became very playful, they became very affectionate and were generally extremely happy little kits.
This made finding homes for them very easy, and all the new owners are delighted with them, they were very surpirsed to find tat they had been feral born.
The person in the OP is doing it exactly right, maybe two kittens would have been better given that she has to go to work but it sound like she knows what she is doing.
