Saturday, September 21, 2019

Preparations



We are now entering the pre-vacation period, during which I will be attempting to force my children to eat the random bits of food which might go bad while we are away. I will also be refusing to purchase food they actually want to eat. As you might imagine, this is all very pleasant for everyone, and there is absolutely no complaining.

We began packing yesterday. Now freed of all responsibility for cats which do not belong to us, my mind is clear, and I can think about things like dishwasher tablets. You might not think that one needs to pack dishwasher tablets for a holiday on the French Riviera, but some of us do. The flat rental company gives us two dishwasher tablets, and we are staying for ten days. The minimum amount of dishwasher tablets available for purchase in a single packet at the local Monoprix is eighteen, and they are not cheap. So I am packing dishwasher tablets. E thinks this is weird, but E also doesn't want to do all the dishes herself in the sink, so she has nodded and wandered off to do something that makes more sense.

I am very much looking forward to this holiday. As always, we are going to Nice, but this time we get to spend a few days with friends in Paris, too. I'm not one to want to go a lot of new places and do a lot of exploring on holiday; I used to be, but that was when I wasn't responsible for two minors who don't find getting lost in a new city to be an enriching experience. There's a pressure that comes with traveling with kids, and one thing I have quite enough of in my day to day life is pressure. On holiday, I want to mostly relax. So three days in Paris is good, but it's enough.

In Nice, we'll do the same things we usually do and even staying in the same flat we've been staying in for the past two years. We'll go to the beach, we will eat ice cream every night, we'll wander around Old Town. We may try to have a few new, simple adventures, but nothing stressful. If things go awry, we can come back to the familiar. And we will rest, and that will be oh so nice.

Monday, September 9, 2019

Now With More Cats Than Ever Before!


I am spent. I mean, whoa. We had our first day of structured homeschool work today and started up extracurriculars as well, but that's not it. I had twenty-three days in a row of cat work (I said twenty-two in the last post, but I'd miscounted), but that's not it either.

It was the three extra cats in the garden that did me in.

Normally I love all cats, as many cats as possible. Professional cat lady-ing remains an excellent fit for me, and having six different cats that I looked after during this long run of work was fabulous. I also adore kittens. KITTENS FOREVERRRRRR, am I right? But it turns out that having the responsibility of feeding a stray who is nursing kittens, figuring out where the kittens might be, then socialising the kittens and finding homes for all three once all were in our garden is, how shall I put this? A bit much. At least, it is while I am working most mornings and every evening and trying to get some other time sensitive tasks done.

I am not sorry we did it (and are still doing it, in some ways, more on that in a sec). I wouldn't have left the mama to keep stealing food from the neighbours' kitchens. She is such a sweet, personable cat, and it is a treat to have her sweet face show up at the back door every day (multiple times a day). And I wouldn't have left the two kittens to become feral in the garden either. I wanted them to have a good, permanent, indoor home before autumn arrived, and with hard work (crawling slowly across the garden, food in outstretched hands), we made that happen. They went to their new family on Saturday, and I felt happy and sad all at once.

Regardless of the hard work, kittens are cute and fun and impossible to avoid falling in love with. If you've ever had an animal that is terrified of you, the giant human, learn to trust you enough to lick the last of their dinner off your fingers, you know what I mean. Loving those little furballs is simply unavoidable. So we loved them, and now we've let them go. They are settling in beautifully at their new home, and I honestly could not be more pleased with how it all turned out for them. All that hard work? So worth it for our roly poly little loves.

As for the mama, she is due to be spayed on Wednesday, recuperate at our house before a further vet check, then go to her new home on Sunday. She will live with good friends of ours, and we will get to see her often. I have become incredibly fond of her, and I don't think I could've let her go to just anyone. This is all getting wrapped up so nicely, we may as well put an imaginary bow on it.

And I won't lie that I will be glad to have the responsibility fully off my shoulders next Sunday. As much as I adore all three of these cats, I felt like we went beyond peak cat and straight to what have we done? I am ready to get back to normal life, or at least as close to normal as we ever get.