I HATE PHOTOBUCKET

The headline says it all. They've hijacked my blog's hundreds of photos and are holding them for ransom. Well, they're still mine, it's just, to have them on my blog means redoing the ENTIRE blog and replacing all of the photos.

ALL.

Photobucket, I've replaced the "b" in your name with an "f". Because that's what I've said to your platform.

Just in case anybody bothers to read this anymore what with Facebook being the "blog" nowadays, things have changed dramatically in life since my last post in July of 2015. I went up several more cats in 2016. As usual, I had cats on deck to winter over (strays, not mine, not coming in). This time it was Charles Todd (as I named him), an enormous sweet brown and black tiger with white feet and ruff, and his smaller orange and white companion, whom I named Oliver.

They happily wintered over in double-decker cat-carriers-turned-warm-boxes, and grew fat from all of the good food.

Well, Oliver was, anyway.

Oliver was becoming quite the pudge, in fact.

Then I noticed Oliver, whose kitty parts I'd never been able to get a good glimpse of though I thought I saw boyparts, was beginning to expand sideways.

So, on April 20, 2016, OlivETTE presented me with four beautiful kittens: three mini-hers and one calico. Olivette was half-tame and uncatchable, so how I managed to convince her to come inside was a miracle. I grabbed the cat carrier full of babies, brought it in, and then in one motion, grabbed her and hovercrafted her into the room with them before she had time to complain about it.

I had homes planned for the three boys. The calico was staying with me because she had a dead foot when she came out (apparently) and would be a tripod. But then homes for two boys fell through and the other waited so long to decide to be ready to collect the third that by then, I couldn't part with them. They were four months old--personalities intact, bonding happened.

And so that's how I came to have Olivette, Olympia, Spencer, Jasper and Zavier join the clowder.

Sadly, we also went down a cat, as Zander succumbed on July 2nd to all of his ailments (despite treatment for what we learned that year was IBD, pancreatitis and a severe B-12 deficiency. He was 18.5.

So now there are 10. Stanley has chronic herpes and stomatitis and isn't doing so well right now. Tyler has had issues with constipation requiring deobstipation and hospital stays. This last time he was so blocked it pinched shut his urethra and he couldn't pee, which affected his kidneys, so he like his brother Blue is in treatment for it, though we're hoping this time it really IS acute (curable). He's doing pretty well for a cat who will be 15 next month. Jake's 18 now and surprisingly healthy but I think he's deaf (or hard of hearing).

Because of Stanley's illnesses, he, Tyler, Tallulah and Jake (who've lived together this whole time in one part of the house) are kept separate from Maeve and the Orange Meowfia (Olivette's bunch). It'll probably stay that way until Stanley passes. Which I hope isn't soon, he's only four, but he's having a miserable time of it and I don't anticipate him being one of my 20-year-old cats.

So, there's that. I got a five-year service award at work. FIVE YEARS in the same place. Yes, it's a record for me. I've bounced between Philosophy and Ceramics back to Philosophy for four of them. Took this term off to see if I can get my head straight. It's almost Finals week and I still don't know what I'm doing, though I enrolled in Fall Philosophy classes and applied for one of the Classified Staff Scholarships (and won again) so I guess I'd better go.

Oh, and I took up quilting.

Maybe I'll just retire this blog, and/or transform it into an all-around fibers blog. I really don't want to redo the entire thing, though. MAN Photobucket pisses me off.

posted by Jeanne @ 4:01 PM