Hello Kitty!

After work yesterday, went through to the vet to book in the first of the kitties for vet treatment. Sabrina, my 7-year old white kittygirl has injured her ears badly due to too much sunbathing and needs vet treatment for this now. Bebe, my 11-month old kittygirl is doing too much running around as she is on heat and this is extremely dangerous for her as quite apart from getting pregnant, she could also get herself into danger with all this running around. So these two will go to the vet first. I don't have any decent carriers anymore but I do have two cat traps which are quite large. Greg will come round to help me get one of them down from the garage roof and I will prepare it to carry my 2 girls to the vet on Wednesday morning.

I collected Bradley from my mom and made it home by about 7pm. I was a bit tired by then but luckily Brad just wanted egg on toast for supper. After watching some tv (Amazing Race and Lipstick Jungle), I turned off the tv and the lights and we went to bed. Now Bradley has been moving the box with the kittens around quite a bit. On Monday night, they spent the night with their mom in the box in the lounge on the couch, then we moved the box to my bed in the morning because the house gets hot during the day when it is closed up. In the evening Bradley again moved the box to the lounge while he was studying so that he could be close to the kittens. We left the box in the lounge when we went to bed.

I was snuggled up in bed. I had read a few pages of my book but it was making me tired so I was just nodding off to sleep with the light on when the distinctive meowing of a kitten woke me up. I turned over and there on my bed behind me, Kittykie, the mommy had carried the little cream coloured kitty to my bed. I called for Bradley to see what she had done and I told him to fetch the box with the other 2 kittens from the lounge and put it back in the cupboard where it had previously been. Kittykie was rather distracted, the baby was meowing and she was even trying to bite it. Bradley put the kitten in the box with the other two and put out the light. Kittykie jumped up into the box and was reaching into the box. Eventually she got into the box but soon jumped out again down onto the bed with the same poor dazed kitten in her mouth. We snapped on the light again. I told Bradley to bring the box down to the bed. I was worried now but I decided that she was trying to tell me something. I asked Bradley to fetch a new can of pet food, a can opener, plate and a spoon. He even brought back a sheet of newspaper to put the plate on. As I was opening the can of food she was fighting to get into the food. I kept spooning and she kept eating until a third of an 840g can of food had been gobbled up by her. In the meantime I put the little one back in the box with his siblings and all three went to sleep. After the eating marathon, Bradley on one side of my bed, the box of kittens with mommy too and me on the other side of the bed all went to sleep, satisfied at last. With all the time the kittens take, Kittykie sometimes cuts short her mealtimes or the other cats interrupt her while shes eating. Whatever the reason, she had decided that she was just too hungry to carry on feeding her babies and she was using all her communications skills to impart this information to me. She and the babies had a comfortable night. She was still in the box this morning, feeding all three and didn't even come for morning meal. I'm just grateful that she's feeding all three babies still. They are 17 days old and although their eyes are open and they are wobbling around and trying to clumsily play with each other, they are still a long way from solid food. Phew - crisis averted!

News from Gauteng - Dad went to the mechanic this morning to find out what the problem is with the car. Can you believe that a 2005 model Chevy Spark that has a problem with its Ignition Coil, a part which I believe can be purchased for about R500.00 is likely to be out of action for about 5 weeks as the dealers and the factory DO NOT HAVE this part in the whole entire country. WTH!! My 19-voetsek model VW Fox doesn't even have to be out of action that long. A very helpful parts clerk liaised with the factory and found out that there is a problem with the ETA Control Log which has something to do with bringing this part (and goodness knows what other parts) into the country from Korea. Remind me not to buy a foreign made car. I told him that I wanted to lay a complaint as I found this unacceptable that a car owner could be inconvenienced in this manner for 5 weeks or more. He referred me to the GM Customer Complaints dept. where I spoke to a helpful gent named Monty who was logging the complaint and would get back to me with information as to how GM could possible help us with our problem. I await feedback from either source...with anticipation! Customer Service is a HUGE bugbear of mine. Don't feed me some drivel about having to shut up and wait. I am not very good at doing that I must admit!

In the meantime, I am assisting the Gauteng crew with finding alternative accommodation which they will need to locate by the end of November latest. They don't want much: 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, double garage, private garden (for pets), secure complex, reasonably priced, patient neighbours - its not asking too much is it?

More later...