One (kind of) sick kitty

A fairly big development in my life that has gone unmentioned on the blog is the fact that I started fostering a cat this past summer. I'm working with a cat rescue group called Anjellicle Cats, and they are amazingly organized, considering how much of a mess these groups often are, logistics-wise. They set me up with Johnny, an orange male that some of you may have seen on my Instagram now and then (I try to avoid copious cat postings for the most part): 

That picture is from the good old days, when Johnny was generally healthy, and therefore eating normally and acting friendly. However, he started to have weird allergies, which freaked me out a little (he was scratching his ears till they had no more fur) and then inflamed gums, which REALLY freaked me out (he stopped eating for several days because his mouth hurt too much). I took him to the vet to get everything treated, each time thinking that would be the last of it. But the gums issue kept coming back. By the time he had his most recent vet visit last week, he hadn't eaten for a whole week. I was force-feeding him water! 

These are all the cat meds (from about five vet visits) that I've gathered so far. 

So at the most recent visit, the vet ended up pulling out ALL of his teeth, except for three canines. Apparently he has a disease where the gums just get irritated by his teeth? So he's eating again with just his three teeth (phew!), but at this point, I'm just too stressed to deal with the possibility of a recurrence of the mouth trouble. So I made the tough decision to call the rescue center yesterday and ask to find him a new foster. It took a lot of time for me to reach this decision, because I really like Johnny and I think he's made himself at home in our apartment. But I just can't cope with the potential stress of a starving cat again, which would lead to scheduling more vet visits while still teaching a full schedule. Thankfully the people at the shelter were really understanding when I made the call, and not angry with me at all, which I was weirdly worried about beforehand. 

So, Johnny's going to stay with me until he gets his check up in early November, and then he will be "re-homed" with another volunteer. Then, after Thanksgiving, my extremely understanding boyfriend Ari has allowed me to get another foster kitty. Hopefully one without so many health problems, but I know it's never a certain thing. 

Until then, Johnny's pretty much back to his normal, cuddly, purr-y, self. He seems to have recently decided, however, that the ONLY place he will sleep is on my pillow. Whether or not my head is on it. So I wake up to this a lot, pressed up against my face: 

Poor wonky kitty. Here's hoping Johnny finds a "forever" home soon. He deserves it. 

Oh look, another blog post!

And so soon after the last one! I'm sure you're all thrilled.

Well, I just had a couple more pictures from the past couple days that I couldn't wait to show you.

First of all, this is how I spent Halloween night:

I wore my Sriracha costume to Michelle's apartment (who lives where Ari used to live, just 2 blocks away), and we watched bad TV (well, a bad movie: The Campaign) and drank wine and ate cupcakes and candy. It was quite pleasant.

Then on Friday night we had Michelle and my old friend Kaylan and her husband Jerrod over for dinner. Our first event at our new apartment! Ari cooked dinner, we played Cranium (boys against girls, and girls WON!) and I think everyone had a good time. 

On Saturday I went jogging in the park and couldn't resist taking a few more fall photos, because the sun was finally out, and there are still some beautiful colors to be seen:

I saw ponies too! 

Today (Sunday), Ari and I had some time to spare, so we walked to the Prospect Park Zoo, which is just about 15 minutes' walk from our apartment, and only costs $8. It was a bit chilly outside (55 degrees or so), but we had a really nice time. The highlights were the red pandas (ring-tailed pandas? lesser pandas?) and the sea lions. I've been on a photography roll since Halloween, so I took a couple pictures. 

The red pandas were SO CUTE. Two of them were babies, so they were really struggling to climb around on the branches. Ari and I could have watched them for hours, but it was just a little too cold. So we stuck around to watch sea lion feeding and training (which was also pretty fun) and then headed home.