Cats, Sheep, & Penguins

At ten months and two weeks today, they’re such a far cry from the little alien-looking night monkey creatures that invaded our lives last year. Being responsible parents, they’ve been neutered, although the ethics of that surgery were debated until we read an excellent book by Anitra Frazier, The New Natural Cat: A Complete Guide for Finicky Owners. It goes over all of the biological, hormonal, and emotional changes that are going on in your little kitten, and the very good reasons for spaying or neutering her or him. There are no good reasons, other than professionally breeding your cat, to keep your kitten reproductively intact. Ms. Frazier has a host of good advice which she dispenses readily, most of which we were already following, either by our own common sense, having learned from years of living with cats, or from our wonderful vet (she makes house calls).

Without further ado, here are current pictures of our sleek and shiny teenagers, complete with attitude.

Our friend Martha sent an e-mail a last month explaining:

I responded to a loud meowling out my kitchen window. She stood there plaintively, a petite grey and black striped cat with yellow eyes on my ten dollar ikea chair. When I opened the window she leapt up, meowling more loudly. I let her in the basement-  she was probably pregnant and too clean to be one of the cats who lives behind us.

And I went to bed- it had been a long day.

Early Saturday I went downstairs to find kittymom had made it through- she came out and drank some water after two days. Her litter (i thought there were three of them) were tucked under the tub and I could only hear their squeaks.

It turns out there were eight tiny mewlers (donner, blitzen, oh- wrong story) in that litter; although I’m told the young mother clearly knew her way around the neighborhood and cared for her babies, after seven days, she disappeared without a trace.  Rather than call the FBI’s missing person’s unit, Martha and her husband Jim carefully cut into their bathroom wall and extracted the hungry little buggers.

Lysa and I had been talking about adding  another cat to our furry tribe, so we promptly sent a response to say that we would be thrilled to adopt one. Last night we drove out to Queens and met Martha, Jim, and their next door neighbors, all were exhausted from meeting the demands of eight diminutive despots. Through photos and e-mail, Lysa had more or less determined which one she wanted and upon her arrival it promptly fell asleep in her arms, sealing the deal.

Social obligation precluded an immediate retreat, and the time we spent believing we were enjoying the company of friends, food, and drink became the perfect opportunity for another of the sneaky little bastards to fall asleep on me. Fortunately we escaped before being talked into a third.

Now we’re the proud parents of two adorable fuzzy mutant Felinae/Lorisidae cross breeding experiment. If you can’t picture a loris, think of a bush baby (Galagidae) or aye-aye (Daubentoniidae); if you have no idea what such creatures are, just think of little wet nosed night monkeys, or look at the photos below.

Growing up Jewish, you’d think I never had occasion to bake Christmas cookies with an elder. Not so! My mother and I used to bake all sorts of shaped cookies; she had a special recipe and made her own icing, cutting the tips from plastic baggies to frost the cookies. I’m hungry to continue the tradition with my new family. Gary and I picked out some large copper cookie cutters from Chef Central: a sleigh , a gingerbread man , a nutcracker , a train, and a car with a Christmas tree on top (my favorite), as well as a set of twelve copper cutters in a smaller size. I’ve tried several recipes, even fashioning one myself out of two that looked promising, with varying results. The recipe I created rolled out perfectly, but tasted way too floury. I also made them too thick, with the resulting cookies resembling Mongo from Shrek . Going back to an old standby, I tried Cook’s Country’s Best Christmas Cookies. The sour cream adds a discernible delicious tang that wasn’t present in the other cookies. However, you must remember to keep the dough cold, otherwise it gets too darn sticky. When I made these at my sister-in-law’s house on Christmas Eve, I worked with a floured marble work surface and marble rolling pin, even with these however, the dough got too warm too fast (their thermostat is set at 70˚). I did not have access to parchment paper, it’s what I’ll be working with when I try these at home. (more…)