Marco Polo

 Had a very painful weekend. We finally applied heavy plastic in the entire porch, and my plants are loving it. It was quite the chore, and I had to have help. Can't seem to locate the electric stapler. So, we ended up using a manual one and my hands lack the strength to actually make a staple come out. I have to use both hands to push it down and that is too hard to do while holding the plastic in place. The man had to leave his recliner, and it took three days!

I was the taper. I applied all the double stick tape and with a lot of shouting and redirection, we finally got it done. I left him to tape and apply plastic to one door. He said he did not need me to help him. I did one of the doors myself and trimmed it up nicely, then picked up all the scraps of plastic and the paper from the tape. I had to make him redo the one he did. It was pretty awful.

The cat family is growing nicely. It snowed here Monday. The wind blew hard and I was never so thankful for that plastic. It was still cold, since the temp dropped to 22, but at least I wasn't blasted in the face with wind. I was worried about Gray Lady (previously known as Prego) and her babies. She had managed to open the skirting under the deck, and they had set up housekeeping down under.

It rained Saturday night and Sunday. I was worried about them, so I took an 18-quart storage bin and laid it in its side, leaving the top open. I put a pet bed in it, along with some covers. I pushed it up against the bench seat and then draped some of the plastic over the whole shebang. The seat is mesh, so they would still get rain entering and exiting. I weighted it down and was pretty happy with the results. Gray Lady seemed to appreciate my efforts and took the kittens into the shelter. As of this date, nary a cat has ventured into the cat dominium that the cat man paid $150 for. Mine was free and may not be nice to gaze upon, but it is being used.

I try to handle the kittens daily. The feisty one is still a little skittish, but the one I fell in love with is the calmest cat I have ever seen. Nothing fazes him; oh, did I forget to mention it is most definitely a boy? I had him inside this morning and Eddie was his usual jealous demon self. Bo jumped up in my lap and examined his new sibling carefully. The kitten just stared at him and offered no resistance to the intrusion. I pulled Eddie up and he wanted to nip him again and we had a talk, me and Eddie. Before long, Eddie was grooming the tiny kitten face. He seemed to be fascinated with the kitty ears and he sniffed them, then licked them. 

I needed two names for the new kitties. My unimaginative husband said I should just name him Martha, like my old cat. The personalities don't match at all. I let him name Eddie and I regret it. The name does not fit unless you add the prefix of Charming. Since there is an image of an M on the forehead, I determined that the name should begin with M. I googled baby names and the first named the cat man saw was Milo. I shooed the man away and continued with my important research.

I have decided upon Marco and Polo. Fun, don't you think? If I am able to pick up Polo, I can determine the gender, but the name could go either way. Eddie and Bo are on board with new siblings. Toni Louise is still pretty indifferent. I tried to lure her over to see the kitten this morning. She just stared at me with her cloudy eyes as if to say, "Whatever, I really don't care how many pets we have here as long as I still get a modicum of attention." I held Dora, the turtle up to see the kitten. They just stared at each other, showing no inclination to like or dislike each other.

My ganglion cyst is growing and when I try to flex my fingers a pain shoots up my arm to my neck. I stopped doing that! If I use my hand a lot, it aches constantly. It is my right hand, and I am right-handed, so I have been doing a lot of nothing now that the porch is closed in.

I type with just a few fingers and no matter which finger I use it hurts, so I will cut this short and start dinner in the crock pot and then have a nap. Snow is gone and the temp is rising ....