Missing: Presumed Dead

Hello, Everyone...

Ziggy isn't coming back.

Ramiro and I have been searching the neighbourhood every day. We make a very wide spread--miles!--but haven't seen any trace of her. We've been putting up posters everywhere. We've even gone to the local shelters, the vet, and FixNation.

I've blacked it out for the Internet, but in real life those posters have our phone number. We got some calls today...
As it turns out, Ziggy isn't the only cat in our immediate area that's gone missing within the past month. Not by a long shot.

Old Man Wheeler has lost all four (4) of his cats (two in early March, Buckwheat went missing at the end of March, and Blacky went missing last week). The old "Cat Lady" of the neighbourhood has lost eight (8) cats since March (she's down to one cat now--a 15 year old that she keeps inside). Old Cat Lady says she's lived in on this block for 35 years and has always had at least two cats. She also told us that the people who live diagonally from them lost one of their three cats last week as well.Rebel and Robert's Mom went missing last month as well. We didn't think much of it at the time because they're feral... Feral cats like to roam. And since Rebel had yet to be fixed (he/she went missing right before we rented the trap from FixNation), it was fairly likely that he/she had wandered off to mate. Cats can sometimes travel for miles when they're in heat. Not so for neutered/spade cats like Ziggy and the other pet cats who disappeared. The Old Cat Lady said that one of her ferals (she likes to feed the local feral cats on her back porch) has gone missing too.

So, that's 17 (seventeen) cats missing in our neighbourhood (14 pet cats; 3 feral cats).

All of the cats that have gone missing have not come back.

My last/most recent pic of Ziggy. Being a bed cat on 3/31/11

The neighbourhood "theory" is that someone is trapping the local cats and either killing them or dumping them far, far away. They might be trying to get rid of the feral cat overpopulation and getting pet cats by mistake, but, either way, they're sick effers and they should rot in Hell. (Old Cat Lady thinks they might even be using poisoned bait to get our cats--apparently she found a nibbled chicken leg in her yard after her latest cat went missing--but that could just be paranoia; we're not sure).

We're going to be contacting all the proper "authorities" tomorrow during business hours. Not the People Police (with no bodies/hard evidence, it would be silly to get LAPD involved when they have so many other hardcore problems). We'll be contacting all the animal authorities. As well as the shelters, the vet, and FixNation.

As for our remaining cats...Robert (our black male--he just turned 2 on April Fool's Day) and Ringo (Sarahe's old man cat) are now INDOOR ONLY cats. They were mostly indoors before, but we'd let them out to do their "business." Not so as of today. We went out and bought them a litter box. They're not going outside anymore. Ever, probably. Not so long as we're living in this crap neighbourhood with some maniac out and about catnapping everyone's pets! (Isn't it bad enough that we have murderers, rapists, and drug dealers on this block without having a catnapper too?!)

Ramiro and I are absolutely heartbroken (as are the other people who have lost their kitties). We're trying hard to be tough and love on the cats we have left, but it's hard. We don't want to be those people that spend all their time focusing on the dead to the extent that they forget the living (I've seen it happen...). Poor little Robert is taking it hard that his chair buddy isn't around anymore. We both really, really miss Ziggy; but we don't want poor little Robert to go ignored. He's a little sweetheart. We love him too.

It feels weird/wrong that I have work to do. I have a Press Release due tonight and two articles due tomorrow.

I guess I should get going on that. If Ziggy were here, she would have yelled at me if she knew I was procrastinating.

We miss our Baby Girl so much.

--Lauren*
http://littlezotz.webs.com

An Entry Entirely About Potatoes

Hey, Everyone!

I know I just made an entry yesterday, but I wanted to make another one to let you all know how the potato harvest went!

We emerged triumphant:Ramiro was triumphant too but a.) he was the one taking the pictures and, b.) he didn't want me posting any sweaty/dirty pics of him. ;P

Our grand total was 56 potatoes! That we could find at least. (and not counting the one we ate the other day). Here's a pic of our pile early on:
We had a pretty wide variety of sizes. Some of the potatoes were full grown and some were itty-bitty. We replanted the smallest ones.

As we were digging, this lil guy surprised us:
A potato bug!! :D I guess that makes sense though, right?? There were a couple of gross/decomposing potatoes in the soil that he must have thought were a tasty treat.

This guy didn't bother us. We continued digging long after we found the potato bug, an earwig, several pill bugs, and a centipede. What finally made us stop digging was when we ran into a nest of...something. BLEH!! We still don't know exactly what it was we saw. They weren't maggots or grubs... They almost looked like white-colored fleas or something. Anyway, that's when we finally went "gah" and decided to stop digging. We're sure there are more potatoes down there, but it just wasn't worth it to us.

Ziggy, who loves to dig, was especially interested in our adventures today. She kept trying to steal the smaller potatoes to play with (like balls) when we weren't looking. She had a lot of fun today:And that's what happened with the potato harvest.

Until next time...

--Lauren*
http://littlezotz.webs.com

PS: Some of you also asked about the loquat tree that we replanted. Here it is:
The End.

Another Grand Weekend

Hey, Everyone!

So, I got to see my friend Steff on Friday. I've been trying to make an effort to be more social this year... Unfortunately, I only saw her for an hour. We were supposed to have the whole day together and go out and do all sorts of fun things, but she and her pen pal (who was visiting her from Chicago) got stuck in traffic on the way here from DisneyLand/California Adventure, and by the time they got here, it was nearly time for me to be back home to take care of the cats. Oh well. Next time.

Then, yesterday, Ramiro took me out to Descanso Gardens (we hiked around the grounds for 5 hours!!) and then to the Slender Sweet Shoppe to get me a nice sugar-free treat! Mmmm.

Then, when we came home, we saw this:

Ziggy. On the roof.

She was like "Mew mew mew!!!!!!!!!" and running around on the roof like "How'd I get up here?!" It took us over half an hour to get her down again.

We were surprised that this happened to Ziggy. She's always been the smartest/most savvy of our cats--and she loves to climb trees!--but she was stumped by that roof.

Robert got stuck on the roof once. That was expected though. Robert's pretty dumb. He's a sweetie-pie though and was fairly easy to get back down. He's such a happy lil guy...soon as he saw me climb up the ladder he was like "Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!! I'm being rescued!!" He only started flipping out when I lifted him up off the roof and into my arms (and he saw that he was up in the air), but even then it was fairly easy to get him down. With Ziggy, she started freaking out just when she got near the edge of the roof.

Anyway, we got her down. And, if she has the same reaction Robert did to his roof adventure, we're hoping she never goes up there again.

Hope everyone had a good weekend and that you all have a good (or at least bearable) Valentine's Day tomorrow! I'll probably be writing again Wednesday or Thursday.

--Lauren*
http://littlezotz.webs.com

Superbowl Sunday 2011

Hey, Everyone!

Just to be clear right off the bat: I'm not watching the Superbowl today. Not even "for the commercials." The title is mainly for me, so that I can retrace my steps and find this entry/day again later in life. haha.

Anyway, look who came to visit today!!

Robert's Mom!

She's doing really well. She looked really healthy and had her winter coat (that's why she's so big/fluffy!). When we came home from grocery shopping, she was hanging out with Robert out on the deck. She still loves her little boy.

In other news, I'm going to be writing two Blog entries/articles a week for WordPress Pro Business. You should check it out! Or, if you're just interested in the articles that I write, those can be found here.

That's about it for this week!

One more picture:
Robert's Mom, Rebel, and Ziggy.

Until next time...

--Lauren*
http://littlezotz.webs.com

Rebel Exists

Hey, Everyone

I made $32.80... For the entire month.

Pathetic. I hate myself.

The whole of that money was from the same wonderful client (and I'm extremely grateful to him!--especially for paying in advance) and the articles he hired me to do are due tomorrow. So I'm going to try to keep this entry short.

Anyway, I've also been super busy this past week talking to/interviewing lots of interesting (and very nice!) people for US Combat Sports:

• Gary Finnerty
• Roxy "Balboa" Richardson
• Goran Karamfiloski
• Kason Chan
• Joe Schilling
• Mike "All World" Ryan
• Al Franco

All of them very interesting and very helpful and just all-around awesome to talk with. And they made for some GREAT interviews. I've got to get back in contact with a couple of them to double-check a few last details, but I think I've got the makings of some really great articles to submit in the very near future. Unfortunately, USCS is a little bit strange when it comes to how they pay their writers. Basically, since they're an online only Combat Sports News site, they pay their writers based on how many hits their articles get. Like a dollar per person or something (probably less). The minimum I could get paid for each of these stories is $2.00 and the maximum is $100.00. So...pardon me in advance to my friends, family, and whoever else reads this blog, for spamming the heck out of these articles once I get them posted. I'm a sad, sad, person who's desperate for the sweet, sweet, coin. Thank you for understanding.

Last bit of news has to do with my "Subject" line: Rebel Exists.

A couple of wise-ass friends of mine have joked that Rebel doesn't actually exist and that I'm just taking pictures of Ziggy from another angle and saying she's an entirely different cat. Because "I never see them together!" Well...that's because they hate each other. :\ Anyway, this morning, I saw them NEAR each other out the kitchen window and I decided to take a really crappy cell phone picture to share with everyone:For those of you who are new to my blog, Rebel is a feral cat that hangs out in our backyard. She has half a tail and is either a full or half sibling of Ziggy's (same mom). Our area has a whole big trouble with feral cats (which you can read about in other entries) and Ramiro (my guy) and I work to capture them and have them fixed.

This is Ziggy--the cat people confuse with Rebel because they're both white:
As you can see, Ziggy has her whole tail. Also, she's pretty much ALL white (except for her tail and that spot on her head). Rebel is very spotty. Hopefully that'll help everyone tell the difference. :)

Here's a cute picture of Robert & Ziggy (Ramiro & my cats) from the other night:
Robert will be 2 years old in April 2011 and Ziggy just had her 1st birthday in October 2010. They were both born in our backyard. For their whole stories, see my blog entry that has their (and their mothers & siblings) Catster pages: http://littlezotz.blogspot.com/2010/08/our-cats-are-on-catster.html

We also take care of Ramiro's sister Sarahe's cat, Ringo:
He likes bags.

In other news, I'm still in pain, I haven't been sleeping, and when I do sleep I have terrible nightmares. Also, I updated my LinkedIn page! Feel free to connect with me. People have been leaving me really great reviews. It's so nice that even though I feel so SO crappy that people still think so highly of me.

And that's all the news that's fit to print in the Life of Lauren these days!

Until next time...

--Lauren*
http://littlezotz.webs.com

Feeling Better, New Bed, Christmas Lights

Hey, Everyone!

Thanks to all of you who wrote/texted/called me to see how I'm feeling. I'm doing much better now; thank you. I threw up again once at work last Thursday (tomatoes were too much for my still-sensitive guts), but other than that it's been smooth sailing! I've been eating solid food again. I have to stick to fairly bland things still, but at least I'm not on a diet of nothing but baby food anymore!

Also, thanks to anyone who tuned into the season finale of Champions of Champions Elite. :) We don't know yet if there's going to be a season 2, but they're keeping Ramiro & me around for a while longer until they find out. I'm still going to be updating their Official blog twice a week, if anyone cares.

In other news, Ramiro and I got new bedding:Pretty nice, huh? But it didn't take long before it looked like...
Oh, CATS!! You're all so silly.

I also hung out with my parents yesterday and we ate steak & potatoes and went around looking at Christmas lights. Here's a picture I took from my cell phone of the Balian Ice Cream House:
If you search for "balian house" on Google, you get a lot of great pictures of this place. It's really something. You see the GLOW from this house for a couple blocks away... My picture's a bit bad because a.) it's a cell phone pic, b.) I was in a car that was in motion and, c.) it was raining like CRAZY (and still is!!) here in Southern California. If you're ever in Alta Dena, California around Christmas-time, you should check it out.

Anyway, if I don't write again until after the fact (and I probably won't), I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas (even if you don't believe in Christ--I still hope you have a happy day!). :)

Until next time...

--Lauren*
http://littlezotz.webs.com

Haircut, Soy, and Other Stuff

Hey, Everyone!

It's been a few weeks...

I've been super busy with work. For the past two weeks (except for Thanksgiving), I was working 12 hour days. For those of you who don't know (or have already forgotten), I write this: http://blog.coc-elite.com That's the Official blog for Champions of Champions Elite, the #1 Muay Thai show in North America. Anyway, I write their blog and I'm also in charge of their Facebook and Twitter and I write e-mails to Muay Thai people... yadda yadda.

Thanksgiving was good. Ramiro and I went over to my parents' house for dinner. We got to see my mom, dad, and my mom's brother. And Dorian:
And, on Thanksgiving, I looked like this:Two days later, I had my friend Jaz over at Vous Hair give me a haircut and now I look like:

I like it. It had been over a year since I'd had a real haircut (I don't count haircuts I give myself because they suck) and it feels soooooooooooooooo good. I love it. I think it suits me, don't you? I trust Jaz so much when it comes to my hair that I only tell her one thing: Don't go any shorter than my jawline. Other than that, anything goes! Haha, actually, this time, when I told her that she said "What about in the back...?" (It's the back, who cares!) I knew she had something special in mind.

Anyway, things were humming along really well in my life until the other day, I ingested soy. Now, those of you who know me well (or are avid readers of this blog) are probably saying "Oh no!!!" about that. And you'd be right! Soy + Lauren = Not good. For, as some of you know, I'm very very allergic to soy.

What happened was, Ramiro and I went to IHOP the other day. I had them check everything that I ordered for soy--and it was all safe--however, that doesn't really matter when they end up serving the wrong thing. I had ordered Ranch dressing (safe!), but the waiter gave me Bleu Cheese dressing (isolated soy protein). I don't blame him. It looked exactly the same. Anyway, I took one bite, looked up at Ramiro, said "This is wrong," and then I was barfing like crazy. ONE BITE. I got all puffed up (even my tongue!) and I was non-stop vomiting and ALL of my joints hurt. My elbows are always the first to go for some reason, but before the end of the day every single one of my joints was in horrible pain. I became acutely aware of just how many moving parts there are in my body.

When I get soy'd, the aftermath can last from a few days to a few weeks. I never know. Since my smaller joints (fingers/toes) are already starting to feel better I'm hoping it'll only be a few days...

Of course, now my guts are all messed up. For the first day I lived off of water & original pedialyte (that's all that would stay down), but the next day I had a small cup of brown rice and half a piece of bread. Today I tried to really "go nuts" and made myself a plain turkey sandwich (bread, 2 slices of turkey, and minimal mayo) for lunch and ended up throwing up at work. So it was back to brown rice for dinner. I'm going to be on a diet of brown rice and baby food for the rest of the week and then work my way back up to normal food starting next week. I always have to do this when I get soy'd, but it had been so long since this has happened that I'd kind of forgotten (I'd also forgotten just how horribly painful it is!)...plus I'm impatient. I want my guts to be better now!

The really sucky thing is, my parents were going to take Ramiro & me out to dinner at the North Woods Inn this weekend. For those of you who don't know, that's where white people go around Christmas-time to enjoy a steak the size of their face while being surrounded by the heads of dead animals. It's glorious. Unfortunately, we had to cancel because there's no way I'd be able to keep it down...

In other news, I got a message from an old friend today... Which I mistakenly (thank God!) thought was his way of telling me he was planning to kill himself. Sure. It's funny NOW. Anyway, I was so concerned that I actually called him up (even though I loathe talking on the phone). It was all a comical misunderstanding and I'm sure you'll all be happy to know that he plans to remain alive for quite some time (provided he isn't hit by a van...again). I'm still in quite a bit of pain, so I was grateful that he took up the burden of doing most of the talking. And supposedly he's going to write a song for/about(?) me. We'll see.

In conclusion, here's a picture of Robert & Ziggy (Ramiro & my cats):

They're very sleepy. Shhhhhhh.

Until next time...

--Lauren*
PS: Yes, it is very hard to have one condition (Hypoglycemia) that dictates I eat all the time with another condition (being "soy'd") that won't let me eat anything. Sigh. Pray for me?

http://littlezotz.webs.com

Meeting Roxy

Hey, Everyone!

Here's a very dimly-lit picture of me with Roxy "Balboa" Richardson:Roxy owns Roxy Fit Gym and is a Women's Muay Thai champ! I wrote about her in the Official blog for work...

I'd been in contact with her all week online, because of work, and I really, really wanted to meet her. I'm happy I did.

I regret not being able to see her put on her live demonstration though! You see, there was a Live Event for Champions of Champions Elite last night and there was going to be live Muay Thai demonstrations, contests, giveaways, and everyone was going to watch the Kings Cup. However, it was very unorganized. They told us (Ramiro & me) that it was going to start at 6pm. Then, the day before or so they said that it had been pushed back to 7pm. "No problem," we thought. We'd get there a little before 7pm and leave a little after 9pm and everything should be roses! We'd get to see all the fun stuff (the live demo) and get the gist of the Kings Cup show and leave before my blood sugar went wacky and get home before our cats started having anxiety attacks about our being gone so long (they've been having trouble adjusting to us having full-time jobs--Ziggy in particular has been going through some pretty bad separation anxiety).

Sadly, when we left a little after 9pm, the event hadn't even STARTED yet. Plus, none of my friends showed up... We were very disappointed. We hope it got really awesome after we left!! They were supposed to get it on tape, so I guess we'll see it once that gets put up online. But it's just not the same as seeing it in person, you know? :\

Still, I'm glad I briefly got to meet Roxy. :)

Well, I have to go for now. This is the day we go buy groceries for the rest of the week.

Until next time...

--Lauren*
http://littlezotz.webs.com

Rebel Rebel

Hey, Everyone!

Just wanted to say that congratulations are in order for Ramiro as well. He's working at the same company I am now:That's the view from my cubical looking into his (there's a window).

Sorry, I didn't mention it before. He was on a "trial" basis at first and I didn't want to announce it until they made him a legit employee... And they did! Yaaaaaaaaaay!! Congrats, Ramiro! :)

Also, a while back I mentioned a "stranger cat." Since then, that same cat has been hanging around a lot. We don't know whether she's a boy or a girl, but we call her(?) "Rebel." Ziggy's Mom had her before getting spayed (another litter of one!). She hangs out with Ziggy's Mom and Robert's Mom. She looks a lot like our Ziggy, but much smaller (she's a lot younger) and she only has half a tail. My best guess is that someone ran over her tail with their car (like she was sleeping under a car and it rolled over her tail). I knew a squirrel as a kid who had their tail run over by a car and it looked very similar to Rebel's.

Anyway, here are some pictures of Rebel that I took this morning:Other than her(?) messed up tail, she's a very beautiful cat. It's a shame she's feral.

When we can, we're going to get a trap from FixNation and take her(?) in to be fixed. Go through that whole rigmarole again... Sigh.

That's about it for now.

Until next time...

--Lauren*
http://littlezotz.webs.com

Yard Work & Other Things

Hey, Everyone!

I'm back. :)

Things have been going really well for me lately. KNOCK WOOD.

I've gotten several writing assignments done lately and I seem to be getting noticed more and more. Hopefully I'll have some "big" news for you soon, but we'll see. Cross fingers!

In other news, I've been helping my parents a lot with their yard work lately. You know, raking leaves, trimming back overgrown plants; stuff like that. Sometimes Ramiro comes too, but today he stayed home to work on other things. Which left me to tackle the left side of their house on my own. Here's a "Before" picture of that:See all those leaves on the ground? All that needed to go. You can sort of see that they have some fancy stepping stones on the ground on that side of the house, but they had been completely buried. I also needed to hack back a lot of overgrowth, particularly their bougainvillea. Did you know that bougainvillea plants have lots and lots of thorns? They totally do! My arms got torn to shreds. haha. I was actually inside applying Bactine when I got a phone call from a potential employer.

You'll notice that I have no "After" picture of the left side of their house. Funny/Sad story. I actually had to stop halfway through because my parents' next door neighbour (a very senile old man) came up to me and accused me of stealing his "piles." He was very very confused. He thought that the piles of yard waste I had made and was picking up and putting into the green waste barrel were his and that I was taking them from him. :( He really needs to be in a home. I feel so bad for him. He used to be a very nice man (when I was a child growing up there), but now he didn't even seem to know who I was. This same old man sometimes steals the decorative rocks from my parents yard and puts them in a pile in front of his house. Anyway, my picking up the leaves agitated him so much, I stopped halfway through. I even left one pile there for him to look at. He seemed so attached to it. I'm going to finish the job next week.

My mom used to work at an Old Folk's Home. She said that the senile patients got a lot worse in the hot weather. If something like this happens to you--if an elderly person dotters up to you and is horribly confused--please, just be patient with them. They're not doing it on purpose to annoy you or to be mean to you. Just stay calm, and try to be as nice as you can.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm... What else...

Ramiro and I found this in the corn field in our back yard:
I thought since a few of you have been writing about all the UFO stuff that's been in the news the past few days, you'd get a kick out of that. It's an alien!

In other news, I'm going to be going to the Montrose Oktoberfest on Saturday. I've been asked to man the camera while my pals at the dojo do their yearly demonstration. :)

Ramiro's fine. He's been working on a new comic called Dollworld. The cats are doing pretty well too. Ringo (the old man) has been cranky in the heat, but we've been doing our best to keep them all comfortable.

I'll probably be making an update again pretty soon.

Until then...

--Lauren*
http://littlezotz.webs.com

EDIT: I have a big job interview tomorrow. Wish me luck, Everyone!! <3

See You After Next Week!

Hey, Everyone!!

I'm going to be extremely busy in the upcoming days. I have several articles due and they're all due "soon." I'm going to have to write 4-5 articles a day to meet everyone's demands.

So, I'm not going to be online for "social" reasons for a while.

I'm going into "hiding" for a little bit and I'll miss you all, but I'll be back soon! :)

Until next time...

--Lauren*

Sunday Update

Hey, Everyone!

My revamped website has been getting me a lot of attention! People are finally starting to take me seriously. :) For those of you who haven't seen it yet, you should check it out here: http://littlezotz.webs.com

Also, weird thing, at the beginning of last month, I had nine (9) friends on Facebook--half of which were members of The Click Five--and now, at the beginning of this month, as of this posting, I have one-hundred and fifty (150!) friends on Facebook. What the heck happened?! lol. I'm suddenly popular again!

Yesterday, Martha (Ramiro's mom) gave me keys to the house. I'm not just a house guest anymore. I really officially live here now! Not that I didn't before, but there's something about having keys that makes it seem just so much...more-so...than before.

And now, your cat updates/pictures:
Robert came in with that football a couple weeks ago as a present for Ramiro. When he first showed up with it, it was dark and Ramiro was afraid he was bringing him a rat. We're not sure who Robert stole the football from, but it's definitely his now. He is SO proud of it. He still struts around with it! And, as you can see in the picture, sometimes he sleeps with it. I thought it was very cute that he took his two favourite toys onto the chair before taking his nap.It's been getting cold at night/the early morning lately and Ringo's old and gets cold easily. He's taken to climbing into bed with us. This is the face I've been waking up to (in my face!) the past few mornings.
Ziggy's been enjoying the slightly milder weather. She likes to stay outside and sleep in the front yard's "flower" bed.

The weirdest thing happened to me the other day, involving the cats. We like to let the cats play outside (weather permitting) for a few hours before feeding time and then we let them back in for the night. Anyway, I went to the back door to let in our three cats to be fed; and three cats came in, but they weren't OUR three cats!!! It was one of the most shocking things to ever happen to me in my life. Can you imagine going to feed your pet and having a DIFFERENT pet of the same breed show up in their place? Anyway, the three cats that came running in where Robert's Mom, Ziggy's Mom, and a Stranger Cat. I finally got them out and then OUR three cats came in and ate normally. So. Weird.

Anyway, in closing, please check out my revamped webpage if you haven't already! I'm really proud of it. http://littlezotz.webs.com

Until next time...

--Lauren*

Our Cats Are On Catster

Hey, Everyone!

I talk about our cats on here a lot, so you probably feel like you know them... And now you can Friend them on Catster!! Links below:

ROBERT

http://www.catster.com/cats/1152023
ZIGGY
http://www.catster.com/cats/1152024

RINGOhttp://www.catster.com/cats/1152031

DORIANhttp://www.catster.com/cats/1152025

ROBERT'S MOM
http://www.catster.com/cats/1152026

ZIGGY'S MOMhttp://www.catster.com/cats/1152029

Have fun!

As far as human news goes, Ramiro and I are both doing well. I've been getting a lot of gigs on Textbroker, but I'm not making a "living" yet or anything. I remain optimistic! :)

Until next time...

--Lauren*

More of the Same

Hey, Everyone!

I've got a whole bunch of "more of the same" to report at the moment. I want to keep you guys up to date though, especially on the kitten situation:
They're still adorable. And still looking for homes! We found a home for one of the tabbies, but there's still one left (female) and two black ones (sexes still unknown atm, though I think one of them is male).

Ramiro and I got the above tabby to come inside and were able to give her some wet "kitten formula" canned cat food. She gobbled it up. These guys are about 8 weeks now. According to the Internet, they should be more-or-less fully weaned by week 10. And once they're eating nothing but "real" food, Ramiro and I will no longer be able to take care of them. We already have two cats of our own and take care of Ramiro's sister's cat as well (so THREE cats total!) and we can barely afford those cats. So please, if you or anyone you know would like a kitten, contact me at littlezotz@gmail.com If not, in another 2-3 weeks, we're going to be looking for a nice "no kill" shelter to turn them in to...

In other news, I'm nearly done working in my parents bathroom. I cleaned their bathtub:I was going to post some "before" pictures so you could see the difference, but I thought that would probably embarrass my parents. And I didn't want to do that when things are finally going really well. So, you'll just have to take my word for it that I did a lot of work to get it to look that nice. :)

I was also working on turning the light pink areas (like the window frames) maroon:
BeforeAfter.

Unfortunately, while I was painting, I ended up having a very bad attack where my throat closed up and I couldn't breathe very well... I ended up having to use my inhaler (which I haven't had to use in over a year!). Turns out the paint had latex in it. Which I'm allergic to. I was totally taken by surprise! I always thought of latex as being something you paint on, due to my parents' work, and not something you paint with. I feel silly now, of course. Oh well. So, unfortunately, I wasn't able to finish the borders on my own. But, while my dad was finishing that up for me, Ramiro and I went in their back yard and tidied up the lawn.

Also, a few of you have been asking me about Ziggy and how she's doing. I guess I didn't make it clear in previous entries (or maybe I forgot to?) that she's all better now. :)

Here's a picture of her snuggled up with her catnip mouse:She loves that thing. She plays with it like crazy and then falls asleep pretty much immediately after. Speaking of sleepy kitties, the following are some of the most adorable pictures of our cats ever (taken last night at bedtime):Those two cats love each other more than some people we know! haha. They're so great.

I guess that's about it. It's Tuesday, so the latest update on my comic should be up soon. Drunk Duck is apparently having troubles or something, but I have confidence they'll be able to work it out. Check back on it periodically to see.

Also, tomorrow is Ramiro's birthday. Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!!!

Until next time!

--Lauren*PS: One more picture of our kids...PPS: Last one, I swear! This is what Ringo, Robert, and Ziggy all looked like when they were just slightly older than the kittens we're currently trying to find homes for: