Ah, there’s really nothing like sitting on the lid of the toilet, listening to the washing machine wash and waiting for one of your kitties to have a poo so you can collect it and put it in a ziplock bag for the vet. He has his reasons, the vet, and good ones ~ making sure that neither of our kitties still has any parasites so they can grow and thrive ~ so I say give him all the poo he wants, and welcome!
Unfortunately, he doesn’t want it in job lots ~ he wants one from Hugo and one from Harlequin (which Jim got yesterday, so I suppose it’s my turn). Sigh.
Still, of all the unpleasant tasks I’ve been called upon to do, patiently waiting to collect some innocuous kitty poo hardly even makes the list.
And don’t worry I’m not going to list them for you (not today, anyway ;-))
But it does give one a bit of perspective, this. Compared to all the dirty job that Mike whatshisname does, for instance ~ and he does that (no I won’t say the word, I won’t ~ too easy) on purpose! ~ or the guy who rides a garbage truck for a living or the people who pump out septic tanks and work at sewerage plants or even just collect and clean those port-a-johns (some of them the same big tough guys that gag at changing a dirty diaper, am I right?) ~ compared to all that, this is nothing.
I wanted these kittens because I don’t have any babies little enough to want cuddling anymore (and no, girls ~ you know who you are ~ that is NOT an invitation) and since our last cat, Jake, passed a year ago, even though he and his brother weren’t lap cats by any stretch, they were affectionate in their way, and I’ve felt that loss keenly as time has gone by and the grief of Jake’s leaving softened.
Thing is, Hugo is anything but a lap kitty, too, though he’s only 6 months old and we’re hoping he grows out of that and becomes more so ~ he’s more interested in chasing the broom (which makes it very hard to sweep sometimes!) or chasing the yarn covered ball on the other end of Jim’s “cat-fishing” line or climbing the kitten tree in progress that Jim’s built/is building.
Harlequin, on the other hand, is every bit the cuddly kitty I was hoping for ~ but for the most part she’d rather cuddle with Jim, the little stinker (you figure out which one I’m talking about). I’m hoping she grows out of that, too ~ or at least into being more even-handed in bestowing her favors. ‘ Course, I suppose it doesn’t help that I’ve spent most of my time with her cutting mats out of her hair or shoving meds down her throat ~ for which, I must say, she behaves very well (Hugo I have to wrap like a sausage in a bath towel).
Still, even if she is mostly imprinted on Jim, she has the affectionate personality I was 
looking for and a sunshiny temperament “That looks on tempests and is never shaken.” Despite a rough start (when we brought her home from the shelter she weighed less than 3 pounds ~ less than half what Hugo weighed ~ was still all over matted hair, had stitches from her spay in her shaved tummy) she has always rough housed with Hugo and played with such zest and joy that just to see the two of them playing soothes my soul even as I’m laughing.
I’d forgotten what it was like to have kittens, how much fun they can be. The two of them are going to be good sized kitties when they’re grown ~ she weighed in at 6.4 pounds last vet trip, and he at 7.7 ~ and that was at 5 months. And since they’re Maine Coon mixes, we have a long kitten-hood to look forward to ~ I’m completely content with that, and the long, healthy life they’ll have with us. If that means occasionally having to give them medicine or collect a sample of poo to be tested ~ no worries.
Honestly, I don’t mind ~ I just wish he’d get it over with already.
Yes, that’s a real poem, but I don’t know the author ~ One of my professors, eons ago, recited it to the class just like that, and I’m sure she said who, but I don’t remember. Ah, well. It matters not.