wordless wednesday

kittens four

i can't resist showing the progress of the kittens after all we've been through. they're nearly 3 weeks old. this is frieda. we may not be able to part with her. she's a little molly. strong, independent, curious, already her own little cat.

this is eleanor. she's enjoying a bath from her mama. that's her mama's tail there in the middle. and a bit of her collar of shame, which is still keeping her from licking her mastitis wound. which is healing at an amazing rate, thanks to fabulous honey-based medicine. i love that it's 100% natural. we need more medicines like that.

and this is perrie - she's the biggest, chubbiest kitten. which is exactly how a kitten should be. she is also best at holding still for her photograph.

this is danielle. she has an uncanny ability to convince me that she has died in her sleep. however, she's just really, really good at sleeping. she's the most outgoing of the kittens. don't let her plain black coat fool you, she's a real little spark.

and those of you with 'tweens in the house know that three of the kittens take their names from the girlfriends of three members of one direction. that's just how we roll.

catching up...

since we last "spoke," i have...

...gotten up obscenely early to drive across the country. there i had a very entertaining meeting about a potentially very interesting project that i hope to do. on the way, as i was posting my customary instagram photo of storebæltsbro (the 18 km bridge between the danish islands of fyn and sjælland), i noticed that trinsch, long a bloggy friend, was posting a photo of a morning run past the little mermaid. in one of those moments where you're grateful for social media, i suggested that we meet for coffee. and so we did!

i arrived a little early and grabbed a table at the very busy café norden and people-watched while waiting for trinsch. i had a sudden moment of nervousness. we hadn't met before and what if i was a disappointment to her? i ordered a double latte and dismissed the thoughts. she arrived, super cool moustache-print bag over her shoulder, climbed in the window from the street and we started chatting immediately like old friends who were simply picking up the conversation where we left off. it was great! nothing disappointing in it at all, except that we didn't have more time. but i had to get in the car and drive the three hours back home and she was rushing off to see family before flying back to home to israel. in all, a lovely day.

friday brought work and in the evening, an impromptu barbeque with a neighbor. there was much laughter and a bit too much white wine, but isn't that how a friday should be?

saturday found me driving once again across the country, this time to meet with bloggy friend sue, aka rxbambi (as you can see, she hasn't blogged in awhile). she and her husband were in town because they had just finished a cruise of western norway and the fjords. they wanted to go to sweden, so we hopped across another bridge and headed to malmö for lunch and a starbucks(!). that and a couple of new blank notebooks from bookbinder's design made me very happy.

a lovely dinner at nyhavn in copenhagen and a stroll through the city in the most beautiful nordic evening light, made it a lovely day to meet up! denmark was really showing off at its very best. i'd gotten all of the nervousness out of my system with trinsch, so i wasn't nervous meeting sue. we laughed and drank wine and got to know a bit more about the one another off-blog. it made me grateful once again for the friendships that blogging has brought to me. sue and bob started talking to the table next to us at the restaurant and i was also reminded of how giving those conversations with random strangers can be. i do miss that sometimes and it was nice to be reminded of that energy that acknowledging the existence of people you don't already know can give to you. the danes could really learn a lesson from that.

sunday, sabin and i arrived home mid-afternoon and indulged in some kitten time. molly is much better and her milk production is up so that the kittens don't need to be bottle fed anymore, tho' they still have a pavlovian response when they hear my voice (or the theme music of breaking bad, i must admit), and start meowing and unsteadily crawling over to me. sabin intercepted them. molly's mastitis-induced wound (it was a giant hole in her belly, if i'm graphic), is looking unbelievably better. it has shrunk significantly in the 36 hours i was away. that kruuse manuka G honey-based wound dressing is seriously miraculous stuff. the vet is going to be amazed when she sees how much smaller it is. but bottle feeding has meant that these are some seriously nice kittens.

and now i think you're all pretty much caught up. a blog can never encompass a life and all of its nuances, but perhaps there can be a moment or two of perfect clarity along the way. let the new week begin!

what summer is made of

sunshine and dandelions.

we were fortunate to have the last of the spring holidays, so this wednesday felt like a sunday.

and that was bliss.

wordless wednesday: look up

precious molly

my beloved molly dolly. she had her kittens on may 22 - four perfect little girls. she took to motherhood immediately. but motherhood didn't take to her and last week, she developed mastitis. it came on really quickly - she was fine at midnight the night before and when we woke up on monday morning, she was clearly very unwell. i took her immediately to the vet, where they diagnosed the mastitis and gave her both a shot of painkillers and antibiotics. she's been on a course of both since - and i'm getting downright good at popping those pills down her throat. i was worried about her for the first couple of days - she wasn't eating or drinking anything, but by the end of the week, she was eating again. the whole time, she has cared for her kittens, tho' i have been supplementing them with special kitten milk replacer from a bottle, as her milk production was down.

now their eyes are open and they are strong and feisty (this one's hissing at me, which isn't very nice in light of the fact that i'm feeding her milk). on sunday, i noticed that the teat with the worst infection had burst and she had hole in her belly. i called the weekend vet immediately and he asked me how she was doing. other than the alarming hole in her belly, she was actually good - she chased a frog across the lawn as i was speaking to him and she was both eating and drinking and acting much more like herself. so he advised me to wait 'til today and take her in to be seen (kindly saving me the extra charge). when i took her in today, the vet was rather alarmed and said she wanted to put her under and see what could be done. it turned out not to be possible to sew it up, so she's still got an alarming gaping hole, but now it's clean and all of the dead tissue has been taken away. she's back home, a bit woozy, but eating and drinking and caring for her babies. i protect the wound with a clean washcloth while they're nursing, but they're actually pretty good about avoiding it. it's quite astonishing how nature works.

while i was waiting to hear from the vet that she could be picked up, i found this 4-leaf clover. i just looked down and saw it, i didn't even have to search for it. surely it's a sign that molly will be just fine - luck just must be on her side. this evening, she's seeking me out, sitting on my lap as i type this, even tho' it's me who put the collar of shame on her (we've got to keep her from licking that wound). she's got an appointment with the vet every day this week and the vet ordered some salve that contains honey that we'll put on it, to help it heal more quickly. i like that idea.

this little cat has become very important to me, ever since the first time i saw her and i realized today at one point that i had some of the feeling that i had when sabin was born 10 weeks early and we had to feed her by putting a tube down her nose into her stomach. a helplessness and a panicky feeling that i wasn't up to the task. but i was then and i will be now. we're going to get our molly dolly through this one. even the vet says so. but sending some good vibes her way wouldn't hurt.

it's a lilac-scented world

so much goodness swirling in the air right now, much of it lilac-scented. lilacs are my favorite.

feeling uncharacteristically grateful for it all - both possibilities and just where it's all at right now. husband (i may have mentioned that he's a keeper), the garden, being outdoors, good food, laughter, south african white wine, horses who are part clown, cats who are part dog (read: frankie), netflix, molly on the mend (tho' her mastitis still isn't totally cleared up), fine strong kittens, homemade bread, homegrown asparagus, lilacs, dandelions, green grass, i could go on, but it starts to seem a little insufferable. i guess the scent of lilacs has gone to my head.

here's hoping your weekend was a good one.