A Milestone, of sorts

Today is the first day that the kitten is free during the day. Up 'till this point, I've locked her in the spare room while I'm at work. I stopped locking her up at night on Friday (or maybe Thursday) of last week.

I sleep like the dead, which is fortunate because I think the kitten spends the entire night racing around the bed like it's a NASCAR track. Any downtime is spent chewing on any part of me above the covers. My hand looks like it went through a meat grinder, and I vaguely remember waking up sometime Saturday night to find a kitten wrapped around my hand, gnawing away.

My main line of defense to date has been to have the air conditioner on. I am not fond of air conditioning as a rule, and I prefer the hot, sticky weather we've had lately, but even I am not willing to remain too covered up when the temperature climbs into the 90s. So, the air conditioner is on and I spent my evenings in long pants and sweatshirts, hundled under blankets. That way, when the kitten climbs me like a tree, it's not actually my flesh that she's digging her razor-like little claws into.

My Sophia remains unconvinced about this whole thing. She is sorta playing with the kitten, occasionally. She chases it around, and it chases her, but she's still spending most of her time up high on the hutch, or on the top shelf of the flora cart.

Sophia is quite the picky eater - food is her kibble in her bowl. Food is not my food or different kinds of her food. Spiders and flying things are food, if she can catch 'em. The invisible semi-annual invaders are food. Kitten food is NOT food - she tried to bury it after a sniff. The kitten, on the other hand, eats EVERYTHING. I am not used to having to guard my food from the cat. I walked in the room yesterday to find the kitten snarfing down cheese corn. This can't be good for her (although the orange all over her face and whiskers was pretty cute). Also yesterday, the kitten damn near drowned herself in a coffee mug, trying to drink my coffee. I'm thinking that the last thing I need is to caffinate that animal. And she LOVES Sophia's food - just hoovers it right down. So, Sophia's food is now living on the hutch, where the kitten can't reach it. Lord only knows what we're going to do when the kitten is big enough to jump.

Of course, that's assuming we keep it. I have yet to name the kitten, and on the whole, I don't think it's nearly cute enough to put up with the irritation. This little adventure has definitely reinforced my no-children policy. If Sophia doesn't warm up to this creature, it's outta here. I think I can watch it growing, though, so hopefully this kitten stage won't last too long and it'll turn into a cat - one both of us can get along with.