After the long break between posts, I have finally updated to talk about our day in Kona. I think there are 26 pictures in that post, so prepare for the post to take some of your time. As usual, you can click here to get to it or find it on June 23 on my calendar.
Sometimes, I really hate swatching. I feel like it can be a waste of time, of precious yarn (because apparently there will be a yarn shortage in the near future), and totally pointless. Nevertheless, I dutifully make swatches for everything except socks for myself and scarves.
I don’t think photos will ever do it justice. You can only kind of see the sparkles in the big version of this one.
I am heavily modifying a pattern, using an entirely different weight yarn, but still including the beads and the edging the original designer chose. It was critical, therefore, that I make a swatch to figure out how many pattern repeats I would need to make a functional wrap.
Even worse than making the swatch is washing it. The reason you should wash a swatch is to see if the swatch will shrink or grow after the finished product has been cleaned. Believe me, it’s happened so many times that a project appeared to be a very different size while I was knitting it than when I cleaned it for the first time. This time, something else happened:
There was a ton of loose dye.
I rinsed the swatch a good 8 times, and still, blue dye ran from the fibers. I now know not to throw this one in with my dark delicates to wash it – this one goes in alone. It may get washed 100 times before it gets to the recipient. Then again, she knows how to handle delicate hand knits. Dry cleaning anyone?
So, um yeah – there’s a lesson for you: always swatch.
The post about our 2 days in Maui is up now, and you can view it here or by clicking on June 22, 2009 in my calendar.
The kittens are still doing well, and they actually gained a lot of weight today. I thought Tahiti might be ill this morning – she threw up twice. She seems to have gotten over it, and I put a bowl of food and water on the counter top where she spends most of her time. She doesn’t like to come down to the floor because the minute she does, the kittens come running for her nipples. Tahiti just sighs (I swear!) and jumps right back up to the counter where the kittens cannot reach her. I plan to let her live in the office so she can dry up without the kittens bothering her as soon as her Calici is cleared up. In any case, the massive weight gains the kittens made tell me that their mother is not letting them have milk anymore. They’ve had to resort to kitten food, the poor things! I am not worried in the least that they will be separated too early.
Well, I’m off to sort through and crop more pictures!
First of all, I’ve posted about our first day on the cruise ship. You can get to it by clicking here, or you can click on June 21st on the calendar on the right side of this page. We just got on the ship that day, so the excitement and scenery didn’t really start until the next day.
Also, I’ve finished 2 knitting projects – Clapotis and the socks I made while on the Hawai’i trip. I haven’t photographed Clapotis yet, but here are the socks:
I had originally intended these to be knit with the 2-in-1 method, but I had to focus way too hard for a project that would largely be knit while I was on vacation and paying more attention to other things. I’ll try again soon.
As for the kittens, after a night to sleep on our decisions, Michael and I finalized our choices for their names. Sara was on the right track when she suggested that we were going with a Hawaiian theme. We actually expanded it a bit to include several Pacific Islands. I don’t have individual pictures yet (they squirm a bit when held), but soon I’ll connect the names and faces. The pure white kittens are Palau and Marquesas. You can tell them apart because Marquesas has 1 blue eye and 1 gold one, while Palau has 2 gold eyes. The littlest kitten we named Tonga – he’s mostly black on top with a white underside. The other black and white kitten is Molokai and the orange and white fellow is Samoa.
The kittens in this litter have been the victims of an unfortunate fact of shelter life. Since the shelter is a bit like kindergarten, full of others who have underdeveloped immune systems and an incomplete (at best) vaccination history, any kitten who spent any time at the shelter is likely to come down with some sort of disease. In this case, the babies and their mother have Calici (Kuh-LEE-see).
Calici is a viral form of an upper respiratory infection (URI) that causes ulcers on the inside of the mouth and more recently, on the nose and face. Cats who receive yearly vaccines (FVRCP) had been immune for a long time, but the virus has mutated into a vaccine resistant form. Wesley, Buttercup and Serra caught it one year, and they were miserable. Wesley growled at his food as he ate because it hurt to much. Serra drooled blood onto her pretty white fur. Buttercup’s nose was gory and bloody, and she lost a lot of weight from not eating. Only Serra avoided spending the night in the hospital.
It appears that these kittens and their mother are either handling their virus well, or they are just getting over it. They all eat well, but I can see sores on the roof of their mouths. I’ve circled the sores in yellow on the pictures below (click the pictures to see it in more detail):
Normally the nose sores turn up on the nose leather (the pink part on Tahiti’s nose) rather than on the bridge of the nose. I think that it has to be worse that way – their nose gets into their food, making it hurt worse – ugh. The only treatment for this disease is pain medication. Usually the vets give me Buprenorphine, a controlled substance (an opiate, more precisely), but this time the shelter is trying a more natural treatment – Green Tea. I can only guess it’s working because the kittens are eating and they don’t seem to be in pain. On the other hand, cats are notorious for hiding pain well.
On the bright side, I think the Island family will get over this obstacle pretty easily. They are all growing or at least maintaining their weight. They drink appropriate amounts of water, and they don’t seem to have contracted a secondary bacterial infection. The only concern I have is my Wesley – he catches that virus every time that it comes into the house. The girls have developed proper immunity to it, so they missed the second bout. It wasn’t so bad for Wesley the second year he caught it, but it has alerted me to a possible immune condition he may have. For now, all I can do is wash my hands between cats and be sure to put any used plates of kitten food in the dishwasher immediately (Wesley has a nasty habit of jumping on the counter and stealing food now that his food intake is restricted). Wish him luck.
Michael and I arrived in Denver this morning at roughly 7:30am. We spent the night on a plane, which wasn’t so bad because we had the frequent flier miles to upgrade to first class. When we got home, we promptly went to bed, the nicest place in the entire world.
I had way less internet access than I thought I would on this trip, and even less time than that to make a blog post. I really do want to tell you about the trip, but the way I post is going to be a tad bit unusual. When I went through the pictures of the trip, I realized many things.
I need a bigger memory card. I filled the card I have so many times, and I had to delete a few pictures and movies in order to make room for a fraction of certain events later in they day.
Holy crap, we were busy people. I am exhausted just thinking about the things we did every day.
I want to take care to present the material I have in a way that does everything justice, including a few history and language lessons for those who read my posts.
So, my plan is to retroactively post on the last day of our visit to each island. I may post 1 or more islands in a day, but I have a lot of photos and videos to go through to tell my stories. I will let you know when I publish each post on the day I do it. All you have to do is click on my calendar on the right side of the screen to get to the appropriate date. I’ll probably even link to the posts in my notice. I’ll give you a preview right now:
I actually had a tan most of the week. The last day, however, our sunscreen got packed and the tan became the sunburn I usually get when I spent more than 5 minutes in the sun. I wish I were kidding about that (the length of time it takes me to burn, I mean).
My socks-in-progress had a great time. They saw spectacular natural scenery
and they posed with a Samoan student who made them swoon.
(He insists his name means “So Handsome” in English.)
The socks also saw 2 luaus, some lava coming from an active volcano, and some under-sea life from the porthole of a small submarine.
It may seem strange to post this way, but I think it will be all clear when you see what we picked up on the way home from the airport this morning:
We’ve named her Tahiti (can you predict the theme?).
And her 5 boys’ names will be decided upon soon.
I called the shelter as soon as we finished snorkeling yesterday morning. I said I’d take 8 or so, and they called back asking if I could take a mom and her litter. Oh, darn, such a hard decision!
Despite having only 1 day in Hilo (HE-low), Michael and I managed to cram a lot in. We signed up for a shore excursion that included a land and sky tour of the island. We didn’t see a whole lot of Robert and Alicia that day, but then again, it’s good that they got some time for themselves.
Our tour group was very small – there were 2 other couples from the cruise ship besides us. One of the couples was from Queensland, Australia and the other was from Florida. We met them and our tour guide on the pier, then quickly climbed into a tour van to begin our adventure.
Emma had to be one of the best tour guides I’ve ever encountered. Her family has lived in Hilo for a long time. They owned a small place near the cruise ship port, and have lived off the land for quite some time. If you ever wondered what the Aloha Spirit looked like in human form, it has to be this woman. She knew everything about the native foliage (or rather, imported foliage. Something like 90% of the plant life in Hawai’i came from somewhere else. A lot came from Australia, actually), the history of the island, and she really knew how to make you feel as if you were a personal guest that she had been waiting impatiently to see.
Despite being largely devoted to agriculture, the big island of Hawai’i has a lot to offer in the way of scenery. Not a lot of outsiders settle here, largely because of the active volcano (we wouldn’t want to upset Pele, the Hawai-ian goddess of fire, in her home), and partly because it really is a small, rural town. Everyone knows one another here. If you want cheap land in Hawai’i, this is the place to go. Seriously.
The first place we visited was Queen Lili’uokalani Gardens (pronounced LEE-lee oo-oh-kuh-LAWN-ee. The apostrophe, called an ‘okina is a glottal stop in the Hawai’ian language). The land for the gardens was donated by the last Hawai’ian queen in order to make a garden to honor the Japanese immigrants who came to work on the sugar plantations in Hawai’i. Sugar and pineapples used to be huge industries in Hawai’i, but those industries have largely been replaced with macadamia nuts and coffee now. In any case, here is some of the scenery (click to enlarge):
After our brief visit to the gardens, we traveled on to see a few waterfalls. First we saw Rainbow Falls.
And a chunk of the island that broke off during a storm.
We then moved on to Akaka (ah-KAH-kah) Falls. There was a longish path to get to this waterfall. Along the way we saw some lovely foliage:
ginger flower and an a banana flower with budding fruit.
Neither of these is what we think of when we think of ginger and bananas. They are both inedible, but related to the edible versions.
A small stream wound its way through the rain forest, previewing the waterfall.
And then we got to the falls:
Really, these things are quite breathtaking.
From the waterfall tour, we headed out to a ranch to have a picnic and kayak in the little pool at the base of a small waterfall. The path to the picnic site was lined with macadamia nut shells (kind of like our driveways might be covered in gravel), and a rock with a ancient petroglyph marked the end.
Emma and her cousin (who knows if they were actually related – Hawai’ians call everyone cousin, or auntie or uncle if they are elders) made us a barbeque lunch while we kayaked.
Afterward, we hiked back to the open field to meet the helicopter. At the fence to the ranch, a baby cow with a lame foot rested, watching us as we got closer. He got skittish as we got too close, but kindly posed for a picture.
Isn’t he adorable!
The helicopter tour was only about 45 minutes long, and for the first time on the trip, my memory card filled up. I hurriedly deleted what I hoped were the worst of the pictures from the previous days, so I missed a lot of what I could see from the sky. Still,
there was a view of Akaka Falls from above,
little green islands that were untouched by all the surrounding lava,
Steam from a vent coming from Mt. Kilauea (Kill-uh-way-uh). I should explain that this is an active volcano, still forming land on the big island to this day.
This is where the lava hits the ocean and cools.
And this is the lava actively burning trees it encounters. This is the only point on the tour where you could smell anything, and the aroma of the burning wood was quite strong here. Surprisingly, I didn’t notice a sulfur smell.
You have to enlarge the picture to see the fire – it’s in the center.
As the helicopter landed, we could see our cruise ship.
It was a very long day, and not long after we landed we had to get back on the ship for our trip to Kona, which is located on the other side of the big island. Can we have a nap, now?
(As always, you can click on the pictures to make them bigger. I highly recommend doing so for the Hawai’i posts.)
The nice thing about taking a trip to Hawai’i is that no matter what goes wrong, you can still have a good time. Our plan was to go snorkeling on Sunday, attend a luau that evening, go on a submarine tour on Monday, and then head out for more snorkeling near Lahaina before getting back on the ship for our next destination. That didn’t exactly happen.
We were docked in Kahului (kah-who-LOO-ee) (see the map above if you would like to have the reference), but we intended to rent a cab to get to Lahaina (lu-HINE-uh) for our luau. Our assistant waiter from dinner on the first night pointed out that the cab would be so expensive that we were really better off renting a car. Plus, we would have the freedom to get away from the port whenever we wanted. The only drawback was that we were going to need a designated driver who would not be able to partake of the open bar at the luau.
In the morning we caught a shuttle to a rental car company (smart cookies those rental car companies, sending a shuttle to a cruise ship) and picked up a jeep to haul us and our stuff to the beach. Our first stop was Paia (pa-EE-uh).
Gorgeous beach, isn’t it? We laid out our beach towels and got out the sunscreen, totally ready for the scenery and the ocean water. As I squeezed out the sunscreen, a breeze blew across the beach. As I applied the sunscreen, the wind seemed to pick up, and before long there was sand stuck to every inch of my body that I had managed to protect from the sun. I tried to apply more sunscreen to the rest of my body, but sand mixed with sunblock is uncomfortable to say the least. I tried to rinse it off in the ocean, only to discover that the water was freezing! This was not how the water felt in Waikiki the day before.
Eventually, we all had enough of the sandblasting and decided to go to another beach on another shore of the island. We realized that we were getting hungry, so we stopped to collect some food and some bottled water to carry around. After that, we picked up sarongs at Hilo Hattie’s (at the time I wrote this, the site was taking too long to respond, but the link should be good – it may have something to do with their bankruptcy and recent sale, which apparently occurred while we were in Hawai’i) and rented snorkel gear for Robert and Alicia (Michael and I own snorkel gear) from Snorkel Bob’s. I highly recommend renting gear from Snorkel Bob’s if you ever go to Hawai’i. You can keep it as long as you like and return it on any island. The staff is really helpful, and they will tell you where the best snorkeling locations are.
Next we went to Kihei (KEY-hey) for snorkeling. The waves were pretty rough that day, and we were trying to teach Alicia how to snorkel. I told her if she could do it under those conditions, she could do it anywhere. The first beach didn’t turn up anything worth seeing, but the second beach had plenty of fish! Robert and Alicia are going to send me a copy of the pictures they took underwater, and I’ll display them when I get them. We got so carried away looking at the fish that we had to rush back to the ship to make it out in time for the luau. We made it back to the ship with about 20 or so minutes to shower and change our clothes.
I expected to have finished Clapotis by the time we went to the luau, but I really didn’t have a lot of knitting time after we actually arrived on the islands. I furiously knit in the car between stops, and in the few minutes we had to shower and change clothes, but it was a futile effort. I failed.
Clapotis, however, was only the beginning. Both Robert and Alicia’s key cards didn’t work in their door, so we had to get the cards changed and eventually security had to come up and fix the lock. Meanwhile my brother and his wife had to rinse off in our shower and dart back to their room in a towel when it was finally accessible. Because of all the hassle and waiting, we were going to be late to the luau. We called, and they said that the show actually started an hour later than the time we were expected to arrive, so no big deal, right? Well, as we tried to leave the ship, the staff said that we may want to check and see if our luau was still going to happen. It turns out that a brush fire that afternoon caused the road to Lahaina to be closed off. Not the main road, the road. The folks who hosted the luau said that they were still going to have it, so they said we should sit in traffic until 6:15 – if the road was still not open by then, they would let us cancel without penalty. The road did not open, and sadly, we went back to the ship and ate in the dining room.
The next day the road was reopened, so we joined a tour group for a trip on the Atlantis submarine. On the way to Lahaina, the tour guide informed us that the first shuttle back to the ship would be at 3:00. “You mean the last one, right?” No, they were not bringing us back to the ship until 3:00. At 5:30 we were supposed to be aboard the ship for our overnight trip to Hilo (HE-low). The trip from Kahului to Lahaina takes 45 minutes. We were not going to be able to go snorkeling. Crap.
We made the best of it.
The Atlantis submarine’s top speed is about 2.5 knots, so instead of taking the submarine back and forth to the pier, the tour company sent a tender boat from the pier to the vessel. This is Maui from the tender boat:
The weather was pretty overcast that day, unlike what we had previously experienced. The weather did not affect our tour in any way. As a matter of fact, there were other people parasailing not far from where we were to meet the sub.
We watched the submarine surface (I took this video from the tender, so it’s going to be a little wobbly):
And climbed aboard.
Something to note: As you sink deeper under the water, light waves get filtered out, starting with the shortest. Red is the first to go, followed by all the other colors of the rainbow. I am telling you this because we were taking these pictures through 3.25 inches of acrylic, and I could not use a flash (it would just bounce right back to my camera), so all of my photographs look rather blue. The portholes are this thick out of necessity – the tour guide explained that the pressure the water exerted on them was roughly equal to the pressure a bull elephant would exert if he were standing on them.
We saw a lot of things under the water. There were all sorts of fish, sea urchins, and even a reef shark that I couldn’t make my camera focus on to save my life. (Don’t forget to click on the pictures!)
Another interesting thing we saw underwater was a shipwreck. The people who ran the submarine tour are trying to start an artificial reef. This is apparently very hard to do; otherwise, coral reefs would not be quite as endangered as they are now. The ship they sunk is called the Carthaginian. Before the ship was sunk, it had to be made environmentally safe, so all the fuel parts, etc. were removed. The boat was purchased for $1. The work to clean it up took a lot more money.
The submarine brought us 128 feet under the water and back up again.
We walked and shopped a bit in Lahaina before catching the first tour bus back. We would have just taken a later bus since we had time to kill, but we had to return the rental car we picked up the day before and didn’t get to use on the second day. So much for that plan.
One of the last things we saw in Lahaina that would be of interest to anyone else is this banyan tree:
No, it’s not a grove of trees, it’s just 1. One of the largest in the world, in fact, if the tour guides have been telling the truth. I got a good look at the banyan trees and realized that every now and then the tree sends out thick roots from its branches – wild. The center of the tree is on the right side of my picture. This is only about ½ of the whole thing.
So, even though our plans were thwarted a bit, we still had fun. Next stop: Hilo
Remember when I told you that Robert is my brother? I lied – I’m actually related to his wife. Okay, that’s not exactly true. There are just some days when I am out in public with him that I am unwilling to admit that we swam in the same gene pool.
(Forgive the bad shot – I am just learning to use the timed photo option on the camera. My aim still lacks something when I am not directly behind the camera)
The Background:
For Robert and Alicia, this was their first cruise. In fact, it’s the first vacation that they’ve been able to take that wasn’t at the home of another family member. What’s more, even though they were married almost 7 years ago, they never took a honeymoon due to Robert’s military schedule. Despite how much I may tease that I wish I weren’t related to Robert, I actually do like him, and I was more than happy to take him and his wife to Hawai’i and show them a good time. They decided that this trip is to count as their missing honeymoon.
Cruising is a surprisingly economical way to vacation. Your lodging, some of your travel, most of your shipboard activities, and all the food you can eat are included in the cost. Don’t get me wrong, you can spend a small fortune on a cruise, but you could do that on any vacation.
The Story:
Last night, shortly after our ship left the port in Honolulu, my brother and his wife joined Michael and me for dinner. Cruise ship dining is a very serious threat to any diet. They hand you a menu that has many courses on it – soups, salads, entrees and desserts. You look at the menu and can’t decide between several things, so you ask your waiter what he recommends. “Order both,” the waiter tells you. So you do. The next thing you know, you have 2 soups, a salad, 3 entrees and every dessert on the menu coming your way.
For Robert, the unlimited menu was a dream come true. He couldn’t decide between 2 desserts. The waiter suggested he order both, and not being the type to disobey, did exactly that. In 30 seconds flat, Robert inhaled 1 of these:
A chocolate Napoleon.
The waiter saw how much Robert enjoyed that particular dessert, and offered another. “Sure,” Robert said as he wolfed down the other dessert he had ordered. The 2nd Napoleon didn’t last any longer than the first. As he took the last bite, Robert realized that he wished he had taken a picture of the tasty little dish. “Would you like another,” the waiter asked. “I can put a lid on it so you can take it to your stateroom.”
“F@#k, yeah!” Robert proclaimed in a stage voice, apparently forgetting where he was.
The people at the neighboring table asked amongst themselves, “Did he really just say ‘F@#k in the dining room?”
I’m related to Alicia. I don’t know where she found that weirdo.
Of course, this caused much amusement amongst the dining room staff. They brought Robert the 4th dessert of the night so he could photograph it and consume it at a later time. By this point, the dessert had become a bit of a celebrity, so Robert posed with it for awhile.
Michael and I landed in Hawai’i yesterday afternoon. We were really tired from the 7 hour flight and fell asleep at about 8:30pm. Woo – big partiers, that’s us. Early to bed meant early to rise though, and we got to see the sunrise and the sunset from last night. I’ll keep this short since we just picked up my brother and we need to get to the cruise ship.
(Click to enlarge)
View from our room:
At night:
Michael at Waikiki Beach (the mountain in the distance is Diamond Head):
So far we haven’t done much – we just arrived early so that we wouldn’t have to miss our ship if there were flight delays. The hotel we stayed in was a bit of a dump, but the view (and the fact that we were only staying 1 night) made up for it. In just a few minutes we’ll head out to the ship and start our adventure!
P.S. I will have my Clapotis finished in time for the Luau tomorrow. I knit nearly the entire time on the plane. As a matter of fact, the stewardess stopped to view my knitting. Her sister knits, and she was happy to see another knitter. Finally, a flight where a knitter is praised rather than harassed and feared. This is progress!
Last night, despite a half hour delay, Michael and I made it home. Well, the Colorado home, anyway. It’s kind of weird because the San Francisco airport felt way more like returning home than the Denver airport. I’ve never before in my life missed a place where I used to live. This is strange and disconcerting.
San Francisco is still the city I know best. Most of my friends are there, I have favorite restaurants to eat at, and I can get from one place to another without having to constantly consult a map (trust me, that’s huge – I have absolutely no internal compass).
Not that I was unhappy to return to Colorado. My house is here, my cats are here, and we can go out in the evenings without a jacket. It’s quieter here, leaving me with a more restful night’s sleep. I think my best option at this point is to live in both cities.
I managed to squeeze even more stuff into the last few days of our trip. I went yarn and fiber shopping at Imagiknit and Urban Fauna. We went to the new Science Academy in Golden Gate Park. A friend introduced us to a new (to us, anyway) restaurant. There was just so much to do.
There was a highlight of the last few days. I got to meet the recipient of the baby blanket I just finished last week:
This is Kiran. He came to SF about a day before we did.
Right now we are preparing to leave for Hawai’i. It’s about 10 degrees warmer there than here, and about 25 degrees warmer than San Francisco was. I have most of the laundry from our last trip in the machine right now, but it occurred to me at some point that the wardrobe is entirely different for each of those trips. Ah well, we still need the underwear.
I’m sure my posts will get more interesting when we get to out next destination. I have at least 3 projects to bring with me, and I’m hoping that I’ll be able to finish and wear at least 1 of them shortly after I get there. The nice thing about an island vacation is that there is plenty of time for knitting. You know, if I’m going to leave tomorrow, I’d better pack…
I had no idea how busy I would be when I got to San Francisco. I mean, sure, I knew I wanted to see a lot of people, but it’s gotten to the point where I get up in the morning, run all day meeting people and working (yes, I had a paid job one morning), then we get home and I fall asleep like I have narcolepsy. Not that I’m complaining.
I got off the plane on Thursday, dropped my bags at Carisa’s house, and immediately got on the bus to get to the Animal Welfare Commission. That went way overtime, so we missed the Scottish Country Dance class we were planning to attend, so we went out to dinner with our dance friends instead. I did all of this having slept only 2 hours the night before (I had insomnia, and I spent till 6:00am looking for Michael’s contacts) and 1 more hour while our plane waited on the tarmac to take off.
On Saturday morning (I am aware I skipped Friday – I’ll get back to that later) many of the girls from my knit night met with several other knitters we did not know for World Wide Knit in Public Day. The group was much smaller than last year because it was really late before anyone realized that no one had officially organized the meet-up.
Despite the late planning, people came from far and wide to hang out with other knitters. I thought for sure that I was going to be the one with the longest commute, but it turned out that a lady from Barcelona came here on a business trip and decided that she needed to find people of her own kind. She brought out her crocheting and sat amongst us, home in a strange country. That’s what I like about yarn craft – it transcends nationality.
One poor knitter discovered that the sweater she was knitting in the round was actually a mobius. Way to frog!
On Sunday I met up with Kilala and her mother.
On Friday I went to the shelter to visit with my old friends from the foster group. Toni was there feeding her kittens, as usual.
But Toni had bigger plans. She decided to host a dinner party welcoming us back. A dinner party at Toni’s house is really a kitten party. You see, Toni takes more kittens than I ever could. She has more space than my apartment did – there were kittens everywhere at Toni’s house.
One of the poor babies (top right) had a very scary accident while we were there. I was in the kitchen helping with the meal when another foster parent came through asking for Toni, a very concerned look straining her face. I noticed that she was holding a limp, white body in her hand. I learned later that the kitten decided to jump off the sofa, which is usually no big deal. However, in some sort of freak accident, the kitten landed in such a way that put him into shock. Witnesses said that the kitten took a few steps after the jump and suddenly collapsed onto his side. One of the party goers had a good friend who happens to be a vet, so she called to get any medical advice we could. Within a few minutes the kitten had responded to a small dose of Karo syrup (to get his blood sugar back up) and was able to lift his head. We kept him on a heating pad and several people checked in on him on a regular basis. By the time we left, he had gotten up to look for a meal. I guess he’ll be OK.
The party wasn’t all tragedy. I had gone to the shelter on Friday and met Toni’s bottle feeders. Michael and I went to work of course, feeding the babies so their mommy could properly host a party. One of those bottle-babies must have had a rough life before she got to the shelter. Going by her developmental stage, she had to be at least 3 ½ weeks old. She still definitely wanted the bottle, although she couldn’t seem to keep suction on it. The thing is, she is tiny! She is very skinny, and her eyes are placed so far apart that she resembles a space alien. They called this one Thumbelina.
Is she not the tiniest, cutest thing ever?
I can’t wait to get bottle-feeders at my new shelter.
I don’t think photos will ever do it justice. You can only kind of see the sparkles in the big version of this one.
There was a ton of loose dye.
