2 kittens down, 2 to go ;)

♥Champagne♥

Back on May 15th I posted about one of my foster kittens being rehomed.

At the time it was 1 down and 3 to go.

Now I've rehomed two, and have two to go!

I'm pleased to say that Batman's sister, the super-awesome Champers,
has now been rehomed as well. :) A lovely young guy secretly
arranged to adopt Champers for his girlfriend's birthday
(she had spotted Champers and said "I want that one!",

so no fear that he was making a mistake).

Apparently the girlfriend shed happy tears
when she and the kitty met for the first time. ;)

One of the admin ladies from the rescue I work with

made this picture up for Champers:

Anyway, I have to say that my house is very quiet without Champers,

and I miss her extreme wackiness. But it's good to get the

boisterous kitties rehomed, so I can concentrate on

socialising my remaining scaredy fosters.

A-Z blogging challenge "Z" - Zzzzzzzzz......!

I was going to say "Z is for HAAALLLELUUUUJAH!" but then I realised that word doesn't start with Z. So, yeah. Z is for what I will be doing now that the A-Z is at an end: ZZZZZZzzzzzing!

Okay, seriously, there are other Z words (including some names) I can mention. I may as well continue with the late-born tradition of throwing a bunch of words together and hoping for the best (i.e. no one good idea? Chuck many "all right" ideas together and hope for the best!).

Zachariah - the angel in Supernatural that I really can't stand! Guess I have something in common with the boys there. Hehe. In the words of Dean Winchester, "What a dick!"

Zerek - this is a character in one of my only-just-begun, perhaps-never-to-be-continued stories. I didn't come up with the name - I asked a bunch of friends for suggestions for a ruggedly handsome character's name. There were heaps of cool suggestions, but this one stood out. :D

zebras. I mean, come on! They're cute, stripey horses! And here is a photo of one at the Perth Zoo:

Now, some Z bands/artists:

• Zwan - Billy Corgan's short-lived "supergroup" band - they made some decent music, but in the end what ruined them was...themselves!
• Zebrahead - I guess they're classed as punk rock, and they tend to have a guy rapping in a lot of the songs, which I'm not a huge fan of. Despite how sometimes the vocals get on my nerves, I really love a LOT of their songs. I only heard them thanks to my brother's inherently punk rock music collection, which he left on my old computer (along with other stuff you don't want to hear about!).
• Zhané - to be honest, I only know one song of theirs - "Hey Mr. DJ". It was one of the popular songs when I was about 13 or 14. I used to compile my music from Rage video clips, and this was on one of them.

And unbelievably, that is all I have in my music collection. I'm going to have to scour Last.fm for free downloads of bands starting with Z. :D

Now some Z songs!

• "Zeitgeist" - the Smashing Pumpkins' album was titled Zeitgeist, but there is also a song by them with this title. It's just Billy and an acoustic guitar, but it's beautiful
• "Zeplin Song" - Courtney Love, from her solo album. This song is one of those I like most. It is a pretty rough album where she sounds like she's still struggling along in rehab, but it does have good songs
• "Zero" - how could I really go past mentioning this iconic Smashing Pumpkins track? Honestly, it's not one of my faves, maybe because it was overplayed so damn much. But it's still a bit of a classic!
• "Ziah" - there is a band called The Red Tree from Melbourne, AU, and I got a promo of some of their songs when I was working at RTR.fm - "Ziah" was one of the songs on there, and it's stunning!
• "Zion" - not a huge fan of the song, but it always reminds me of The Matrix. I guess 'cause it's on the soundtrack of Reloaded. Duh!
• "Zombie" - the Cranberries. Another classic song, but one I could never like that much because of Dolores's extremely irritating chorus vocals.

And that's it for my list of notable Z-songs! I could also mention albums, but...I want this to END already!! :P I will be around on Monday, May 2, to reflect on the AMAZING journey that has been the A-Z. Assuming it doesn't entirely slip my brain! But for now, I need a rest!! LOL.

I do however want to conclude with this:

Congrats to everyone who finished, commiserations to those who fell by the wayside (I was nearly there with you quite a few times :P), and THANK YOU to those who have accompanied me through my own A-Z. I already know what I'll do last year, if I participate in this - and it will be a lot less effort than this year was, both for me and for my readers! YAY!!

A-Z blogging challenge "Q" - Quokkas

As someone pointed out to me recently, quokkas are weird creatures. "They're sort of...big marsupials with rats' tails." Well, yeah. I honestly haven't researched quokkas, to find out where else they live beyond Rottnest Island. But I noticed when I added that first link above that there is some info there, if you're into it. ;) Here are some of my photos of quokkas:




When you visit Rottnest Island (which is a fun thing to do if you ever visit Perth), you may see mangy quokkas around. This is because tourists feed them stuff they shouldn't be eating, and generally mistreat them. Quokkas have grown quite domesticated because they're so used to people. If you're in one of the cottages you might find quokkas coming up to your door, scavenging.

We sometimes hear of violence committed against quokkas by disgusting creatures trying to pass themselves off as human beings. I don't have anything else to say about those types of people except I daydream of the quokkas rising up and giving back what they've received there.

A-Z blogging challenge "K" - Koalas

Today I decided to "talk about" (i.e. show cute pictures of) koalas, because I'm ever so slightly middle-of-the-week zombified and all I could think of was chocolate. And before you freak out and assume I smother koalas in chocolate and eat them for dessert each night, you'll know what I really mean when you get to the end of this post. ;)

How cute is that?!

This guy is cresssssssy!

Aaand this one's acrobatic!

Now, onto the chocolate part. These aren't so much cute as yummy:


And I am done now.

A-Z blogging challenge "H" - Haven (The Cat)

Okay, so The Cat Haven in Perth (well, specifically in Shenton Park) is one of my favourite places in the city. It describes itself as "the last place of refuge for homeless, lost and abused cats", and as a cat lover it is definitely all about a cause I can get behind. My favourite thing about the Cat Haven is that a person can volunteer to foster cats and/or kittens. I first fostered kittens back in 2008, when I got a mother and her five babies. The babies were barely three weeks old and had only just opened their eyes. The mother cat was amazingly purry and affectionate - clearly desperate for lurve. She was skin and bones, so I fed her up till she put on weight. It was a delight watching the kittens learn to do all those grown-up cat things, like hiss, do grown-up poos and wees in the litter box, and wash themselves without falling over.

I wound up keeping the mother, because it had been months without contact from the Cat Haven (it was their insanely busy period, so I forgive them).

Last year I fostered some more kitties, this time requesting that I not be given a mother. In case I kept her too. Hehe. I got five "flower pot kids" who had spent their first few weeks living in a flower pot, in the soil and their own excrement. As a result, they were dirty (in spite of many baths, their fur was still stained) and their back leg muscles hadn't developed properly - they'd just been sitting still, piled on top of each other in the pot. So my instructions were to give them lots of playtime. Tough job, but someone's gotta do it, right?

The Cat Haven ladies knew these kittens as "a hissing pile of caterpillars". They were tiny and very young, but they already knew how to hiss. They were terrified. So I also had the task of stopping them hissing quite so much - socialising them! And I must say I think I did a pretty good job. By the time I took them back to the Haven at the end of five weeks, they'd all stopped hissing (even the tortoishell one who had earned herself the name Hissy Miggins).

With this second lot of kitties, I ended up feeling like I imagine a frazzled single mother might feel sometimes. It took me half an hour to get the kids to bed each night. There was also one kitten who was very clingy and constantly wanted to be patted and to snuggle. She was very gorgeous, but I'm not much into the clingy thing. LOL. I like my personal space, man! Another kitten, a beautiful little guy who was black (I've always wanted a black cat), loved to snuggle too. He was pretty irresistible. But in the end I did take them back to the Haven, and it was like a weight had been lifted. Still, I had a great time and missed them when they were gone!

In conclusion, for anyone who's heard me talk about what I do for a living, yes...I am a cat lady (with two cats - the third disappeared last year) librarian who lives alone. But I'm okay with that. :)