bossymarmalade | (no subject)

Today we went to the Winter Farmers' Market and bought absolutely no produce. But we DID get a slice of chocolate cake, a few chive and cheddar scones, gingersnaps, a mini apple pie, fresh baked pretzels and some vegan Montreal-style bagels that the lady assured us had been "boiled this morning", and three bottles of cordials to mix with club soda. Which is what we do for soda in our household, especially since I asked my parents for a Soda Stream last birthday (we got mango passionfruit, strawberry, and hibiscus lemon -- we were supposed to get blackcurrant instead of the strawberry, but I grabbed the wrong bottle at the stand, d'oh).

thesurgeon brought us some Grace's kola champagne and Jamaican sorrel syrups when he was up here visiting, so considering that Lori and I have mostly soda in our soda-to-syrup ratios, we're set till like, December, heh.

We also spent all last night mainlining My Cat From Hell with

21freckles . Now that I'm a dog auntie I am obsessed with looking at dogs on the street, and am considering a cat even though the idea of a litter box repulses me. Which brings me to my next thing: Lori, me, our friend Dasha and her fella Tobi all moved into this place together last September and we love it here and wanted it long-term, but circumstances for the landlords have changed and now they'll want to move back in September. Which, ugh, those are shitty circumstances for all involved, so if you've got the time and inclination, please send wishes or prayers out to the universe that they change their minds or that we find a really awesome new place! September's a whiles away, so who knows what can happen between now and then, right?

And finally, I am gonna be using my makeshift recs journal (

missmaggierecs ) as a more all-purpose recs journal now. So not just fic and art, but really anything else I try out in life that I feel like reviewing. Right now, I'm doing makeup!

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gdi everyone needs to visit me because there is so much good STUFF

Good stuff for us to bring you or good stuff for you to share with us? Actually, hell, the answer is probably "both"!!

If you want litterbox management options I am happy to provide them! (If specific parts of dealing with the litterbox make you go ick more than others, I mean.) Some cats you can train to use the toilet, but it depends.

And fingers definitely crossed for the housing situation. I hope that if you do have to move, you find a place that is ten times as perfect.

Lori actually went to the SPCA to look at cats of her own volition, which for my socially anxious sister basically means "We are getting a cat", hee! So I am at the point where litterbox management tips would be HUGELY appreciated. :D

Woohoo!

Okay, the biggest suggestion I have, if you're grossed out at the idea, is an automatic litterbox. You still have to do some cleaning (cleaning out the well that the litter gets raked into), but it keeps you from having to scoop the litterbox frequently, and helps a lot with smell.

Some cats will put up with a covered litterbox, which can help keep the litter from getting tracked everywhere. (Some cats won't put up with it at all, heh. Some cats prefer them.) Try it and see, though. If not, the litter will get tracked; get a dustpan and brush that you can just leave by the litterbox and make "sweep up the bits of litter that got tracked around" part of the routine. (I don't find scooping the litterbox gross, but I hate the feel of litter under my feet!)

It's also a good idea to put a mat underneath the litterbox so that if the cat misses the side of the box, you can just pick up the mat and wash it. If and when there is an accident, wash the area with Nature's Miracle spray; it can help keep the spot from being scented as "good place to pee" for later. (In general, Nature's Miracle is great stuff. The spray is good as a cleaning spray, and you can also add some in the laundry if you need to wash something the cat's peed on.)

If the cat won't tolerate an automatic litterbox, use a clumping cat litter (we use Precious Cat Ultra with a little bit of baking soda added for more odor control, but we have 4 cats; you might not need the baking soda) and get a Litter Locker/Litter Genie/etc type system for putting it in; it's like a diaper pail and isolates odor really well. (And minimizes the amount of "hauling around bags full of used litter" you have to do.)

Practically speaking, for gross-out purposes: nitrile gloves while scooping and breathe through your mouth, not your nose. :)

I found a Litter Locker on sale today for ten bucks and snapped it up, hee! I think having that will help me with the gross-out and tedium factor of scooping, especially since we don't have plastic grocery bags kicking around anymore to use.

We're probably gonna go with a conventional litterbox rather than an automatic -- is there a lot of dust with Precious Cat? I've been reading a ton of reviews of cat litter, from the wheat to the newspaper to corn to pine, and I haven't come to a strong decision yet on what we're gonna try out. But definitely the mat and the Nature's Miracle, we're gonna be getting!

Nope! Precious Cat is pretty much zero-dust, because it's basically just clumping clay. If you add the baking soda for extra odor control, that gets everywhere, but with just one cat, I don't think you'd need it. (We add it because we have four of them, and even scooping twice daily, it's a bit much.)

I feel like, a lot of the time w/cats (at least when I've lived w/them) it's like that old principle: GIGO, garbage in, garbage out, so... at least in theory better food for the cat means less gross, ahem, output. In case that might in theory make litterboxes less gross (it kind of did for my ex, who said that when he'd housesat for ppl w/cats b/f he'd been too grossed out to deal w/the litterbox previously).

Good luck finding a new place!! That really sucks to have to move when you knew you wanted to stay. :(

We are very seriously about to get a cat now, and Lori wants to cook food for it mostly, with only about a quarter of its diet being canned! So hopefully that'll mean that like you say, the output (lol) will be less gross.

Do you have any feeding tips you could share? I'd love to hear them!

We used a lot of grain-free canned -- it tends to be more expensive, but it seemed to be better for them than cheaper brands w/lots of grain-y filler -- but also raw food, like ground-up rabbit/chicken/etc. (they need the bones nutritionally for... calcium? (I think? It's been a long time since I looked up this stuff ^^;;), & some cats are fed raw w/whole pieces -- like, toss down a chicken wing or whatever -- & they eat the bones, but that didn't work for ours; even little things like... ahhh I can't remember what kind of bone-y tidbit, maybe chicken necks or something?! -- one of our kitties got a bone stuck while swallowing for a bit, which was scary ;__; ) I think some people do raw food w/supermarket meat & then just add in bone powder to replace that -- might be a bit cheaper (we ended up ordering raw food from farmers who produce it specially for ppl feeding raw). Tho w/raw, sometimes kitties can be a bit constipated, esp. if they've been fed stuff like grains for a lot of their lives, so we put in stuff like psyllium fiber or slippery elm in their food to try & mitigate that. There's a lot of info on raw feeding here, tho I think as w/anything, there are... differences of opinion among raw feeders regarding some of the details, haha.

This book talks about different models of feeding, including raw food, & is by a vet (who used to work for one of the big junky pet food companies -- I think Purina?), so I felt like it was pretty reliable for a lot of health pointers.

Ahhhhh sorry this is a bit disjointed, am writing this sneakily during work. :) But yay kitty! Good luck! & also once you get the cat, if you want some lolz/a way to help keep kitty destressed/amused/bonding w/you, maybe try clicker training? Our kitties could do things like give us high-fives or jump over an outstretched arm (& we also trained them to give us nose kisses!!!!), & I know ppl who are more dedicated to it than we were could get their cats to do a lot more. :D

The adoption people have recommended that we keep kitty on Wellness brand for her first month here before we transition her to another food, and we managed to find a local butcher who makes dog and cat food, so hurrah! It was getting ground bone in the food that was the main concern in making our own, for sure. We might try her on a chicken neck and wing tip as well, but she's so small,we'll have to see.

Clicker training may indeed happen! It would probably help when it comes time to introduce kitty to our housemates' clicker-trained dog? Maybe?

What I will say about a litter box is you have to gird up and deal with it twice daily or it becomes a sentient being which quickly takes over the house.

This is, of course, why it's Ralph's job to deal with the litter box. ;)

Hah! It will non-negotiably be my job to deal with the litter, but I think I can manage that! I am glad we have no carpets just in case there's an accident, though.

That sounds cool! I will join yr recs comm.

Sounds like a great haul! Good luck with the house hunt.