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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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?