If there is a God who loves his Creation, why does He let newborn kittens die? Why doesn't He just give their mothers enough milk to feed them?
I had a funeral for Number Two yesterday. It was very sad and made me not want to do much else. I was happy that some people came to see; Seth, Faithe, Mom, and Dad.
My family is helping me now. We went to the store yesterday and bought milk and baby bottles for the kittens. We gave them a bigger box to live in and put a fan nearby to cool it down.
I am feeding Fur Factory's kittens now whenever I wake up in the night.
I want them to be healthy kittens. I want them to frolic and play. While I tried to save the other two I envisioned what kind of life they would have being my pets and how happy I would be to have them. I want these kittens to be somebody's pets and if nobody else will take them then I will keep them. I doubt I will be able to move into any nice apartments with seven cats, but these kitten's lives are more important than my choice of domicile. On the other hand, if I can save them I might just find it too difficult to part with them.
Oh, why can't I just find some fulfilling human companionship so that I don't rely on fuzzy animals for unconditional love?
Okay so it is 4:20 AM and I just fed the kittens. I am going back to bed soon.
Thanks to all two people who read this blog!
Edit: Soon after I wrote this blog, I found Number Five catatonic. I tried to save her but nothing worked; see below for more details. Numbers One, Three, and Six are still hanging in there, but Number One isn't looking so goood. I hope we don't have another funeral tomorrow.
Here is my video of my cat Fur Factory giving birth
So here is the video of Fur Factory giving birth to her kittens. It took me three days to put together. Unfortunately I had to cut out a lot of stuff. I also have a nearly two hour version of the video but I am not posting that on Myspace!
Fur Factory gave birth in the wee hours of Sunday, June 29, 2008. Earlier on Saturday afternoon and late Saturday night, she lied in bed with me which is not too common for her to do since she usually sleeps outside my room. I felt the kittens moving around in her belly. Every time a big shift happened, she would get up and lay back down, facing the other way.
Without me having to prompt her, she got out of my bed and climbed into the box at the foot of my bed which I put there specifically because I hoped she would have her kittens there. It was a spot she liked to lie in, between my bed and my chair, where she couldn't be seen very easily. I went to my computer and then she came out of the box and miawed at me urgently. She went back into the box and when I came over she was panting and convulsing, so I got the camera.
You can see at the beginning of the video she is licking my hand. That is because she was just chewing on it, I guess she was conscious enough to assure me she wouldn't hurt me. Then all of this birthing stuff happened.
In between shots I whetted my hand and let her lick water off it. Then at one point I let her drink from a spray bottle, which she appreciated greatly.
All four other cats of mine took a look in to see what was happening. The male cats ran away instantly. Furball hung out by the window most of the time but you don't see her in the video obviously.
Fur Factory had four kits in about an hour, then the fifth one about an hour after that; and then the sixth one about three or four hours after that!
Since it was all over, one of the kittens already died! I had a funeral for her yesterday, but no one else was around to help so I did it all alone. She was number four, the fourth being born in the video, the one that sort of lies there and doesn't make much noise.
Another one seems to be sick now. She still makes noise occasionally but she is limp and doesn't seem to be suckling much from her mother so I tried some cow's milk on her and she drank it. This one is number two, the second one in the video, the one that cries loudly when she is born. I will keep trying to nurse her.
The other ones all seem to be suckling pretty well and they aren't limp and they make a whole lot more noise than that one. So hopefully they will not have any problems.
More details to come!
Edit: Number two died today. See below. It is very sad, but I hope that the loss of their two sisters means the other four have a better chance of surviving. I will bury number two soon, and see if anybody will help me with it today.
(Update) Another one of Fur Factory’s kittens died today
Day 5 (July 3, Thursday) - Number Five died today. In the early hours of the morning, soon after I fed them and wrote about it, I noticed she wasn't moving much. I took her downstairs to Mom. There was nothing we could do for her.
Another day, another funeral. Three kittens in three days. The side yard is turning into a kitten graveyard.
Number Five was a mostly white calico with a black and orange head and a black and orange back. She had two orange spots on her neck like mirror images of each other. She looked like Patches's cat Heather. If there was one kitten in this litter whose father was Azrael, it was probably this one.
It is a great loss. I imagined raising her and feeding her and loving her, but now that will never happen.
Faithe and Mom and I have been feeding the three that are left. We tried letting Patches nurse them but she is not taking them. They got moved around the house today, but now they are back in my room. Number Three and Number Six look a lot better since yesterday and Fur Factory is feeding them. Number One doesn't look so good. I will keep feeding him but I don't want to be too optimistic about his chances.
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Day 4 (July 2, Wednesday) - The kitten born second to Fur Factory, Number Two, died today. She appeared to be too weak to milk her mother. She wasn't moving much and was breathing weakly. I tried giving her water and cow's milk, she drank some. I massaged her chest and it seemed to help her breathe. She held on for three or four hours with my assistance. But eventually she stopped drinking and finally, she stopped breathing no matter what I did to help.
I don't know why she died. It's possible Fur Factory sat on her too many times.
Number Two was a tortoiseshell with white fur above her left eye and on her left chin. She also had orange fur on her neck, and orange and white fur on her chest and behind her right leg. She had black paws. Unlike her sister tortoiseshells number four (who died yesterday) and number six (who is still alive), she did not have any extra toes.
I did what I could to save her. I will try to make sure nothing bad happens to her other siblings.
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Day 3 (July 1, Tuesday) - Kitten number four, i.e. the fourth one born, one of the tortoiseshells, died today. She was panting and limp when I found her, I tried to give her water, to no avail. I tried to feed her cow's milk with an oversized syringe, but by that time it was too late. Two and a half days old. Sad, sad, sad. I guess I will have a funeral for her today. I plan to bury her next door to Princess. Fur Factory has five kittens left and they all seem to be fine so far. I hope they will be okay.
Rest in peace, Number Four. You were black sprinkled with orange, with white patches on your belly and chin, and an orange patch on your left eye.
I am about halfway through making the video of Fur Factory's labor.
I have a cat named Fur Factory. She is a cute little black and white cat. I have many videos of her, some of which I plan to post on Myspace. Anyway she got pregnant about two months ago, and today her kittens were born! I don't have a video put together yet, but I recorded the whole birth process! She had six kittens. One black and white, two calico, and three tortoiseshell!
It was a very emotional experience for both of us. For two hours prior to her labor, she cuddled with me in bed and tossed and turned while I massaged her belly gently. I could tell she was just about ready because she was restless and panting and making distressed noises. When she was ready to go, she miawed at me urgently and she went right into the box behind my chair that I had prepared for her and made her acquainted with in the last few weeks. During her labor I gave her my hand to chew on, which she did, but she didn't hurt me.
As I watched the process unfold, what I found most striking about it was the way the kittens went straight for her udders to feed almost as soon as she licked the placenta off them.
The first four were born in about an hour, from about 5 am to about 6 am. Number 5 was born around 7 am. Fur Factory and I both took a rest for about four hours, and when I woke up around 11 am, she was having kitten number 6!
They are beautiful and they will need homes, but for the next two months or so they are all mine!
Fur Factory is doing well, and she is already resting away from her kittens while they are sleeping!
I will have an edited video of their birth created and posted on Myspace soon!
We had a thunder storm Friday night and I got some video of the lightning. One bolt of lightning crashed right in front of the house while I pointed the camera in its direction! You can catch it at 2:45 in this video. The lighting shows up only as a bright flash of white light ; however, the audio is astounding! I got about 9 distinct shots of lighting bolts though and you can see them in my pics!
I am sort of in meltdown mode right now. I don't know what I want to do or where I want to go but I can't stay here. That is, I could stay here, but I still wouldn't know what to do or where I was.
I have been hibernating for practically a year. After Ashley left me I didn't want to do anything I was so sad; I sort of got over her and then I saw her again and it brought back everything like maybe I could hope she might like me again, but then I just became more hopeless. I saw her yesterday in the midst of scouting a new home and she said let's meet next Thursday. I want to see her but I know that our happiness together is forever a thing of the past. And why, I still don't know.
I am always searching for a soul mate but I am always lonely. I am always finding love and then losing it. There are so many things I want to do but I can't find a place for any of them in my real life. I spend all the time playing video games and making wishes that never come true.
I don't know what I wanted to happen but living with my family has made me closer to them. They have problems and they are abusive to each other and to me. But they are the only people in my life now and if I move away from them I won't have any other friends in my real life.
Can I make it in a strange place surrounded by strange people, with barely a lifeline before I need a strange job, working with strange people? Maybe nobody will be able to relate to my physical and emotional problems and they will just be a burden and a source of ire to those who I find around me. Maybe I will be stuck back in Alliance no matter where I try to escape to.
I wanted to move to Kent because I know the land, I lived there for 13 years. I wanted to move back to Grafton where I spent the first 12 years of my life. I thought I might even like to live in Brady Lake, where my dad's family grew up. All of my thoughts have been about making connections to something in my past but practically nobody and no thing from my personal past really remains in any of those places. The people in my life are all dispersed, except in Alliance.
I wanted to write but I haven't written anything, except this blog. I am grateful to everyone who reads it. But I have always dreamed of writing novels, I know everybody does, but I learned to write painstakingly, I got a BA in Philosophy to help me write. But all my old writing projects sit in a drawer, untouched for a year. Maybe I will find the time to work on them or maybe I will try to move on to new things.
I wanted to make connections with people from my life. I found some of them online, not many comparatively but some and I am grateful to you all. But now I must move on and I will be breaking connections and will there be new ones? I don't know.
I am such a hermit, a loner, a shut-in that I have grown to like my solitude except for the times I deliberately break it to reach out to people. Somehow I thought somebody would find me and reach out to me but it hasn't happened except for a few nods here and there, and Myspace friends but that is not real life. Who am I in real life? Who are my real friends? Where are they? What can I do that will make any difference to anybody in real life?
I found a place in Cuyahoga Falls. I have never lived there before but I guess I like what I have seen. But are there jobs for me there? Are there potential soul mates for me there? I have no clue. I don't want to stumble blindly through the rest of my life, I want what I do to make a difference to the people I already know.
I don't like Alliance but my family is here and I get free food and free rent for the time being. I may not have enough money to get me somewhere else where I would be happy. Maybe I should just look for a job and save up more money. But the soul-crushing loneliness that I feel around here seems to be interminable. I don't want to die in this place.
I hate driving a car to get to places. But it seems like I am destined to drive around in cars no matter how expensive gasoline is. I might need a car to get a job. But buying a car might just wipe me out financially, and then where would I be, especially if the car was wrecked.
Ashley asked me to make friends with her on Myspace again. That made me feel like she wanted to be in touch with me. But she never logs in to myspace, so why did she bother to ask? It made me feel like she still wanted me for something and like I shouldn't give up on her. So why doesn't she talk to me?
Maybe we will meet next Thursday like we said we would yesterday. That might make me happy, but will probably also provoke me to cry about her again.
In the meantime I must decide what to do with my life, but I don't know what to do. I would like to find some cool people and be involved in doing cool things with them. If you know somehow that I can do that before my money runs out, please help me.
Between April 1 and April 12, my family and friends worked together on my mom's and dad's house. It was an extravaganza of cooperation and love! :)
Here I have intermixed three different days of work activities.
Featured in this video are Maggie, Krysti, Mom, Dad, Caleb, Seth, Becky, Tyler, Faithe, and me, and others whose names I forget. D'oh!
Special thanks go out to Cody and Rex, the only non-family members who volunteered their time and effort for us, helping to remove wallpaper. That was a dangerous job, as you can see in the video. They got dinner for it, but they deserve more.
The background music dates from 1993 and is titled "Together Always."
The Summer isn't over yet, and there is still a lot of work to do, so maybe there will be a sequel video!
Almost two months ago, my nephew Tyler and I took Maybeline ("Maybe") the dog for a walk around our neighborhood and we took turns with the camcorder. We recorded some of the abandoned houses and other desolation that comprises the blasted landscape of our ruined city. This is Alliance, Ohio. Like many other notable and not so notable cities in the US, it is just waiting for a nuclear war so that every other place looks just like it. The almost perpetual cloud cover only reinforces the city's barren atmosphere. Soak it up, your town may soon look like this too.
Oh and for a bit of irony the music is titled "The Color of the Summer Sky."
On a positive note, today was actually sunny for a change, so I went for a bike ride!
Three days ago, on Tuesday, Faithe came home and found one of Patches' six kittens dead on her mother's bed. Evidently she puked and then died, possibly of suffocation. We were all very heartbroken about it, especially Faithe.
Princess was a cute little white and orange kitten with an orange spot in the middle of her back, much like Azrael, who is mostly orange with a white spot on his back. Is he the kittens' father? Maybe, maybe not.
So I made this video. I made it kind of quickly so there are probably other clips of Princess I could have used. I will be making another kittens video soonish so I am sure you will see Princess there.
Faithe asked me to make this video. And she liked it, and I am glad.
Check out my pics too, I have Princess and her sister Heather there so far, the other kittens will be coming. I couldn't figure out how to add that pic of Princess to this blog unfortunately.
Scott Ritter’s Speech at KSU May 4 Commemoration, Sunday, May 4 2008, now with sound!
I finally got it working, with sound! And this time it's all in one piece too! Here is the video I recorded of Scott Ritter speaking on May 4, 2008, 10 days ago.
I do not know what the problem was, but I must have uploaded this video like 10,000 times since this Sunday and it never had sound! Ugh! :(
