DarqByte

I promised I’d post about our new cat, Samantha, so here I am!

Last weekend, Laura and I had to go to Petsmart to get dog food, cat food and cat litter. We were also hoping to find one of those new nail grinder-type things for “cutting” your dog’s & cat’s nails. So we get there and do most of the shopping, with my Mom in tow.

We ended up in the back of the store and they had dogs from the Heaven Can Wait sanctuary there. There was a really, really pretty chocolate lab puppy there that if we had the room, time and money, we may have very well have taken that puppy home. My Mom sure wanted her.

We ended up going to look at the cats since we generally always do that when we’re at Petsmart. My Mom “egged us on” a bit by saying we should go in and meet some of the cats. So we did, and we met this really affectionate fluffy black cat, 8 months old, called Skippie/Skipper (not sure on the name, it was different in different places the cat was mentioned). We met her and she was really affectionate. Purred like crazy, climbed all over you and just wanted to have everything to do with whoever was paying attention to her.

After sitting in there with her for about 10 minutes, I could tell Laura really wanted her. We looked over at my Mom and she gave us this whole “get the cat” look. We decided to go ahead and get the paperwork started on her and went outside to talk to my Mom and think it over.

Long story short, we decided to get her, and also got some more things she’d need, like kitty food, a scratching post, a litter box, etc. Laura was initially a little hesitant about getting her because we already have Dusty and he’s 20 years old. But in the end, we decided it would be alright.

We decided in the car on the way back to our place to call her Samantha. My Mom is the one that came up with it. She just blurted it out and Laura and I suddenly couldn’t think of a better name.

Heaven Can Wait said that she’d been having some eye issues and indeed she was. When I took her to the veterinarian the day after, they confirmed as such as gave us some eye ointment to give to her for it to clear up. I think it has finally, as she’s not winking any more and you can see her eyes fully now. We were initially worried about Dusty picking it up and it becoming a complication, so we sequestered her in the extra bedroom my Mom was staying in until it cleared up.

My Mom commented after the first night she was in that room that she is really, really affectionate. Licks your face, climbs on you, nips at your nose & ears, purrs like crazy, rinse and repeat. The second night she had to keep the cat in the bathroom because she couldn’t sleep that first night.

She get along with Dusty rather quickly. He even seems to have taken enough of a liking to her to not impose his dominance very much. It’s pretty awesome, Laura was worried about how Dusty would take us having another cat.

Pepper & Samantha, on the other hand, is another story. Pepper, just like when she met Dusty, was very interested in her. Wanted to meet the cat, smell her, etc. Samantha was very worried about his bigger, excited dog, naturally, so she still hasn’t really warmed up to her. She’s not as hesitant to walk past her as she initially was, but she’s still wary.

Anyway, I should probably wrap this up so I can give her the attention she’s meowing at me for.

So recently, my Dad and I built a wooden gate for Laura’s & my dog, Pepper. We had this older, plastic & metal gate that is mass-produced. It was kinda old and has some rust on it, and was digging into the paint in the walls where we kept it, so I decided we needed a new one.

This turned out to be a longer and more expensive project than I anticipated. The wood from Lowe’s was more expensive than I thought it was going to be and I had to buy some other things, such as wood filler, stain and sealant for the wood, a saw to cut the wood (which didn’t really end up getting used), some hooks to hang the gate on for when it wasn’t down, etc.

In any case, I started it here at our place and got to a roadblock — I had to to countersunk screws and hadn’t done it before, so I thought I was messing things up. That and I didn’t really have all of the requesite tools necessary for a project like this. A hand saw and a low-level drill. Yay. My design for the gate was also slightly off.

So my Dad and I teamed up 2 weekends ago to start it properly at his place, where he’s got tools galore. We cut the wood pieces down to size and also managed to get the rails, as I’m calling them, constructed. All I had to do was stain and seal them that week here at home. The rails are the side pieces that the gate itself slides into and keeps it in place.

This last weekend, my Dad finished up the gate while I was at work on Friday, so I brought it home and stained and sealed it too. I installed the rails and slid the gate down, and voila! It worked like a charm. I installed the two hooks on to the back of our laundry door, but they couldn’t go in the whole way and were pulled down. Today I removed them from the door and attached them to the wall behind it, which worked. Now the door has the backs of two anchors in it and I had to use wood filler to fix the holes. Doesn’t look quite as nice, but nobody’s going to see it back there. I may also eventually be able to “sculpt” a better-looking fix someday since I’ve got wood filler and all.

I ended up putting rubber pads on the bottom of the gate for it to rest on when slid down to the floor, as well as on the inside of one of the sides which is where the gate hangs from the hooks.

So the gate’s installed! Here are some pictures.

The gate

The rail

The rubber pads