I can sympathize with some of the troubles that other would-be pet adopters have experienced. When we were looking to adopt our kittens last year, I went through a bit of a rigamarole with the adoption process. The animal hospital misunderstood some of my answers on the application, denied us, and neglected to confirm, discuss, or inform us that the adoption was denied. I basically had to do all the follow-up, including calling back three times a day from Tuesday through Friday evening that week until I reached the one and only staff member who would tell me what happened.

In the end, I straightened them out, and the adoption was back on. I understand they want to take precautions to ensure it is a good fit between human and animal, but with so many animals in need of a good loving home, they should take more care to make sure more adoptions happen.

I mention all this because Slate’s Emily Yoffe wrote a piece titled No Pet For You (Seinfeld reference!) about adoption groups taking a hard line stance regarding who is worthy to adopt future pets. Like I said earlier, they should take due care, but they should balance that with getting more adoptions to happen.

In addition to our regular church service, there was also a special (and short) St. Francis-themed evening service. Parishioners brought their pets for blessings. Well, we like our cats, and we figured why not? We weren’t against it. It didn’t seem like a bad idea.

Do you WHO thought it was a bad idea? Our cats. They didn’t particularly enjoy the car ride, being confined, being cold, or being surrounded by large dogs! They were very happy to be home again later on.

I love a good cat centerpiece. It can really bring a room together.

So…….. we had kittens today.

What, really? Yes, it was a bit of a strange fiasco. After seeing the kittens the week earlier, I submitted an adoption application to the animal hospital on Saturday, expecting to hear back on Monday. Monday comes and go, no word. I call them on Tuesday, and I eventually am told that our adoption application was denied. Denied??? Why? No information, but they’ll talk to the person in charge. Okay, tell me tomorrow.

Wednesday, Thursday, and most of Friday, I hear nothing. Finally, I get a call back on Friday, and it turns out that they misunderstood some responses I wrote on the application. I can understand that, but instead of outright denying an application, shouldn’t they pick up the phone and ask? Long story short, we got approved, and we could come check out the kittens on Monday evening (today.)

With all that was going on today, it was busy, but we all made it. One of the three remaining kittens had already been adopted, so these were the two left. We had a small room to play with them, and it was fine. We decided to adopt them, and we had an hour to split up and pick up additional cat supplies from the pet store, clean the basement out, and for the nurses to administer some additional vaccinations. At 7:50 pm, I was back (with cash and a cat carrier), to bring them home. 

Right now, so far so good, but kittens really are like toddlers. Lot of supervision is required. They’re cute, though. No names yet.

Kitten #1

Kitten #2

This was a pretty nice Father’s Day weekend. I purposely asked that we didn’t do any big dinner or gifts this year. I don’t need it, and we should try to save a little money. What I did want was some free time to hit the gym and go cycling this weekend. This past month (since the MS ride) has been a very long month, with little time afforded to me to work out in the evenings, or go riding on the weekends. We didn’t get to do everything on the potential agenda e.g. movie night, but it was close enough. We have Kung Fu Panda sitting in its Netflix mailer, but we’ll have to watch it next week instead.

Saturday morning, I hit the gym, then my wife had to run some errands. While she was out, Lily and I picked Josh, who had spent the past two days/nights hanging with his maternal grandparents. When she got back, we hit the animal hospital to check out some kittens up for adoption. Afterwards, we did some shopping. I made what some might call a Chinese dinner: chicken fried rice with veggies sautéed in a General Tso’s sauce. Next time, I’ll plan ahead, and have some scallions on hand for garnish!

Sunday was proving to be one packed itinerary. I planned to go cycling in the morning, then we would take the kids to the neighborhood pool, lunch at home, then get ready and go to my father-in-law’s *last* church service. I use the word “last” loosely, since he’s retiring from his primary church, but he’s not actually “retiring.” Ah, I’m not going to get into it again. Whatever.

Cycling

6/19/2011 - my Father's Day ride -- 40 miles

Sunday morning, the kids were sleeping, and my wife was working on her speech for later that evening. I got ready in my cycling clothes, made myself some eggs and stuff for a hearty breakfast, and mapped out a decent ride around the area. I used a book that my wife got me for my birthday last year with routes all around NJ. A little after 8 AM, I was out the door.

I rode for a little while heading up to Cranbury, when I realized that my cyclocomputer wasn’t registering any mileage. It still said 0.0! Argh, I said, and stopped to figure out what was wrong. Now, I figured that the magnet and sensor got jostled on the bus ride back from Tuckerton Seaport last month, but I took the bike for a tuneup last week, and specifically told them it may need alignment. It seems they never bothered to check this out. Speaking in the 3rd person, I will say that Joel was annoyed. I messed around with the sensor, and it started registering, so I got back on the road heading up to Cranbury, NJ.

6/19/2011 -- I've racked up 175 miles so far this year

I didn’t quite follow the route listed, as I decided to not go all the way to the “starting point” marked in the route. Instead I thought I’d try to find one of the streets, and just go from there. Unfortunately, using the route and my iPhone’s Google Maps, I still had issues trying to find some of these streets. I eventually found my way, but I wasted a bit too much of my morning trying to find my way back to the route. I was probably better off just going to the specified starting point. As the morning drew on, it got progressively hotter, but I rode decently. In hindsight, I’m very glad I went for the 2nd bottle cage and water bottle, as I finished both on the ride, and then stopped at the Clarksburg General Store to get another large water bottle for a refill. I was only eight miles away from home, which would get me at about 38 miles in total, so I figured that was pretty good for today. I, of course, after using Google Maps, still went the wrong way, and had to backtrack again. I reached home a little after 12 noon. In total? 40 miles for the day, and 175 miles on the 2011 odometer. I think I can hit 200 miles next ride, which I hope is very soon. Since my personal best is just short of 600 miles in 2004, I’d like to beat that this year. I’m 1/3 of the way there now.

Surprise Father’s Day Gifts and Pool Time

The family had a little surprise for me, with cards and gifts, which I appreciated. I can’t wait to try out my new Swiss army knife. We had a short but closing window to hit the pool, so my wife got the kids ready for the pool before I got there, and I showered and got into my swim trunks. We hustled over to the pool, and swam around for the a while. My wife stayed out of the water, enjoying the rays. In too short a time, we had to get back and get ready. I picked up a quick lunch from 7-Eleven for the kids and me, and then we raced to get everyone showered and dressed.

Some of my Father's Day gifts and cards. I like the Star Wars card a lot!

Sunday Evening’s Church Service / My father-in-law’s Retirement Service

Naturally, we out of the house a little later than expected, and still had to get gas for the car. However, we now had less than an hour to get up there and get seats. I won’t mention all the details, but… the good news is that we made it there before 4pm, and the bad news is that I certainly made some enemies on the northbound NJ Turnpike that day. It was hot that day, but the kids were mostly behaved. After all the speeches, we went downstairs to eat and talk. We got out of there around 9pm, but then we had to get a few groceries (and pool shoes for Josh), so we hit ShopRite around 10:15 pm with the whole family. By the time we finally got home and got the kids to bed, we were all very tired.

While I was at the animal hospital with that injured kitten, I saw four of the cutest (yes, I said cutest) kittens. Three males and a very pretty female kitten. We’ve been looking to adopt 1-2 adult cats or kittens, but haven’t found the right match.

Early Saturday, our family went over to the animal hospital to check them out. Unfortunately, the girl kitten had already been adopted this morning! We looked over the three brothers, and here are the two I like. I filled out the application, so I hope to hear from the vet on Monday.

What an eventful and heartbreaking morning. I was working from home on Friday so I could attend a Father’s Day lunch at Luly’s school that day. This morning, I dropped off my daughter to school, and was on my way when I saw something black and oddly shaped on the street near my house. Was it a black sock? I got closer, and saw that it was a black kitten lying down on the street.

I quickly pulled up, and realized it must have been run over, and too hurt to move. I called my wife, told her the situation, and asked her to bring me the old cat carrier and a towel, and some gloves. I had to get this kitten to a vet, and without getting injured in the process. It looked to be a stray, and you never know about rabies. The kitten was hissing a lot. It was wet, so I think it got run over during the night, then got caught in the rain, helpless to do anything about its predicament.

We got it into the carrier, noticed an open wound on its leg and I called our local vet. They couldn’t get me an appointment right away, so they gave me the number of an animal rescue organization in nearby Englishtown. I called there a few times, but only got an answering machine. Now what to do? This kitten was severely injured, and I had no idea where to begin to diagnose and treat it. I said screw it, you can delay a person on the phone, but you can’t do much when they’re right in front of you. I decided to simply drive to the animal hospital, show them the kitten, and make them to force me to turn away.

I got there, told them who I was, and said I would cover expenses. They saw me (us?) within 30 minutes, and our old vet saw the kitten. It had a broken left front leg, possibly dislocated. There was indeed an open wound, and the entire body was infested with lice. The kitten was also dehydrated.

The vet decided to treat her right away, and if I would agree to surrender her to them, they would cover all expenses. Surprised by their generosity, I repeated my offer to cover some of the fees, but the vet said again not to worry about it. The vet said the kitten may lose its leg, but we’ll see.

I hope she makes it.