It's so lonely here without Kate around! I keep waiting for her to come home and then remembering that she's dog/house-sitting at her sister's place all week. So then I just sit here with it slowly getting dark. /emo

I got Hypatia sick. :( :( :( Well, Oliver did, but it was my fault. I should have kept a way stricter quarantine on the kittens. I have plenty of excuses: she really hates being kept out of my room and I can't stand to hear her crying and destroying the carpet outside of it, and the kittens escape all the time, and keeping my door closed constantly drives me kind of batty, and it's hard to disinfect EVERYTHING that they come in contact with, especially since the kitten room is my bedroom so I'm probably covered in kitten germs all the time. But really it's my fault. I've been sick with guilt and worry. I hope Kate doesn't kill me.

Fortunately, though, she's not EXTREMELY sick. I knew what was happening as soon as I heard her start to sneeze and cough, so I took her to the vet right away and got her some medicine. She's just kind of lethargic and not eating much, plus she sounds like she has something in her lungs when she coughs--so basically, like a human would be with a cold. But I think cats with colds are harder to deal with because WE, as humans, know that we have to keep hydrated and fed even if we don't feel like it, but cats don't. (Also, cats can't tell us if they suddenly start feeling worse.) I've been giving her lots of treats because she will eat those, and I fed her some water with one of the kittens' extra medication syringes, just in case she was dehydrated. She hated being force-fed, but she seemed to perk up a little after that.

I'm also giving her lots of extra pettings and love. Apparently you can clear cats' sinuses by putting them in the bathroom while or after showering, so the steam can clear out their breathing. I might try that.

I guess I've learned my lesson about kitten quarantine. Next time, if Kate lets me do it another time, I will be more careful. Maybe have a "kitten smock" that I can wear over my clothes and take off before I go out to pet Hypatia. And put all my shoes and stuff into a plastic bin, so I can just disinfect the bin and not have to worry about each individual shoe. (They live at the bottom of my closet, where the kittens like to rampage around and sneeze on things.)

Ironically, poor Ollie Bear is finally showing signs of improvement. I still have him for another week because he's not 100% better, but he's not the snot-covered kitten he was a couple of weeks ago. Also, he has PASSED RAMONA in weight! Not by much--he's 3 pounds 1 ounce, and she's 2 pounds 15 ounces--BUT STILL. He was like half her size when he got here.

I kind of suspect that part of the reason he's grown bigger than his sister is because he hogs food. Sometimes I'll see him trying to push her out of the way because he wants ALL the foods, so I have to hold him for a minute to let Ramona get her fair share, but I can't watch them all the time. I'll have to make a note of that on his return sheet so his future family can be warned, if they have another cat.

I thought Hypatia had been gaining weight, but the vet weighed her at 8 pounds and some number of ounces I can't remember, which is slightly less than on her last vet visit, so I'm probably just thinking she looks huge because I spend so much time with tinycats. When you're used to picking up a two-pound kitten with one hand, eight pounds feels like a lot of cat, I guess.

I caught Ramona using poop as a toy again today. DELIGHTFUL. Sometimes I think she's protesting that her litter box isn't clean enough. Either that or she's saying I don't give her enough toys, which is CLEARLY UNTRUE.

IN NON-KITTEN NEWS, I went to the annual book sale at the Church of All Saints the other day with my mom. I always have fun hunting for YA books there. They have quite a few in the children's book section, but the rest are randomly mixed in with the adult fiction, either because they don't know they're YA or they just don't care. So it's a treasure hunt. It takes more than one visit to take everything in--I'm going back on Tuesday, when they have the box-and-bag sale. Everything you can fit in a box or bag for $3, I think. I highly recommend it.

Anyway, I found a bunch of Sweet Valley High books with the old-school painted covers, and that made me think of 1bruce1 , the community that recaps everything Sweet Valley. And then, my mom has been reorganizing the basement and found a bunch of my old Katherine Applegate romance novels, which I ***LOVED*** when I was younger. (You may know her as K.A. Applegate.) So I started wondering if anyone had done recaps of those, and I did find these recaps of the first book, which are quite funny. Apparently the author has read EVERY Sweet Valley High book(!).

Still, there's not much out there in terms of Applegate recaps (I know, wide field), so I was thinking I might do some myself. I'm not sure if there's enough interest for a community (Kate could do Animorphs recaps!), but I can always just post them here, and annoy entertain all of you.

(I also found this blog dedicated to CHRISTOPHER PIKE RECAPS, so if anyone needs me for the next six hours...)