The Kitten Chronicles, Year Three

 Year One, Tiggs was our little fuzzball growing growing growing.

Year Two, Tiggs turned into a teenager.

Partway through Year Three, Tiggs has turned into a somewhat grouchy, sometimes cuddly cat. Lack of human contact beyond us as his adoptive parents in the first year under COVID conditions probably affected his socialization in ways I couldn't have anticipated, as I've never had an unfriendly cat before.

I also note that I did what so many parents do, which is to take lots of pictures early and then slack off as they get older.

I recorded some of our nicknames for him. We've had a ton of fun with this.

  • Mr. Stripey Pants (I think this was his very first nickname)
  • The Tiggmeister
  • Little Man
  • Buddy Boy
  • The 6-inch Tsunami
  • The 8-inch Avalanche
  • The 10-inch Tornado (he kept growing)
  • Poophead (most frequent, if we were logging usage)
  • Tiggalator
  • Mr. Tiggs
  • Butthole (catbox reference)
  • Master Blaster, Master Bottom Blaster (another catbox-cleaning refernece)
  • Meow Mix
  • Cute Boots
  • Boo Cat (associated with a particular leaping movement on hind legs, front paws outstretched like a Scooby-Doo ghost)
  • The Stripiest
  • The Paunchy Predator
  • Catnip Evermean
  • Fur Face
  • Killer Kitten with Murder Mittens (coined during our move from Seattle to Olympia)
  • Kitty Boy
  • Pounce and Bounce
  • Mr. Investigator
  • The Merino Muncher (because he chews holes in my clothes like a giant Mothra)
  • Floor Shark
  • Ankle Shark
  • Paunchy Boy
  • Striperino
  • Striperoneous
  • Paunchus
  • Stripeness Everpoop
  • Poop Noggin (classing up Poophead a bit)

For more on the reference to a broken hand, a post on my broken wrist. 

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The Kitten Chronicles, Year Two

Continuing with my capture of The Cuteness That Is Tiggs, Year 2. Year 1 gave you the first dose of kitty cuteness.

I managed not to flag the first tweet of Year 2 correctly but I'm capturing it correctly here. "Year Two" definition, by the way, is based on the Tiggs Year (TY), which begins on July 13 of each year and ends on July 12 of the next year.

We have a long, long list of nicknames he has acquired along the way: Tiggalicious, the Tiggmeister, Mr. Stripey Pants, the Tiggalator, Hall Monitor (when he braces himself to pounce in the hall), and many, many more. The latest is Quick Paw McClaw, or Quick Claw McPaw. Both seem to work. 

That's our sweet Kitters Boy! 

 

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The Kitten Chronicles, Year One

When we brought the little fuzzball home I naturally tweeted out a pic of our newest family member. And then another. And then another.

And the next day.

And a couple of days later.

Thus the Kitten Chronicles were born: a thread of tweets with pictures and stories about the fuzzball who became Tiggs short for Tigger in about 3 days.

Along the way a dropped phone and some backup file kerfuffles meant I lost the original images. And now Twitter appears to be in its death throes thanks to a spoiled, pouty billionaire who bought it and proceeded to drive it into a ditch, so my sole source of kitty photo memories could disappear.

Not if I can help it! I'm grabbing screen captures and building blog posts to chronicle the chronicles. I'll embed the tweets but those could vanish so I'm also saving those screen grabs in case I have to swap them in later. Herewith, the first year with the adoptee from the King County Animal Shelter who has become such a big part of our lives.

The Tigger YouTube video I shared in that tweet
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Counting up the Years

The days are long and the years are short, someone advised me when I was a young mother. They were right; those years flew by! And not just the years of hands-on mothering—all of them seem to be accelerating. I'm hitting a round number this year and thinking about what I might do to mark it in some way.

Photograph of a white coffee cup with a teal upright bicycle on it and the words "Life is a beautiful ride", sitting on a wooden tabletop with sunlight falling on it from the front so its shadow stretches out behind it on the table. Photograph (c) Barb Chamberlain.

A fun idea that got some discussion in an online community I'm in: Whatever age you turn this year, take that number and think of things you can do up to that count. Not all things that involve spending money either—things that might involve time or attention or effort or friends and loved ones. These can become part of your celebration of your birthdayweekmonth (which is what we call it at our house). You might have to start before if you want to accomplish a certain total by that date but this isn't a competition.

I'll get the ball rolling with some of my ideas and some from my younger sister, who more than rose to the challenge when I asked for her ideas. Some of my ideas definitely draw on things I've picked up reading the book and then the ongoing newsletter The Art of Noticing, by Rob Walker.

If you're turning 60 this year, for example, you could write in your journal, draw or paint if that's your talent, or otherwise record:

  • 60 people who matter to you or made a difference in your life
  • 60 of your favorite things/things you appreciate or are grateful for (early mornings enjoying the view before the world gets moving, the color peacock blue, the foam on top of a latte, chevron wooden floors in old houses, old couples holding hands, a really good hair and outfit day, warm and fuzzy sox, smell of cut grass, home-cooked meal I didn't have to make or clean up after, hot coffee in the morning, Aaron Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man and Vivaldi's Four Seasons)
  • 60 fabulous words (scrumptious, poppycock, kerfuffle, facetious, and of course fabulous itself)
  • 60 places you'd like to go and/or have already been (map with pins—one color for "been there" and another for "going there")
  • 60 things you like/enjoy about yourself/your life
  • 60 holidays you invent with associated food, symbolism, and celebratory activities people would engage in on those special days
  • 60 favorite moments (whether you've had them yet or not!)

    Things you could do, whether it's a treat you give yourself, a hobby or challenge, or an extension of yourself for others:

    • Take 60 different walks/hikes/bike rides (going the opposite way around a loop counts)
    • Notice 60 different things over a week or two of your regular daily walk/bike ride
    • Find 60 treasures (rocks, driftwood, shells, beach glass, perfect pinecone, seed pods)
    • Find 60 instances of a particular "something" while on a walk, ride, or transit trip—like occurrences of the color yellow, traffic signs, blooming shrubs or trees, houses of a particular color or configuration
    • Leave 60 "somethings" for people to find—could be poems you write, rocks you paint, books in a Little Free Library, chalk messages on a path, dollar bills tucked into library books (or your own pockets!), arrangements of found objects, little game tokens (I keep finding glass game markers in Squaxin Park when I go for my walks and I've been leaving one of my painted rocks in the same locations to create a kind of silent dialogue with whoever's leaving those)
    • Try 60 new recipes or taste 60 new foods/dishes/sauces/seasonings
    • Pay 60 compliments
    • Laugh out loud 60 times in 60 days (cat videos count but can't be the dominant source)
    • Do 60 squats every day (not all in a row and not all strenuous/deep)
    • Start and end your day with 6 deep breaths while lying in bed—one for each decade
    • Give yourself a hashmark every time you straighten your posture or pull your head back so it isn't jutting far forward from your spine; work on reducing the # of days it takes to reach 60 (one idea is to to use doorways as a trigger; every time you go through one, think of entering the room standing or sitting a bit taller)
    • Go for a 60-minute walk, run, or bike ride (or miles instead of minutes, if that's what turns your cranks)
    • Get on the bus or light rail, ride 60 stops, get off and explore wherever that leaves you
    • Get 60 flowers and put them all around the house
    • Do 60 Sun Salutations (oof—haven't been practicing)
    • Read 60 books, poems, essays, or authors (over the course of some time frame—point is to make space for reading but I read more than this every year anyway)
    • Spend 60 minutes in a nice, hot bath (aw, do I have to get out after 60? Can I make a down payment on future birthdays?)
    • Sit out in the back yard or some other peaceful space where you won't be interrupted for at least 60 minutes listening to birds, relaxing, NOT thinking about the unfinished gardening chores
    • Get a 60-minute massage
    • Meditate for 60 minutes
    • Watch 60 waves come into an ocean shore
    • Hug someone for 60 seconds (most hugs last an average of 3 seconds so this will feel really long)
    • Learn 60 oddball facts about some topic or topics (did you know wombats produce square poop?)
    • Take 60 pictures of the same thing, trying to make it different each time whether that's through angles, lighting, or taking the pictures over a series of days
    • Knit, crochet, or quilt 60 squares to be made into blankets for people who need them
    More ideas please! What would you do? Is it something you could do now or something you'll work up to? (Notice the absence of 60 push-ups on the list above....)


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