Settling In

So, I've been back at work for three full weeks, now, and I must say, I am SO glad that it's the long weekend! Usually it's the working-with-kids part that is the busiest part of my job, but orientation was this last week, and I gotta tell ya, I'm absolutely exhausted!

I think--in addition to getting used to being busy again--part of the exhaustion comes from still trying to do extracurricular things on a summer schedule. And it's cooled off quite a bit with a few rainy days that just make anyone feel blah after such a wonderfully hot August. And then there's my new visitor...

C&L moved back home to Nova Scotia a few weeks ago, and my mom agreed to take their cat--Diesel--because he could not go east. However, my mom is also moving--from Calgary to a small town close to here--and it's a bit chaotic at her place as she packs and ties up loose ends. There would be no way he'd get the attention he needs while she's focusing on moving. And to ship him down to Calgary only to have him come back up again? It made more sense to just keep him at my place until she was settled in her new house, and then I would take him down.

So I picked him up on Monday. And having a 3rd cat hasn't made my house crazy or anything like that, but it's a change in routine, and definitely a change in the normal activity level of this little household.

As you can see from the pics, he spent most of the first couple days hiding out in my bedroom. A lot of hissing ensued those two days if any one of my cats made eye contact with another. They hissed at him, he hissed at them, my two hissed at each other (which I still can't figure out)... all of them just had a wee bit of sass and attitude. Diesel even had the nerve to "do the leg thing" for attention, and then as I walked away, he attacked my feet!

But now that it's Friday, the hissing has gone down, and he seems to be settling in quite nicely. He enjoys sleeping with me, I think, as he is often on my bed when I wake up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, and he's still there when I wake up in the morning. He sits on the end of the bed and guards it (or me), I think. The girls--Akira especially--are very put out by this. They have not cuddled on my bed all week. Akira came up last night while I was reading, but then Diesel hopped up, and that was it. She hissed and left. ...They'll get over it.

See? He made it out of the bedroom!

One thing that's been interesting to see (and I wonder how long it will last), is that Diesel's eating habits have changed. With my girls, I can fill their bowls, and it will last a couple days as they eat through it. Diesel has always been the kind of cat that eats everything all at once, no matter how much or how often you feed him. So he was on a food schedule. And I was prepared to deal with that and force my girls to get onto a schedule, too. However, since he spent the first two days hiding in my room, he only ate in little bits whenever he could sneak into the kitchen unnoticed. So I wonder if he's realized that he won't starve if he leaves some food behind in the bowl, because after four full days, he still eats the way my girls do. Hopefully it will last!

In the mean time, I think he's enjoying it here, and I'm enjoying him!