Sentimental Seadragon

Some Success

I suppose it was to be expected that the cats wouldn't take to the toilet right away.

When the CitiKitty seat came in the mail today, I couldn't wait to try it out. I put it on the toilet seat and filled it with litter. (See here.) I don't have flushable litter yet, but I figured that was fine since none of it would be going in the toilet and anyway, I didn't want to switch litter on them at this point. I probably won't do that for several days at least.

I expected the cats to be a little wary of it, but imagined that when I picked them up and showed them their new litter that they would take to it right away. Needless to say, this didn't happen.

Here is Koji surveying the toilet seat, so clearly he is aware of it. Tako didn't explore as much, but he looked at it when I brought him over. So I knew that they both knew about it and I waited for them to use it.

Shortly after I'd put it in, I heard a sort of meowing/crying from the bathroom. I came to the door to see Tako standing on the toilet, crying out as if to say, "I really don't like this. What did you DO?!" Then when I got closer he jumped off the toilet and ran out of the room.

Then hours passed while they slept.

Finally, they both awoke and headed for a snack, and then looked for the litter. Koji seemed in disbelief. He checked the bathroom and I showed him the litter, but he seemed almost to shake his head. Then he walked back out to the living room to the old spot where we'd kept the litter. No, it wasn't there either. He returned to the bathroom and looked at the toilet with a look of resignation. But that doesn't mean he planned to use it. No, he had in mind another hour or so of walking around, meowing at me, and looking at me with tilted head as if to appeal to my sense of pity. But of course it was too late now. I couldn't bring out their litter box because then I would only be training them that if they want the litter back they just have to wait and ask me a lot.

At one point I took the lid off the old litter box (hidden in the shower) and put it over the toilet. Koji saw the lid and came running, but when he poked his head under and saw the toilet (seriously, it's not like you couldn't see the rest of the toilet all around the lid), he appeared miffed.

Finally, finally, after much standoff, he sniffed around, sighed a big heavy sigh, and hopped up on the toilet. It was only then that I realized how small the opening of the toilet was. His whole body barely fit. I guess that's a good thing because eventually I want his legs up on the toilet seat. But he managed ok (see here).

Afterwards he was so happy that he literally skipped around the apartment. And after a while, he settled down on the bed for a nap and looked very content.

But he hasn't gone back, in spite of the fact that I think he needs to go again.

And Tako is completely holding out. I had actually thought I might be more likely to convince him through gentle talking and placing him on the toilet, but he is really stubborn when it comes to doing his business. Fortunately, from past experience, he tends to wail when he feels forced to pee somewhere that is not a litter box, so I'm hoping to catch him in the act if he tries to go somewhere other than the toilet. But I don't know now... it's been all day and he's been needy (he's on my lap now), but just does not want to use that new litter pan.

J thinks I moved them to the toilet too quickly and is worried about switching them back to a litter box during our Superbowl party. He might be right, but there's no turning back now. I don't want them to think that they just have to wait it out and eventually the litter box will return. But we'll see... my guess is that Tako is going to find a spot somewhere else in the apartment to go. I'm hoping that after that (if it comes to that) the litter pan will seem like a better option.

Raising the Box

Since the cats are not at all thrown off by the litter being in the bathroom, I decided that today I would start raising it up. The website I've been following suggests raising the litter box two inches at a time, but I really didn't think they would be all that confused if I just raised it right up to the level of the toilet. (See today's photo. The cardboard box in front is supposed to be a step stool.)

The cats have no problem using the box at this level, so if I could, I would move onto the next step tomorrow. (At this point I am so convinced this is going to succeed that I am surprised the cats are not already using the toilet.)

However, we decided to splurge on the CitiKitty contraption and it won't be here for a few days. Also, J pointed out that we are having a Superbowl party this weekend and so maybe we should wait until after that before doing anything funky to our toilet. But we'll see. If the CityKitty thing comes really quickly, I might at least start getting the cats used to it even if during the party we put a litter box in the bedroom so the cats have a place to hide and poop in peace.

Toilet Training

I am about to embark on a project whose success is, at best, dubious. I am going to try to toilet train our cats. Seriously.

I'm not just doing this because I think it sounds fun (it doesn't) or that it would be cute (I'm not sure it is), but because I hate cleaning the litter and I hate the smell of amonia in the apartment. We'd recently switched to Yesterday's News litter, which does track a lot less than what we were previously using (Scoop Away). But it doesn't control odor nearly as well, and within a couple of days the inside of my nostrils are burning with the amonia in the air. I can't imagine that's healthy for any of us.

I recently stumbled upong this page describing how to toilet train your cat. She made it sound so easy, and to prove that it really worked, she has pictures. So I'm going to give it a shot too. She even suggests that the final step of removing the litter pan in the toilet be done when you can be home to be sure the cats really take to it, and I'm still at home during the day now, so this seems like the perfect time in our lives to give this a try.

To the extent that the cats will oblige, I will keep you updated with pictures in this photo album). Wish me luck!

Recently

I had two strange (bad) dreams last night. In one, I dreamed that I was at the beach and the water was really warm. I wanted to swim, but I had my dissertation with me in a messenger bag. So I went into a nearby building I was apparently familiar with and decided to leave the bag on a shelf. I thought to myself, who would steal a dissertation? Well, when I went back to get the bag, it was gone. I realized that it probably wasn't that someone wanted the dissertation, but just that they thought the bag might have something of value in it so they took the whole thing. I was really upset about it because although I had a copy of my dissertation on my computer, the copy in the bag had my advisor's comments for revision on it and I knew that she had spent a lot of time and effort making them. I also supposedly had some other unrecoverable notes I had made by hand on paper. So... apparently I am stressed about the dissertation falling apart at the last moment. No big surprise there!

In the other dream, for some reason that I don't remember now, I was in a hotel with a bunch of people and one of them killed J... I won't write out the whole dream because it's one of those that doesn't hold together logically, but the short version is that J wasn't really dead and I could talk to him via instant messenger, while at the same time I had to play along and pretend he was dead. I'm not sure what this dream represents except maybe a weird combination of watching too much 24 and messaging with J online all the time. Ah, hm, come to think of it, maybe it's also because I worked all last night and stayed up really late and I felt guilty about sending J to bed alone because that means that the only time I spend with him then is online the next day while he is at work.

Reading about other people's dreams is the best isn't it? I know you all love it.

Even better is reading about the really small things, like that when I got up this morning I knew before I opened the milk that it would have gone sour by today, and I also realized in that moment that J wouldn't have noticed and would have already put some in his coffee earlier in the morning. (He has a really terrible sense of smell.) Fortunately (for me), I had some coffee ice cream in the freezer, so I put a couple spoonfuls in a mug and microwaved it and then added coffee. It's so good, I don't know why I don't just do that more often.

I suppose I could write about things of more substance, like the ongoing saga of my dissertation, but I really, really don't feel like writing about it. The short version of the story is that I'm working on revisions and, in particular, working on a section that needed more substantial work than just changing the wording and organization. I'm actually headed to Baltimore tomorrow to meet with my advisors again, and I am stressed out about it (hence the weird dreams). But they have been very optimistic and encouraging and consider this work to be relatively small revisions and not a complete overhaul. This helps me remember that this section does not need to end up changing the world - it just needs to be internally consistent and coherent. It's looking like I will defend this dissertation soon, probably within a month is my guess. I really hope so.

I also never wrote about my foray this past weekend to a Philly blogger meetup. I have to confess that I was actually nervous, even after having already gone to meetups in Baltimore. But I guess this was different because a lot of these bloggers already know each other, whereas my first meetup in Baltimore was a first for everyone involved. Anyway, even though I feel like I was nervous and awkward the whole time, I actually had a really good time. And now I've added three new blogs to the links on the right: Sid in the City, Asymptomatic and Tom Kim. There were other new-to-me bloggers there, but of them, these are the people I talked with and whose blogs I actually remember. (There was a list of people and their blogs that was passed around, but I haven't seen it materialize on the web anywhere.)

SNOW!

It's SNOWING!

For real this time!

And it's supposed to be horrible and wintry out tomorrow too! I will definitely be out taking some pictures tomorrow.

But in the meantime, I am very cold. We have electric heat, which as you probably know, is horribly expensive. We are trying not to spend all of J's hard earned money on heat, so instead I'm wearing a lot of layers and a winter hat. I now understand why the Ingalls' wore those ridiculous nightcaps to bed.

Snow-ish

Yay! Snow!

Kinda.

As you can see, we got a little bit of snow today.

But it hardly lasted as snow.

And even while I was out, it changed to rain.

Grizzly Bear, by Eric Berg (1983)

Maybe there will be more snow tomorrow.

Belly Flop

A few months ago, my father scanned all of our old slides and put the photos on CDs for us. I am just going through them now and thought I would post a couple of them for your entertainment.

As I was going through my childhood over the years, I noticed a theme: I don't know how to dive. Or well, I do now, but when I was younger, I was apparently too chicken to really go for it. I just put my arms in the position like I was going to dive, and then belly flopped or just jumped straight into the water.

Enjoy.

(These were taken between 1980 and 1982, when I was 6 to 8 years old).

Shiroi Hana

It's no secret that I love sushi. But you might be surprised to know that I eat it only rarely (in my opinion). So when I do go out for sushi it's a giant treat.

Last night we met up with our friend L at Shiroi Hana, where we've all gone together once before. After a long time deciding the perfect assortment of sushi to order, we eventually settled on pretty much exactly what we had eaten last time.

And because my reputation for taking pictures of food is just about as well established as my love of sushi, before we started eating L and J allowed me to take a few minutes to try out my new closeup filter (okay, not new, it's really J's father's filter - part of the awesome kit I am borrowing).

Feast your eyes.

rock 'n roll (shrimp tempura maki)

takosu (sliced octopus in a light vinegar sauce)

nigiri and lemon slices

yellowtail and scallion maki

SNOW!!!

It's snowing!!!

(Lightly, but still.... SNOW!!!!)

Update five minutes later: Well, hm, it might be over. There were just a few flakes and now nothing. Too bad.

Photoblogging

My photoblogs are active again!

Because I don't want to link those blogs (not anonymous) with this one (semi-anonymous), I've removed the links to the blogs that were in this post. If you missed them, just email and ask!