7-3-14

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Throw Back Thursday: Hydrox.

Posting about Stompers two weeks ago reminded me of The Cookies. The same neighbor who brought us Stompers also (back in 2009) knocked on our door. She had a box of teeny kittens. ADORABLE kittens. They were about three weeks old, and their mother had just been hit by a car. And they were ADORABLE. Did I mention adorable? Just a little bit adorable.

Four matching meezers, and one black and white tuxie. We named them after cookies, and the black and white tuxie was named Hydrox.

His face just absolutely killed me dead.

It wasn’t long before Hydrox far outweighed his smaller siblings.

He looks like a Precious Moments doll here, doesn’t he?

Eyes starting to change color.

Hydrox and his siblings.

See those big ol’ paws? When I had to take one of his sisters to the vet, I took Hydrox along as a travel buddy, and I made the vet hold him and see how much heavier he was.

Hydrox, Orange, Keebler, and Pink. Blue must have been off doing something important. (Orange, Pink, and Blue were nicknames. The meezer Cookies will have to wait for a future TBT post, because this one’s all about Hydrox.)

Hydrox’s nicknames were Brick (and occasionally Brick Brickman, which of course was his news anchor name) and Hydro X, which was his superhero name.

Here’s a wee baby Hydrox in video:

YouTube link.

And my favorite Hydrox story, originally posted on December 17, 2009:

Fred processed 13 chickens on Sunday and I decided to can them. Of course, before I can can the meat, I have to cook it and then debone the chicken, and I prefer to cook the meat by boiling them, and 13 chickens is a lot to boil, so I spent all day yesterday boiling two chickens at a time in the kitchen. It took about two hours for each set of chickens (one in my huge pot, one in the dutch oven) to be done, so I’d take them out of the boiling water, put them in a bowl, and set the bowl in the fridge to cool so I could eventually debone them. Today, I’ll doing the actual canning.

Am I completely fascinating you, or what?

So mid-afternoon, I was standing in the kitchen, about to fish a chicken out of one of the pots, and Hydrox came lumbering in. The kittens like to come into the kitchen when I’m in there to howl at me because MY GOD THEY ARE ALWAYS STARVING WHY MUST I STARVE THEM TO DEATH? I circumvent the howling most mornings by giving them a bowl of chicken broth, and it generally takes them all day to finish off half a pint of chicken broth. They come in, start to howl, get sidetracked by the bowl of broth, and by the time they think to howl again, I’m out of the kitchen and there’s no one to howl at.

(This is my own homemade and canned chicken broth – it is literally water that a chicken has been boiled in, no salt added, no veggies added, just chickeny-tasting water. Except for Miz Poo, every cat in the house enjoys a slurp or two as the day goes on.)

Anyway, Hydrox came in to see if howling at me would net him any kind of food, and as he walked toward me, already howling, I fished the chicken out of the pot with two big serving spoons, and then I lost my grip on the chicken, and that chicken landed on the floor.

Hydrox stopped and stared, and I swear to you, I have never before seen a kitten’s face light up like that. It was as though every dream he’d ever had was suddenly coming true, and his stubby little legs were a BLUR as he tried his hardest to get to that chicken before I could grab it.

Luckily, I was faster than he was, but he was still kind of lucky because a few small pieces of chicken fell off as I lifted the carcass off the floor, and I let him have them.

And if you don’t think he spent the rest of the day following me around hoping that another chicken would magically fall from the sky, you know nothin’ about nothin’.

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Grant, long and skinny. He and Marshall are definitely going through their lanky stage.

Gilbert, atop the pagoda.

I feel like I’ve taken a lot of pictures of Gilbert that look like this one. He has that look on his face a lot.

Keepin’ the claws sharp.

Grant and Gilbert. Gilbert’s toes, up in the air, are killing me dead.

“I KEEL YOU.”

Open Mouth of Outrage.

“Come back here, I need to BITE YOU.”

::CHOMP::

LOVE the pink toes. LOVE. THEM.

Silly, sweet boys. (Blaster on the left, and Grant.)

Love the spray of whiskers.

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When I was cutting and pasting old entries earlier this week, I read (to my amusement) the following sentence:

(We don’t let Newt wander freely through the house, because being inside freaks him out and he’ll sit at the door to the outside and howl to go out. He’s not an indoor cat at ALL.)

What a difference seven years makes.

Newt, totally freaked out.

Yep. He doesn’t like being inside at ALL.

The posts I was cutting and pasting (and publishing) were the last of the posts about Stinkerbelle (then Maryanne) and her siblings. You can see their page here, or read the posts about them beginning here. (This one’s a female, and the most skittish of the bunch. is what I said under the first picture of Stinkerbelle. Oh, dear sweet clueless Robyn v.2007. You have NO IDEA what you’re in for.)

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Previously
2013: “Toe-dor!”
2012: “Who, me? Sitting here to knock the little brat off the steps if he tries to come up? I’d NEVER!”
2011: No entry.
2010: No entry.
2009: No entry.
2008: Guess what sometimes happens when kittens ride in a car for the first time, and they are very scared?
2007: “You may NOT touch the belleh!”
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.

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