Cats and building bookcases

So, again a long time since last post, and I’m still not going to post new drawings.

It seems I have promised to take a new cat. Old one who lost her human servants recently, one died and the other one had to move from their house to an old folk’s home, and house is going to get sold (and right now I don’t even know whether we are talking about a male or a female cat…) and whose temporary caretakers can’t keep her (she has spend several weeks mostly alone in that house, somebody goes there to feed her and change the litter once a day but otherwise she’s alone, but everybody in the family has some reason why they can’t adopt her, allergies and so on), so it’s either I try or the final vet trip. Try being the word because if Pörri (the one female I have now) will not get along with the new arrival it’s the new one who will have to leave. I have done this a couple of times before, and sometimes it works with no problems, sometimes there will be a long cold war period which you should not allow to get hot so you’ll need to be present and keeping an eye on both sides for weeks, or months. And sometimes it just doesn’t work, which happened once.

If it works, the cat is already well over 10 years old so there is a good chance she will not have all that many healthy years left. And since my vet budget is very limited and she is several years older than Pörri if she gets sick it will probably also mean that last vet trip for her, and no attempts to treat her, just euthanasia. I’ll rather save the money for the younger cat’s treatments than use a lot of money on the older cat and then have none for the younger if she suddenly gets ill.

I’m conflicted with this. Who knows, it might be best if the old cat was just taken to the vet now, no new extra stress. On the other hand I’ve been told that she is pretty laid back and, at least right now, completely healthy individual, so there is the possibility she will be able to have several good years with me. This is one of those situations where there just is no actually good alternative, and not even an alternative which would be clearly the best one.

But, anyway, one thing I got caught with when I agreed to take the cat – I have had a pile of planks and some other things standing in a corner for well over a year. I need some more bookshelves, and the only place left for them is such that I can’t fit any ready made ones well there. So, I’ve been planning to make something myself. I have done this two times before, and they are both workable solutions, one even rather pretty (the other more just workable), so I’m confident I can make a third one, just haven’t gotten around to doing it. Well, once the new cat comes it will be better if there is a minimum of extra sources of stress for both cats for several months, it will be hard enough for both of them without. No hammering or drilling or sawing, or lugging stuff around. Which means that unless I do the new bookcase right now I will keep having that pile of shelves and planks in that corner until sometime next spring, at least.

So I’m doing carpentry now, and not much else for a few more days.

Promise to post pictures. Photos of the cats, and of the bookshelves. And sooner or later also those drawings…