Man oh man. So our weekend imploded. None of it is catastrophic levels of explosion or anything, just very unexpected. To start with, I went to unload the dishwasher yesterday morning to find it overflowing with water inside, not drained at all. We’ve had soooo many problems with this dishwasher, which we got in November 2020, that at first we thought the filter had gotten clogged again despite us rinsing every dish that goes in til it shines beforehand. But no. For the second time in less than two years, the internal pump had died. The first time – a month after we got the dishwasher – it was under warranty and we were able to get the part fixed for free. This time, it would’ve cost more than a new dishwasher to get the part and have someone come out to fix everything. And considering that particular dishwasher, which supposedly was a high-end, energy-efficient, super quiet blah blah blah appliance, had been a nightmare since day 1, we decided to just replace it.

So that was our Saturday – picking out, buying, replacing the dishwasher, which led to the discovery that our garbage disposal (which was probably as old as the 1997-house) was also starting to go. Rather than wait until this also broke down, we just went ahead and replaced it at the same time.

All that is enough for one weekend, but it gets better!

So far, fostering cats and kittens has been a mixed experience, especially fostering cats. The kittens have never had any real problems that we couldn’t handle. However, y’all will recall that we had one mother cat get extremely territorial and aggressive after spotting our household cats outside her room. She was semi-feral, so we didn’t put much weight on that. Sunflower didn’t mind our other cats, nor did Lilo, who was a mother cat. But all through this week, we’ve noticed a worrying trend in Panini.

Panini is a great mother who is very attentive to and protective of her babies. They’re all in their own room, but of course there’s a crack under the door, so the cats can sniff each other, plus they can see each other whenever we open the door to go in/out of the foster room. At first, this seemed to be okay. Panini didn’t like seeing the other cats, and she’d back up and sometimes hiss if she saw them. As her babies have started to get more mobile, though, it’s like her strong protective instincts have kicked in. She’s started to become terrified. We started putting a towel at the base of the door to prevent her from seeing the cats under the crack, but even the towel started terrifying her. Twice last night, she began to yowl and run around the room, knocking into walls, just absolutely freaking out. It wasn’t aggressive, just terror, the poor baby.

I had to write back to the animal rescue that I foster for to ask if I could bring the family back in, for Panini’s sake. I don’t want her to hurt herself. And Jason and I have decided that we can’t foster adult cats any longer – it’s too unpredictable, with our seven permanent cats in the house. Kittens are very flexible and curious. They don’t mind the smell of other cats so much. It’ll be much safer and less stressful for all if we stick to this. I will say, though, that I’m going to miss watching the Bistro Babies grow up, though. They’re so adorable and I’m absolutely in love with Schnitzel especially (he reminds me a lot of Hulud). It’s a wrench to give them up. But we’ve gotta do what’s best for Mom.

Keep your fingers crossed that we have no other disasters this weekend. Heh.