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Linda and I have named the cats. I've named him Bender, after Judd Nelson's character from The Breakfast Club, and Linda's sister Regina gave us the name for the female cat - Linda wanted a name that sounded like a wild animal, so we went with Tonga.

We're still having trouble with Tonga biting power cords. After the horror story someone told Linda at work about a cat biting a power cord and being fatally electrocuted, we're trying to be vigilant about hiding all kitty-accessible power cords. I got some split rubber tubing at Home Depot that works really well, but it's hardly practical to encase every wire in the house in tubing, and downright impossible for the massive tangle of cords behind our TV and computers. We tried a spray product that we bought at the pet store which was proported to keep pets away from whatever you spray it on, but 30 seconds after spraying the power cord on the humidifier, the cats were all congregated around it, intensely curious at to what that smell was. They love it. Freakin' ripoff $10 product. We'll be returning that soon. Someone also suggested tabasco sauce, so we bought a little bottle of "sudden death" brand hot sauce yesterday, but we saw the warning not to use the stuff undiluted and now we're hesitant to subject the kittens to taste bud torture. What will we do?

Another issue is the kittens scratching things. We've got them sequestered in the bedroom and master bath right now, so they haven't had access to the couch or drapes, but we'll eventually be letting them have the run of the house, and we don't want them to destroy everything. One thing we're about to try is Soft Claws. They're rubber claw-sheaths that you glue on. Apparently, the cats aren't supposed to mind wearing them, and they last for 4-6 weeks. I'm not sure whether this will work out, and I'm a bit frightened of being maimed during the application, but we plan to give it a try. Hopefully, it won't be much worse than giving the cats their antibiotics, which brings to mind that cat bathing article.

We also bought the cats this great little waterbowl with continually-flowing water. It looked great in the store. When we opened it up at home, we first found that it had to be plugged in, which meant that we couldn't put it where we wanted. Then, when we set it up, the cats loved it. Great. But I had to fill the thing about 3 times last night. I just figured they were drinking a lot because it was new and interesting. When I woke up, it was nearly empty and the carpet was soaked. Yep, it leaks. I'll be returning that and only getting another if it's battery powered.

Aargh. So much to do. I should start Christmas shopping soon...