Unfortunately, we were forced to return Xander to our local shelter yesterday.

We tried, we really did. We tried to work around his destructive tendencies, we used the bitter spray stuff as a deterrent, we bought lots of appropriate toys to distract him with. We played constantly with him. He did not lack for attention or affection or interaction.

But he kept attacking Caitlin, and that's just not acceptable. Night before last, he woke her up at 4am by nomming on her left ear until she cried.

It didn't cause a seizure this time, but it could have.

He did it again yesterday morning.

And then he tried to bite through the laptop cord while it was plugged in.


When I got home from work, I brought him back to the shelter, both for his own safety, and our sanity.

I felt really bad about doing it. I cried. When we commit to a pet, we commit for life.

But.

We also have one rule, which is that the pet must get along with Caitlin and not interfere with her care. Each kitten is informed of this rule upon adoption. (yes, we talk to our cats--don't you?)

Marie was. Molly was. Xander was.

Xander couldn't do it. So he went back.

He has a great personality when his teeth aren't bugging him. I'm sure he'll get adopted by someone else and have a wonderful little life.

But it can't be with us. And as we settled down for the evening, and this morning, we are noticing how much less stressed out we are, which rather reinforces that we made the right decision, even if it wasn't what we wanted to do.

*sigh*

So, five things. La.

1. Confessions of a Curator was listed as one of the Top 100 Museum & Curator Blogs. Yay! (We're #27!) I was notified this morning by email. I am, quite frankly, really pleased, since this sort of thing has never happened before.

2. Caitlin has one day of summer school left, then she's on vacation. I'm hoping we'll all go see Harry Potter this weekend.

3. Xander has (thus far) not damaged anything further since the phone cord. However, Marie is now having digestive issues from nomming Xander's food. We're trying to be more vigilant about keeping them separated now.

4. Had a lovely visit from a colleague today, which led to much philosophical thinking about the future of the profession. It's good to stretch myself a little that way now and then, because it's so easy to get caught up in the day-to-day jobbiness of my work.

5. Still plugging away at Chicks Dig Time Lords, but I think that we should make our deadline just fine. *whew* Special Collections 2.0 was apparently pushed back to publication on July 30th instead of June 30th. No, I don't know why. I just saw it on the website. I got to meet our editor for SC2.0 at ALA, and she mentioned that she was very pleased with the book, which is always nice to hear from an editor. :-)

Currently reading: Kushiel's Justice by Jacqueline Carey.
Up next: beats me!

Xander had his first bath tonight, because he decided that it would be really interesting to leap onto the toilet seat to see the swirly water when it was flushing...and MISSED.



Oh, the shame!

He has now wandered off in search of his dignity.

Did I mention that there are cute kittens on the internets?

(please, someone make me some icons out of these!!!)

Or rather, in our house. Meet our new kitten, Xander:

xander

Marie is not terribly pleased, but she is taking it well, with minimal growling and hissing. We're hoping they will be friends in the next few days.

More pics below the cut.( Kitteh! )