I now have one three-month-old, fairly passive little boy, who for the moment is still named Colby because I haven't come up with a better name yet, and one four-month-old, kooky hyperactive little girl named Birdie (officially named Spree by the shelter, but I just decided this morning to call her Birdie because she makes this funny chirping sound all the time 
).So OK, barf. About a minute from my apartment last night on the way back from the shelter, poor Colby either got so scared of being in a car or so carsick that he barfed all over the inside floor of the cat carrier, getting it on both himself and Birdie in the process.
That stuff... smelled FOUL. Fortunately, none of it got on my car seat, so my car is unscathed after airing it out. My laundry room, on the other hand, got barf tracked all over the floor and the walls (and washer and dryer to some extent) before I could manage to clean the two of them off. That took me a while, longer because the smell made me gag. The carrier was a loss; I couldn't even bring myself to try and clean it, and ended up throwing it away along with the four rags I used to clean up the mess. 
Eh... it was only like 20 bucks, anyway. I'll just buy a new one. 
That was Gross Cat Parenting 101, Barf Management Techniques.BTW, even while I'm in there cleaning up the barf, Colby and Birdie keep playing the cutest game of full-contact peek-a-boo around the corner of my washer and dryer, which was FAR too cute for me to be annoyed for long. Colby is a wuss, though. He kept hiding behind me repeatedly.
So the rest of the night was spent driving them nuts with feather-string-stick toy and laser pointer, until they eventually got tired and mellowed out for the night. Went to bed like 2 AM without further incident. Got up this morning and changed their water, plenty of food still left in the food bowls. I go to empty the litterbox, which is this sifting kind with multiple pans so you don't have to scoop it (or so the label advertised). So what happens? Sure enough, right as I'm standing in the kitchen emptying out the gunk, Birdie decides to use the litterbox, probably to teach me Gross Cat Parenting Lesson #2. I KNEW this would happen.
Problem is, neither of them seem to completely know what they're doing yet in that regard - they use the box, but don't always cover their shite properly. So what does she do? In the process of trying to incorrectly cover her mess, she LITERALLY flings shite on my wall. 
She also then tracked it across my floor and rug a bit, naturally, so I spent a while this morning cleaning THAT mess up before I even got to eat breakfast. Here you have Gross Cat Parenting 102, Shite Management Techniques.As compensation for flinging shite, Birdie has now been sitting/walking on/around me while I'm typing, purring REALLY loudly and walking on the keyboard and being generally cute. This has culminated in her sleeping in my lap, still purring (snoring?) like a motorboat. This is going to happen every time, isn't it. The second I get done cleaning up the grossness, they'll do something brain-fryingly cute and make me forget about it.
Tonikaku, profiles:
Colby (or whatever I'll call him)
Sex: Male
Age: About 3 months
Breed: Domestic Shorthair
Color: Striped Orange Tabby
Personality: Fairly laid back for a kitten. Eats a fair amount. Watches moving toys more than he chases them. Purrs really loud. Kind of a wuss at full-contact peek-a-boo, but also likes to ambush his sister from behind for no reason. Likes cramming himself into small spaces - forced me to duct tape off two holes that lead into the cabinet that holds my central heating/cooling. May mature into a lap cat; will sit still for longer periods on my lap while I pet him than his sister. Poor little guy may have a cold at the moment, which he'd have caught from the other cats at the shelter. He keeps sneezing on me.
Birdie/Spree
Sex: Female
Age: About 4 months
Breed: Domestic Shorthair
Color: Solid Orange Tabby w/ Striped Tail & Face
Personality: Typically hyperactive, runs around all the time for no apparent reason; also fairly skittish. Doesn't eat quite as much. Fancies herself a huntress, chases moving toys with a vengeance (including running into walls). Also purrs really loud and makes an odd birdlike chirping noise, sometimes at the same time as purring. Aggressive while playing, also a bit bigger than her brother at the moment due to the age advantage. Overall weird cat - likes to drag herself in circles on the rug while lying on her side, using only her front paws to move; chases her own tail; tries to climb up things she can't properly scale, like my kitchen stool. Very cute, but probably destructive. Will need to maximum catproof my apartment for this one. Still needs to learn proper litterbox etiquette.
Seeing as pictures are worth a thousand words (does that make video worth a million words?
), I'll upload some pics tomorrow when my parents come over with the digital camera. I really need to go out and get my own, but I don't want to spend a ton. Have to do some shopping around. BTW, Birdie and Colby aren't technically littermates, but they were raised together from when they were really little, so they're essentially siblings. The same people gave the shelter two litters of three kittens apiece that had been abandoned and had to be bottle-fed. He's from one and she's from the other.
Hope you bought some really effective cleaners there. 
Pictures, I wants them. Now you can make your very own lolcats, once you buy a camera! 
Didn't realize that was less a "I hate cars" whine than a "I'm gonna puke" whine. 
Can maybe also get another cat carrier while I'm at it. 
As for you visiting, you're gonna do so with what car again? 
I ended up paying like 252 bucks to have them generally examined and get all the meds and stuff for them, so I called the pet shelter and explained this. They said they'll compromise and reimburse me for the cost of what they'd have paid to get the same meds from their vet, but they won't give me the 100 bucks for the emergency fee (had to use an emergency time slot just to get them looked at). That, to me, seems like a large pile of bullshite. I can't afford to wait two days and possibly have my newly adopted cats get seriously sick (and they agreed it would have been a bad idea to do so), but they won't pay for the emergency fee which resulted from my trying to be a responsible pet owner? I certainly won't be recommending this shelter to anyone in the future. 
My dad was also saying how he saw ads lately with digital cameras that are pretty cheap. Maybe there's a good one that's cheap enough not to make me feel guilty for getting it right after having to pick up all the expenses directly related to the kittahs themselves.
