Bastet, on the couch.
My parent’s cat, Bastet, had four kittens two weeks ago. She was following me around and acting strange, so I put some clean towels in a laundry basket. All of a sudden, her water broke and I popped her into the laundry basket and put it on my bed, which isn’t really a bed but a yoga mat on a wooden platform (I have scoliosis, and I don’t like to exacerbate it by sleeping on soft things. I put some nitrile exam gloves on and helped her with the birth. She didn’t need help really, the babies just popped out one after another, each in a little sac. She licked them until the sac was gone. All four kittens are black. Three of them have white facial markings and one is all black. They are super cute. Yesterday, I was sitting on the couch and she brought all her kittens up onto the couch. I’m really glad that she’s figured out how to carry them correctly, because last time she had a litter, she would pick them up by putting her mouth around the entire head of the kitten. Now, she grabs them by the neck like mother cats normally do.
The kittens have all opened their eyes. One kitten had its left eye stuck closed, so I wiped it with a wet washcloth and it opened. Bastet had the same problem when she was a baby. She was living in a cage with a pet rat and the rat would clean the gunk from her eyes so they could open. It was super cute how well they got along.
Bastet, feeding her kittens
On another note: I don’t think that people are supposed to ride motorized vehicles on the Ohlone Greenway. It’s for bicycles and pedestrians. It can be kind of scary when I’m on the path and someone comes hurtling towards me at 35 miles an hour on their electric scooter. Those are supposed to be ridden in the street. It really bothers me but there’s not anything I can do about it. Perhaps it’s time to put up a some signs along the Greenway reminding people that motorized scooters don’t belong on it. I looked it up It turns out it’s possibly legal in Berkeley to have a motorized scooter on the Greenway, but it’s definitely not in Albany. State law permits the operation of motorized scooters on bicycle paths, trails, or bikeways, provided the speed does not exceed 15 mph. Thing is, they’re usually going way faster than 15 mph.