We took a break from kittens this weekend to go see two FREE plays in downtown Cuyahoga Falls: one on Saturday and one on Sunday. They were put on by the Cleveland Shakespeare Theater, which tries to build community by presenting free theater around NE Ohio. We saw them perform Richard III last year, so we were quite happy to go see them again this year.

Saturday we got treated to some play called Hamlet that you may have heard of. It was fairly well done, and the actors playing Hamlet and Ophelia were very strong. Hamlet was moody and delivered his lines with ease. Ophelia was very pretty and innocent-looking at the start of the play, and she did a great job of falling apart as the play progressed.

There were some sound troubles early on (it was the first time the company had performed in this space), but Mer and I are familiar enough with the play to follow it even with just catching parts of the speeches. The male actors generally could be heard, but some of the women were hard to hear (especially Gertrude). They figured the sound issues out by about 1/3 of the way in, so it was all right.

One scene that worked really well was when Hamlet greets Rosnecrantz and Guildenstern (his friends from school). He delivers his lines very naturally, all the while fencing with a servant. This was great for two reasons – Hamlet mentions late in the play that he has been “keeping up with” his fencing, so it was good to see it, and it was impressive to see him so active but still able to deliver his lines. Very nice.

One scene that did not work for me was when Hamlet almost kills his uncle while the uncle is at prayer. In every production I have seen of Hamlet, Hamlet sees the king praying and decides to not kill the king for fear of sending the repentant king to heaven, and so Hamlet walks away (with the irony that the king then proclaims that he is unable to pray). In this production, Hamlet actually pins the king with a dagger to the king’s throat, and then when he decides to wait to kill the king, he cuts the king’s hand and runs off. I applaud the bold vision to try something new, but it did not work for me. First, the text has Hamlet refer to the king in the third person all the time, which is weird when he is face-to-face with the king (you would say “and send you to heaven” instead of “and send him to heaven”). Granted, you can make the argument that Hamlet is mad, but it did not come across as a fit of madness. Also, I think the king would have taken faster and stronger action against Hamlet if he knew that Hamlet was actively trying to kill him. The scene did not make sense to me.

The play was edited to fit into two hours, so probably 25-30 percent was cut from the play. That is fine with me, but I was surprised that the director left in scenes that are almost always cut (the gravedigger joking with a friend, the Mousetrap actors performing a speech just for Hamlet).

On the whole, the play was very good, especially once the sound was sorted out.

On Sunday, I met my friends Matt and Liz at the pavilion, and my friend and colleague Brandon came along a few minutes later. Mer was to meet me when she could (she was seeing Wall-e with some students). We got treated to an excellent production of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Meredith taught that play for the last three years, and I got to guest lecture on the quantum mechanical implications of the play, so we are both pretty familiar with the play. The cast did a very nice job. The play is difficult for actors because the dialogue is snappy and often short, but the actors did well.

I was curious how they were going to handle scene changes because there was no curtain and there were no lights to bring down (it was outside). They handled it by moving small curtains in front of Rosenguild when they need to, and that worked for me.

For the most part (only one exception), the actors in Rosenguild were the same actors as had been in Hamlet. It was much fun seeing Hamlet relaxing on the boat with a fruity drink while “reading” a Maxim magazine. It was also amusing to see Hamlet charge off the stage with a snorkel and water wings when the pirates attack the boat.

Rosenguild is a funny play that is also deep. It raises good questions about post-modernism, religion, fate, and more. Getting to see it (for free) right after seeing Hamlet was a real treat.

Last week, after we had gotten back from the DR, I saw the momma
kitty and two kittens roaming around our bushes. I decided that I
should try to catch the kittens so I could let them have better lives
as domestic kitties instead of wild ones. It proved difficult, but last
Tuesday, I managed to catch one of the kittens, another tiger kitty
that was pretty fierce. We have started calling him Quarto, or Queuey
for short.

I have not blogged any of late because I have spent
most of my free time trying to socialize Queuey. It took a kitty toy to
lure him out from under the dresser, but he did come out on Day 2. By Day 4, I was able to pet him with a minimum of hissing (him hissing, that is – not me), and by now (Day
7), I can pick him up and he purrs and mews. He still hides every time
the door opens (whether we’re coming or going), but he comes right out once I
have sat down.

Queuey and Foley have been good for each other.
They play together a lot, and I thought Foley was being too rough, but
when I took Foley out of the room to give Queuey some time alone, Queuey
cried loudly until Foley was (quickly) returned. Foley has calmed down
quite a bit from his attack-everything moods since Queuey came along –
I suspect he was bored by himself and is better now that he has a
playmate.

We really do not intend to be a FIVE-cat household, so
we hope to give the kittens to a friend. We are seriously considering
giving away both Foley and Queuey since they seem to like each other so
much. It will be hard to give them away (they are SO cute!), but it
will be good for them to stay together.

I have not seen the
other wild kitten since I caught Queuey a week ago. Since then, I have
seem momma kitty with another kitten that I had not seen before, but
the other kitten has disappeared. I hope it is okay.

For your edification, here is a clip of Queuey and Foley playing together.

We all made it here safely. I just finished setting up the six computers we brought down here, including interent connections.

There has been some mild sickness, most likely related to the heat.

This country is beautiful, and the people are very friendly. Our group got to see a lot of the country – we had a seven-hour bus trip across the country to get to Hato Mayor.

The heat has been tough to deal with, but we are doing okay and the students’ attitudes are fantatsic.

We started VBS (Vacation Bible School) today in two Haitian sugar cane villages and at the school here in Hato Mayor. Our small group (teamed with another) had over 200 kids attend! It seems as if everyone had a great time.

More updates later (perhaps much later – I do not know how much interent access I’ll have).

Sorry for delays in Folio updates. Folio is doing very well. His teeth and claws are getting sharper all the time (as evidenced by the scars on my hands). He is drinking milk and kitten formula from saucers, and eats canned cat food one or two times a day. He has refused dry food, even when it has been soaked in milk, but I think that will come when he gets all of his teeth in. He continues to be very playful and is very loud when he wants attention and/or food. He is very very cute!

Here is another Folio original film:

Here are a few clips from a day in the life of Folio (if you have sound on, you’ll hear him too!):

Folio is learning all the time. Meredith called me at work to tell me that Folio finally had a bowel movement. Yay! Sadly, it was on the floor and not in the litter pan. While Mer was on the phone with me and cleaning up the mess, Folio peed on his own. Huzzah! That also was on the floor. Still, progress was made. I asked Meredith to make a bigger litter box out of an old cardboard box, which she managed to do nicely. By the time I got home, Folio had peed in the box. Good kitty! Smart kitty!

We also went to a dual-grad party tonight – a grad party hosted by two different students. These are pretty popular guys, and there were a ton of people there. Mer and I stayed and chatted for two hours, and I ate so much I felt slightly ill for a time. Other than the self-inflicted gluttony, it was a nice time.

We then headed straight to downtown Cuyahoga Falls, to go to the ***free*** Riverfront Irish Festival. We had to park quite a ways away from the festival, and as we were walking there, black clouds rolled in, but we pressed onwards. We wandered the length of the festival (three blocks with two stages), and by the time we turned around, the black clouds had moved on. Whew.

We popped into a popcorn store to see one of my ceili dance students, and we got a festival special – try samples of two kinds of popcorn for free and get a small bag of regular popcorn for free. That was happy. We tried white cheddar for one sample and mint girl scout cookie for another sample. Both were good – I think I liked the cheddar better (it was salty, which hit the spot).

We then went into a tent to hear the group Barleycorn. The consisted of a banjo player, a guitar player, and a keyboard player, and they seemed to be having a good time on stage. They had a good traditional sound, and we heard about five songs when the skies let loose with a huge downpour and lightning for good measure. Barleycorn was wrapping up their set, but most people seemed quite happy to stay in the tent. I looked over the shoulder of a guy who used his web-enabled phone to call up radar, and most of the state of Ohio was covered in rain. As such, Mer and I decided to make the long trek back to the car when the rain slackened. For most of the walk. Happily, when the rain got a little harder, it still stayed shy of a downpour, so we did not get too wet.

The festival looks like much fun. I hope to get there again this weekend (either Saturday or Sunday).

When we got back home, we found that Folio had pooped in his new litter box as well. What a good kitty!

It’s official: Folio is a boy. We took him to the vet’s today, and he appears to be healthy. The vet said Foley should be going to the bathroom by himself and to keep an eye on him, and then proceeded to express Foley’s bladder for us. So we’ll see how that goes.

Foley took a fair amount of food today from the eye dropper, and then, on various people’s advice, I tried giving him some kitten formula in a saucer, which he lapped up after sticking his nose in it (Mer’s earlier attempt with a saucer around noon saw Folio sneezing a lot). Encouraged by this, I tried giving Folio a little canned cat food for his second evening meal, and he ate quite a lot of it, as well as drank some more formula on his own. They grow up so fast!

Folio will attack just about anything he can reach. He weighed in today at 14.5 ounces, and seems to have no problem attacking me, a mere 160+ times his size. Brave kitten!

I went out with Mer and got a small eye dropper and a bottle of whole milk. That seems to have done the trick. The kitty ate 1 tablespoon of milk (bringing his total today to about 3 tablespoons, enough for a six-ounce kitten).

Then, Foley was attacking my hand while I was on my back, and so I took advantage of the situation to rub his tummy, with the (mostly) happy result that he peed all over my stomach. A happy day one so far!

Foley is presenting a mixed bag. On the one hand, he has only had about two ounces of food in the day (the guide suggests that he should have at least four times that), and he won’t go to the bathroom, even with me trying to help him. On the other hand, his eyes are bright and clear, and he explores the room we have him in, so that is good. He likes to play. He is washing himself, but cries a lot. We have a vet appointment for Foley tomorrow afternoon. I’m going to try an eyedropper this evening to see if he will eat more (the vet gave us a small bottle, and I think that might be freaking him out because of the size).
 

Meredith woke me up from a brief nap this evening about 6:00. She apologized and said she could hear a critter in the basement. So, I put on my critter clothes of my jean jacket and a pair of tough gloves, and headed to the basement. There was a cry coming from one corner of the basement, and I isolated it to an old basement window. Years ago, previous owners added a large sun room onto the house, so this window used to go to the outside, but was now under the foundation of the sun room. It took me a few minutes to figure out how to open the window (it could not just open out anymore), and when I gingerly cracked it open, I saw a fuzzy tail and knew I was in for it.

It was a tiny tiger kitten. He was hissing at me to let me know who I was messing with. There was a very very very tiny crack in the area around the window (which had been framed in), and the kitten must have fallen through and could not get back out. I could see daylight through the crack – it turns out there is about a two-inch opening in one corner of the sun room foundation, and a cat must have decided it was a great place to have kittens. I could not see any more kittens, but I could not see everywhere around the foundation.

I fished the kitten out and showed him to Meredith. She immediatly declared him to be a “kitten from heaven” and said we had to keep him. He is probably about four weeks old – his eyes are still blue and he is small, but he can move around on his own and knew enough to hiss at me. He is very cute.

We have decided to let the kitten’s gender (I have not checked yet) decide the name for us. If it is a male, we will name him Meredith’s name, Folio (Foley for short). If it is a girl, we’ll name it my name, Finestra (Finny for short), which is Italian for window. My gut feeling is that Folio is a boy.

My only difficulty now is I feel bad for the mother cat. I checked a few minutes ago, and I heard her calling for her kitten (I grew up with many cats and kittens, so I know the call). I heard at least one kitten reply. I could put Folio back, but his life expectancy would be 5 years instead of 15, and he would be wild. I also have no idea what to do about the other kitten(s). There is no way to get under the sun room, so there is no way to catch them. I don’t really want a colony of feral cats living under my sun room, but I don’t know what to do about it. I feel terrible about separating a kitten from its mother so soon, and I feel terrible that I can’t help the other kittens. I hate no-win situations. I will at least seal up the window crack to keep the other kitten(s) safe, and I’ll leave the foundation crack open until fall or winter and check for tracks before sealing it up.

Here are two pictures of Folio tucked away in a kitty nook where he feels safe.