Return of the prodigal kitties

Last year I fostered two kittens for a friend.

It's a slightly complicated story: my habitual pet/house-sitter and friend Matthew, upon the death of my cat, tried to convince me to take in a kitten or two from a litter borne by a stray his family had taken in. I wasn't quite ready to re-catify, so I encouraged him to take them. He wasn't able to have pets where he lived, although he was looking for a new place. So I offered to foster them while he continued his house-hunting. Five months later -- after I got to enjoy all the cuteness of kittens and they had crossed over into the destructive teenage phase -- I handed them off to Matthew and they took up residence in his new condo.

This week they're back.

Matthew headed out of town, and I stuck around trying to piece together a syllabus for a new class on human-computer interaction that I start teaching as of January 4th. So we reversed roles and I became his pet-sitter, and the kittens have returned for a week of vacation at Beth's place.

My god.

Okay. They're cute. Don't get me wrong. They are adorable and sweet and after they got past being freaked out and hiding under my bed for two days, they remembered the tremendous joy of racing full speed up and down the steps (preferably underneath the feet of someone trying to go downstairs).

But good lord are they destructive. They're still kittens at heart, only now they are *lots* bigger. And they clearly have very little concept of their own strength. It's actually great to have them here, but I have had to do quite a bit of sweeping up of shattered bits and mopping up of spilled things. On the other hand, the kitty love at unpredictable hours is pretty darn nice.

If they would stand still long enough, I'd take a picture and post it.

And oh yeah, the HCI class is taking shape, and I'm getting pretty darn excited about teaching it. Links when they're ready.