yeah, I just cross-posted to LJ, hoping she will see it.

Oh, the poor little things!

You probably already know this, but there is a PR chapter of the Humane Society -- I have no idea if it's close to you, but, if so, they should be able to make sure the kittens are healthy and find somebody to foster them. Even if they're ferals, kittens that wee should be easily able to be tamed and trained and adopted.

Until you get them to the Humane Society, they pretty much just need to be kept warm and safely separate from the dogs; I helped raise a couple of feral kittens, and they did pretty well for on human baby food (I fed mine pureed chicken) mixed with kitten formula (available at pet stores or the vet's).

I had a friend who took in a feral kitten about 8 years ago and he has turned out to be a great pet. She had to bottle feed him and pretty much carried him around with her for the first few weeks.

I agree with JZ. The ones you don't want you should take to a shelter.

Aw, Stephanie -- do check with the Humane Society. Does your garage have any access points a Mama cat can get in and out of? It's also possible that some well-meaning (or not) person dumped the kittens in a box there.

Mother cats can get into some ridiculously unlikely places to stash their kittens, so there's a good chance she'll get back to them. Keep an eye out, but I suspect if you want them to end up homed, you'll need to intervene & get them fostered.

Also, I'm sorry you had to come home to something so upsetting. It's really rough when one of your pets does something like that.

Congrats, Theo!

I'm going to try to get to work by 8 tomorrow. Commence laughter.

Poor Kitties.

Theo, that is great news. I am very excited for you.

I've been thinking lately about my job and how completely unsuited I am for it. Now that I'm settled in a much less stressful living situation, I have to think of an exit strategy for this job.

thanks, all. I only have iPhone access tonight but I'll read allthe posts and respond tomorrow.

Between Gonzalez resigning and the school thing, it's been a great day for me! Especially because I didn't expect either of them -- I went over to the Admissions office to get info on the courses, but they offered them to me on the spot and it turned out the courses were actually starting up this week, and they could give me the paperwork for the courses and a loan application (which I didn't blanch much at, since I've bought houses and new cars for more) and bing bang boom, I'm a matriculated student who needs to buy some books in time for class tomorrow....

I've been thinking about good things (to shove off the awful terror of what I've signed up for and oh god, this is officially my last week at my current job!) and they are : getting caught up again with someone I was friends with from 9-17, and whose family I also grew up with. I stayed up way to late one night last week on the phone with her, and even beyond all the familial catchup, we had some good conversation. We've both changed a whole lot, and yet there's also so much there familiar. Plus, great gossip about some of the people we went to school with. And it's just neat to get to know someone again.

Today was T's first day of school at a a magnet school she got into at the last minute. It's an awesome school. Last night, she came over to show me her backpack full of binders and schedules and new pens and protractors and calculators and erasers and...she was sure to show me each item. It was a reminder that it might just be a few hours a week I tutor her, but I'm an important adult in her life: one she wants to share her excitement with. I'm not sure how I got this gift, but I did and it's pretty damned awesome.