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Little Blue Shit
Dec. 1st, 2010 11:35 amI have these cats, you know.
One of which came to us when we moved in here in 2003, from the vet who had found a litter of ferals under a bush and hand-raised them. That's where the toasted marshallow bowling ball kitty of doom (Hiroshi) came from.
But down the street, there was a family compound that had a landscaping business on the property.
They used underfed shepard-mix mutts, tied to the bumpers, as car alarms.
The children, and there were many (nine under the age of nine) lived with their parents, aunts and uncles...and this kitty. Who they 'let go' after she presented the household with kittens...that the dogs ate.
The dogs ate anything that they could catch, frankly. They ate sparrows. They ate rats. They ate the kittens...and I suspect they probably had eaten a few cats I never heard about.
(They were stupid enough to park one of the trucks outside my house once. After that, I believed the kids.)
And the cat, really not much more than a juvenile, wandered down the street to our house. We like kitties. I've taken cats to the vet with anti-freeze poisoning I found staggering outside. A small cat, friendly enough to approach us with caution, clearly hungry and ungroomed? Go get the gooshy food.
It took some doing, even so. And from the start, she was always Jim's kitty. That's - ulp - five years ago.
Yeah, we got her. And the kids? Brought us the kittens. We were able to place four of them - one was too hand-shy, frankly, to place away from her mother, so we kept them both.
But I always had a hard time describing her. Kitten was a classic Halloweeny black/orange tortie - she's gorgeous, knows it and is only getting nicer looking as she ages. Her mother?
Dilute. VERY dilute. Said she was gray, but she's not dark enough. It wasn't until I got some good views of Seanan's blue kitties that I made the connection.
She's blue, with some creamy peach splashes. The kids called her Stinky - which we swiftly revised to Rei (and named her daughter Kibo) - the other two cats were Hiroshi and Ai-Chan (who we lost in 2009), so the naming convention stuck. We had Love, Peace, Hope and Spirit in the house!
Rei swiftly did two things - convinced me she was a CATCH as a pet. And then demonstrated she was Houdini. She is the perfect cat for small children - she is quiet, demure, sweet-tempered, loves lap time and tolerates kid's examinations without complaint. Knows how to bug out without creating a scene. Sticks CLOSE to you if you're having a bad day. The first months kid was home with us, crying at night in grief, she was always coming in the room to check on him. He wasn't happy about it, but she was there - if she could have made it all better, she was all over it.
But she loves to get outside. Last night, she darted out while I was greeting the boys getting home - and last night, decided she was just not interested in coming right back in, thank you.
Well, she doesn't go far and comes back quickly - so initially, oh great the cat's out. She'll be right back.
Only this time, not so much.
Once dinner was on the table, I went out with a flashlight and confirmed where she wasn't - which was good in its own way, because there are some Bad Places near the house for a wee cat the color of fog, okay? Not there. Okay.
After I got back in, not fifteen minutes later, I hear her hollering outside the front door. Just long enough to wonder how badly her loss would break my boys - both of them. Long enough to pick up her daughter and wonder how long it would be before she would start hollering for her mother (and she does, still). Reducing down to only two cats.
Little blue shit.
Just little furry place a piece of my heart runs around in. (She's also the prime instigator in any mischief and barfs her weight in wet goo if you look at her crosswise. Gotta love her.)
One of which came to us when we moved in here in 2003, from the vet who had found a litter of ferals under a bush and hand-raised them. That's where the toasted marshallow bowling ball kitty of doom (Hiroshi) came from.
But down the street, there was a family compound that had a landscaping business on the property.
They used underfed shepard-mix mutts, tied to the bumpers, as car alarms.
The children, and there were many (nine under the age of nine) lived with their parents, aunts and uncles...and this kitty. Who they 'let go' after she presented the household with kittens...that the dogs ate.
The dogs ate anything that they could catch, frankly. They ate sparrows. They ate rats. They ate the kittens...and I suspect they probably had eaten a few cats I never heard about.
(They were stupid enough to park one of the trucks outside my house once. After that, I believed the kids.)
And the cat, really not much more than a juvenile, wandered down the street to our house. We like kitties. I've taken cats to the vet with anti-freeze poisoning I found staggering outside. A small cat, friendly enough to approach us with caution, clearly hungry and ungroomed? Go get the gooshy food.
It took some doing, even so. And from the start, she was always Jim's kitty. That's - ulp - five years ago.
Yeah, we got her. And the kids? Brought us the kittens. We were able to place four of them - one was too hand-shy, frankly, to place away from her mother, so we kept them both.
But I always had a hard time describing her. Kitten was a classic Halloweeny black/orange tortie - she's gorgeous, knows it and is only getting nicer looking as she ages. Her mother?
Dilute. VERY dilute. Said she was gray, but she's not dark enough. It wasn't until I got some good views of Seanan's blue kitties that I made the connection.
She's blue, with some creamy peach splashes. The kids called her Stinky - which we swiftly revised to Rei (and named her daughter Kibo) - the other two cats were Hiroshi and Ai-Chan (who we lost in 2009), so the naming convention stuck. We had Love, Peace, Hope and Spirit in the house!
Rei swiftly did two things - convinced me she was a CATCH as a pet. And then demonstrated she was Houdini. She is the perfect cat for small children - she is quiet, demure, sweet-tempered, loves lap time and tolerates kid's examinations without complaint. Knows how to bug out without creating a scene. Sticks CLOSE to you if you're having a bad day. The first months kid was home with us, crying at night in grief, she was always coming in the room to check on him. He wasn't happy about it, but she was there - if she could have made it all better, she was all over it.
But she loves to get outside. Last night, she darted out while I was greeting the boys getting home - and last night, decided she was just not interested in coming right back in, thank you.
Well, she doesn't go far and comes back quickly - so initially, oh great the cat's out. She'll be right back.
Only this time, not so much.
Once dinner was on the table, I went out with a flashlight and confirmed where she wasn't - which was good in its own way, because there are some Bad Places near the house for a wee cat the color of fog, okay? Not there. Okay.
After I got back in, not fifteen minutes later, I hear her hollering outside the front door. Just long enough to wonder how badly her loss would break my boys - both of them. Long enough to pick up her daughter and wonder how long it would be before she would start hollering for her mother (and she does, still). Reducing down to only two cats.
Little blue shit.
Just little furry place a piece of my heart runs around in. (She's also the prime instigator in any mischief and barfs her weight in wet goo if you look at her crosswise. Gotta love her.)
