16 years ago was the summer of 16 cats. Our beloved marriage cat grew old and passed on and, in our grief, we adopted a cat a few weeks before noticing kittens in the back. We called the kitten adoption place and told them that there were feral kittens in the back yard and we asked “What do we do?”
Well, they gave us two raccoon traps and told us that we had to catch them and foster them. We caught 16 cats that summer. 9 males, 3 females. 8 adults, 4 kittens. Three of the kittens got adopted. The fourth, Tiger, was unadoptable. He stayed with us.
16 years is a long time. On Friday, we said “goodbye”.
He was a good cat. On the drive home from the vet, Maribou told me that we should stop by the humane society. I had a very quick conversation in my head and agreed that we should stop by the humane society on the way home.
I was thinking that we would adopt two kitties from the same litter and not split them up and, that way, when Alice (our 21 year old kitty) passed on, we’d have two kitties again and we wouldn’t have to endure an empty house.
Well, I’d like to introduce you to Ruckus, Rumpus, and Radar.
We did not *DELIBERATELY* set out to do the too-cute-for-words thing where they all have “R” names. When we got them from the shelter, they were called Ruckus, Nobu, and Hanzo. We didn’t feel that Nobu really fit and while we were pleased to read the foster’s report that Hanzo loved video games, I am not really a multiplayer kinda guy and never got into Overwatch. So Maribou asked me “Can you think of a better name for Hanzo?” and I looked at him and his head was soooooooo small and his ears were soooooooo big and I thought “His name should be Radar.” So I said so. I mean, come on. Look!
And she yelled “OH MY GOSH I WANTED TO RENAME NOBU ‘RUMPUS’!”
So that’s how we ended up with the too-cute-for-words thing.
They saw the vet today and the vet told us “so far, so good” and so we’re going to spend this weekend doing the thing where we let them out in supervised roaming around outside of The Kitten Room. Which means that we’re also going to be kitten-proofing everything else. One thing about elderly cats is that they are fairly predictable. We have said “What the heck are you doing there?” to the kittens more times in the last two days than we’ve said to Tiger or Alice in the last five years.
When we’re off in different parts of the house with the door to the kitty room closed, we hear “thump… thump… thump…” quite regularly. What the heck are they doing in there? We open the door to check and, immediately, Radar comes at the door with a full gallop and gets past us 90% of the time and then we have to get out the recently-dusty fishing poles if we want any hope of catching him quickly.
Which is nice.
So… what’s on your docket?
(Featured image is “The last photo of Tiger.” Photo taken by Maribou.)
sorry for your loss…and
KITTIES! omg radar is adorable…sobare the other twoReport
They purr so very loudly. Like “hear them from across the room”. The elderly kitties transitioned to a “almost silent but shake the bed” kinda rumble.Report
Last Saturday night, most of Tulsa lost power in a thunderstorm with 100+ MPH winds. We got ours back on Wednesday evening. We got the text from the power company letting us know right before we got to the gas station to get gas for our new generator.
This weekend will involve refilling the refrigerator, catching up on chores that couldn’t be done without power, and getting the yard cleaned back up. I also plan to return the 1-gallon gas cans I got because they were out of the larger ones.
Other than that, I plan to enjoy having lights and air conditioning without stressing out about whether my phone battery is nearly dead.Report
…without stressing out about whether my phone battery is nearly dead.
When I was convincing my wife that we should drop our landline, I had to do the calculation that we could recharge a phone battery at least 10 times from the smaller car before we had to even begin to worry about running that battery down to the point it wouldn’t start the car. Also that we could then open the garage door and run the car for 20 minutes to recharge its battery.Report
I dunno. It suddenly turned death-hot here. I got the lawn mowed yesterday, during a brief lull yesterday morning when it was below 85 F. Today I have to finish the prep for next Monday’s class. But I’m also unmotivated; heat has a way of doing that to me.
I miss having cats around. I have allergies bad enough that I know living with one or two would make me miserable most of the time, and I’m also not home a lot and have a house cram-jammed with stuff they could get lost underneath/behind or that they might destroy in one of several ways. Maybe someday, maybe if I get my act together and really do get rid of half the junk I own as I often threaten to do. But I do miss having another living being around (plants are a live but they don’t really count)Report
And it happened today.
This is the last picture of Alice.
So sorry,man. It’s hard to lose them, especially so close together.Report
This has been the worst week since I dunno.
Seriously. I walked out of the Humane Society with three kittens thinking “this might be the fourth or fifth dumbest thing I’ve ever done.”
And today I am so amazingly grateful that we adopted these little guys.Report