Am I complete?
There are some amongst this learned fraternity that, having been
around for aeons, are aware of my personal distress and mental
anguish this time last year when I lost my beloved son Charlie (a
large, loving, dribbling, purring, ginger cat.) I was distraught
and, to be honest, I am sure I have not been the same since.
For the last four months, EzBird and I have been tentative hosts to two of the most gorgeous creatures on this planet. Uninvited, we have been blessed with the increasingly regular and increasingly longer visits of two (as yet unnamed) cats.
The first, one dark winter night, was a frightful sight. Investigating curious noises from the shed roof (hidden from the house behind pine trees) I was confronted with nothing but two bright, round, green eyes. No cat. Just eyes. Alice in Wonderland style (eyes not grin, granted) but even so. I was spooked and no mistake. And that was the last of that, I thought.
A month later, at work, I received a text from EzBird. "Am in lounge. Have visitor. Is gorgeous. Been here half an hour so far."
"Ah yes. The pure black cat with the gorgeous green eyes." I replied.
"No..." she texts "I would say she's only just still a kitten. Tabby. And unbelievably cute."
"Eh?" Was my unresponsive text.
So. Here we are. Charlie's photo looks down upon our lounge from the mantlepiece and we are twelve months gone. Not one neighbour, across the road, across the alleyway behind, down the road, up the road knows of, has lost or knows who has lost two cats. One so black I have yet to be able to get a decent photo of him and one so soft and cute we have pre-emptively named her Mitts. (Short for mitten.) She obviously does not respond to the name but hell, I'm nothing if I'm not pig-headed. Puss-Puss (the black cat) also is an ignorant git, although we are considering he thinks his name is (shake of box of cat biscuits) although to be fair, so does Mitts...
Currently, and this is why the delay for the update (I guess it's like announcing a pregnancy too soon) the local vets have had no response to our enquiries and descriptive poster (like I said, we can't photo Puss-Puss without it being nothing more than a cat-shaped absence of colour or texture. Curious...)
They are beautiful and I fully believe ephemeral; no-one could lose these two cats and do nothing about it. No one. I revel in this time, in every precious moment.
Charlie has sent these two cat-gods to look after us, to cheer us up and it is working.
Pictures will follow. I promise.
Ez
Oh... forgot the point of this blog; I'm back. Be warned. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
:o)
For the last four months, EzBird and I have been tentative hosts to two of the most gorgeous creatures on this planet. Uninvited, we have been blessed with the increasingly regular and increasingly longer visits of two (as yet unnamed) cats.
The first, one dark winter night, was a frightful sight. Investigating curious noises from the shed roof (hidden from the house behind pine trees) I was confronted with nothing but two bright, round, green eyes. No cat. Just eyes. Alice in Wonderland style (eyes not grin, granted) but even so. I was spooked and no mistake. And that was the last of that, I thought.
A month later, at work, I received a text from EzBird. "Am in lounge. Have visitor. Is gorgeous. Been here half an hour so far."
"Ah yes. The pure black cat with the gorgeous green eyes." I replied.
"No..." she texts "I would say she's only just still a kitten. Tabby. And unbelievably cute."
"Eh?" Was my unresponsive text.
So. Here we are. Charlie's photo looks down upon our lounge from the mantlepiece and we are twelve months gone. Not one neighbour, across the road, across the alleyway behind, down the road, up the road knows of, has lost or knows who has lost two cats. One so black I have yet to be able to get a decent photo of him and one so soft and cute we have pre-emptively named her Mitts. (Short for mitten.) She obviously does not respond to the name but hell, I'm nothing if I'm not pig-headed. Puss-Puss (the black cat) also is an ignorant git, although we are considering he thinks his name is (shake of box of cat biscuits) although to be fair, so does Mitts...
Currently, and this is why the delay for the update (I guess it's like announcing a pregnancy too soon) the local vets have had no response to our enquiries and descriptive poster (like I said, we can't photo Puss-Puss without it being nothing more than a cat-shaped absence of colour or texture. Curious...)
They are beautiful and I fully believe ephemeral; no-one could lose these two cats and do nothing about it. No one. I revel in this time, in every precious moment.
Charlie has sent these two cat-gods to look after us, to cheer us up and it is working.
Pictures will follow. I promise.
Ez
Oh... forgot the point of this blog; I'm back. Be warned. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
:o)
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35 Comments
*Manly hug with lots of backslapping*
Not sure if this is the place to post this, but i've lost a cat?
haha.. good luck with it, i inherited my moggy too. (actually i'm reliably informed he's a pedigree Brit shorthair) after about 12 months the 'owner' asked me if i'd like to do the right thing and return the cat. I declined. ;-) possession is 9/10s and all that. and the cat is free to come and go as he pleases.
I think thats the thing with cats, you never own them, they just live with you for as long as it suits them. ;-)
And so Welcome Back! (My leaves shaketh....) post pics up anyway? x
1) Providing food
2) Opening doors
3) Occasional free massage
but in return, they let us live in their houses, and co-operate when we want to play with string.
As for cowboying up; is that as in Brokeback Mountain or Village People...? :o)
Puss-Puss is the most glorious cat; I went out a couple of nights ago and he was sitting up in the bedroom window upstairs watching me leave but, I promise, the only thing I could see were his eyes. I couldn't make any other part of him out; no shape, no hint of an outline, just these two bright round eyes. It was fantastically disturbing!
They have the most incredible expressions too; the one I currently observe most is "you are not worthy. But you'll do."
:o)
What does it mean when they pee up your wall...?
Actually, EzBird has been winding me up for the last couple of weeks with the idea that Mitts is pregnant. I'm not upset, I'm bloody terrified! She can have up to 6 of the little beggars and I wouldn't want to let any of them go! Aaaaaaaaagh! LOL.
Ahhhh. I really need to get back to being mean and moody. Sigh.
I just feel sorry for you lot; with no way to replicate tactile experiences none of you will ever know just how soft Mitts is.
He's almost 13 now and I've had him since he was 5 weeks old. But despite losing a tooth and having the odd scarr (just add to his manly appearance) the vet says in top health so I hope we have quite a few more years together yet.
I had a right old bruiser - he was a small cat, but he came from the Dockyard and was tough as nails. I got him when I was a wee nipper (about 6 or 7), and he was barely 6 weeks old. When he died, he was 21 (I was 28); he was toothless and half senile, but I still loved him (I didn't take him when I moved out of my mum and dad's at age 19 'cos we decided he was too old and it wouldn't be fair on him... bugger went and lived for another 8 years after I left!) Unfortunately, he died because my dad ran him over - it was 5am and he'd just had a fire call (Dad, not the cat!), so off he sped, forgetting that Patches had gone a little doolally and had taken sleeping in the road. Add that to him being basically deaf, and my poor boy didn't stand a chance... :-(. Still can't blame Dad - it was a tragic accident, plain and simple. He was an absolute legend in his own lifetime, was my Patch - everyone knew who he was, and no one dared get a cat in the cul de sac, 'cos he was so territorial!
Still, the pain was eased by my current babies. They're both knocking on for 13 now, but they're still kittens in my eyes. I got them when they were 5 months old - a friend of a friend of a friend (you know how it is!) told me his next door neighbour had a bunch of kittens locked up in a shed (yep, you read that right) and was going to call the RSPCA, but he knew I was after a new cat, and would I like one? I said yes immediately, and told him to bring two over - didn't care what gender, or what they looked like, just get them out of the hell hole sharpish. 3 days later, he turns up with a basket - inside are the two tiniest, most malnourished little angels you could imagine. Both of them black and white tuxedos with bright green eyes, you could count every bone in their poor little bodies. "You don't have to have them if you don't want them," the bloke says. "The RSPCA are coming later to pick up the rest." Yeah, like I was going to give them back... I just sobbed as we fed them a tiny meal (their bodies couldn't cope with proper sized meals) and cuddled them. During this time, we noticed that Rabbit (the female cat) was deformed - her hips and collar bone are wonky, she's missing half her teeth and she's got lumps on her ribs. Turns out she was probably trodden on or kicked when she was tiny, and had nearly every bone on her left side broken, but since no one did anything about it, they healed funny. Doesn't stop her, though...
Despite their hard life, they both purred like outboard motors and showed us more affection that people think cats are capable of, and ever since then, hubby and I have had two little black and white shadows. They're still quite nervous cats, but once they know you, you couldn't ask for lovelier animals. They've never scratched or bitten intentionally (struggling because something has scared them doesn't count in my book), and Akira (my boy) is so soft, I'm sure he's part labrador (seriously, you've never seen anything like it. I spend every evening with a purry fur stole draped around my neck - he's so affectionate it's a bit embarrassing sometimes!)... Rabbit is a bit more cat-like in her outlook, and is very playful, despite her 'kitty disability' (she's not a great jumper due to her hips). Not bad for a couple of kittens thrown on the scrap-heap of life, really! :-)
Isn't it strange how life goes? Lucy was a fireball when she was a kitten; so much so that the rescue centre wasn't going to let EzBird have her; they were going to have her put down instead. Thankfully my missus is not someone you say such things to and Lucy came home. Her early visits to the vet were spectacular; all screaming, fighting and lots of blood... and Lucy was just as bad! We had to wrap her in a blanket to get her injections as the damage she did with tiny teeth and four paws of claws was phenomenal. Then, one day, the vets got an Aussie locum. We put Lucy con basket on the table, and both turned round to take off our coats and put them on the chairs behind us. As we turned back, the basket lid was off, the cat was in mid air by her scruff, as her paws hit the table the needle was in her neck and almost empty! And then he let go. Lucy sat absolutely still on the table, eyes wide, mouth slightly open and I swear I heard a tiny cat voice inside my head say "what the fuck just happened...?"
We asked for that vet (never did get his name...) every time from then on. When he left the surgery, the old man that Lucy had savaged on her early visits couldn't believe it was the same cat.
In the end she was, and this is going to be meaningless without really thinking about it, a pussy-cat.
My dog Amber is 13 in May, and I don't want to think about when the time comes because she's such a lovely dog, so I can imagine how you must have felt when you lost Charlie.
Dogs don't have much choice really, but cats! They very often choose their owners, and that is quite special I should think.
Can't wait to see the pics.
Congratulations on the new arrivals hehe... x
So, knowing how wretched I feel right now, now that what was inevitable has come to pass, would I go back fourteen years and not let her in to be part of our lives, to be loving, playful, chatty, and to play practical jokes on us (she did, really)? Not for a moment. She had a good life and made our lives better for being with us. And she was loved.
If these two have chosen you, then don't think twice. Accept a stroke of luck. Open the door and let them in to stay. If any rightful owners turn up, deny everything :-)
Cats, eh? Can't love 'em, can't leave 'em, can't sell their babies on ebay... oh... wait...
Alan mentioned his beloved cat playing playing practical jokes....well our black Lab, Barney, does too. He is 13, fit as a lop really and a puppy at heart.
When anyone comes to the house, sons, g/friends/ he always steals a shoe and runs away with it. Then you will see his black face peek around the corner of a door. His head is shakng 'cos his whole body vibrates as he wags his tail (its a body wag really) and I swear he is smiling. He thinks he is so funny!
If you ignore him he will creep into the room with the shoe, crawl on his belly and then try to pick up another shoe at the same time. Then we ask him for them back and this frantic scrabbling ensues as he attempts to pick them both up and escape!
Its a hoot!
Mac
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