Seems like there's a damn good reason to worry worry worry
I keep waiting for the heat to subside, but it keeps being hot. I have so many projects to complete this summer, projects I specifically waited for summer to begin, only to find myself unable to complete them because I'm sweating so much I can't hold a paint brush or get a proper grip on the staple gun.
Of course, soon, I will have all the time in the world to do my little household tasks. Unemployment is looming, but for the time being the focus of my paranoia is not so much on the actual getting of a new job so much as on why I'm not sweating over it enough. Maybe it's because I'm doing all my sweating climbing the stairs. But I can't get really freaked about not having a job, which I find odd since I haven't been out of work more than a couple of months since college, and nearly all of those situations were in fairer economic climes than this. It seems like all the people I know who lost their jobs since the economy gave out are still not working regularly, and it recently dawned on me that even though I am technically an adult who moves in certain tech-friendly circles, I somehow don't have any friends or old school chums who are ultra-successful, who have invented something unique or written a one-hit wonder song. In short, my friends are no help in my desire to leech off somebody's good work so I'll have to go ahead and get a job after all. Unless I win the lottery, and I'm starting to think that Quick Pick machine doesn't like me and keeps giving me bad numbers.
I'm trying to formulate a plan for a new web site project, something to demonstrate some skill and maybe be of some use to somebody as well. Considering all these cats we have I have concluded I should build a site to help advertise these cats for adoption, though I don't know who will actually see the site since I'm not exactly Nick Denton. But it will be good to exercise my web muscles and give me something to do at the office since I'm clearly not expending any effort in that area anymore. It's totally way hard to give a hoot about this job now that I know it's going away. I just plan to keep my head down and make sure I come out looking okay in the end.
Now, I just need a name for our home-grown cat shelter adoption joint. I'm thinking of something with the word "hoarders" in the title.
Pictured (from top): Powder, a lovely 14 year old princess I catsat for last week, Hotplate, recent TNR victim, and Granita ("Granny"), recovering from spay surgery in the basement, possibly the mother of pretty much every cat in the neighborhood.
I promised I wouldn't make any more Spike posts, but whatever. Spike was all set to move out on Sunday, when his would-be adopter emailed to back out at the last minute. It's not like me to talk smack about someone on a blog, but what a douche. I don't know what it is, but this poor cat has brought out nothing but losers and psychopaths from the first post, several months ago. I don't know why I can't find a normal person who's not a total flake to adopt him. We're not really asking a tall order here, either.
Anyway, our loss is your gain, in that Spike will be on display this coming Sunday, outside the NYC Pet store in Park Slope. He will be joining a bunch of other cats on the North Shore Animal League Adoption Van, which is really more of a huge panel truck full of pets. I don't know what he'll do in the cage, with strangers streaming by him, but I'm hoping he puts on the dog, so to speak. He knows he's a looker, so hopefully he'll strut and pout his way into a permanent home.
Sunday, June 21, Noon-5:00PM (est.) NYC Pet, 218 5th Ave, Brooklyn, NY (718) 230-8224 http://www.nycpet.com/
We're happy to announce that Izzy the non-feral yard cat has found a permanent (indoor) home! We're very glad to get this guy off the street for good, he'll be moving up to the north side of the neighborhood where, we're told, all the fun stuff happens.
It's been a while since we had an adoption go so smoothly; the guy answered Izzy's ad and actually provided the info I asked for. It's pretty simple, I ask that anybody who's interested in a cat to write in with their own background info. I just ask for some sense of their living and work situation and what kind of history they have with pets. I think it's pretty reasonable. You know how many people respond in kind to these questions? Maybe 20%. Everybody else sounds evasive or just plain stupid. One person said "I don't divulge my financial information to strangers." What? Did I ask for your W-2s? No, I asked what you did for a living. I've had my share of Craigs-List paranoia, but come on. I guess people think if I know they live in a studio apartment somewhere in Manhattan that I can leverage this hot info and swear out some credit cards in their name.
I guess some people think of pets on Craigs List the same way they think of the Free Stuff section: if they respond first they'll get the gear, no questions asked. You always know when an adoption isn't going to work out when their first questions is "How much is the adoption fee?" That should be the LAST question they ask. Then you get other weirdos who write you a novel initially about how much they want a cat, but despite all the content, they don't actually give you any other useful info except that they're leading very sheltered lives.
Anyway, I couldn't be happier about this latest adoption. Izzy was far too sweet to spend his life outside, and the guy adopting him seems like a good fit (Izzy was all over him the moment they met). But it underscores how random this thing can be; Izzy's ad was put up Thursday and now he's got his person. Meanwhile, poor Spike continues to languish on the vine, despite a PR campaign full of cute photos, amusing videos and clear-eyed testimonials. Meanwhile, a simple black cat gets snatched up like he was dipped in chocolate. If Spike knew, imagine how appalled he would be!
In an effort to both clean up this site a little and cross-pollinate my stuff, I edited this home page slightly. I've added a list of cats we have up for adoption, which I assume I'll keep updated as needed. Now, normally we only advertise for cats who are currently under our roof, and several of these cats are not technicallyresidents. But they live right outside among the ferals, but have proven themselves tame and friendly enough to warrant a mention. I've also included longtime holdouts Augie and Marbles; I don't really think they'll get adopted as they are really bad at selling themselves ... and we've sort of gotten attached to them in the meantime. But hey, if the right people come along, who knows? So that leaves Spike and Haley as 'classic' adoptable cats, living with us but with every intention to move them out once we find a decent home.
Spike is still with us, we've decided he can only go to a home as an only-cat. He just doesn't get along with other cats well enough. He's a real people-pleaser otherwise. Haley finally got spayed a few days ago, so she's all set. I'm having a hard time describing her personality since most of the time we had her she was in heat. She's very different now that she's not constantly rolling around yowling, holding her butt up in the air and running in place. Time will tell.
You may also note Ainslie on the adoption list, he's a recent TNR guy who just decided to reveal how tame he is as well. I kinda figured he was tame but I thought it would take months to win him over. Naw; just a plate of canned food did it. The number of tame cats around is setting a dangerous precedent (namely, our house full of tame cats) so we're trying to be more aggressive with the adoptions. If we can't find a good home for Spike, we're campaigning to get him in on an Empty Cages Collective Adoption Event, which have a great track record for finding homes. Haley will also get in on this, although there's a waiting list for getting in. How New York.
I can't believe how hard a time we're having in finding a home for Spike, the white Angora cat we took in a little while ago. We keep getting weirdos who string us along for weeks and then disappear right at the moment they're supposed to come meet him in person. I keep thinking it's one person who keeps using different email addresses, but unless they're spoofing IP addresses all over the city, it's separate individuals. Super lame. I think people think they will respond to an adoption ad and then, minutes later, go to an undisclosed location to pick up their briefcase full of kitty. Come on, people, we've got to at least attempt to establish some background before handing out cats. Oh well, try, try again.
I wouldn't mind so much but you see, we're all full up with cats. I know I've said it before but summer hasn't even begun and we've got cats everywhere. Two of the back yard cats who were presumed to be feral have turned out to be more tame and friendly than the indoors cats! So we gotta find them homes as well.
And then there's Haley, a young cat we trapped a little while ago. We'd never seen her before the night she turned up in the trap. She also turned out to be very friendly, but was skin and bones and sporting a hugely infected abscess which manifested itself as a big hole on her shoulder. She recovered from her injuries at Empty Cages Collective, and once she was well enough, we brought her back home to finish her convalescence. She still needs to be vaccinated and spayed so she's kept separate from the other cats. It looks like we'll have to wait until the end of the month to get her spayed; we could get fixed sooner but it would require getting her ear tipped. And I don't wanna do that anymore if at all possible, not for tame, adoptable cats.
Meanwhile I have been having a helluva time getting this guy to come out and give me an estimate on replacing our back door, but he finally made it over yesterday (2 hours late). We're also probably putting a fence in, and THAT guy has been giving me the runaround for weeks. This is not even mentioning the first fence guy who came over, duly measured the yard and discussed options, only to never ever call me back with an estimate. What's up with that?
In an effort to bridge all my problems, I am in the process of teaching the cats to build a fence and replace a door. Results have been mixed so far, they have a lot of energy but I'm having trouble finding tools small enough for them to hold.
I'll be back when I have something interesting to report!
Pepper is a Portuguese Water Dog. She was rescued from a kill shelter and is hoping to find a permanent home. She lives in DC. Too bad no one in the DC area was interested in bringing a Portuguese Water Dog into their home.
UPDATE: Pepper has an adoption pending! But without groups like K-9 Lifesavers, every purebred dog produced on spec just pushes one more dog (purebred or not) into the euthanasia room.
I just finished a huge project at work and am loath to do anything else productive today, so let's catch up. We're back on the foster cat wagon, this time with a stray who showed up in the yard recently. We've been calling him Winger but we may change that to something more appropriate as we learn his personality. And that personality is evil.
Well, he's not exactly evil, he can be very sweet. He loves being petted and will roll all around and sit in your lap and let you carry him around at length. But before you get to do this, you'll get the hissing of a lifetime! He hisses more than any tame cat I've ever seen, it's almost like he doesn't know what hissing means. His new thing is to let me pet him for a while and then when I turn to go he hisses viciously and swats at my leg. I understand that maybe he doesn't want me to go, but jeez, learn some manners, buddy!
He has a variety of other behaviors that mystify me, like how he won't eat all of his food at once like all my cats (obviously he's never lived on the street where every meal could be your last). He won't play with the string-on-a-stick toy that has converted even the stodgiest feral cat. He meows with a hoarse, hollow sound not unlike the wail of a ghost.
But I have a new theory that explains nearly everything about him: he's an evil supervillain's cat. It makes perfect sense, evil supervillains love long-haired white cats, and some of their personality is bound to rub off on their pet. Who knows what happened to this guy's evil owner? Dropped down a chimney? Frozen in space? The mind reels. So now the real trick is, where do evil supervillains go to adopt their evil sidekick cats?
Possibly a futuristic, mobile adoption device, hell-bent on the uncompromising, total adoption of every cat in the 5 boros? Yes. It's the North Shore Animal League Mobile Adoption Van, coming to the corner of N. 7th & Bedford in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, this Saturday at Noon. Step out of the L train station and see a big-ass bus loaded with mostly Empty Cages Collective cats and kittens. Our man may be there if there's room, but I need to de-evil him a little more to make him tolerant of non-evil adopters.
For some reason my company network isn't blocking blogger anymore. This is probably a temporary oversight. But not only that, they stopped blocking Youtube! Wow! The filter they use has a dynamic capability and can filter on a case-by-case basis. Thus, I was unable to access content even on sites to which I had access. For instance, I could view photos but not video on Flickr. But it's all working now for some reason. Yet I have no great burning desire to post anything, since I'm mired in UAT for our new company website.
So in lieu of content here's a video of Georgie in his new home, setting up to pounce on something.
So I'm back from Singapore again, another business trip of dubious utility. I didn't have too much trouble adjusting to the 13 hour time difference while I was there, but I'm having a hard time getting back on schedule here. I keep waking up at 5 AM and it's annoying. I guess I should think of something practical to do. Barring that, I can write a post. Singapore was nice and warm, and I finally checked out Little India and had some really good vegetarian Indian food. It's nice to wander into a place and look around at the buffet to see nothing but vegetarian food just as a matter of course. The only thing to worry about is what stuff had butter in it, but when in Rome ...
Which is another annoying thing: my company hanged its web filter process AGAIN, so now my website is no longer blocked. Yay; however, they now block all blogger related sites, so I can't get to the control panel to post new entries. Grrr. I think if I had MT or WP or something I could do everything through my domain and not have this issue. But the likelihood of me sitting around, figuring out at long last how to put together a real blog seems small. I guess I'll just have save up my A-material for early-morning posts like these! Lucky you.
While I was gone our little kitten got neutered and vaccinated, so soon he'll be on the adoption market. He won't have any trouble finding a home, he's super cute and very gregarious, plus he has a funny, froggy little voice. Quite a package. It almost seems unfair to have such an easy case. Most of our other adoption cases were much harder, but adopting out a friendly 4-month old kitten sounds like something we could do in our sleep. Let's hope so, anyway.
It's been 5 months since we last adopted out a cat. That was Shaolin, who actually wasn't in our home for very long at all, she was an easy adoption. But before and after Shaolin we had been experiencing a relative dry spell in adoptable cat turnover in Chez Legs. When we first started adopting out street cats, they went fairly easily. In those days we had many kittens; and when one would get adopted, more would show up to take its place. We even adopted out some of the adult cats, although it should be noted that cats like Gladys weren't even full grown themselves.
We worked on adopting the tame cats, and started in earnest with TNR, trapping as many of the feral cats around our block as possible, getting the fixed and vetted and returned to our yard. Things were going so well we started taking in cats that we knew weren't as appealing to the mass market. But we had found a home for cats like Baby-Bones, the Cat Who Hates People; we figured we could find a home for all the stray cats.
So we took in cats like Marbles, the tough street momma who likes to sit at the bottom of the stairs and hit each cat as it runs down. We also took in Bishop, who actually claimed his place indoors by showing up with a sprained leg, which took months to completely heal. And we took in Annabelle, the cat who had brought several of her kittens over to us, but who had always been too skittish to stay inside with us.
While we were trapping the ferals, Annabelle got caught in a trap. At the time we hadn't seen her for months and weren't sure what happened to her. Once we had her, we decided that we would try to tame her to make her into a house pet. It wouldn't be easy, not because she was violent or mean, it was because she was so paralyzingly shy. So we let her acclimate to the house and miraculously over time she started to come around. She let us pet her and soon she was coming up to the couch and staring at us until we reached down to rub her head. I started gingerly picking her up and placing her on my lap; the first few times weren't pretty. But she liked being petted so much she would allow this for brief periods. Then one day she jumped onto the couch with us. Soon she was sitting on our laps with such tenacity that she wouldn't get off until you literally stood up straight.
Finally, she started sleeping in the bed with us. Like most cats who experience beds with humans, she attacked our toes. It was interesting to note that it's mostly kittens who do the foot-attacking thing, and Annabelle is at least a couple years old. So I guess that's more of an experience thing. Who knows when her interest in this will run out.
We had Annabelle for almost 10 months. I honestly didn't think of her as an adoption cat. Although it's not like we hadn't tried. We had been advertising on Craig's List for months, for her, Marbles, Bishop and Augie (the newest cat to come indoors), all to no avail. CL has always been very good for us to find decent folks, but the combination of timing, having only adult cats and the fact that more and more people were advertising adoptables on CL resulted in no inquiries.
At some point about a month ago, I saw that the blog Gowanus Lounge was looking for adoptable cats to post on their site. I sent over bios and photos of all 4 cats, and they got posted on the site over 2 weekends. I didn't really think it would amount to anything, but I wanted to feel like I was touching as many bases as possible. By this time I had also put the 4 on Empty Cages Collective Petfinder site.
So the GL posts came and went and then Craigs List seemed to pay off: two people were interested in Annabelle. I started in with them but the situations weren't not ideal and nothing ended up happening. When these deals ended, I went back to thinking we'd never adopt out these cats (and this was not necessarily a negative thing). But then I got an email from a woman who was interested in 2 of our cats.
She had seen the posts on Gowanus Lounge and was looking for two adult cats to adopt. She and her family owned an entire house in Brooklyn and were partial to the adult cats, not just because they are less destructive than kittens, but also because they knew how hard it is for them to find homes. They came over to meet the cats and we tried to do our best to get Annabelle to perform. She did reasonably well (that is, she let them see her), but certainly wasn't getting into anybody's laps. Bishop also made a good impression, but he's pretty much comfortable wherever he is.
We agreed that they would make great cat owners, and last night they came back and picked up Annabelle and Bishop. I'm so happy they get to live together, if any two of our cats would go together it should be them. Ananbelle really likes other cats so I'm especially glad she won't be alone. I feel sort of bad (as I do in most of these adoption scenarios) that her last memory of our home is me grabbing her and throwing her into a cat carrier and handing her over to strangers. But I try to mitigate this with the knowledge that she's going to one of the best households we've encountered in all the 17 cats we've adopted out so far. In New York City, you can't expect people to have huge houses with staircases and spare closets to hide in. Usually they're lucky if they have enough room to run around in without running into stuff.
It may take time, although I hope it's less than the 10 months we had her, for Annabelle to adjust. I'm hoping that we laid the groundwork for her to appreciate human company, even if it's not us. I always thought she had been a house cat who was abandoned and just needed a refresher course on house living, but the longer we had her the more I believe she was a true wild-born feral cat, albeit one who had the capacity to believe that humans might be useful for something. Either way, she's come an amazing distance, and it was pretty hard to look around the house and know I wouldn't be seeing her around anymore.
So this means we technically have only 2 cats left to adopt out, and who know when that might happen. Yes, we have two other nonresident cats, the semi-feral kittens we took in, but they're still a long way off from being ready to adopt, if they ever will. It feels odd, then, to have so *few* cats to adopt out now. Of course just over the weekend a new cat was spied out the front window, so who knows how long this lean time might last.
Empty Cages Collective is having another adoption event at Muddy Paws in Greenpoint. When these guys started doing TNR work around the city, I'm not sure they knew they would end up with so many adorable, adoptable kittens on their hands. While many of these kittens were born on the street, they were trapped while young enough to be properly socialized to humans so they grow up to be totally normal house cats. Because of this, ECC couldn't bear to drop these kittens back on the street, so they put themselves in the adoption business!
So if you're in the market for a kitten, swing by and pick up a few. If you're in the market for some adult cats who have had the benefit of socialization in my home, check out these4charmingcats!
We have plenty of cats we need to get adopted, but here's one of the few kittens in Brooklyn we DON'T actually have in our house currently. This little girl's name is Grey Eye Kitten, apparently following the fostering naming convention so you don't get too attached to the animal (see Big Giant Head and Littleface). The kitten's fosterperson found her near her Kensington home and just had to lend a hand.
Her person set up a blog all about her, so head on over if you're in the market for a babycat. I, myself, prefer my cats big and ugly but Cat Overpopulation means we can all find that special void-filler. GEK is about 6-8 weeks old, healthy but has tested a weak positive for FIV. However, this is by no means the end of the world; many kittens give false-positives for the Virus at this age; she'll have to be tested later on to confirm or deny the illness. so please don't let this stop you from considering adoption, it's almost a non-issue.
My experience has mostly been with street cats, feral and otherwise. In this arena, many groups actively denounce the act of FIV testing. Although this is in part due to the high cost of testing, it is also because it's not worth it for many other reasons. From Alley Cat Allies:
Kittens that test positive are not necessarily infected. If a kitten tests positive, the test may be detecting antibodies passed from an infected mother to the kitten through colostrum (an antibody-rich fluid secreted by nursing mothers). Positive kittens under six months of age should be retested between eight to 12 months of age, when any antibodies obtained from the mother cat will have disappeared.
So in fact, GEK's positive test may literally mean nothing at all. Let's hope that's the case!
UPDATE: The kitten's been adopted! I am arranging to ship several of our cats to her house right now.
The folks who provided us with so many cat-related services over the past few months need your help! Now that summer's upon us, all those cats that they didn't get to trap, neuter and release have had kittens, and a whole slew of them are shacked up at their recovery space in Williamsburg. Dubbed The Empty Cages Collective, they're housing some 45 cats in their warehouse, and they need to get some of these critters in some decent homes!
To that end, they are having the first of possibly several adoption events, this one at The Beehive Salon on N.7th Street. From 2-6pm on Sunday. Come meet the shining stars of their gaggle, from lil baby kittens to adult hard-luck stories. I'm hoping to stop by if I can, though I normally avoid shelters and related adoption centers, if only because I have such little willpower when it comes to taking in animals (I walk the long way around the Petco to avoid the homeless cat adoption area, which I'm sure makes me look like a dick to them).
Meanwhile, we're helping to lighten their cat burden by taking a displaced feral cat to our back yard; we'll be assimilating him into our ragtag colony over the next couple of weeks. But unlike last time, we ensured this cat is truly a feral and so he will not end up in our house.
I'm hoping to be able to advertise our foster cats on ECC's new Petfinder site, and of course if any of you are interested in a little (or not so little) bundle of joy, check out our own list of cats. But if you must have tiny kittens, head to the salon on Sunday.
UPDATE: So I come home last night in anticipation of taking in these 3 cats only to find Baliff's room empty and a big hole in the window screen. I had opened the window to diffuse the scent of cat spray and the damn cat poked a hole in the screen and bolted! What an ingrate. I put the trap back out but he didn't go for it. As soon as I find him, I'm a neuter him myself!
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I took a break from the TNR work for a while, but in the last couple of weeks a new batch revealed itself unto us, and we were again moved to strike. Also we met some like-minded individuals who live a couple blocks away, and have been providing them with hardware and advice, leading to the incarceration of 3 cats. Meanwhile we captured 3 of our own, although this group differs from the usuals. While one seems to be a real feral, the other two appear to be tame housecat types, though somewhat worse for the wear being on the streets.
The latter are Baliff and Bishop, two black cats who look like brothers and may be related to the little black female I caught a little while ago (they all seemed to show up around the same time). In a fit of optimism I brought in these guys and stored them in adjoining rooms of the house. They immediately sprayed all over the place, rendering the house a vile and inhospitable place. Thanks, guys!
But it's all in a day's work, I thought. Then I remembered, I've got a big damn cage in the back yard that could have held at least one of them. Oh well, I have a gallon of Nature's Miracle, whose motto is, I believe, "60% of the time, it works ALL the time." Lucky for me, my allergies have been acting up so I can't smell anything anyway. But it's making the other cats act funny. And speaking of the other cats, here's who's left to adopt out:
As you may know, we've taken Merc inside since he's proven himself to be friendly. We've been calling him "Truffle" mostly because we just watched 2 entire seasons of Top Chef and apparently adding truffle oil to anything makes it better. And so it goes with this guy, he's a hoot. He'll be ready for adoption any day now, just hoping to get him a little less skittish. And get him to stop chewing on my fingers (???)
And then there's Annabelle, the sad-eyed Decatur clone. She has really come out of her shell, but she has yet to make that real transition into lapcatdom. I think she has it in her, she chases me down to get petted, she's just very flinchy. Hmm, "Flinchy," that's a good cat name!
Finally, Marbles seems to enjoy pounding on the other cats. She will sit at the bottom of the stairs and bop them each on the head as they run down. I bought a clicker at Petco and per the Salon article about The Cat Whisperer, I've been giving her treats and clicking when she does something good, which already has had an amazing effect. She's been docile and limiting her quarreling with the other cats! It's probably too soon to tell, but this training crap might actually work!
Last night we had a guy come over to look at adopting Valentine. He has a Siamese cat and wanted her to have a pal. Valentine is part Siamese so it seemed like it could be a good match. She put on a good show, being cuddly and playful and all that crap people like cats for, but the longer he observed her, the less he was sure she would work out. That's when his attention shifted ... to Baby Bones.
There may have been a touch of black market feel to the encounter: he asked about the cat and I basically said, "Nah, he's just for show, this one's not for sale" which no doubt piqued his interest. In reality, we never thought anyone would want to adopt Baby Bones.
One of 3 kittens born to Gladys that we took in way back in September, Baby Bones was named for his resemblance to another roly-poly cat of legend. His brothers were all adopted out, and we kept waiting for him to come around, to get used to humans and become a regular house cat. All his brothers had more or less made this transition and moved on; Baby Bones still ran under the chair when you tried to pet him.
Days stretched into months as we tried many methods to get him to like people. We tried toys, treats, exciting cardboard boxes. He loved them all, but rarely let us touch him. But he loved the other cats. He was so into cats that he became our ambassador for new arrivals.
Whenever a new cat was introduced into the household, he would be first in line to meet them, hoping to find a new playmate or at least somebody to sleep on. We think he really helped speed the process of socialization for several of the cats, who had been used to cats on the outside but not humans as much. His presence took the edge off while they got used to the idea. Unlike him though, they all eventually 'got it,' and now enjoy a good human or two. He was the feline equivalent of one of those companion animals they get to keep race horses calm.
So by March, Baby Bones (whom we tried to rename "Dreidel" or "Dray'dell" but it didn't really stick) seemed a lost cause. We still tried to get him to sweeten up, but nothing much worked. We assumed we'd have to keep him forever, and that was okay. The other cats liked him and he put up with a lot of abuse from them. It didn't even cross our minds anybody would want him.
Then this guy shows up and realizes that what he most wants a cat for is not himself, but his own cat. His cat used to have cat roommates who moved out and was now very lonely for feline attention. Getting Baby Bones would be like giving a cat its own cat as a pet. So we grabbed him and put him in the carrier and off he went.
And to think, we were thinking of dumping him at Jeannie's sister's place to fight it out with her crabby calico. At one point we seriously considered adopting him out to the guys at the Silent Barn, the semi-legal show warehouse on the other side of the neighborhood. There were dark moments when one of us was heard to utter "Let's just put him out back with the feral cats," but I'm sure that was in frustration after hours of trying to get him to understand that petting is a good thing.
We are totally floored that the guy would want to take him after all we've been through. But he knows his way around a cat. He got Lucy to fetch a toy mouse without even trying (this is after we said she was probably autistic because she seems unaware of her surroundings). So if anybody can make him come around, it'll be him. Good luck, Baby Bones!
One of our favorite kittens has been Chester, the Russian Blue. Brother to Roxy and Tumbleweed, he came off the streets fulla personality, no socialization needed. They say the breed is very friendly and gregarious, and he was no exception. Of course, he isn't a pure breed, in direct sunlight you can see some tabby stripes in his undercoat, and obviously he shares some genes with a tortie and an orange tabby, but he's got the blue-gray fur and the mauve footpads the breed is known for. We adopted him out to a couple who lives in Hell's Kitchen. They already had a Russian Blue and wanted a pal, so our friend Jessie helped set up the drop.
We're very pleased that it worked out so well, but in retrospect it was fairly preordained by their personalities; they took to each other like brother and sister. Now he's a bit more grown and honestly I'm not always sure who's who in the photo (his adopted sister is named Navy), they look so much alike (note the pic in the top-middle above, it looks like somebody cloned him!)
Today's entry catches up with the cat formerly known as The Instigator. He was the most precocious one from Lucy's litter, the first to walk, talk, and annoy the humans. It was pretty amazing how quickly he picked up on pretty much everything ... except the litter box. That skill eluded him for a while, until we put some potting soil in the box, then some primordial instinct kicked in. Aside from that, he was very smart, getting into stuff, climbing up the bed, and teaching the other kittens how to wreak havoc. He's grown into a carbon copy of his mother (at least before she got big and fat), sharing her angular features and 'saddle' of color on his back. He also has dots on his nose like Lucy, which didn't develop until later on.
Francis, as he known now, had this move he used to always employ: "The King Kong." He would approach a toy or littermate, rear back on his hind legs, and raise his arms wide over his head, to give maximum damage to his opponent. It was over-dramatic and he usually paused so long in the air that by the time he hit, his target had moved. Anyway, it was one of several moves he did that we'd never seen a cat do before. Since then, however, we have noted The King Kong in Lucy, plus several others. So I guess he really does take after her. But at least he seems a bit more "in the moment" than Lucy, who still seems a couple of sandwiches short of a picnic.
This handsome devil wasn't long in our household, or more accurately, when he was here he didn't spend much time in the limelight. We called him Shoehorn, an unflattering name, but again, we didn't want to get too attached to these guys! He was a total doll the whole time we had him, never made a fuss, just napped and played quietly. I actually don't know that he made a sound the whole time he was here! We got some update photos a while ago, and I wasn't even sure if was the same cat, he was so grown up. Frankly, I spent some time matching the fur patterns to be sure; indeed it was Shoehorn. He's called Lynx now, a much more appropriate name to illustrate his big, tufted ears. I'll have to tell his owner that we have since caught his BabyMomma (we call her Daisy now), who looks so much like her son it's like he's a clone.
I finally got around to compiling some of the photos sent to us by people who have adopted our cats. I don't have pictures for all of them yet, but I'll be posting these from time to time. It's so interesting to see what some of these cats end up looking like. Obviously, the younger they were when adopted, the greater the difference in the later photos. Today we feature two cats from Lucy's Famous Litter, the kittens Lucy had over the summer that launched us into the bizarre life we now lead.
These two fellas used to be known simply as "Big Giant Head" and "Little Face," the two ginger toms of the bunch. When they were little they looked very different (as evidenced by their names), but as they grew it looks like they got to resemble each other a lot more (honestly I have trouble telling who's who in most of the new photos, except for maybe the one at the bottom.)
Now they're Santino (Sonny) and Fredo. Oddly, I do feel that Big Head does look a little like Sonny from The Godfather. But I feel Littleface more closesly resembles Johnny Ola. So they seem to be doing pretty well, huh? Stay tuned for more before & after cats!
Roxy: My only regret was getting so few really decent photos of her.
After some 4 months, our last kittens have been adopted. Even though there's still a million cats here, it's noticeably quieter since they decamped for their new home in Cobble/Boerum Hill. The remaining cats don't exactly miss them, but they are acting differently, they seem to need more attention from us, where previously they had the kittens to distract them.
Roxy was the kitten who came the farthest. When she first came in, she was wild and freaked out by the indoors. She hid in the basement a lot of the time, and would dash out of the room any time a human came near. But after a while she realized we were no threat and started tolerating us. This eventually turned into actual affection, though it was almost always on her terms. IF she didn't feel like getting petted, zoom! She took off. But she became a lovely little cat, with a bit of that manic feral behavior.
Tumbleweed was our survivor. He didn't show up until a few weeks after Roxy (and their other brother Chester the Russian Blue). It was November, and he was scrawny and sick. We nursed him back to health; it was touch and go for a while. But he turned it around and before we knew it he went from being the runt to being the bigger than Roxy. At first we weren't even sure if he was from the same litter, but as he put on weight, his resemblance to his siblings was unmistakable, as was his rapport with the other kittens.
After a few false starts, we finally found a couple who wanted to take a pair of young cats. It's much more difficult to get people to take 2 cats at once, which is too bad since I think cats generally do better when they have pals around (that's the whole raison d'etre of this house!) We've previously only given one other pair away, two of Lucy's kittens. And in that case, the people hadn't planned on taking two, but were so charmed by them they ended up taking two so they wouldn't take three! But 2-month old kittens are a whole 'nother story compared to cats over 6 months.
Anyway, we have adopted out something like 11 cats so far, and have 4 more to go (one of which is more or less spoken for). If we're lucky we'll have them all out by the summer kitten season!
Tumbleweed: No longer ball-shaped, he just keeps getting longer!
I keep waiting for the heat to subside, but it keeps being hot. I have so many projects to complete this summer, projects I specifically waited for summer to begin, only to find myself unable to complete them because I'm sweating so much I can't hold a paint brush or get a proper grip on the staple gun.
I can't believe how hard a time we're having in finding a home for Spike, the white Angora cat we took in a little while ago. We keep getting weirdos who string us along for weeks and then disappear right at the moment they're supposed to come meet him in person. I keep thinking it's one person who keeps using different email addresses, but unless they're spoofing 
I wouldn't mind so much but you see, we're all full up with cats. I know I've said it before but summer hasn't even begun and we've got cats everywhere. Two of the back yard cats who were presumed to be feral have turned out to be more tame and friendly than the indoors cats! So we gotta find them homes as well.
Meanwhile I have been having a helluva time getting this guy to come out and give me an estimate on replacing our back door, but he finally made it over yesterday (2 hours late). We're also probably putting a fence in, and THAT guy has been giving me the runaround for weeks. This is not even mentioning the first fence guy who came over, duly measured the yard and discussed options, only to never ever call me back with an estimate. What's up with that?
In an effort to bridge all my problems, I am in the process of teaching the cats to build a fence and replace a door. Results have been mixed so far, they have a lot of energy but I'm having trouble finding tools small enough for them to hold.
