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!

Labels: Adoption, Cats, Good Stuff, kittens, Pets

I can't wait for this week to be over! so much annoying stuff going on with my job; I think some of my coworkers spend all day, every day attending meetings. They do nothing else, just go from meeting to meeting, all the time. This is my theory, anyway. They don't mind meetings that stretch on for hours, they never need to take a breath, they just keep on talking. And god help you if they get near a video projector. Anyway, that answered a lot of questions to me as to why it takes so long to do stuff around here: everybody is in meetings all the time. Or conference calls. It's unbelievable.

Meanwhile, the TNR train keeps on truckin'. Our 7 ferals are back on the street, and seems to be no worse for the wear. Some, like Grumpus, even seem friendlier than they were pre-surgery. Last night, Grumpus was eating by the window, I reached out and petted him. He didn't even flinch! Makes me think he may not be a real feral, which is sort of sad. But he's got food and he's got shelter (storage tub!), so he's doing all right.

Traps are being set again, to catch whoever we can in advance of Saturday's TNR action. BARC is again hosting the Snip Truck, and can take a lot of cats, so we're gonna try to catch the few remaining stragglers fixed. This will be run much like the Mobile Spay Unit Days, if you have a non-feral cat, you can get it clipped for $25. The cats have to be there by 9am Saturday, no food after midnight Friday. They truck will be there, so let's fill it up. I suspect 15-odd cats we've altered so far may not in fact be all the unfixed stray cats in Brooklyn.

Ironically, I find all this cat-trapping, carting around, and urine-cleaning to be less stressful than my day job, even though I get to sit in front of computer, hardly moving all day. Except when I'm running from one meeting to the next.

email me jimmy at jimmylegs.com if you need more info about fixing your ferals or house pets. I think they do dogs, too.

Labels: BARC, Cat Fixin', Cats, Feral, Mobile Spay Clinic, Strays, The Yard

A total of 6 feral cats and one indoor cat are being fixed over at BARC right now. After Wednesday's bumper crop of 4 (Grumpus, George, Blue and Tuxedo), I set up the 3 remaining traps and by bedtime we had two more (Mugsy and Baxter)! This worked out well, as Jeannie had literally said she wanted to catch these very two cats for her birthday, which is today. It could only have worked out better if they had gift-wrapped their traps.

They were not happy campers; Mugsy, especially, was crazy, rolling around in his trap and generally making an embarrassing spectacle of himself. I put them in the cellar for the night and when I came back in the morning, both had calmed down quite a bit. It's like they accept their fate or something. Or maybe a night sleeping in a warm house far outweighed any resentment they might have felt.

I dropped them off with Tumbleweed at BARC, I'll be picking up the latter after work. The rest will go home on Saturday. I don't think they'll care, but I feel a little bad sticking them right back out in the yard after spending several days in a climate-controlled environment. but hey, maybe they'll actually use the cat condos with some frequency!

Through this all, Freddie the Outdoor Cat oversaw the process. Despite apparent hunger, however, she avoided all the traps, even though it meant waiting on getting fed. I don't know if this proves she's smarter than the other cats or what, but I'm glad we didn't have any false-positives by finding her in the traps.

There will be one more Spay Day on Sunday, so I'm gonna keep trying to trap cats. Off the top of my head I know Chauncey, BabyMomma and Marbles are still out there. Cauncey is owned by somebody, but they let him run around unfixed. Marbles also appears to be owned by some people across the street, she too is unaltered and has been pregnant twice in the past year, though her litters mysteriously disappear long before they should. So in any case, these cats ought to be fixed.

Pictured above is Tuxedo (never thought of a catchier name), the lone female we captured. Females are either smarter or naturally more suspicious, so we don't get many to the yard. But I'm glad we got her, as I'd seen her (from a distance) with child several times over the past year. Getting her spayed will put a real dent in the local cat population. I hope!

More photos of the SoBu TNR

Labels: BARC, Cat Fixin', Cats, Feral, Good Stuff, Mobile Spay Clinic, Photos, Strays

Tonight I am meeting up with some good folks who have been doing some TNR (trap-neuter-release) work in the neighborhood. I'm borrowing some traps and setting them up in the back yard, in an attempt to capture some of the feral cats that hang around. Once fixed, they'll recuperate in BARC's warehouse space, and then they'll be returned to the yard, no longer a burden to society. That is, if we can catch any.

These cats seem pretty smart to me. Will they fall for the trap? What's more, what if one cat does get caught and the others see it happen? Will they put 2 and 2 together and steer clear? They will be baited with tuna, and i didn't put any food out for them this morning, so I'm hoping they will come around as soon as we show up. If they don't go for it right away, I'm not sure what we'll do. I'll be home tomorrow, so maybe I can hang around and deliver the cats once they become ensnared in my clutches.

I just hope we get the cats that actually need to be fixed. We have two cats, Freddie and Big Jon, who are already fixed, but not yet ready to live the pampered lives of indoor cats. Unfortunately, they strike me as the likeliest subjects to get caught. Oh well, I'm sure some time in the hole with give them much-needed insight.

Labels: BARC, Cat Fixin', Cats, Feral, Mobile Spay Clinic

The cats and I managed to survive standing around in zero-degree wind chill for two hours Monday morning and are now spayed. Roxy was crazed from the anesthetic, when i released her from her carrier, she ran around the room like it was electrified, variously falling down or slamming her head into the walls. I should have left her in the carrier, but she had been in there several hours and was supposed to be well past the point that she could come out. But she is small for her age and is normally really energetic, so maybe they gave her too much kitty chloroform. She eventually ran out of steam and laid down, but not without injury. She had a big red welt under her eye from running into the door. I felt really bad for her, but she seems to be okay now and is coming around. She even seems to be a little more tame than pre-surgery, hopping onto the couch with me and allowing us to pet her.

The other cat we took in is doing fine, sans histrionics. She has been sleeping a lot on the top floor of the house, where nobody will bug her. We've been trying to think of a name and wanted to continue the recent trend of antiquated proper nouns we've been ascribing to the other cats we've taken in. So far the calico cats we've had have been named: Gladys, Lucy, Flossie and Roxy. I like these old lady names (though Roxy has a slatternly bent to it) and the new cat has a similar deportment as Gladys, making her a prime target of some doily-fringed moniker of old.

With a little googling, we found lists of the most popular baby names by decade. Focusing on the names of the 1910's, I was surprised to find not only every one of the above cat names, but countless others that were downright bizarre. You know how people like to poke fun at nontraditional "black" baby names? This list proves how there really is nothing new under the sun.

The list is taken from some kind of database that lists each name by actual number of babies born that decade. Of our already-named cats, Gladys leads the pack with 4,778, Lucy has 1,564, Flossie has 328, and Roxie (close enough!) with 166. There's a lot of good old-lady cat names that we'd heard of on the list, but a whole slew of them were unknown to me. A sampling:

Avis, Bernadine, Birdie, Bulah, Dessie, Dovie, Effie, Elda, Elfrieda, Elnora, Era, Erna, Essie, Eula Nettie , Exie, Fern, Florine, Floy, Germaine, Gussie, Hattie, Hertha, Hettie, Ila, Iola, Iona, Jettie, Juanita, Leola, Leota, Letha, Ludie, Luella, Lula, Mafalda, Mamie, Mattie, Mazie, Melba, Merle, Mittie, Mozelle, Myrtice, Myrtie, Myrtis, Nedra, Neva, Novella, Ocie, Ola, Oleta, Ollie, Oma, Ona, Ora, Orpha, Otilia, Ouida, Palma, Pearlie, Retha, Reva, Rilla, Theda, Tressie, Vada, Verda, Vesta, Wava, Zella, Zona

Those are just some that caught my eye, there's a lot more on that list. And these aren't individual examples, either; the list excludes names with less than 29 instances. My personal favorites are Elfrieda and Floy, though neither seems applicable to this cat. We've been rotating a series of names off the list, since she wouldn't know her name from a hole in the ground anyway.

Labels: Babies, Cat Fixin', Cats, Funny to Me

So we took in another cat.

We really didn't want to do this, but this little girl (as it turns out) had gone into heat outside and was being swarmed by the local males. The other day I went out back to find 5 males trying to get behind the woodpile in the backyard. She was hiding back there, not completely unresponsive to their overtures. I tried to shoo them away, but they barely budged. The mating pheromones are powerful indeed. Anyway, I grabbed the cat and brought her inside.

She is absolutely tame, which makes me wonder if she doesn't belong to somebody. But then I think, well, what kind of pet owner lets their cats out in the dead of winter and doesn't even get her spayed? Of course, this is the same city that produced the Nixmary Brown case, so you can imagine how far down the scale pets would rank for some people.

'Lola' is very sweet, if a bit unsure what to make of us. She's probably not even a year old, though almost full size (which is still pretty small). She has Russian Blue-style fur, making me wonder if she's inherited any of the lovely disposition the breed is known for.

The ASPCA will be at Saratoga Park on Monday morning, so she'll get fixed right up and no longer be a burden to the neighborhood cat population. The kitten Roxy will also be getting spayed, which will hopefully put an end to the 3 am howling sessions that have been plaguing us for the last couple of weeks. Anybody want a cat(s)?

Labels: Cat Fixin', Cats, Feral, Strays

Whoa, what a long week. We've been preparing the house for our visitor all week, which was a lot more work than I thought. And now I'm not even sure the house looks that much better than it did before (there's only so much a broom and a sponge can do when you've got mismatched moldings and poorly-patch ceilings). But things should be stable enough to weather a couple of people coming over for a few days.

Speaking of visitors, Mugsy the feral cat showed up after disappearing for almost half a year. We assumed he was dead, but as you can see he's as beautiful as ever.

We have a bunch of brochures for stuff to do this week. Lucky for us, we haven't done anything culturally-relevant since moving to Bushwick. We'll probably go to that Bodies exhibit, even though I think it might make me hurl. There's another brochure that advertises a "Tour Simulator," some kind of IMAX type thing with footage of the city. I love the idea that people travel here from all over the world then see a simulation of what they ostensibly are here to see.

Last weekend, our interior designer Sean (so named because we keep furnishing the house with stuff he's throwing out) lent us an Xbox plus a bunch of games, so that should keep everybody occupied for at least a half-hour. I still can't tell the difference between the PlayStation and the Xbox; the Wii still seems like the most fun, but I usually get broed with video games after a couple days anyway. What's really fun is ... building cat shelters!

This weekend I am hoping to finally assemble the shelter I ordered from FeralVilla, it's basically a 2-story, shingled-roof house for cats. If the cats don't use it, I'm moving in.

Labels: Cats, Feral, Strays, The City, Vacation, Video Games

We've had Flossie inside since the middle of October. Soon after she was in, we noticed she seemed to put a lot of weight on, in two prominent bulges on either side of her stomach. Yay, more kittens! But lately we had begun to question that diagnosis. Flossie kept wandering around the house, howling louder and louder, later and later. The howl is particularly distinctive in both its volume and its creepy, primal resonance. We tried to convince ourselves this was just some weird pregnant cat behavior, like a woman craving pickles and ice cream. Then she starting spraying vertical surfaces. Such weird pregnant cat antics!

Finally, the truth could no longer be denied when Jefe started humping on Flossie. Well, he tried to hump her. He's fixed but when he's around a female in heat, he does his best to oblige. The resulting scene is like a cross between a nature film and watching someone backseat drive: Jefe tries to figure out what to do while Flossie scolds him for not getting the job done. We didn't stop them; we were actually hoping to get a little peace and quiet! No dice.

Lucky for us, the good ol' Mobile Spay Clinic would be pulling up to Saratoga Park on Monday morning. Lucky for Flossie, too, as I was ready to strangle her after her 6-hour howling session last night.

A hint to those considering availing themselves of the Mobile Spay Clinic's services: bad weather = no line! I went over at 7:15 and was the first person in line. Only about 5 other cats showed up; consequently, I had Flossie dropped off by 8AM, and she was back home by 11! Now that's efficient! They also cut her nails and vaccinated her. This whole operation is far superior to what I went through with Baby Bones last week (two trips to the vet, tons of money blown, same result). Flossie's recuperating and I'm looking forward to a good night's sleep for once.

For those keeping score, we have had 3 cats fixed by Mobile Spay, 2 fixed at the retail vet, for a grand total of 5 cats fixed (and 9 cats adopted out)!

Labels: Cat Fixin', Cats, Mobile Spay Clinic

the last 3 posts have been non-cat-related, I figure I'm due for some catblogging! We are down to a total of 7 cats within the household, down from a grand total of 12. And 4 of them are residents anyway, so we really only have 3 more cats to adopt out!

Chester went home last night, he was a total angel pretty much the whole time. He's moving in with another Russian Blue, maybe it'll be like the Ugly Duckling in reverse, he'll be all like "What's this? There are other cats as beautiful as am I? Heavens to betsy!"

As for the remaining kittens, we have leads for both Tumbleweed and Baby Bones (the latter of whom is currently getting neutered). Baby Bones has been here so long he finally hit puberty and has been running around humping all the other cats, which they disturbingly don't seem to mind (even the boys). If this all goes through, it will leave Monkey, who is probably just fine with that.

Monkey is the only female of this batch, and has never really gotten over her skittishness. She lets us pet her and doesn't even freak out when we pick her up, but she hasn't yet 'asked' to be petted; she can take us or leave us. things are complicated by the fact that we have her mom (Flossie) in as well. She can sort of depend on her for all her mothering needs, reducing us to food-bringers and string-shakers.

But if Baby Bones can find a home, there's hope for us all! He's still got issues too, but he's finally come to the conclusion that people might be okay. He's running a full month behind his brothers on that tip, but who's keeping track? I am, that's who.

Of course, all this cat stuff ignores the other side of the fence, the outdoor cats (which, if you add all indoor and outdoors cats currently under our tutelage it's more like ... 12). Since I put out my upgraded cat shelters, they have been occupied not by the cats I built them for, but two cats new to the patio. One is Grumpus, who looks mean but actually seems very nice. The other box contains a young gray and white cat of indeterminate sex. I have another cat condo on the way, I'm hoping regular visitor Baxter will take advantage, or (God Forbid!) Freddie, the Outdoor Cat We Kidnapped From Clinton Hill.

I don't know where she spend her nights but she comes for food every day and is way more affectionate now than she was as an indoor cat. I had hoped she would use the cat-house but apparently she's too good for that. We still theorize she breaks into the abandoned church rectory behind our house, which I must admit beats the hell out of a storage tub lined with Styrofoam.

Labels: Cats, Feral, kittens, Strays, The Yard

Tomorrow Rudy goes to his new home. To the left is form the first night we saw him, September 13th. It took another month before we got him and his brothers inside, and another month to groom him into respectability. I am sad to see him go, and I wonder, having never had an orange tabby before, are they known for being especially friendly/playful?

He still has some feral characteristics, like not liking being picked up, and scattering at top speed if he think he's been caught doing something wrong (like sleeping in the bathroom sink). But otherwise he's been a great little cat, though maybe not so little anymore.


He is basically 3x the size he was in the top photo. All the older kittens have grown amazingly, which is fascinating, although I fear it will make the last of the brothers a tougher sell. But you can look at them and tell they've still got plenty of room to grow, they have that puppy look, their paws are too big and they have this general appearance of transition. I suspect he's gonna be enormous by the time he's done.

When he's gone we'll have his brother and three smaller kittens. The remaining brother, Baby Bones (at right, we're considering renaming "Newman" since he's a little like the Seinfeld guy) will be on his own, I'm not sure how he'll cope with it. He's been the hardest case so far, keeping his distance from us and not getting into the whole 'house cat' concept. But he's making progress: he finally learned how to take cat treats from my hand, and he now allows limited petting when he's on the bed. I think when he's without his brothers (Ira went home last weekend), he'll have no choice but to come around. He better!

More Photos of all them kittens

Labels: Cats, Feral, kittens, Photos

So Tumbleweed the kitten went to the vet and after a lot of poking and prodding, he was deemed disease and parasite-free. I guess this is one of those situations where I will be glad to get this confirmation form the vet, and not focus on the money I just blew to have this guy tell me he's fine. In fact, form the moment we brought him home, he started acting better, playing and eating more regularly.

He still lacks the vigor of some of the other kittens, but he's getting better. All the other cats like him, especially Rudy (pictured) and Jefe, who groom him and play with him without getting too violent. His personality is already perfect, as soon as he puts on some more weight, he'll be ready to go.

Speaking of going, Gladys and Ira departed this weekend to their new homes. Rudy was supposed to go but his owner had to reschedule for next weekend. Fine with me, he's a lovely little cat. This week I'm focusing on finding Chester the Russian Blue a new home, and working on his sister Monkey to get her better socialized. She had taken to hiding in the basement a lot, so we're trying to force her to deal with us more directly. Meanwhile our other hard case, Baby Bones, has been letting us pet him under the right situations, which is a huge step in his development. If things keep up at this pace, we'll be all out of kittens in a couple of weeks. The house already feels empty but it will be good to have fewer felines running around: my allergies have been going nuts lately.

I haven't considered myself allergic since I was a kid, but with the dander of so many different cats present these days, my fragile system can't keep up. The upside is it forces me to clean house way more often than I would otherwise, but it's never enough. I keep thinking about getting one of those little air sanitizers that you wear around your neck, but I'm walking a pretty thin line already. If I become the Crazy Cat Guy Who Wears an Air Conditioner Around his Neck, I'll never be able to leave the house again.

Instead, I'll stick with being That Guy Who Looks Like Moby To Drunk People. While out the other night these people came up to me and asked for my autograph. I explained I was not in fact Moby, but then they said they didn't care and wanted the autograph anyway. I thought they were joking, but then another guy came up and excitedly asked, "Did he sign??" So I signed on the condition that they give Mark a cigarette. Would the real Moby do that?

Labels: Cats, Funny to Me, kittens

Two cats have technically been adopted out! Shoehorn, now named Lynx, is off to the other end of Halsey Street, to join a Bengal cat and a monitor lizard. And even more exciting, Gladys has found a permanent home in Park Slope! I have been so worried about her chances for adoption since she's basically an adult cat. I mean, in reality she's probably not more than 9 months old, but in the high-stakes world of pet adoption, everything seems to be "Young/Small Rules." Gladys is, to me, the cutest cat in our stable, but because she's grown, I feared she would be a hard sell. And indeed, when people came to see her, she didn't disappoint. That is, she DID disappoint.

She's a super sweet cat, and getting sweeter all the time, but when people came to see her, she didn't take the attention well. The other cats were all over the place, which unnerves her. Plus she's probably not used to having so many people stare at her, while I frantically try to get her to do something amusing. But luckily, her new adoptive mom was able to see through Gladys' aloof act, and will be picking her up on Saturday. For a moment there, we were down to single digits for total number of cats! For a moment.

They same night Lynx/Shoehorn went to his new home, his mother paid us a visit. We hadn't seen her in a while, and she's very skittish so she never stays long. But she brought with her ... you guessed it! Another kitten. This one is clearly not her kitten, it's far too young. It is possible it is one of Flossie's kittens, but it seems unlikely she would have left it out to fend for itself so young. The new kitten is a dark orange tabby, can't be more than 10 weeks old, and is skin and bones.

When he showed up, he was a total mess, dirt all over the place. So we gave him a bath to at least restore some of his dignity. He was a total mush for the bath and aftermath, we rolled him in a towel and help him in our laps to keep him warm. He purred and napped for most of it. When he dried sufficiently, we laid him, in the towel, on the couch between us. He rested some more ... then experienced explosive diarrhea.

I feel so bad for the little guy, he kept pooping uncontrollably for the rest of the night. He's getting better already, but it's gotta be demoralizing for a cat. He's had dewormer so I'm hoping it will clear up shortly. But he's such an adorable little furball, we're really hoping he pulls through fast so we can get to pimping him out (in a good way). His fur, even when clean, sticks out like straw, so we've been calling him Tumbleweed. What's one more kitten, more or less, right? Right?

Don't forget: tomorrow night MOTICO plays Goodbye Blue Monday at 10PM! You know you want it. Plus you want a kitten. Several kittens.

Labels: Cats, Feral, kittens, Motico, Shows

Labels: Cats, kittens

We're gearing up to start moving some of these kittens. I just realized that the oldest kittens have gotten really big in just the couple of weeks they've been here. It's been years since I got to watch a kitten grow up, so I don't remember if this is normal. But they're like 2/3rds the size of their own mom already! Their increased size, plus the fact that a couple are still not very tame is making me nervous. But I'm going to start posting to Craigs List soon to look for possible adopters. Perhaps somebody out there would be interested in a work in progress.

Then again, I hear about people adoptign cats, then wanting to return them for reasons like "he always tries to get outside" or "he scratched the furniture." Considering that declawing is still standard practice for many cat owners, I sometimes think maybe they're better off on the streets. Unless of course those streets are anywhere near JFK.

I'm thinking of dumping a thousand rats on the JFK tarmac; that'll learn 'em. Anyway, if you're interested in kittens, check out CL over the next few days! And come ot the Motico show tomorrow at Trash Bar! We're on at 10pm, giving you plenty of time to egg the neighbors' houses before heading out, but still getting you home in time for Conan.

Labels: Cats, kittens

Another week of kitten training comes to a close, some progress has been made. Ira finally let me pet him, and Monkey seems braver. Still, she prefers to hide in the kitchen cabinet; a drawer is missing so she hops into the opening and hides among the pots and pans. The weird thing is when we look in there for her, we can't find her! I don't want to move things around too much for fear of smooshing her, but there don't appear to be that many places to hide. I suspect she's hiding under the wok.

Not sure exactly when we'll start trying to adopt these guys out, Gladys is on the auction block now but we're only getting scam responses so far. It's always gonna be easier to farm out kittens over adults, which is really too bad. Truth be told, I don't think I like kittens all that much, they're too small to pet satisfyingly, they have trouble comprehending the intricacies of the litter box, you're always this close to stepping on them, and their personalities can be summed up in the thought, "Is that string moving? OMG!!!"

But they're cute and deserve a chance to make it. But since most people out there looking for cats seem to think kittens are better because they're somehow fresher or something (like bread!) I gotta get on the adoption circuit right quick or the older kittens will be too cat-like to get anybody's attention.

Then again, if there really was a market for adult cats, people who wanted one could do what we did: open the window and watch them stroll inside like they own the place!

Labels: Cats, Feral, kittens, Strays

Over the weekend, we brought in Gladys' kittens for a heart-warming family reunion. WRONG. Gladys is totally sick of her kittens and growls at them whenever they come near. Apparently this is part of the process, she has to cut the apron strings for fear of making them mama's boys. But it's sad seeing them call to her and see her hiss like they were a pack of wolves.

There are 3 kittens in all, I fear the 4th kitten didn't make it as we haven't seen it in weeks. They appear to be about 3 months old, they're getting big but have had very little human interaction, so they're jumpy and distrustful. Except for the orange kitten.

He's been making great progress, he loves being petted and even jumped into my lap last night. His two tabby brothers, however, are not getting the idea just yet. I'm trying to get them to understand we're not a threat it's slow going. But they aren't cowering in the corners or anything; they are as underfoot as any house cat, they just scatter faster.

Flossie (pictured above impersonating a hard roll) has been hanging around a lot, prompting me to think it was time to take her to the Fixin' Station. But she went out one night and brought back two kittens to visit. One was a mostly-black calico, the other was a Russian Blue. Wow! They are about 6 weeks old and total badasses (they let me pet them but growled the whole time). They didn't stay but I'm hoping she keeps bringing them back, they should move fast off the adoption shelves.

Which is what we intend to do with Gladys' kittens as well. But I'm wondering if I should start pimping them out now, while they're still somewhat young. Are there people out there who want the challenge of taming semi-feral kittens? It's kind of a pain, but it's been rewarding, at least with the orange kitten. I fear that their chances for adoption drop significantly when they get to be full grown, so I'm keen on getting them out of the house toot sweet. This would be better in the long run anyway, since my taming might not stick when they have to go to a new house. I wish cats could understand English, so you could just explain why it's in their best interests to get with the program now!

Labels: Cats, Feral, kittens, Pets

The weather is starting to change and the local stray cat population is starting to go nuts. Maybe these events aren't related, but the cats I know around here have been getting goofy lately. Gladys is recovering nicely from her surgery/vaccinations, she's gone outside a couple of times but seems to be content to stay indoors (what a surprise). The resident cats know not to mess with her, lest they be subjected to piercing screeching. She may not like the other cats, but she rarely has to tell them twice to keep their distance.

But the otherwise-outdoor cats have all but built one of those things you put up against a castle wall to storm the gates or whatever. Flossie, who still is believed to have a litter in the parking lot across the street) comes to eat and never wants to leave. The gray tabby who we always mistake for Decatur has become bolder as well, and Gladys' 3 remaining kittens are getting especially intrusive.


The orange kitten crossed a behavioral threshold the other night, suddenly not only tolerating being petted, but coming up and asking for it. He's still skittish, but otherwise he's ready to be a house cat. His brothers are less advanced, but they see him getting scratched under the chin and are probably thinking about it. I feel bad for the most fearful of the three, he sits on the windowsill and cries at Gladys. But Gladys seems to have forgotten she ever had kittens, she barely looks at him. Luckily he has the companionship of his brothers to assuage his woes. I keep trying to explain to them that it's in their best interest to get tame right now since the younger they are, the better adoption-fodder they are. Even Gladys may be a hard sell, since she's an adult more or less, and Flossie will probably only appeal to people who have a soft spot for special needs cats, or old ladies (I mean, Flossie would be good for an old lady, not people who are into old ladies).

Anyway, I need to begin construction on some bad-weather cat shelters. Lucky for me, I live in a neighborhood literally surrounded by 99 Cent stores, so it shan't be hard to pick up some big storage bins. But I gotta relocate some of these cats to the back yard; I get enough needling from the neighborhood kids as it is without having the areaway full of cat condos (lately I've been getting "Dude! Kitty, kitty, kitty!" in my direction.)

I'm also doing other stuff, including but not limited to preparing for Motico's first shows since last year! Basically we're practicing a lot and I'm trying to find new stuff to add to my rig to cover up for my lack of proficiency.

Labels: Cats, Feral, kittens, Neighbors, Pets, Weather

Columbus Day unexpectedly aided in my dream of getting neighborhood cats fixed, I had planned to take the day off yesterday so I could take Gladys the stray cat to the Mobile Spay Unit, but it turned out I had the day off anyway! Hooray for imperialism and whatever they had that parade for!

Things went smoothly, I got there at 7 to make sure I would get a spot; I signed on as #16 on the list (max is 25). Gladys was very well-behaved, even in the presence of an excitable German Shepherd on line. When we arrived, the van hadn't arrived yet, so when it showed up we all had to follow it until it found a place to park. It took a good hour to get Gladys dropped off, but they finished quickly and I was allowed to pick her up at 12:30.

She was super loopy, wobbly head and falling down in the carrier a lot. I moved her to a small enclosed room, she seemed to be taking things well considering she had just had major surgery. She's been sleeping heavily since then, but is still very affectionate and demonstrative when we come to see her. She so wants to be a house cat, she's acting like getting locked in a room with nothing but a ratty old futon in it is the pinnacle of her life's work; she doesn't seem interested in leaving at all. We're trying not to be swayed by this attitude.

Next on the list will probably be Flossie (calico pictured above), but as you can see there are still lots more cats to deal with around here. This new kitten showed up the other night, we assumed it's the offspring of the gray tabby, but the kitten stuck around the house, sleeping under our stoop for the next couple of days. I don't think the kitten is more than a month old, I'm surprised it's being left alone like this. But maybe now negligent mother cats know they can abandon their children here with no consequences. I feel like Kevin Federline.

Labels: Cat Fixin', Cats, Feral, kittens, Strays

Whoa, what an annoying week! It's like a delayed reaction from getting back from the vacation. But the first week back was okay; this past week, however, has been horrendous. Things are cooling down again, but work continues to threaten to spill over into my personal life, if only because I am constantly haunted by the memory of the tedium even when I am home.

I take my revenge by hoarding office supplies, I'm taking home a bunch of hanging file folders to go in the ultra-cheep filing cabinets we bought at the Rite Aid. Our intention is to get our affairs in order so we actually know where all our important documents are. This will free up countless shoeboxes in the basement, which can then be used for diorama-building purposes.

Speaking of useless activities, MOTICO is about to renew its contract with America, we actually have a couple of shows booked in the near future. I suspect most people think we've broken up, but you see, that's exactly what we wanted you to think! Anyway, we're playing on Halloween at the Trash Bar, and on Nov. 8th at Goodbye Blue Monday. Hey, that'll be our first show in our neighborhood! Mark your calendars.

In cat news, Gladys' kittens are slowly becoming more comfortable around us. Yesterday a couple of them jumped inside the house and were scurrying around for a while. Most of the the time they stay on the window sill while I try to ply them with a string tied to a stick. The orange kitten will let me briefly pet him, so he'll likely be the first one to turn. Meanwhile, their Moms is totally trying to act the part of a house cat. To that end, on Monday I'm gonna get her fixed, as the Mobile Spay Unit will be back in the neighborhood. The kittens are old enough to be on their own now, so I don't think they'll miss her. This could be tricky, since she is still an outside/stray cat. But she comes by with such regularity I should be able to snag her Sunday night and keep her until the appointment. One by one, I will fix every cat on the block!

Labels: Bands, Cat Fixin', Cats, Feral, kittens, Motico, Pets, Strays

We are back from the Virgin Islands and dealing with all the shit that has been hitting the fan since we left. As they have been warning us for the past year, the parent company who owns my division has sold us out to some other company. This happened in the middle of my vacation and since nobody can be trusted to handle anything while I'm gone, I found myself at an internet cafe inside a tourist spot in Charlotte Amalie, posting boilerplate statements from the CEO and whatnot while people played pool and drank all around me (okay, I was drinking too).

Ultimately, this 'transition' as they constantly refer to it, probably won't be that big a deal, it sounds like everybody will get to keep their jobs, though they might just be telling us that so nobody freaks out prematurely. Other than this ground-shaking stuff, we have all the usual post-vacation blues of having to catch up on work and dealing with having to get up every morning in a sub-resort quality home full of cats who are not as accommodating as the ones we spent the week with.

Actually, the cats are fine. They all weathered the week well, it seems, even the outdoor ones. One of the kittens has already been by and there's even a new kid in town: a big orange tiger cat. We'd seen him around but in the past week he seems to have befriended the locals. He's fixed, so I think it's just the neighbor's cat (he was previously spotted darting into a window down the street). Jefe has a lovely new habit, however: he grabs the roll of toilet paper and just starts biting it, ripping out huge wads of paper which are all over the bathroom now. Jeannie noted that it resembled the act of rending meat from the bone, maybe he misses the chicken wings upon which he used to subsist on the streets.

Anyway, we took nearly 400 photos, which I am going through now (so far 50% seem to be of the little lizards which run all over the place there). So I'll soon have a whole album/write-up of the experience, but in short: the folks who put us up are now our favoriteist relatives ever and we intend to spend much more time with them in the foreseeable future. And I'm not just saying that since they let us stay in the super fancy deceptively large house in the middle of a subtropic island which contains those white beaches you see in postcards and the cheapest liquor I have ever seen (where else can you buy a liter of Bombay Sapphire for $13?) It was a great time all-around, in every way pretty much the polar opposite of New York City (in a good way on both sides).

Except for the stray cats! There were only a few, but each one corresponded to stray cats we have here, which was pretty strange (there was a calico whose markings matched Flossie's unusual patterns, AND is currently nursing a littler, just like she is). So we felt at home. Anyway, I gotta do all this stupid work now, I'll talk more about the trip shortly. Work sucks.

Labels: Cats, Good Stuff, Job, Vacation

After the debacle of trying to capture kittens the other night, I have been afraid we spooked them so much that they wouldn't come back. Well, we still might have over-spooked those two kittens, but the original kitten returned last night, along with a totally new kitten (pictured above).

I haven't seen this little orange guy at all among Gladys' kittens, but unless he's a tag-along, he's just lat to the party. He ate some, then lurked in the shadows for the rest of the night.

His brother (I think) turned up and basically ate an entire can of cat food himself. Jeannie was able to even touch him briefly; he's not easily scared and usually comes right back if something makes him run off.

We gave him a catnip mouse and he grabbed it and ran outside with it. I saw it out on the areaway later in the night but this morning it was nowhere to be found.

Before I went to bed I shined a flashlight into the storage space under the stoop. I could see that Gladys had climbed back there (she's still small enough to squeeze through the gate door), I assume the kittens were with her. When we left this morning we checked and saw only the orange kitten sleeping there. This works out pretty well as we can leave food there and the bigger cats won't be able to get at it.

We're going out of town next week, which means Matt and Sylvia get to feed all these cats. It's one thing to do it yourself but you really do see how ridiculous it is when you have to train others to keep up your insane antics. But still, we gotta feed these kittens! I hate to lose a week of possible socialization time with them, but there should still be time when we get back to give 'em the My Fair Lady treatment and dole 'em out on an unsuspecting public.

Labels: Bushwick, Cats, Feral, kittens, Strays

The kitten-snaring is proving to be more difficult than I originally thought. The kittens keep coming back every night but they won't stay inside. Yesterday I came closer but even this instance was anticlimactic.

First of all, my girlfriend was set to return in the early evening, so I had been cleaning up the bachelor-pad aesthetic around the house, going to the store, etc. She came home just as Gladys was wandering around in the are way. Our reunion was punctured by the sounds of a cat howling like a stuck pig. Gladys was antsy but not the source of the noise. Then Jeannie noticed tiny cat feet poking out under the door inside the stoop stairs.

Most townhouses that have a stoop have a small storage space under the stairs. I had been noticing that a lot of moisture had been collecting inside it, so the day before I had opened the door to facilitate evaporation. Well, it seems Gladys moved at least one of her kittens inside! The problem here was that earlier in the day I had closed the door again, unknowingly trapping the kitten. It turns out that Gladys is small enough to fit through the holes in our gate door, so I never even realized what she had done.

The trapped kitten was the female, white with orange spots. She scrambled out from under the stoop and joined her mother. Gladys convinced her to hop onto the windowsill where some food was waiting. The kitten went in, and I came from outside and shut the screen behind her. The kitten did not like this one bit.

She jumped into the other window and repeatedly tried to push through the screen. When she realized she was stuck, she whined and hissed a lot. We brought her food, which she ate voraciously, in between hissing and spitting at us. Oddly, she did not once try to scratch or bite.

So, we had one kitten on the premises. As though she understood the drill, Gladys went out and lured another kitten over (I think the other two kittens were back at their original site from down the street). The kitten approached the open window and I again tried to shut the screen behind him. However, this kitten was ready to throw down. He dashed through window and I just caught him as he ran past. I picked him up, whereupon I received two really deep scratches to my hands. I opened the back door and threw the kitten in (where he was met by Lucy and Jefe). I thought we had him, but instead of immediately closing the screen I stupidly went inside. The kitten saw his chance and zipped out the open window.

So now we had one kitten in hand, who although eating well, was shooting us daggers from her windowsill. The second kitten was gone and probably super freaked by the experience. Gladys was outside again, freaking the female kitten out because she was looking at her from the other side of the screen. Eventually she came in and comforted the kitten, before heading back out again. We waited in vain for her to return with more kittens. she came back several times to eat and check on the other kitten. But they were either too scared or too smart to attempt another breach.

The captured kitten slept a little bit but was otherwise a real chore to have around, as she wouldn't stop whining in a particularly grating, frog-like tone. At one point we thought she was calming down as she seemed to be purring. But then it was determined she was actually trembling. At some point Gladys came back and when she left we opened the window and the kitten went out with her. The kitten actually went back under the stoop, so we're hoping that space has not been tainted in her mind by us well-meaning humans. I later put a towel and some food in there. Nobody was there this morning but the food had been largely consumed (though there are any number of cats that could have eaten it).

So goes the life of the amateur cat rescuer. Talk about armchair quarterbacking, the cats are literally coming to us here! It's pretty cute that Gladys has been bringing us the kittens, but it's harder to convince the kittens it's a good idea. They still appear fairly young so there is hope they can be unferalized and turned into pet cats, but we'd have to get them socialized fairly soon. Otherwise, they'll be the next generation of garbage-eatin', baby-makin', dogfight-batin' alley cats.

Labels: Cats, Feral, kittens, Strays