puppetmaker | Let Me Show You My Cats

September 30 is an auspicious day for us and cats.

It was eleven years ago on that day that I found a kitten in a tree during a Nor’easter. Caroline bonded with the kitten over the weekend and Figaro became her cat.

Seven years we managed to finally catch a feral kitten that looked like six miles of rough road. She has conjunctivitis in both eyes and was seriously under fed. That kitten became my cat Inky.

The other two we got from rescue shelters four and two years ago.

Let’s start with Figaro.

Figaro 2021
(For the VI: this is Figaro. She is black and white with green eyes)

It was a dark and stormy morning when I found Fig. After I got Caroline on the school bus, I was walking back to the house and I heard this pitiful mew. My neighbor and I search but could not find the source of the sound. We had another round of heavy rain then the sun came out. There are some neighbors who take walks together. They were passing our house and found the kitten up the tree. I got a ladder, and we got the poor animal out of the tree.

Peter says that he opened the office door and saw the most bedraggled thing he had ever seen and she was holding a kitten in her shirt.

Figaro on September 20, 2009
(For the VI: This is Fig as a kitten. She has the same markings, but her eyes are blue.)

We took her to our Vet and got her checked over. Then we used Dawn dishwashing soap to get rid of the fleas because she was too young to use the normal stuff. As was doing this, she went totally limp in my hands. I thought she had died in my hands but it was her relaxing as the itchies went away.

That weekend Caroline spent all her waking time in the kitchen with the kitten. I told her to let the kitten come to her rather than forcing the issue.

(For VI: On the right is Caroline playing on her pink game boy on the floor. She is wearing a white shirt and grey pants. On the right is Figaro resting on Caroline’s precious pink blankie.)

By Monday, Figaro and Caroline had bonded with each other.

(For the VI: This is Caroline holding Figaro. She has a light purple shirt on.)

And they have been close ever since.

Seven years ago we finally caught the feral cat we had been feeding. We knew she was in trouble because one of her eyes was almost crusted shut and the other had crud on it. We had been trying to get her a number of times, but she managed to slip through all the means we tried. I got her into the carrier but could not shut the door before she escaped into the living room which lead to a merry chase until I finally scooped her up while wearing leather gloves and got her into the carrier.

(For the VI: This is Inky cowering in the corner of the tan cat carrier. She is black and white and very fluffy)

We took her to our Vet and the Vet tech managed to get Inky to calm down and Inky discovered that she liked skritches. That was the beginning of the taming of Inky.

She is a long-haired cat. We think she has some main coon in her because of her lack of meow and the hair between her paw pads that gives her no breaks. I have found ways to deal with her fur which can get matted very easily. She has a supersonic noise that she opens her mouth and you see the lips and tongue moving to indicated that she is making sound.

She is my cat. It took a number of years for her to allow others to pet her and she is still skittish about anyone outside the immediate family. If she is feeling scared, she comes to me for comfort.

Inky 2021
(For the VI; This is Inky on her back exposing her fluffy white tummy)

After Millie passed, we were down to two cats. We decided that Peter needed a cat and went to the local no kill shelter. There we found Mewlan to add to the group.

Young Mewlan
(for the VI: This is our black cat Mewlan sitting on a red cushion of the couch. She is wearing a red collar. Her left ear is missing the top)

When we got her, we were informed that she might have some problems. She was a feral that had been trapped and spaded then, rather than notching the ear to indicate she was fixed, they cut off the top of her left year. Then she was caught again and adopted. The people brought her back because they thought she had brain damage because she would occasionally walk like she was drunk. So here was this poor kitten that had been traumatized more than once in her short life. She took the Peter immediately at the shelter.

When we took her to our Vet, we discovered why she walked weirdly. She has a genetic defect that her back knees slip into and out of joint. This is what caused the weird walk.

It took me quite a while to get her to calm down. Everything seems to set her off and cause her to go hide. Petting her was difficult.

Mewlan 2021 going into her pocket dimension on the clean laundry.

(For the VI: this is our black cat Mewlan on top of laundry. She seems to be disappearing into the laundry. Her left ear is cut off at the top and she has yellow eyes.)

Now she comes to me for pets and is a lot less skittish than she was when we got her. I am still working on getting her to calm down at least she is not running for a hiding place at any sharp or loud sound.

Phoebe was gotten at another local shelter. We went in to get her sister Ophelia but as we walked in, she was being adopted. The owner said that she had Ophelia, who was a torty, sister who was a muted torty.

We went back and met this loving purring kitten who was socially acclimated to both people and cats. Her markings were amazing. She took to Peter and we took her home.

Phoebe the Kitten
(For the VI: This is Phoebe as a kitten she is wearing a blue collar and sitting on Peter’s desk chair. She is a combination of tans, oranges, and a little black. Her eyes are yellow.)

She escaped from the kitchen and integrated with the other cats immediately. So we let her stay out with the other cats from day one.

Since then she and Mewlan have become buddies. She sleeps with Inky. She annoys Fig.

She hops into my arms when she need comfort.

She is an instigator of most of the kitty shenanigans that go on around here.