2015: State of the Kitties

Patient Zero, budding artist

Patient Zero
Status: Adopted
Now named Subzero, this feisty little guy was my first catch of the year. He now owns a human named Angel and is appropriately worshiped.


Number One and Caramel
Status: Adopted
Under the new assumed names of Sable and Carmy, these two cuddled their way right into Sue's heart, her bed and pretty much everything in her house. It's actually their house now, but they let Sue stay because she gives good snuggles, has thumbs and is experienced at opening cans.


Cheeto and Dorito

Caramel, Isolde, Scully, Cheeto and Dorito

Status: Adopted
These ginger brothers were rather hard to tell apart, so it's good that they went to a new home together. They now live with a nice lady who found her house to be devoid of cats. The boys have fixed that.


Isolde
Status: Adopted 
This tabby darling is now the sweetheart of a boy named Tristan. But, it's not going to work out like in the story, because that would be weird.

Edgar Allen and Montressor

Status: Adopted

Edgar and Montressor came from the Halloween trio of black kittens who all won themselves Poe names. This pair of brothers was adopted by a pair of sisters and collectively, I imagine they are plotting some world domination or maybe eating tuna and finishing homework, respectively.

Annabel Lee and Lenore

Status: Adopted / Returned / Adopted Again

Both of these girls had a rough time before they were fostered. Annabel so underweight that we really concerned for her health and Lenore with a tail so broken that it had to be amputated. Their first home didn't work out because they helped their new dad rediscover his asthma. After a brief stint back at the Kittenasium, a home was found for them that was just right. Annabel can live on Jennifer's face and chest while Lenore can chill with Justin. It's working out nicely.

Catherine Earnshaw and Linton

Status: Adopted

Catherine and Linton were a sibling pair that just would not be parted. Thankfully, they found a family who was totally ok with that.

Heathcliff

Status: Adopted

Mina and Dorian

Now known as Jake, this little ginger fella is enjoying life with his new moms. He is being spoiled rotten with a ton of new toys and is working on winning his way into the heart of his older adopted sister kitty, who still isn't too sure of his intentions.

Mina Harker and Dorian Grey

Status: Adopted

The inseparable pair of siblings arrived and left together. Mina was aggressively friendly and like to hang out on faces. Dorian was cool just hanging out next to humans. Thankfully they found a new mom and dad who adopted them together so they continue their madcap adventures and hardcore naps together.

Allen Quatermain... waiting

Allen Quatermain

Status: Fostering

This grey and white little fella isn't too sure about people still, but he came from the mean streets behind a 24 hour Checkers. We're still trying to convince him that people are swell and have nice food for him. Right now, he really likes it under my bed.

Scully

Status: Foster Failure / Adopted 
After taking the professional name of Scully, the kitten formerly known as Rolo decided she liked Kristen the Cat Lady rather a bit and wanted to keep sleeping on her pillow. So, there she stayed. Seriously, she's still there, on my pillow. I think the whole bed may be hers now, but she lets me sleep there... for now.

Kitler

Status: Back from Meowschpringe

Hopefully for good this time. This cow kitty needs to stop falling out of first floor windows. He's still pretty sure everyone is going to murder him, but he now contemplates his paranoia in the same room as guests. People now can believe that Kitler really exists.

Neville

Status: King of his Castle

Neville is large, in charge, and as friendly as can be. I see none of this changing.

Overview: By the Numbers

• Housecats at beginning of 2015: 2
• Housecats at end of 2015: 3
• Fosterlings: 17
• Fosterlings adopted: 16
• Remaining fosters from 2015: 1
• Litterboxes: 5
• Toys on sticks that survived the year: 4
• Toys on sticks that did not survive the year: 3
• Happy Kristen hearts: 1

Cowmeowflage

Cowmeowflage by Kitler

My Feline Housemates

Neville

Neville sleeping in a basket actually intended as cat bed. 
A miracle.

I was living in the Sewing House with a roommate who had a cat. The cat was very much hers and took joy in the "pet, pet, bite" method acting of pissy housecats. I was very much missing Having a cat that wanted to be with me, and then I had an opportunity.

My friend owns a glass company, and a stray cat had gotten in to his shop and had kittens in the wall. He and the giant teddy bear shop guys chopped through a wall to save the kittens, but mama took off. Well, she turned back up eventually. My friend was about to take her for a spay and realized that her belly was huge and wriggling. Crap. Very, very pregnant. He took the cat home because he's a giant softy and Mama Kitty had a litter of 8 in the bathroom. He and his wife worked to find good homes for all of the kittens, except for the one they kept, Stanley.

I visited the litter of tiny, staggering kittens and one crawled right into my lap. This teeny black kitten yawned like his jaw would unhinge and then passed out on my leg. Yep. I was done for. Mr. Neville got fixed and came home with me, where he has been my shadow ever since.

Named for the "N is for Neville who died of Ennui" sketch from the Gashlycrumb Tinies by Edward

Gorey, Neville started as a litter runt. He would roll onto his back or side and sling a paw across his eyes to block out the light when I got up for work in the morning. Pathetic.

Since then he has grown into a massive cat. He's tall and long and broad with a gigantic head. He now weighs just under 17 pounds and when he walks on your bladder in the middle of the night, you know it.

This time Mama Kitty got fixed and is now living the good life as the official shop cat at my friend's business. Many of the guys have cat treats in their desks and boxes with blankets for when Mama Kitty decides to visit them. It's not a hard life to be loved by a bunch of giant men-folk.

Kitler

A few years ago, my friend Jennie, her boyfriend Brian and I decided to start working with a colony of feral cats at their condo complex. We started trapping the adults for TNVR (Trap, Neuter, Vaccinate, Return) and then found ourselves with a clutch of kittens that were young enough to be socialized. Most of the kittens turned out pretty normal, except for one.

Kitler is cottony soft on the underside 
but only I know that.

So, this fellow started off life under a dumpster and squelching in the mud. When he was trapped, we could not tell he was partially white until we bathed him. His paws were packed with mud to the point that he could not close his toes together, also he had Notoedric mange on his face and ears, leaving him patchy and pathetic..

This kitten had evaded notice and capture, and thus spent an entire week alone under the dumpster during the rainy season. Turns out, this is basically a recipe for a terror cat. Add to his fear of all humans the handsome Reichstache, and this fellow was the least adoptable of the dumpster kittens.

He ran from all potential adopters, and looked like a mass-murdering dictator. What do you do with that? Well, you give it some food, some space and some time, and eventually he comes and sits with you on the couch and creeps into bed late at night. Now, each morning her greets me when I rise, demanding petting along with Mr. Neville.

Scully

She prefers to hold paws while napping.

Scully is a marble tabby lady that I foster failed. Foster failing is when you are supposed to be fostering an animal and it is entirely adoptable, but you fall in love and just keep it instead.

Scully sleeps on my pillow, often with a paw on my head. She likes to hold paws when we sit on the couch to watch tv (she watches too when she isn't napping). When I paint, she perches on the back of my chair and watches me, with one paw delicately placed on my shoulder.

After Kitler, it's nice to have a cat that greets you by running straight at you, tail straight in the air with happy chirps that sound a great deal like a squeaky dog toy. Her names comes from the marble tabby swirl on her side that looks like a fingerprint... it called for a good investigative name. I always loved the X-Files and she seemed like a good Scully. And so she was named.

Fetch me the air pump, the cats have all deflated.

Meowschpringe

Baby Kitler. 
Wiry hair, reichsctache, healing mange and fear.

My cat Kitler has terrible luck. He was born under a dumpster. He contracted mange, was missed during the trapping of his siblings and left to fend for himself for about 7 days. Alone while encrusted in mud and dumpster drippings, I finally nabbed him in a trap and forced him into the easy life of a housecat.

He also has a penchant for falling out of windows. This cat loves cat TV (also known as a window) and when he lays in a window, he fully commits. Kitler sprawls and luxuriates to the point that he has now popped two window screens out and fallen out of two first floor windows.

Thus began meowschpringe.

The first meowschpringe occurred while I was living in Zephyrhills. While living in the house I call Angel Blue, in the pretty adorable downtown area, Kitler dislodged a 1940s screen panel and tumbled outside. The drop was about 5 feet and no doubt he landed on his feet. What followed was three weeks of him creeping around, never actually leaving the property, yet hiding in terror because the world is big. He was sighted almost daily and after a few weeks he just walked back into the house because kibble in the bowl and a couch beats the hell out of Florida in the rainy season.

After that, Kitler was a good deal more appreciative and seemed to love life on the inside.

Then we moved to the Pitch Pine Condo. Apparently the 1980's window screens had lost a bit of tension, so in the middle of the night, Kit fell out of another window. This time I was worried. We were no longer living in Angel Blue, surrounded by fenced yards and unbusy streets, we were living in an urban area with a major street a few hundred yards away.

Kitler, again, was terrified of the gigantic world and wouldn't come home when called, even though he really seemed to want to come home. Meowschpringe II was much more brief, as I was very, very worried. There was a nearby colony of feral cats, all of whom could give Kitler a beat down. With treats and soft words, I coaxed him out from under a bridge over a small pond. Yes, Kitler had resorted to life as a bridge troll.

Look how close I am. Haha. Nope, won't come in.

I saw him and his Reichstache nightly, but he just wouldn't come close enough to catch and every attempt to trap just trapped another colony cat. He hung out tantalizingly close, often visible from my back door. It was exhausting and infuriating. I just couldn't catch the damned cat. Walking around the neighborhood, shaking a bag of treats while calling his name... the neighbors were amused.

So, I built a better trap. It was a ridiculous idea that involved stinky wet cat food, cat treats, a ruler with string tied to it, and a door propped open with said ruler.

I sat on the other side of the sliding glass door, thinking myself an idiot. I was holding a string that traveled through a slight opening in the sliding glass door and connected to a ruler that propped open the screen door on the porch. No way this could work, right? Wyle E Coyote never wins. In short, I felt like a very hopeful fool. And then the damned cat started walking straight into my ridiculous trap.

No way! It's working.

Yank string. Door bangs. Cat trapped.

Well, meowschpringe II ended with a bath, a flea treatment and a lot of forcible lovings. Within 24 hours Kitler was cuddled up in bed with me, offering up his cottony soft belly for petting.

The hope is that we can skip meowschpringe III.