Going their separate ways

As the day's worn on, I've been feeling more and more melancholy. Rosey and Mini Cat are now in their forever home at my mum's and spent the past two nights chasing each other round my bed whilst I tried to sleep before curling up next to me, a luxury they didn't get the opportunity to enjoy while they were in Toronto with me.

I made my way back home tonight to a cheerless apartment containing Matt and the three remaining cats: Celia, Oscar and Tilly. Elliot went to his new home a couple of nights ago where he's getting used to his new name: Spyro. The sombre feeling here is down to the fact that this whole thing is over now. Tomorrow morning a driver is picking Celia, Oscar and Tilly up and taking them to the vet to have them neutered/spayed. After that they will recover at a Toronto Cat Rescue worker's home before going to their new foster home.

In a few days' time I will inevitably be occupying my mind with plenty of other things during my time away, but right now it feels like I've lost something. It's like I feel sad for everything. I feel sad for Rosey and Mini Cat because I won't see them often, I feel sorry for Elliot because he's having to adjust to a new home, I feel sorry for Oscar because he doesn't even know how much we want to adopt him but can't, I feel sorry for Tilly because it's like we've left her at the bottom of the pile of her litter and I feel sorry for Celia because she's striving to find someone to love her permanently but, realistically, the chances of that happening any time soon aren't great. I also feel sad for TCR for having to move these cats about and for struggling to keep their charity financially afloat and I feel sorry for Matt for having had this little cat family forced on him in the beginning, only to have fallen in love with them and suffer the heartache of never seeing [most of] them again. And yes, I admit it, I feel sad for me too. Sad and guilty, as if I could have done more.

Well, I guess it's the end of this particular journey but I don't feel it's anywhere near time to disconnect from it all. I'll try to stay in touch with as many of the kittens are possible, their new homes permitting, and will of course follow the course of Mini Cat and Rosey growing up at my mum's. I have also offered to do fostering for cats whose foster families go away on vacation at times when I'm back home here, at least until my schedule is a bit freer some time next year. I also want to help TCR raise some money, so I am going to have a good think about ways in which I can do that. I want to paint some paintings for them to sell at events later on in the year, so I guess I might as well start gathering some catty inspiration.

And so with a sigh of resignation tinged with quiet optimism, I'm going to bed. My heavy heart would be lifted if only Celia, Oscar and Tilly could sleep in our room tonight, if it wasn't for the Godforsaken tomato plant that lives there (and, to add insult to injury, hasn't even had the decency to sprout more than two feeble pea-sized fruit over the last two months).

I think I'm going to compile some nice photos to post soon of the past three months.

Everything's a toy

Before I go and do the 4,000 things I have to do today, I thought I'd share this video with you. We discovered recently that Oscar tries to catch your breath when you gently blow in his face. Here, he also gets a little excited and catches Matt in the face. I don't know why, but this video tickled me more than anything has in a long time. Playing it again and again, I weep with laughter each time. It's the way he extends his arm to grab Matt's face, it's the way he unsolicitedly attempts to reach out for it a second time, it's the way he turns his little head beforehand in a plotting way, it's the way he looks like a right numpty grabbing at the air with his mouth open. Oh, I wish I could keep him.

No one messes with Celia

On Canada Day, Matt and I decided to have some friends over who live in the same condo complex. They have a cute little dog named Farley, a jack russell/chihuahua cross, who is a total little sweetie (one must gush like this in such a dog owner dominated neighbourhood as ours). We suggested bringing Farley over to ours as he doesn't like being left alone much and we also thought it would be good for the kittens to get used to being with a dog. Farley was reportedly fine with cats and, as a precaution, we put Celia in another room in case she got a bit protective of her kittens.

Well, within minutes of them arriving and the kittens acting remarkably nonchalant around Farley (friendly, even), Celia magically appeared under the coffee table and alerted us to her presence by her hissing in Farley's direction. Unsurprising, but nonetheless slightly concerning, so I made a move for Celia in order to remove her from the room. Mere inches before I managed to get my hands on her, she literally darted three feet in the air at Farley, all four sets of claws and teeth poised for attack. Poor Farley squealed like a banshee as Celia what I can only describe as viciously attacked him. Our friend hastily lifted him up by the collar onto his lap whilst, shockingly, Celia remained attached to him with all four of her limbs. Matt managed to pull Celia off and place her back in the bathroom, but not before one of the animals released a revolting-smelling spray of liquid that impressively managed to project all over our sofa, floor and coffee table as well as our friend. Needless to say Farley went straight home, where I'm told he quickly recovered 

from his shock. For the next five minutes, Celia resembled a bloated squirrel with her bushy tail and spine as she patrolled the flat looking fierce.  

Now obviously it was a silly thing to have allowed this to happen (although I am wondering whether Celia's cunning has now extended to achieving the ability to open bathroom doors) and it was a truly horrendous scene to watch (and scent to remove) but it does astound me that a cat could get this violent. I suppose my message is never to underestimate how protective a mother can be, because even for a petite, sleek little cat like Celia, her "moves" have certainly made me more weary of pissing her off (and believe me, I can be annoying).

Look at her. Butter wouldn't melt.

In other news, Rosey is eating like a trooper and growing admirably, whilst Oscar doesn't seem to have regained much weight since his dramatic weight loss and diarrhea, despite also eating like a trooper. They both still have URIs and it's been weeks if not months. Their noses are all snotty, they're sneezing and Oscar is finding it hard to breathe. I am not overly worried though because they're both still very lively, eating well, have good stools and I keep them well hydrated, but it's still a little unsettling that they continue to be ill. Their eyes are getting gunky again, although thankfully I have ointment for that from last time. I've been told there's not much I can do about their illness as I've already used strong medication in the past so they just have to see this through. 

Mini Monkey

For some reason I've gotten into trying to capture the kittens' comical antics. Frustratingly, they never do their "thing" as well as usual when a camera is pointed at them, but I did manage to catch Mini-Cat doing her monkey impression. Had basic science not proved this impossible, I'd bet there was gibbon in her ancestry, or at the very least lemur. 

Check her out:

In other news, I forgot to announce officially that Rosey is back with us. And is a boy. The latter detail is proving troublesome because he looks such like a fluffy little girl. The fact that we can't physically bring ourselves to call her anything other than Rosey (because it's so fitting) doesn't help matters. We must keep an eye on this because everybody knows there's nothing worse than a cat with identity issues.  He's been doing great though. The vet checked him over and said that apart from his snotty nose, he couldn't even tell he'd had pneumonia. He confirmed Rosey's masculine status and even had a surprisingly good old feel of his, er, assets. Then he lifted him up to his face and cooed "Look at your little head, look at your gorgeous little head. Look how small it is." Matt said (later) that that kind of thing must be attractive in a man, loving animals and all that. Well, it was, but was then promptly spoilt by the two of them discussing British football for ten minutes. I had to literally interject with "So, Rosey's eating. Can I give him something that he'll eat more of?" Honestly, you think you can move to Canada and get away from such disgusting football nonsense.

Anyway, here's a video of my precious Roseykins:

Literally driving me insane

I never knew that mild neurosis was a side effect of fostering, but there is no other explanation. The last week or so have been absolutely crazy what with trying to juggle the lives of six cats, my boyfriend's, and my own all under one roof. 

I've had precious little sleep and it's not been helped by the fact that about five times out of ten I wake up in the middle of the night, look around me and become convinced that the kittens are in my room. They're not, of course, but my favourite thing to do, alarmingly, is to "see" them in bed with us and start shouting at Matt not to roll over in case he squashes one. He's possibly more alarmed than me when this happens but he tells me he's used to it now. I've also been known to stare for long periods of time at corners of our room, utterly awake yet utterly convinced that I can see the exact contours of a kitten, if not several, sitting on my chair. I've had to physically get out of bed and grab the offending boxer shorts/discarded shirt/hairdryer to prove otherwise.

And it doesn't end there. Only yesterday both Matt and I found ourselves sat on the floor of our apartment with all of the cats around us, trailing bits of string and plastic mice around for them and - wait for it - singing a jaunty little tune together that we'd made up ourselves. We were convinced that it was exactly the type of tune you'd expect to hear accompanying a comical video clip of kittens playing on You've Been Framed or YouTube. 

Anyhow, I must remember to check the sound insulation of our front door. If I can often hear the neighbours talking, I suspect they can hear us singing to our six cats too.

My favourite old boy

I know it's Thursday and I am about to write about last weekend but the kittens have kept me REAL busy this week, plus I actually did write the below at the weekend without publishing it. Oh it's a long one...

I escaped from work earlier than usual last Friday and headed to my mum's in Innisfil for the weekend, leaving Celia and the kittens in Matt's hands, which are of questionable capability. My mum and I went for a walk by the lake with our champagne glasses and caught up on some girly chitchat, which is just what I was looking forward to after a busy week. I was also looking forward to seeing my favourite kitty of them all: my baby Tiddles. He's not actually a baby, I was in fact nine years old when I got him, but he still is and always will be my precious boy. 

For my ninth birthday, my parents had actually bought me a fish tank and four goldfish. Bizarrely, one died each day until they were all dead, leaving me with mild but significant traumatic scars (I still remain a sensitive, sensitive soul), so my devastated mum decided to crank things up a notch and bought me two little black kittens. 

Although I never forgot the fish (Misty, Moddy, Mardi-Gras and Goldie), my dream had come true. My older brother and I named the kittens Zack and Tiddles. Back then we lived in a fairly small house in Hampshire, England, and my mum was very house proud, so the cats weren't allowed on work surfaces, furniture or upstairs and were sent out into the garage to sleep in a heated box at night. 

Zack and Tiddles saw many years pass by in that little house, and saw both my brother and I grow up, become adults, move out, go to university and our parents separate. My mum eventually moved in with her new partner in High Wycombe before they planned on moving to Canada. In light of this, and because her partner didn't want to keep the cats in his house, we gave them to a rescue shelter. I know, it's awful and there's no excuse, but after a few days, we couldn't bare being apart from them, including my mum's partner. We took them back, much to the understandable annoyance of the shelter worker ("I hope you're not just going to abandon them again.") but it still upsets me to think how close we came to not having them in our lives anymore. 

They then lived like kings in High Wycombe, enjoying a bigger house and marvelling at the strange looking horses in a field the house looked onto, but the bliss wasn't to last too long. I'd just moved to London and started a busy corporate lifestyle when my mum called and told me that Zacky had died. He'd had a stroke right in front of her and was dead within literally seconds. I was inconsolable, to say the least. 

Zack & Tiddles in High Wycombe

Tiddles in Canada

Zack was always the friendly, bossy one who liked his food above everything else, whereas Tiddles was more reserved, slimmer and had affection for my family that stretched beyond just pursuing food and warmth. Throughout my troublesome teenage years, he'd always find me when I was upset and rub his face against mine as though he just knew I needed comforting. 

After Zacky's death, Tiddles soon became the centre of attention, enjoying a spotlight he'd not got a fair share of before. A few months later, my mum and her partner moved to Canada and took Tiddles with them. Since they've been living in Innisfil, Tiddles has been spoilt beyond belief. My mum is more house proud than ever, yet Tiddles now has complete run of the huge house, goes and sleeps wherever he likes and is fed fresh prawns and chicken breast. In fact, he expects no less. He is cuddled and cooed at and stroked by all of us all of the time and even gets fought over, each of us begging him to come and sit in their lap. At his ripe old age of 15, he even caught a finch just the other day (I'm not particularly for this type of hunting, but we believe the bird must have been weak. Natural selection, then?)

Each night I'm here at my mum's, he insists on sleeping at the foot of my bed, where he purrs until he falls asleep and sneakily crawls up towards my face and curls up as close to me as possible in the middle of the night. I don't think I could love a cat more. And bizarrely, having now got used to Celia, seeing Tiddles is like seeing a giant bulldozer of a cat because she is just so small in comparison. I wonder if they'd get on if I were to convince my mum to adopt her...

Kittens everywhere

The little critters are growing at an alarming rate, particularly Elliott, who seems to be dwarfing the others more and more each day. He's got a crazy appetite and lately it's been hard to fight back the tears of laughter as we watch him desperately scrambling for his dinner. We have to give Celia some pills twice a day in her food, you see, so we give it to her first and watch her to make sure she eats it. No matter how hard we try to keep the kittens away from her bowl during this time, they're somehow always there in a flash, like homing missiles with claws and teeth. It's almost concerning the lengths Elliott goes to to get to Celia's bowl. He literally throws himself at it and if you dare get in his way, you'll be lucky to emerge unscathed.

With this tremendous growth spurt comes the awkward habit of the kittens roaming around the flat at surprising speeds, most often underneath your feet. As a former ballet dancer (6 months worth of lessons at the age of six), I am understandably light on my feet and cautious of everywhere I tread, however the same cannot be said of Matt's limbs, which seem to clamber more blindly through the flat than the kittens themselves. In the past week, he's stepped on two kittens and yesterday sat on Mini-Cat. I have no idea how it didn't turn out horrifying, but I am thankful that it didn't nonetheless. All I remember is seeing his rear end, again, blindly moving towards the sofa when I spotted a black blob directly in his derriere's path. Too late - he'd sat, but nothing happened. No squeal, nothing. I relaxed and realised it must've been the remote control. Moments later, his bum finally picked up the necessary signals and he stood up to reveal poor Mini-Cat looking - get this - not angry or confused, but mildly inconvenienced. She curled back up to sleep and I screamed at and lectured Matthew for several minutes before popping Mini-Cat on the floor to see if she was OK. She was totally fine and was abusing her brothers and sister again only minutes later. Naturally, if this happens again, Matt will be advertising on Craigslist for a roommate.

The story

I'm a 23 year old girl living in downtown Toronto with my lovely boyfriend, Matt.  Just over two weeks ago, I was absent-mindedly indulging my recurring fixation of getting a puppy by looking for puppy ads online. All of my friends, family and indeed myself know that I cannot possibly get a dog with my condo-dwelling, full time working lifestyle, but it was still mildly enjoyable looking at pictures of cute puppies when there were no new home renovation programs to be watched. I found myself on Craigslist, specifically on the Toronto pets section when an ad claiming to be "URGENT" caught my eye. There was a picture of a beautiful black cat nursing tiny grey kittens in a small steel cage. This little family was at a high kill shelter in Hamilton, where they were shortly due for euthanasia because of overcrowding.

The infamous picture from Craigslist:

Just over 24 hours later, the cat family was in my tiny condo on the 28th floor. Matt was displeased, my mum fuming and my mouth dry from disbelief that I'd actually done this. I am only fostering the cats, not giving them a permanent home, you understand, but for some reason it didn't quite seem real at the time: I didn't really believe that anybody would get back to me about saving these cats, or perhaps I thought that plenty of other people would have stepped up to the challenge before me. But no, one day I was young and carefree and literally the next I was, well, still young but carrying a whole load more responsibility.

You may wonder what the big deal is. After all, a cat is little hassle and a mum cat especially is very good at looking after her babies. This is exactly what I thought, yet the all-encapsulating masseuse-like fingers of dread still kneaded at my skin, and still little was I to know exactly how hard this venture was to turn out.