last breath

thanks everyone for your kind words.

Leafty’s peaceful passing at home is a real consolation to us but brings back a lot of guilty feelings towards the passing of Bobby. in their mindless attempt to save him, he was put through a lot of treatments at the hospital and the worse part was that he died there alone in the middle of the night, before the man and woman could get to the hospital.

animals don’t know the good intentions of hospitals and drips, they only know if you are there with them or you are not.

when the woman finally got to the hospital to see his lifeless body, his tortured expression haunts her to this day. We know he is in a better place now, waiting happily and patiently for the reunion of the family. but on his last breath on earth, he must have been thinking, “where are all of you?”

goodbye sweet Bobby

it was the longest 48 hours as we watched if the treatment of last recourse would take. it didn't and Bobby passed away in the hospital yesterday, leaving a gaping hole in our hearts and an empty nook between the man and woman reserved only for him at bedtime.









it was the same day that our malay neighbour called to say that leukemia, ailing for days, has also succumbed.

we prayed for angels to comfort our suffering animals and they did one better.


(adapted from Sarah Jane Szikora's Heavenly Abode)

Bobby in hospital

Bobby reacted badly to a new course of medication for his overlicking. after unsuccessful but harmless attempts at antibiotics and steroids, anti-fungal seems pretty innocuous as a treatment but it has wreaked extreme havoc on his immune system. a possible diagnosis, although the attending vets have been vague, is Feline Infectious Peritonitis, characterised by breathing difficulties, lethargy, loss of appetite, visual disturbances, abnormal behaviour and a wobbly gait. it is rare but final.

our fragile, sensitive little boy, you hang in there.

cats in silhouette

bobby, what a view

surprised i can still type. (revisit: this was taken a few days before Bobby became, now irretrievably, distressed. such a cheeky little boy before that. keep your tail up at the bridge, Bob Bob, we are thinking of you.)

yes Mary, it's so good to see how kittens from the animal family alumni have grown. here's Skoda. she now has her own blog which she shares with new mates, Braun and Mikki.

their mummy, Mighty Mouse faced the age old dilemma of cat lovers whole Singapore over, what to do with stray cats on death row besides turning their home into their very own SPCA? they chose to open their home once again and that's how Mikki and briefly, blessed Mikey, became part of their family.

the animal family still has 2 rescued strays in the utility room until we are satisfied that the streets are safe again. white grey has passed on, given up on this miserable life that has shown him little but the back of the pest control truck and the pound. all 3 cats were ill from something they caught from their cheerless transit (somehow, they don't come out quite the same). Gin-Gin and Bon-Bon however, have stayed strong and are recovering beautifully.

over the week, the animal family has been told that this all seems like an exercise in futility: sterilise cats, they still get caught, claim cats from pound and they end up not making it anyway. through all of which, no perceivable dent in the number of strays that continue to be caught and (humanely) destroyed has really been made.

still, we should not make it easy for them to continue their vicious culling cycle. they will just have to contend with the fact that some of these cats are not going to go quietly.

all in a week's work

we recycled,


altered some pants,


visited old friends,


and got fixed!

sleep in heavenly peace,

sleep in heavenly peace.






merry christmas, everyone!

we're still here!

thanks peoples for still visiting even though we over at the animal family have been very disorganised lately and can't quite get anything worthwhile done including updating this blog.

everyone's well, including Blackie, the Paws and Chaplin... who are still here! there were a few interested parties but they ended up picking other kitties on the adoption pages over the little rascals.

but life goes on in the animal family, one kindred day at a time.

left to our own devices

tortoiseshells rule!

mackie and 23's twin charm grows. we have enquirers and we might actually be losing them soon - to a good home.

a face only a mum can love

i mean the woman (mum) of course. Bobby is still her all time favourite and i can't for the life of me understand why. the kittens i can understand, pretty Rosie, Fruity and 23 with their big eyes i can understand, Papa i can definitely understand.

but squinty testy bald face?





but the woman always had a strange taste in men, Gilbert Grissom, Frasier Crane, Alan Shore, Dr Perry Cox, Melvin Udall and Lex Luthor.

23 makes herself indispensable

Bobby's harem

it's amazing how even though Fruity and i stand half a head taller than Bobby, not to mention Rosie, we still pay him deference just for being male.

when he wants a toy, we stand aside. when he wants the last morsel on the dish, he gets it.

there are a lot of theories about how females are taught from young to associate 'to love' with 'to serve', why our responses are rooted in relatedness more than principles, that even the strongest female can have the desire to want to be swept away by masculine energy.

quite frankly, they are all true. i consider myself a strong, (highly) intelligent, independent, self-respecting lass, but who can resist that daffy masculine face? seriously.

nightmare

Bobby dreams he became a gucci handbag.

misuse of office equipment

what's the bet the woman makes the IT guy's report at the end of the month for highly suspicious internet behaviour?

ladies and gentlemen, i present to you...

EXHIBIT A

lazy friday afternoon

life goes back to normal

somewhat, as we wait for all available sets of bed linens to dry.

bad boy!

"sorry for spraying the bed again."

rollercoaster week

it's pretty trying times at the animal family right now. if you ever wonder why crazy cat ladies look the way they do, well, it is because they just don't have the time or energy to comb their hair or coordinate their clothes. i know because i have one at home.

Tara is more feisty now and it is getting harder and harder to medicate her without her foaming at the mouth to get rid of the nasty taste. but finally, there is something for the woman to jump for joy about in her haphazard hairpins and stained t-shirt. Tara just had a long beautiful firm slightly moist dark brown perfect shit. yes, crazy human alert here.

Bobby, who has started spraying on our sofa and Mummy have both been sterilised. when the man and woman go to pick them up, the vet has another customer there picking up his sterilised male cat. the man asks if he could keep his cat's balls. the nurse replies, do you want them as is or preserved? i'd like someone to explain that to me.

Monster, Rex and Mungo go away on adoption trials yesterday. Monster and Rex to 2 sisters and Mungo to a family whose beloved cat died. however, Mungo will come back again today because their other 5-yr old cat went berserk and tried to kill him. Mungo will go on another adoption trial on friday. Bramble's potential adopter fell through due to family objections. more people are coming to see her in the next few days.

it is absolutely heartbreaking for Mummy. she has been calling for her missing kittens. she never ventures out of the utility room when she was nursing her 4 kittens but has started doing so in search of them. i hope adopters appreciate the pains of the mother when they leave with her kittens. hopefully they will value them all the more because of it.

stuntcats

before you start getting all impressed, just remember who was there first. ME. Tooty says: from back of swivel chair good place to leap to fragile glass cabinet causing pretty trinkets to shake and woman's teeth to rattle. to come down again, computer monitor makes good landing pad, especially when man is using computer. thank you.