new encounters III

Blackie enjoys too much of a good thing


young cats unite

it's time for the man and woman to seriously think about what they are going to do with Macky and Blackie. they are thinking about boarding them somewhere nearby so that there can be regular visiting. possibly, 23 will go with them as a threesome as she has formed a strong attachment to Macky.

Suede will miss her young cat friends. i will miss playtime mostly. Fruity doesn't much care whether they stay or go. but our older counterparts are getting finicky about their personal space. and Bobby has become almost desperate for the man and woman's attention.

so the man and woman toys with the idea of an animal family II, to cater to the growing numbers of unwanted animals as well as the quarantining of strays for sterilisation. this is to keep us from going from family to shelter. we started out as an animal family, we want to keep it that way.

new encounters II

the kittens get several hours of playtime with us everyday now. its nice to have other things to chase around the house besides the bugs (cheshire grin).

we love them. nothing like a couple of kitties to liven things up around here.





Fruity and Leafty rediscovers the utility room and each other.

feeding frenzy

the woman is down for the count after a stint in bintan over the weekend. must be the day-old sardines. humans are dumb. cats know exactly when food goes bad and stay the heck away.

we have been really good on our own, onekell will attest to that. nothing broken, nothing soiled. thanks onekell, for keeping our food and water trays filled!

new encounters

unusual pairings

Suede & Fruity


Papa & 23

a fitter papa

when Papa first came to the animal family, we were all amazed. this cat can't climb.

other than Leafty, we all take our meals on the dining table and most of us have no problems getting there in one leap. it is obvious from the start that Papa is never going to eat if he didn't get a little help, so the woman positions a storage box and chair as intermittent steps for him to lug his sizeable girth onto the table.

he does this with great effort at the start. it is comical and at the same time painful to watch. sometimes, the other cats race him and he picks up speed to catch them, only to lose balance and slide to a dull thud back on the floor. but the woman is relentless in her crusade to put the cat back into Papa.

glad to report that Papa can now take the steps in one breath, sometimes beating even me to his big reward of super-sized helpings. he walks around more and can even be counted on to hustle when necessary for tag team bug cornering action.

Papa, you are finally a cat.

day in the life of 23

10.00am


3.00pm


9.00pm


9.02pm "come on, working a can opener is not rocket science."


11pm

kittens let loose

the kittens have recovered from their flu. i can see their eyes at last, not stumbling around with eyes glued shut by mucus.


gingin, as victor tabbycat predicts, is the first to get adopted. his adopter will be picking him up tomorrow. the rest of you, buck up and put on your best doe face!



blackie is still very tiny for being the last to recover. but he is a speedy one and dashes for the heavens every time the man and woman opens the utility room door. keep your germs behind the yellow line, buddy.

23 makes herself indispensable

animal family hierarchy

it does seem, to the public eye, that the animal family residents live in blissful uncommon feline harmony. that is almost true because 95% of the time, we do resemble the peachy dynamics on 123 Sesame Street.

as an insider, i can attest that this kind of gaiety is not a given and certainly not attained by sheer luck nor human intervention.

the other 5% of the time in the family is less picturesque. like it or not, it is about making sure everyone knows their rightful place. and our alpha queen does that. Rosie. some of you may be very surprised. she came to us as a regular pokemon but she has very much evolved with time and age.

what hasn't changed is that she is still all maternal to Suede, Bobby, me and now 23. but cross her, and we get a menacing screech and a smack on the head. thankfully for us, she is a forgiving and loving matron and lets us back into her good books very soon after if we sneak up to her with head down and all sheepish-eyed. she will then give us a lick to signify the end of our social ostracism.

most of us are smart enough to know our way around the system and get the most out of it. Rosie loves by organisation so all we have to do is to let her be the boss and then sit back and enjoy the benefits. but there are among us two that are slow on the uptake - Papa and Fruity. they cower in fear of the almight queen and run if she so much as looks at them.

so Rosie has executive power over the animal family hierarchy.

yet corporate success is never built on the back of one person, however large his or her personality. while i am no more than a minion like everyone else around here, i must say my influence in the animal family is no less, though in widely complementary ways.

i am the one that lends a listening ear, mediates conflicts, soothes ruffled feathers and buys everyone a round of drinks on special occasions. so one of us rules by exclusion, the other by inclusion. essentially in a successful group dynamic, you need the two kinds of leadership.

i say this because i know Rosie never reads this blog. sometimes true leadership is never to admit that you are one (wink).

back to slack

don't we look like angels when we are not hunting?

the hunt ends

secret seven

who says cats are solitary animals?

like everyone else, we appreciate good company.

maximum capacity

no one has called up for neo23 yet. maybe it's the age, 5 mths, and the colour. same as Mummy. thankfully she is saved from going the way of Mummy. but she deserves better than to be another number in the ever growing animal family. we all do.


the man and woman is reconsidering plans for a cat mezzanine to increase the capacity of our apartment. don't know, man, don't know if that is the way to go.

goodbye Mummy

Mummy goes back to her usual spot sterilised after a week of crying for her freedom. her kittens are doing much better. only blackie is still sniffling. the woman hopes it's soon before she can stop wiping mucus from the floor and walls of the utility room. glad we are not allowed in there. eeks.

so you got the sofa and the man

we got each other. so there.

back in business

after months of nothing, we are back to a double digit feline population in the animal family.

besides the 2 Hwa Chong charges, a caregiver managed to help us catch a mother and 3 kittens from an adjoining estate. the mother cat is a high priority in terms of sterilisation because she is very very fertile and has had a couple of litters before. but every time, the litter will mysteriously disappear leaving her screaming for her babies and dripping milk from her full tits.

maybe the mother gotten smarter at protecting her brood because when these kittens surfaced, they were quite big already. right now, they can actually eat solids and are about ready to be weaned.

they are however, a little under the weather, sniffling, with mucus around the eyes which will hopefully clear up soon with medication before the first adoption visitors drop by.


Update: neo23 is starting to get the hang of sharing her space with so many other cats. less growling and hissing all round. woman is just waiting for us to start playing together. one thing at a time, woman.

thank goodness man has some time on his hands now that the animal family has to ramp up full gear once again. The Hwa Chong teacher, who has 3 cats of her own, has volunteered to pick up the tab on the sterilisation of neo23 and her sibling which is wonderful. the man will take them all down along with the mother cat at the end of the week.

hopefully, the phones will start ringing soon with potential adopters for the kittens, neo23 and her sibling. the mother cat will be released back to where she was found.