Ain't Nothin' Better in the World, You Know...

The temperatures this weekend were very pleasant, and the sky was clear. The sun is still some distance to the south when it rises, but it’s moving north all the time, and shining more and more into the sitting room of the Cosy Cabin.

The cats are enjoying the warmth on their furs. I think there are few more appealing sights than the sunlight illuminating a cat’s coat; it seems that each hair is individually bright. This will be a good year for the sunbathers I live with.

(This entry’s title was chosen to put that song back into Katie Isabella’s mum’s head after she’s no doubt grateful for having rid herself of it.)

Breakfast With Sable

It seems like I repeat myself with regard to Sable, but each time I mention her, it’s a small celebration of a new step forward.

Today, I was preparing breakfast, and she came up the stairs from the library. She waited on the landing for about ten minutes, and watched while I ate at the dining table. She then wandered about the kitchen a bit and sat about three feet behind me. She has never been so close before, unless I had been bringing her a meal. I think she was debating whether to enter the sitting room; if I had not been present, I am sure she would have, but I suspect she worried that I would be between her and her escape to the basement. Eventually, she retreated to the library once more, only to reappear upstairs later.

She also talked for the first time while in the same room with me. I doubt that she was speaking to me. Nonetheless, it was another first. She gives a kind of short, yelping bark, over and over, but will vary it with a trill that ends with a bark-like a hiccup. What it means, I cannot determine.

The pictures don’t do her latest excursion justice. The second one looks confrontational, but Moxy, at least, true to his nickname of the Mixer, has won Sabe over. I watched this morning as he and she sniffed noses; he then arched his back and rubbed against her, while she smelled along his body to his bum.

Each day, Sable seems to retreat after her progression, but this is, I believe, just a rest, after what must be an exciting and possibly stressful moment for her. Who knows what the next day will bring?

The Movie Moment

Sometimes, life is like a movie, a movie with a scene that you know can’t happen in real life.

I was downstairs sweeping up cat-litter in the library - that’s not the movie scene - when I heard a rush from up the stairs, a rush followed by thuds and bangs. These are characteristic sounds of cats chasing one another, not a rare occurrence in the Cosy Cabin. Then followed a hollow ringing sound, as of a heavy, or perhaps merely speedy, object striking something thin and fragile, something of glass or ceramic. On top of this was a whirring noise, inexplicable, yet familiar.

I hastened up the stairs, thinking a water-bowl had been broken, and surprised some guilty-looking cats. As they hurried from the scene, I observed a blurry tortoiseshell image leap from a kitchen counter. And still the mysterious whirring continued, though deeply, as if it were an object in deceleration.

On the counter, where it was to be filled with cat-food for an imminent meal, was one of the felines’ shallow bowls. It was spinning in place, like a top, rapidly, but less rapidly with every second. Around and around it whirled, making the enigmatic noise I had heard, until, slowly, it revolved gently and easily to a halt, never having moved from its spot, as though fixed in place on its axis.

It was as if a superhero had just flown through the room, the only evidence of his passing a spinning plate, or a violent yet swift crime had been committed, and all was still, except for a whirling dish, animated among its stationary fellows.

I looked at the cats. They were stock still, awaiting my reaction. I told them I would nominate them for an Oscar for special effects. They wanted to know when dinner would be served.

A Surfeit of Companionship

Part of the duties of a foster-guardian is to socialize the cats in his care, to accustom them to human contact and, if possible, to create in them a desire for that contact. When it works, it feels wonderful. When it works with numerous cats, it feels crowded.

I like to relax after dinner; bring a cup of tea into the sitting room, listen to music, and sit with the cats. Not all of them want to share the couch with me all the time, but, more and more often, they do.

Brazil will follow me about, voicing his desire in a soft, Renn-like cry, eventually flopping down in front of me. He won’t climb on my lap; I have to put him there, after which he relaxes, closes his eyes and enjoys the attention.

Moxy will start with kneading; lots and lots of it, telling me, among other things, that he needs his claws cut. Then he will roll onto my legs and want chest rubs.

Imogen of course feels proprietorial, and will sit facing me, kneading in her slow, shallow manner, until she curls up, half on my lap and half off, requiring a hand to keep her in place.

Then, there’s Neville, who will slowly approach, making his throaty demands for a lengthy chin-rub. He will sometimes lie on my legs, sometimes not. Sometimes, I have to reach for him, which, though laborious, allows me to tend to two cats at once.

Periodically, even Valkyrie will want lap-time - briefly, in between bouncing across the cat-trees and playing with fuzzy mice.

Though I want Indigo to leave the bedroom at least once in a while, I suppose I am lucky that she confines her cuddles and snuggles to the chair at my computer desk, and after I go to bed. She has no rival then.

That leaves only Sable. Some day, I hope to have her on my lap, too, enjoying having her furry head abrased, or perhaps even falling asleep next to me. Maybe by then, others will have been adopted and found other laps. Or mine will be wider.

The Old Uncle

I think Neville has been holding out on me. A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about how he climbed Minuet’s cat-tree in the bedroom. Now, I think he was playing with Valkyrie.

Sometimes, the Nevsky goes down to the basement and spends time in the library. I think he may want to get away from the others. Whatever the reason, he is not always alone down there. Sunday afternoon, I walked to the library. Peering into the room, I saw Nev and Valkyrie on the couch. Neville was slapping the couch’s surface in front of him with a paw, alternating this with Valk reaching out with one of her paws. I didn’t understand what they were doing.

Afterward, I observed two fuzzy mice between Neville’s outstretched front feet. Valkyrie had been trying to snatch them from her old uncle, and he was smacking at her paws in refusal.

I have seen and heard Neville when he is grumpy. He makes derisive sounds and usually turns away, or even walks off, if he is truly annoyed. If he wanted simply to let the youngster have the mice, he would have moved back. And if Valkyrie had wanted the mice, she would have dug them out with a concentrated effort. They were playing the feline version of Hungry Hippo.

Has Neville been a playful uncle all along? I doubt it, since I probably would have seen it long before now. But perhaps, every now and then, one of the youngsters catches him in the right mood. Or perhaps it’s Valkyrie, and he has a soft spot for her. In any case, that afternoon, for a few minutes, my old grey lion was playing with a kitten.

The Toughest Part

The toughest part of fostering is when the animal and the caregiver develop a friendship that the latter knows the former feels very strongly. With some cats, a relationship is very good, but you know it can be replicated without much loss, and reasonably quickly. Valkyrie likes me carrying her and will roll about asking for attention. But she is the sort of cat who will become good friends with almost any human who treats her right. Indigo, I think, would also create a strong bond with another person, especially if she were an only cat; that would aid her in a new home tremendously.

Brazil, of course, is so very shy that it would take him a long time, assisted by infinite patience, to come around - though he would.

But now, Moxy has decided I’m his best friend. He meets me when I come home from work. He follows me a great deal. He stands on my lap kneading and purring, then lies down and actually nods off to sleep while I rub his chest and chin. Yesterday, he kept me company - and took up much of the writing table - while I balanced by bank-book. He has completely forsaken his outdoor ways and enjoys life inside with his comfortable sleeping spots and his playmates. He is such an easy-going fellow, he would fit into almost any environment, and gentle enough to be friends with almost any feline. He is, in short, one of the rescue-group’s most adoptable cats.

Adoptions are very slow right now, so I don’t think he is going anywhere soon. That will make it harder for him to go when he does. And it will be my job to persuade people that he is just the sort they are looking for - and in the Mixer’s case, that’s probably no more than the truth.

Yes, a cat like Moxy is the toughest part of fostering.

Maybe Spring

Some of the trees behind the Cosy Cabin look to be ready to spring: I observed these fuzzy buds (Latin name (possibly) fuzzii budensis), perhaps indicative of imminent leaves, though I don’t know of any leaves that start out as rolled up fluff. Then again, I’m no botanist.

But, in case I was becoming too forward in hoping for the new season, this little guy and a million or so of his fellows descended on the fuzzy buds and elsewhere in the back yard later in the day.

Well, spring has to come some time: the cats have been noticing more birds out the windows, after all.