we've ben furry, furry busy!!!

several cats have emailed or commented to ask how we are . . . we're sorry for being gone so long, but there's been so much going on. i (bat) get to catch you up.

last you heard, holly, the christmas miracle kitty, was pregnant! on february 24th, just past midnight in the wee hours of the morning, she gave birth to FOUR tiny kittens! mom moved holly and the babies to the guest room where me and bandit wouldn't bother them. when the kittens were just five weeks old, holly made a break for it and escaped by knocking out the window screen! she never got used to mom and the cousin. guess she was just too feral. anyway, we don't think she meant to leave her kittens. in fact, she kept walking 'round the outside of the house at night crying, but mom could never catch her again. mom said she saw her about two weeks ago one night very late, but she doesn't see her very often.

fortunately the kittens were old enough to drink kitten milk on their own and to eat soft kitten food, so they grew up healthy. when they were about ten weeks old, mom took three of the four up to franklin, texas where they went to new homes. shadow went to be a little girl's new best friend, and zee and emmett went to be barn cats. mom runs into their humans periodically for work, and they say they're all doing quite well.

the fourth kitten, ed, was mommy's favorite, and mommy didn't really want to give ed away, but mom knew that three cats was really too much for our house. so she did the next best thing: she gave ed (who's a girl, by the way) to our next door human, mark.

ed was very happy at mark's, but mark's son, who doesn't live with him but only comes to visit not very often, is allergic (or so he claims!) and told mark it was either him or ed! what could he do" well, we would have chosen ed, but mark loves his son, so he asked mommy of she would take ed back. now, mommy was very happy to have ed back, because ed was her favorite kitten from holly's litter.

so then we were three. and we were pretty happy, even though ed took some getting used to.

but getting ed back made another good thing happen. we gots a DAD! remember mark, the neighbor who took ed? well . . . he and mommy were already friends, but they started spending more time together, first when he was going to give ed a home, then when ed lived with him, then after ed came back to our house. pretty soon they started dating, and now they're getting MARRIED next march.

we love dad. he loves us, too, especially bandit, who is his cat now he says.

but wait! there's more! dad likes cats, and he has some friend who live in the country on a farm. he went to stay with them while he did some work near where they lived, and he told mom about a cute little ginger kitten about the same age and size as ed. a few weeks later, mom went with him to visit his friends . . . and they came home with TOMMY!

so now we are FOUR! and four really is too many for our house!

ed doesn't like living with all of us, and she wants to be an only cat where she can have ALL the attention. so mommy and dad are trying to get a nice lady friend of theirs named carla to give ed a home. mommy feels a little bad, especially since i like ed a lot and mom's afraid i'll miss her a lot if she goes to a new home. mommy says she won't let just anyone have ed, but she trusts carla to give ed a good home. we'll just have to see what happens.

mommy and dad play with us all every day and dad especially likes to play with us with the red dot (mom says it's called a laser pointer) and the whirlybird! we love love LOVE the whirly bird. especially ed, who can jump awfully high for such a little girl.

mom says the only thing that would make life better would be if we would learn to scoop our own litter boxes, but, hey, we'er not stupid! let the humans be our slaves!

bat (and bandit and ed and tommy)

my valentine for luna

a valentine's day (questionable) miracle

remember our christmas miracle? well, it appears that the christmas miracle is going to give us a valentine's day miracle. ever since holly was let out of her kennel and given free run of the house, we haven't seen much of her. she's getting less afraid, though, so last night i got to spend more than 30 seconds in the same room with her. instead of running from me, or even scampering quickly, she sauntered by. this gave me enough time to see, quite clearly, that little miss holly isn't quite so little anymore. in fact, she appears to be "with kittens." tonight we tried our best to capture her so we could go to the vet tomorrow to confirm (or, better yet, deny) this suspicion. sadly, she was quite ferocious in her avoidance of our manuevers and is back to hiding in this hole by our dishwasher.

obviously, my first goal is to get her out of this hole and get her back into her kennel, which is a much safer place for her to birth her kittens. given the date i got her and the fact that she couldn't have gotten pregnant from either of my neutered boys, sometime in the next 12 days we should have a houseful of kittens. since i've never had a pregnant cat nor even witnessed the birth of kittens, if anyone has any advice, i'd be delighted to hear it!

the mom (and grandmom-to-be!)

I asked a girlcat to be my valentine!

today i read in skeezix's blog that luna didn't have a valentine yet, so i went to her blog and asked her if she would be MY valentine. I even asked her in Spanish. My Spanish isn't very good, though, so I hope she understands what I said.

Bandit

i love my new sister

hi. it's me, bat. mom said i could blog about holly today so that everycat could know how she's doing. last week mom took holly to the vet. when the vet examined her, she found a big big big deep deep deep wound at the base of holly's tail! it was infected! the vet shaved some of holly''s fur off and cleaned the wound up really good and told mommy she had to give holly some medicine twice a day for ten whole days! that's a really long time. holly doesn't like her medicine AT ALL! it smells and tastes like bananas! so everytime mommy goes to get holly out of her kennel to give her medicine, holly fights and scratches and hisses and growls. yesterday holly was so bad that mommy couldn't give her any medicine at all! this afternoon mommy went to get holly out for medicine, but holly was not a nice girl and tried to claw mommy in the face and got a big scratch on mommy's hand! so mommy left the door to the kennel open and just sat on the floor and talked to holly. i went and laid down right next to the kennel and tried to pet holly through the cage. i love her and want her to be my friend. and do you know what happened then? you'll never ever ever guess! holly started purring! mommy says she couldn't believe her ears! later mommy was able to give holly some more medicine, but mommy says there has to be one more time of medicine, then holly can come out of her kennel and play with us! yay! i'm so excited!

heh heh heh

hey. it's me, holly. boy, do i sure have the beans in this house fooled. the one that keeps saying she's my new mommy is the worst. she keeps calling me "little miss holly" and saying all sorts of things in this syrupy voice. things like "you're mommy's sweet little girl." and she coos at me. seriously! what's a street cat gotta do around here, anyway? the other bean, the cousin, comes in to try to pet me when the new mom's gone. i hiss and flatten my ears back. i do that to the new mom, too, 'cause she's got to learn who's the boss. that's me, just in case you weren't certain.

for the last couple of days, ever since i stopped being totally docile and started hissing at the new mom, she's started calling me "holly golightly." she says it's from some movie. she says she's calling me that because in the movie, holly golightly pretended not to care about people because she was afraid of getting hurt. the new mom says that i really do want to love her and that i want her to love me, too, but i'm scared because i was hurt and because i used to be a street cat. hmmpphh. we'll see about that!

Thanks for all the warm welcomes!

thanks, everyone, for making holly feel welcome here. i've read her all your wonderful comments. she's doing well today, and even acting a bit fiestier.

victor tabbycat asked about whether holly belonged to someone. i just wanted to address this issue, so no one's worried about that. she had no collar on when she was found in the middle of a major street, and also the vet indicated that she acted like a cat that had not had much, if any, human interaction, more like a feral cat. given those indicators, the vet felt comfortable with my adopting her without searching for an owner.

the mom

a real christmas miracle

bat & bandit: we're going to let mommy tell this story, because it's really her story anyway.

mommy: on christmas eve, i was in corpus christi visiting my parents with bat & bandit. that afternoon i drove my mother to my grandparents' house for a visit. on the way home, around 5:00 pm, we were coming back home, driving down a major road (two lanes each way with a turn lane in between) when i saw a cat in a lane going the opposite way. it looked as though it had been hit by a car, and i thought i saw it move. even though my mom was telling me it was dead and to just keep driving, i whipped the car around and pulled up just before where the cat was. my mom kept telling me that the cat was dead and not to get out of the car. i told her again that i thought i had seen it move. while we were having this argument, the cat lifted its head. i jumped out of the car, grabbed a blanket from the back and ran to the cat. there wasn't much blood, but her ear was bloody, as was her nose, and one eye was cloudy with almost no pupil visible. i gathered her up gently in the blanket and took her to my mom to hold. we drove to our house just a few minutes away, where i ran in to get my dad to come out and look at the cat while mom stayed int he car holding her. dad looked at the kitty and said that the damage to her eye indicated brain damage. i refused to believe that and decided to find an emergency vet. i went inside and called information to get a number, then called the clinic for directions. the clinic was about twenty minutes away, and the whole time the poor kitty was having labored breathing and my mom was afraid she was going to die in the car. we turned the cat over to the people at the clinic and signed good samaritan paperwork. this in itself was a blessing because i had expected to be charged just for them to look at the cat. after the vet techs got the kitty situated and in an oxygen tank, we discussed what would happen next. i was told that they would do what they could for the cat and then, if it survived, they would try to find it a home, but if they couldn't, it might have to be euthanized. i immediately gave them my contact information and told them i wanted to adopt her if she made it through all right. at the time, we weren't sure she wasn't paralyzed or suffering from internal injuries. well, we left the clinic with a promise from the vet tech on duty to call before she left at 11 pm with a status report. no call came that night, and by 7 am on christmas morning i couldn't stand it anymore so i called and was told that she had been kept in the oxygen tank all night and her breathing had stabilized and that the vet would be examing her later in the day. around 5 christmas evening, i finally spoke with the vet, a delightfully helpful woman named briana harbaugh, who told me they were all surprised to discover that the little girl (she had to put me on hold to go check on the kitty's gender because they'd been too busy before to even check!)was perfectly fine, with just a few bumps and bruises and a relatively minor issue with her right eye caused by the head trauma. not even any broken ribs! i discussed my desire to adopt the kitty, and the vet and i agreed that i would pay for them to keep her another night and for three medicines she would need. the next day i bought a new purple collar and another cat carrier, told the boys they would be getting a little sister and went off to pick up Holly, which was the name i'd decided on for our christmas miracle kitty. the vet tech packed her up for me and showed me how to administer the three medicines and sent me away without charging me a single cent, instead thanking me for rescuing and adopting her. today the boys and i and their new little sister drove back to houston. we're keeping holly in a separate kennel until her eye issue is cleared up and i can take her in to our regular vet for a full well-kitty checkup and vaccinations and schedule an appointment to get her spayed. so far, the boys have sniffed around her kennel and her, and bat has hissed at her a few times, but i think it will all be fine. our holly is a beautiful little (only six pounds!) brown tabby cat. here are a few pictures of her in her temporary kennel. she's intermittently spending time in and out of the litter box, but she's acting less afraid everytime i give her more medicine. the vet said she hadn't eaten or drank anything or used the litter box during the 48 hours she was there. i was very pleased to note that last night, her first night with us, she ate, drank and used the litter box!