I have spoiled Mr. Tover, or he has trained me well. This now 8 month old kitten has one favorite place to sleep and that would be on my neck.

I keep asking him how he would like it if I slept on his neck? But he is not fazed by my inquiry and will yawn, reach out with his ebony paw and lightly bat at my face as if to say; Silly Human, you belong to me!

I am not sure why my lap is unworthy of his attention. It seems to be satisfactory to all the other cats here. But Tover, he is intent on being a necker. He will when my lap is occupied in one mighty leap, clear the pile of kitties on my lap and land straight on my face. Taking a short breast rest he will then settle on his coveted place, my neck. If I dare to stop his advances he will mew so pitifully (Mike says it sounds truly like I have hurt his feelings). Then I will sigh, tell him to come on and he will crawl up and turn into my neck scharf. Although, I don’t wear him outside to keep the cold out, the thought has crossed my mind. Maybe I could start a new fad?

Late last year, I received an email from someone who had found a kitten in dire straights. She contacted me, finding me through Kitten-rescue.com and together we worked out a plan to save this kitty’s life even though all the odds were against it.

The girl was in India and her story unfolded before me through emails. It has now been set in print and online- you can see it here if you wish:

One Act

McKenzie and her kittens are doing well. Mc is a good mom and I suspect she has done this before. Most young moms are stressed out, but she just takes it all in stride. She allows me to handle her kittens now without trying to bite or charge me.

I am feeding her five times a day several different types of food. She seems to prefer dry food to canned- though like most cats she can’t say no to Kitty Krack (aka Fancy Feast).

I live off a major highway. When we moved here, the road was rural, two lanes with not much traffic. There was a major road already going into town, past picturesque houses and forests. But then the railroad decided to open up the old tracks and since these tracks crossed this major road, they decided to turn our two lane road into a four lane highway. Bulldozers arrived and carved out a large portion of our front yard. As the trees were mowed down and hauled away, I felt the sadness for the progress.

On this road on a daily basis, there are homeless people most on bikes but some on foot. They scavenge for discarded aluminum cans stuffing them into their hand sacks or baskets. They will turn these into cash to use for whatever purpose be it food, wine or drugs- their choice. The going rate here is $0.05 a can so they are out every day trying to eke out a living. The cans are picked up after being put through the machines and being crushed. They travel to special plants where they are made into new, bright and shiny recycled cans ready for a new purpose. I wish I had that same option.

A few days ago, on another blog I posted about how I dress up black cats in doggy clothes in order to find them new homes. “Brilliant” someone commented- Truth is, I don’t feel very brilliant these days. I’m decomposing I think. With the health issues of my husband weighing heavily on me each day, my brilliance is fading. I will be driving him 60 miles a day, 5 days a week for two months to Corvallis Hospital where he will undergo radiation treatment for prostate cancer. The treatment, we are told is not invasive as far as side effects go- versus the other four options and their treatment. But what is invasive is the prep prior to the surgery. They have to move things out of the way internally so that the radiation hits the proper spot. Not a fun thing.

The hit on our finances is going to be major. It’s a long drive and gas prices keep going up all adding to worries. We have an option for him to stay at a Hospitality House but he has to be self-sufficient. I can’t stay with him, because of the cats. Besides, I would feel as if I am abandoning him. Although the treatment won’t have severe side effects- there are some side effects that he shouldn’t face alone.

We are still waiting for the decision about his foot. Are they going to do the surgery and when they do, will they be able to save the foot or take the leg? We won’t know for about a week- scheduled is an MRI to explore how much the Charcot’s Food Disease has invaded his bone and tissue. It’s a pins and needles wait. Those of you who might be reading this and are fighting a weight battle, please heed my words. Diabetes is nasty and silent and it strikes so quickly. Even when you think you might have it all under control that control can just slip away and leave you floundering.

The only thing working for me is my cats. They are my solace and my strength. I know with all this coming down the pike that I have to get my numbers down, so I started marketing these cats to the best of my abilities. It seems to have paid off because I have adopted out 16 cats/kittens within three weeks. I ask tough questions to people answering my ad. One lady flew off the handle with me and asked me in an email; “Why do you need to know all of this just so I can adopt a cat? After all, it’s JUST A CAT!” I never answered her, nor did I visit her home with Fog, the kitty she was interested in. My thoughts if you can’t answer my questions, you don’t deserve my time let alone my kitties!

I spend a lot of time talking to God and crying. I was watching a dumb commercial late last night and I just started tearing up! On a commercial for heaven’s sake! I know I need to get articles on my website felinexpress. New articles mean traffic and traffic increases the Internet Kitty. But I sit at the computer tapped out. I don’t want to write just to fill up space. I want my writing to mean something, to help people. Yet, my brain keeps quiet.

My glue is my cats. Tover and Taxi appear to know when I am at my breaking point. They will jump up on my lap and curl around my neck strategically to become my kitty Kleenex, catching my tears on their soft fur. Tover nuzzles my neck and tries to let me know that all will be okay. He is a kitty optimist. I need to listen to his wisdom.

My hope is using this Blog as a dumping ground will unplug my creativity and allow me to do what I need to do. I need to write. To put articles of value on feline and allow the people who surf in to know that they learned something during their visit and didn’t waste their time.

So it leaves the decision to recycle myself up to me. By using prayer and trying to find ways to get out of the house for even a short period of time, to breathe, to take a walk even in the storm to quell all the uneasiness I feel inside and to find my center again.

A dear friend recently told me:”All I can do is all I can do, and I am enough.” She told me to remember the cat who just arrived here, frozen under the bed and unwilling or unable to move. Masking the sweetness, blocked from moving forward or back because of the fear of the “what if’s or might have’s.” I need to not be that cat. I need to be that recycled can moving forward…with a new purpose.

I still haven’t removed Fiona’s food bowls or Donovan’s pad behind the heater. I know the sweet ones are gone but I just can’t bring myself to remove these last traces of such extraordinary cats. McGee slept with me last night, on my chest. This is a new behavior for him, his brother Donovan is the one who was the chest sleeper.

I know in the past I have made reference to The Black Plague- the endless amount of black kittens who were always seen as “unadoptable.” I grew so tired of people on the phone, or here at the house, looking at these sweet kittens then turning to me and saying “But don’t you have them in any other color?” Don’t they know that black is the primary color of all the colors?

So after months of hearing this, I decided to try and make them colorful to see if I could adopt them out. So, how can I do this? I would never paint a cat, because, I just never would (the other cats would laugh at them!) I debated painting a flower on their ear in nail polish until I read that nail polish is highly toxic to cats- so that was out.

I was shopping at WalMart and of course haunting the pet aisle and I saw these tiny dog clothes marked down in price. They were for the pocket pets marked XS. Colorful and vibrant, they stood out from all the rest, so I bought a few and brought them home.

It took a lot of patience, quick food bribes and lightning hands to not get scratched! But I managed to get the black kitties used to wearing their new threads while they were eating (distraction is always good). Then it was “photo op” day for America’s Favorite Top Models- once they had been photographed, I took the clothes right off them and got them back to their natural state.

I posted the photos in the adoption ads and these kittens went flying out the door! I am still simply amazed how quickly everyone found loving homes! I did tell the new owners that under no circumstances should they continue to dress up these kittens-that it was simply an marketing stunt!

I’ve heard back from the families and they are all so thrilled with their new black kitties! One woman confessed to me that if she goes out and adopts another kitten or a cat it will be black! So Yay for the team and I am passing on my tip to all of you who might be struggling to get black kitties adopted out. Again, don’t just put the clothes on and expect kitty to accept them-if you took a picture of the early wardrobe change it wouldn’t be pretty! But patience and using food as a motivator, they learn to accept their new wardrobe long enough to get a photo out there.

And don’t use doll clothes- let them have some dignity! Some of the dog clothes out there are mighty cute almost as cute as black kitties themselves!

Sometime early this morning, McKenzie gave birth to three kittens! Mom and babies are doing fine. Thankfully, she has gained weight, although I will be supplementing her babies with bottle feeding to take the strain off her. We have a white, black and orange family now.

She is a very protective mother, even charging me when I went looking for her this morning. She gave birth inside my canning closet. The only thing I could take a photo of was the top of the other cupboard! LOL

I will amp up her feeding times and her food now, giving her canned food, dry cat food, dry kitten food and KMR. Waiting for the stores to open and praying they aren’t out of kitten formula because I am.

My group knows that Donovan is gone and they are all acting strangely this morning. McGee, Don’s brother is going around the house softly crying. I know he is looking for his buddy. I know I miss him and like Fiona’s food bowls, I just can’t seem to remove the sheepskin pad behind the heater where Donovan slept most of the time these past few weeks.

Donovan has passed away, his temperature spiked up so high and so quickly, I don’t think he had a chance. I talked to the feline specialist afterward and she believes it was either spinal meningitis, or a virulent strain of calicivirus. Donovan, I am so sorry- I thought you were doing better. When I told Vicki how quick he left us, she said his heart must have just given up.

This month, there will be ONE lucky person who will win a Kitty Kubby-hole from felinefurniture.com!

This snug kitty kave is done in stylin leopard print! As before the only qualification is to leave a comment on this blog sometime this month. Last month’s winner was Webthistle and she was just shipped the Nekoflies cat toy.

Good luck and happy commenting! 🙂

Hey guys, I have a new advertiser here 911Friends. Do me a favor and take a look at the website. Although it is a dog product, I have to tell you the blinking lights make GREAT cat toys so tell your friends please.

Thanks for your kind words and support of my work with these cats. It is so appreciated-

I am scattered this morning, emotionally drained and lost on a sea of despair. Some people would shake me and say “For Pete’s Sake MA- it was ONLY a cat!” But those are the people I have little time for- the ones who think that a cat is an object, something to be thought about casually if at all. Trivial, some would say- a cat doesn’t matter- but they would be wrong.

Fiona did not have an easy life. I can’t imagine what it was like for that terrified kitten to be stuck inside a birdcage outside on the porch for days and nights on end. Did the bird hoarder even bother to cover the cage at night? I don’t know but from what I was told when the kitten was rescued- the cage was in a hideous state. It took no less than 7 gentle, warm baths for this cat’s true calico pattern to emerge. She was rescued in 2004 and stayed with one rescuer until 2006 when she arrived here.

Fiona was a character. She never could eat anything on the floor and even her litter pan was elevated. We have an old shower stall stored out in the porch and her food and water and litter pan were on top of that stall. Eight feet up a definite bother for me as I am not eight feet tall- but she seemed to prefer that, perhaps because her early home hung so high in the air. The first rescuer when she called me about Fiona was fit to be tied- “The darn cat won’t eat- poops all over the floor- I don’t want her anymore come and get her!” No, I have no kind thoughts about this “rescuer” anymore.

It took me a few days of watching her to figure her out. She simply liked heights although she was not an Alpha kitty. If Riley or Norton even dared to approach her, she would roll over on her back in a submissive position as if to say “I give up.”

Once I elevated her food, water and litter pans her anxiety lessened.

She knew when I was having bad days just as I knew when she was having one of her moments. We were entwined somehow, interconnected and she would crawl on my lap and purr away my worries or nuzzle my neck and show me that all would be okay.

Then the vigourous head-shaking began and I explored her ears along with the vet, looking for ear mites, yeast infection, spider bites. Nothing ever came of that search. Instead, after a few days after one visit tiny red blisters seemed to appear out of nowhere, marching across the ridge of her ear. Worried, I watched them, washed them off put soothing lotion on them. This seemed to anger them and they got bigger and more threatening. Another trip to the vet and a biopsy revealed she had squamous cell carcinoma. Plans were made to remove them before they spread. Before they spread? I wondered remembering how quickly two lesions turned into several and the head shaking increased to almost a frantic pace.

After surgery and she was home, she laid in my lap spent and exhausted and puzzled as to what happened. The vet said he was crossing his fingers- he too was exhausted, it was a long surgery for all of us.

Three years passed and daily checks of her ears showed no blisters or abnormalities. Just as I was starting to breathe again- she came to me one night crying. She was tipping her head and scratching madly at her ear. My heart sank and I grabbed the flashlight only to see the lesions were back.

Calling my vet, he said, let’s just wait a bit. I had lost a few recently and he was reluctant for me to go through the process. He was also hoping that I wouldn’t have to.

But this morning, as the fluid that takes life and brings peace found its way into her veins- I held her and I cried. Her passing was gentle- her ears still angry over the war waged on them stopped bleeding and her heart was stilled.

She is a bird again- she has flown up to heaven on calico wings.

As I wept, I wondered why I love these cats so? They depend on us for so much and yet, that just makes most of fall even deeper into love and respect. It’s a symbiotic relationship. We both need each other and I adored her.

So I have lost my calico anchor, my smile in the morning as she greeted me first thing for her favorite place to sleep was on my pillow. I still haven’t taken down her food bowl and water dish. I usher cats through life and often this place turns into a transit station where they rest between their final destination. I know she is gone, but my arms won’t raise high enough above my head to remove the final traces of this kitty born in a bird cage-perhaps in time…