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This is a Cat Blogging stub, just to put the photos up now -- Berit and I have to go out to dinner and I don't have time to write the whole history of Simone aka Moni the former street stray cat we took in a few years ago.
Later tonight, I'll add more text and captions [done so, below] -- until then, here's Moni:
One night, 2003, in July, I think, I came home from some rehearsal or meeting or whatever, and Berit told me she had found a kitten outside the front door of our co-op building that evening. There are quite a few strays in our neighborhood, but Berit said that this one was different. Most of them are skittish and shy of humans, but this one was incredibly friendly. Some other people in the building had left out some chicken giblets for this kitten, so she was hanging out, eating, and when Berit approached her, she plopped over on her back in the international cat sign language for "rub my belly." Berit had wanted to bring the kitten in, but decided to wait to see what I thought. I said, okay, if you want, bring her in, and Berit went out and looked for her that rainy night, but she wasn't around anymore.
The next morning, Berit went out to look for the kitten again, and this time found her and brought her in.
I can't say I was impressed. She was damp, tiny, emaciated, with wet, matted fur. She looked like a drowned rat. My thought was "You want to bring that into our home?" But Berit said she was something special. She looked to be about 4 to 6 weeks old. As with Hooker, we decided to go with the name of a recently-deceased musician for her name, and as Nina Simone had recently died, the kitten came to be known as Simone (or usually, Moni).
Well, she cleaned up good, as you can see. A regular diet filled her out, and once her fur was clean she was revealed to have a gorgeous, multicolored tortoiseshell coat (which even good photos, which these really aren't, don't do justice). The chicken giblets she had eaten did wreak havoc on her digestion for a few days, but that calmed down. She wound up not growing much more, and we honestly don't know how old she really was when we found her -- she may have just been stunted severely from malnutrition on the streets. She's incredibly affectionate, and completely bonded to Berit (though she will assault any visitor to our apartment with demands for love and attention as soon as they walk through the door).
Now, adorable and loving and beautiful she may be, but she has her drawbacks. Horrible smells frequently come from both ends of her graceful little body -- she almost always has horrible cat-food breath, and her farts smell like a burning tire factory (and can eminate quickly through the entire apartment; there's NO escape). She is dumb, even for a cat, really dumb, and has a Memento-like memory problem -- it really seems she can't remember more than 5 seconds ago; push her away from something she shouldn't be in, or yell at her for doing something she shouldn't, and she may walk away, but she will immediately pull a u-turn and go right back to it as if she's forgotten that you had said or done anything. The only concepts that seem to enter her sweet and beautifully-shaped skull are "Mommy?", "Mine!", "Kill!", and "[dial tone noise]."
Hooker is smart enough to know when you're yelling at him that he's doing something "bad." Moni just looks at you and wonders why you're making those curious loud sounds.
However, the love, affection, and beauty of this creature more than makes up for all of that.
She loves to sit and lick people's fingers (especially Berit's), curl up in laps (especially Berit's), and knead with her paws (especially on Berit). She also enjoys sitting in the window, watching birds, and making strange little chittering noises. Dogs are interesting to her, but when cats come up to our windows, she flips out, running from window to window, making angry sounds.
So we've wound up with the duo we often call The Two Best Cats In The World, with only slight hyperbole. I've known and lived with many cats, but these two are very special creatures, and we have many fun and/or relaxing times together.
Next Friday, photos of Hooker and Simone together.
Later tonight, I'll add more text and captions [done so, below] -- until then, here's Moni:
One night, 2003, in July, I think, I came home from some rehearsal or meeting or whatever, and Berit told me she had found a kitten outside the front door of our co-op building that evening. There are quite a few strays in our neighborhood, but Berit said that this one was different. Most of them are skittish and shy of humans, but this one was incredibly friendly. Some other people in the building had left out some chicken giblets for this kitten, so she was hanging out, eating, and when Berit approached her, she plopped over on her back in the international cat sign language for "rub my belly." Berit had wanted to bring the kitten in, but decided to wait to see what I thought. I said, okay, if you want, bring her in, and Berit went out and looked for her that rainy night, but she wasn't around anymore.
The next morning, Berit went out to look for the kitten again, and this time found her and brought her in.
I can't say I was impressed. She was damp, tiny, emaciated, with wet, matted fur. She looked like a drowned rat. My thought was "You want to bring that into our home?" But Berit said she was something special. She looked to be about 4 to 6 weeks old. As with Hooker, we decided to go with the name of a recently-deceased musician for her name, and as Nina Simone had recently died, the kitten came to be known as Simone (or usually, Moni).
Well, she cleaned up good, as you can see. A regular diet filled her out, and once her fur was clean she was revealed to have a gorgeous, multicolored tortoiseshell coat (which even good photos, which these really aren't, don't do justice). The chicken giblets she had eaten did wreak havoc on her digestion for a few days, but that calmed down. She wound up not growing much more, and we honestly don't know how old she really was when we found her -- she may have just been stunted severely from malnutrition on the streets. She's incredibly affectionate, and completely bonded to Berit (though she will assault any visitor to our apartment with demands for love and attention as soon as they walk through the door).
Now, adorable and loving and beautiful she may be, but she has her drawbacks. Horrible smells frequently come from both ends of her graceful little body -- she almost always has horrible cat-food breath, and her farts smell like a burning tire factory (and can eminate quickly through the entire apartment; there's NO escape). She is dumb, even for a cat, really dumb, and has a Memento-like memory problem -- it really seems she can't remember more than 5 seconds ago; push her away from something she shouldn't be in, or yell at her for doing something she shouldn't, and she may walk away, but she will immediately pull a u-turn and go right back to it as if she's forgotten that you had said or done anything. The only concepts that seem to enter her sweet and beautifully-shaped skull are "Mommy?", "Mine!", "Kill!", and "[dial tone noise]."
Hooker is smart enough to know when you're yelling at him that he's doing something "bad." Moni just looks at you and wonders why you're making those curious loud sounds.
However, the love, affection, and beauty of this creature more than makes up for all of that.
She loves to sit and lick people's fingers (especially Berit's), curl up in laps (especially Berit's), and knead with her paws (especially on Berit). She also enjoys sitting in the window, watching birds, and making strange little chittering noises. Dogs are interesting to her, but when cats come up to our windows, she flips out, running from window to window, making angry sounds.
So we've wound up with the duo we often call The Two Best Cats In The World, with only slight hyperbole. I've known and lived with many cats, but these two are very special creatures, and we have many fun and/or relaxing times together.
Next Friday, photos of Hooker and Simone together.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-08 10:08 pm (UTC)From:Simone, featured prominently above, is a sleek, Siamese-body-style tortoiseshell -- a stray we found, quite literally, on our front doorstep.
I've written about rescuing Hooker previously -- also a kind of "stray" -- he's a stock, big, burly American Shorthair, tuxedo-style.
Mutts, to be (almost) sure, but wonderful ones.