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These are my cats.

June 7, 2013

Gonna take a break from yarn blogging and introduce you to my two fuzzy assistants.  Well, actually, at best they're distractions, and at worst they are tiny furry demons sent from the bowels of the earth to shred (both literally and figuratively) all my hard work.  But they're cute, so we have to forgive them.


Hard at work.

This is our primary fuzzy, Pandora, more commonly known as Panda.  She's 3 years old and Dear Hubby and I adopted her from the San Francisco SPCA as a kitten.  We had just moved in together and quickly realized we needed a cat.  We went to the adoption center a few times, and of course fell in love with every kitty there - including one older cat named Cat Benetar who we came thisclose to adopting, but on Decision Day she had already found a home.  The day we went to take home a kitty for real, there were a bunch of kittens in the shelter, and we of course played with ALL OF THEM. It was a beautiful day.

Panda took one look at us, decided we were her hoomins, and promptly fell asleep on my lap in the kitty ritual of ownership.  She's an incredibly snuggly kitty (most of the time), and will jump up on my or hubby's lap the minute we sit down, especially if there's a blanket involved.  You always have to be careful setting things down on our bed, because odds are good that there is a hidden PandaLump nestled under the blankies.  She's very skittish around strangers, probably because hubby and I are hermits who never have people over, so she's never really been exposed to other humans.  She regards us as her staff, tasked with feeding and petting and belly rubs (on her terms only), and in exchange we are allowed to bask in her fuzzy glory.  Favorite activities include snuggling while watching Buffy, batting around toy mousies, and stalking bugs.

She also likes to be Big Spoon:


And sometimes Bendy Spoon:



Then we have Olive.  Olive is new.  She started life as a stray who hung out on the hill behind our house in Daly City (about 10 minutes south of San Francisco) with a few of her fuzzy friends.  I looked out the back door one day and saw her curled up on the concrete patio and promptly had a heart attack, because I thought she was dead.  But the second I cracked open the door to check on her, she looked up at me with these gorgeous green eyes and I knew I had to be her friend.

Olive, before she had a name, suspicious of the box I left for her.
Yes, our yard was hideously overgrown. Oh well.

As you can see, she's missing most of her tail, which means she has kind of terrible balance/jumping ability in addition to the usual awkwardness of young cats.  I started leaving food out for her, and we slowly built a cautious friendship.  About 4 days before we were scheduled to move from Daly City to Portland, I finally got close enough to pet her and get a really good look at her... and realized she was pregnant. Well shit. I knew that no one would feed her after we left, and that she and her kittens would probably be in a lot of trouble without that extra food, so I called a local rescue.  They sent someone out to help me trap her (which was scary for both of us), and then took her to the SPCA to get a checkup.  Unfortunately, they had to terminate her pregnancy for her own health, but they also spayed her, microchipped her, and treated her for fleas and parasites.  Rather than release her back into the wild, hubby and I made the decision (along with the people at the rescue) to take her with us to Portland.

That was like 3 weeks ago.  She's just now starting to warm up to us, and she and Panda are on semi-civil terms.  So far her favorite activities include walking around talking to herself, hiding inside the couch (because there's a hole in the lining), and letting me pet her in exchange for treats.  The vets at the SPCA estimated her age at around 10 months, so she's still pretty young and very full of energy.  The other night she discovered that there was an outside to the couch as well, which she has since decided is kinda nice.


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