~Fondly Remembered Friends~
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
*SPOOKY'S STORY*
...In his own words..
The last part of December 1996 brought with it a storm system that dumped record amounts of snow to our part of the world. I was but a baby then, just a few months old. The humans I was with didn't seem to notice at all when I snuck out with them one day in early January.. they caught the tip of my tail in the door crushing the end. That really hurt, and I ran as fast and as far as I could trying to get away from that terrible pain in my tail. I ran between piles of cold white stuff that froze my baby paws. I ran until I could run no farther, and when I stopped running I was lost and alone.
I was frightened. I didn't know how to get home. My tail tip had stopped bleeding but it throbbed. The cold of the white stuff had my paws numb, and I couldn't stop shivering. My fine, thin black baby fur was not ment for freezing tempretures. I was hungry too. I cried for my momma and for my humans.. but no one came to find me. I knew I had to find shelter somewhere.. but everything was hidden under piles of that white stuff the humans call snow.
I don't remember how long I looked for a building, but finally I did find one. I couldn't find any way in.. but I found some stairs leading up, so up I went. It was colder up there on the sidewalk. I had hoped for a covered place, but all there was was more sidewalk and more closed doors and more wind and cold. I couldn't beleive my luck when I saw that boxy thing with legs on the sidewalk. It had a sheltered area under it that I could hide in away from the wind.
The next day I heard a sound outside of my hiding place. Human voices! I didn't know if I should be happy or scared... but in truth I was both. I was weak and cold. Then a human started poking about my shelter.. he called it a desk... and he found me. Such a nice human.. he tucked me inside of his coat to get warm and got me some milk to drink. After a bit he took me to his home.
I was still shivering while inside the warm coat with the nice human.. I just could not stop. I could not stop being scared or cold, but I knew that if I stayed in the coat I would be alright. The human took me home with him.
What a sight I must have been when Don, the human, took me to see his wife, Phyllis. I was an akward looking fellow with a thin face, short black fur, big ears and large bright yellow eyes. Don had opened his coat a ways and I poked my head up to see what was going on. Phyllis laughed.. saying I looked like a spooked Hallowe'en cat. From then on I have been called Spooky. The name suits me. I have to admit that I do 'spook' easily, and my fur will stand on end not just on my back but all over my body. Talk about having bad fur days.
Back to my story..
The kind humans took me in and took care of me. I never thought I'd ever
get warm again.. but by the next summer I did. No trace could be found of
the house that I came from.. no one looked for me. So I joined the family
of my rescuer and have been here ever since. Garfield took a liking to me
right away, and took on the job of raising me. I got the nickname of 'Ninja
Kitten' because I was small, thin, black and fast, and I liked to wrestle
with Garfield. I claimed the human called Chris as my main pet and he's
rather attached to me too. In time my tail tip healed, but it will always
have a blunt tip to it.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
LADY BAST
Lady Bast was an unusual addition to the feline pride that resides in
our
household. In the fall of 1997 she bullied her way in.. a little stray
Queen of spotty stripes and green eyes. She hissed at the other cats and
pushed her way inside the door when it was opened to admit those waiting
on the wrong side of the door. She claimed my son, Chris, as her main
human and moved into his bedroom.
Lady Bast's Double Life...
In May of 1998 she gave birth to a litter of beautiful kittens, and she hasn't carried another litter to term.. until now. She gave birth to four kits April 14, 1999.
Just before Christmas 1998 , Lady Bast came home wearing a new flea collar. She had gone out that morning without a collar. We had no idea where she got it, but we got the idea that she had another house in the area. A couple of month's later, she came home with a different collar on. We didn't have a clue as to where she was going, but Chris mentioned several times that he wanted to tie a note to her collar, but never did. Each morning when Chris left for work, he would let Lady Bast out.. and she would be waiting for him by the kitchen door each evening when he returned home.
On Thursday, April 8, '99, Lady Bast had a note tied to her collar. It was from the law office two buildings from here, from the office staff.. asking if she had a home and with an offer to take care of her and her kittens if her people could not afford to. The next day Chris paid the office a visit..
At the office, she is called Tort and is the office cat. She arrives every morning and she leaves every evening when the staff close up for the day. While she is hell on paws around here, she is the sweetest cat in the world while she is at work. She pulls up laps and desks and has the run of the building... and is loved by staff and clients alike. There are cat toys for her, her own dish.. and one of the clients gave her the latest collar. And our Princess and Garfield have paid the office visits as well. Princess has gone inside while Garfield has tried mooching kitty treats outside.
As for Tort.. aka Lady Bast.. her double life has been revealed. She was a working mom. Her friends at the office had already claimed four of the unborn kits.. and set up a fund to help get her spayed after the kits were weaned. Chris was happy to know who the mystery people are, and the office folks were happy to know that she has a home to go to after work.
.. a funny thing in all this.. the law office has run an ad in the local newspaper and their logo has been a cat silloette. I was amused by the cat on the ad, and thought that any firm with an office cat would be a special place. Little did I know that it was the fiesty little alley-cat I dubbed Lady Bast who was the cat for the office..
After her last batch of kittens were weaned and she was spayed, Lady Bast spent less and less time here and now comes to visit the occasional weekend.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
~ More Cat Sayings ~
~ Honest as the cat when the meat is out of reach.
~English Proverb
~ To please himself only the cat purrs.
~Irish Proverb
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More pics and stories here
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~ In a cat's eyes, all things belong to cats.
~English Proverb
~They say that the test of literary power is whether a man can write an
inscription. I say, 'Can he name a kitten?'
~Samuel Butler
~ Most cemeteries, he says, provide a dog's toilet and a cat's
motel.
~Evelyn Waugh
~*~*~*~*~*~*~ GEORGE Another stray to arrive around the same time as Lady Bast was a spotty
young fellow that we dubbed George. George stayed the winter to grow into
a strapping young tomcat, and come summer he was roaming the neighborhood
in search of adventure. Mid-summer of 1998, George stopped spending much
time at all around our home... and a few months later we found out what
happened to the affectionate fellow. He had moved in with the family who
lives right behind us. There is an elderly widow and her adult son, and
George decided that they needed a cat. The humorous thing about this is
the name that they gave to the cat : George. He will visit here now and
then to play with his friends and raid the outside chow dish. George is
loved by his humans.. in both houses. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Over The Rainbow Bridge ~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Master Mao Tse Tung,
Spring 1985 to January 14th, 2000
- Gone but Never Forgotten.
Master Mao was sitting on our front steps the evening of Friday
January 14th, 2000, waiting for husband Don to come home from work. Mao
often sat and waited for someone to come home. Two large dogs escaped from
their
owner and attacked Mao on his own steps, breaking his back legs and
severing his spinal cord. I stroked his head while he was released from
his suffering by our family vet. My family will miss him very much. Mao was getting on in years(born 1985), but he still saw himself as
the
Number One Tomcat of the household. Master Mao could be a terror one
minute
and a love a cat the next. He had claimed primary ownership of me and
grudgingly let any other fur have any bed privileges.
Mao came to us full grown and half wild as tenant of a house we were
renting. He came with the house.. and when the owner sold the property
the cat was ours to take or leave. By then he had claimed ownership of
me and I had no choice but to take my master with me... Mao is a master of
the fine art of Cat Taoism, and he was been willing to share the knowledge
he had gained over many in-cat-nations with me, a humble human. *~*~*~*~*~*~*
~ The Cat and the Rain ~ Careful observers may fortell the hour ~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Queen Dori Mau, AKA Dorito Dori was daughter of Lady Bast, and mother of MaoMau. She was a good
mother. She was chased out of her yard and into traffic where she was hit
by an oncoming car. Dori was our little Mini-Mao, a dainty little female
version of Master Mao. Dori will be greatly missed. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Danny A.K.A. DanYowl, Danny Dancer. Owner of Don, Danny's habits with the lady-furs (even after his
visit
to the vet) earned him the title of Head Gigolo. He had a voice that
would do a siren proud and when he wanted something his yowl was something
that simply could not be ignored. "Gh-NoW!" he roars. He liked to roar
just
after midnight each night. Danny had a complicated vocabulary, and had a
tendancy to make visitors quite uncomfortable when they realized that they
are carrying on a conversation with a cat, and understanding what the cat
was saying!!!! *~*~*~*~*~*~* ~ On The Tiles ~ Men ride many miles, *~*~*~*~*~*~* Princess's Shadow Shadow was born one of two kittens to Princess Squeeky in Squeeky's
first litter in March of 1999, in a box at the foot of Phyllis's bed. One
pure black kitten and one pure white one.. Shadow and Sunshine. Sunshine
soon began to develop the brown markings of a seal point Burmeese, with
little snowshoe toe tips, but Shadow remained a beautiful coal black.
Sunshine found her human away from the family home but Shadow
remained.
Shadow was a chatterbox. She chattered at bugs and birds, she chattered at
her kittens, and she chattered at the humans in her life. She loved to
talk.
Shadow was a good mother. Although most of her own birthed kittens did not
survive, she co-mothered all of Dori's kittens as her own. She raised
Dori's last litter as her own, and continued to mother Morris, Doris, and
Spot until her dying day. She helped Doris mother Doris's own babies.
Shadow would mother MaoMau and all the older cats whenever she could. She
would treat the humans in her home as if they too were kittens in need of
mothering.
Shadow loved the hunt. For a large fat lady she could jump so very high,
managing a back flip as well, to land lightly on he paws ready to leap
again. She could catch dragonflys a wing, and butterflys and moths as
well. She would bring her trophy's to Phyllis.. alive so that Phyllis
could be impressed before letting them fly away to be caught again maybe
another day.
It was a hot August night when Shadow crept off Phyllis's bed once her
human fell asleep, to slip out a window left ajar to let in the cool night
air. Shadow had always returned before Phyllis awoke so that her human
never knew she had gone out. But this night she would not be there when
Phyllis awoke. Shadow had been hit by a vehicle and killed on the road in
front of the family house in the wee hours of a Sunday morning, found by
the neighbour as he prepared to go fishing at 5am and taken off the road
to lie at the edge of her family's driveway.
Shadow's body was found shortly after Phyllis had received a telephone
call from Phyllis's daughter Melody to say that Shadow's co-kitten Tigger
(June 2000) had just died from heart failure after having had suffered a
heart attack four days earlier. Shadow's spirit had taken her ailing
kittens spirit over the rainbow bridge with her.. ever mothering, ever
loving.
She is much loved and much missed. *~*~*~*~*~*~* ~ Double Dutch ~ That crafty cat, a buff-black Siamese, *~*~*~*~*~*~* GARFIELD Garfield was a cute kitten who grew up to be a big, fat orange fellow
who loves pasta. He was an easy
going fellow for the most part, but he was not a fellow you'd want to have
annoyed with you. He was special in his ability to purr for hours while
asleep. He was a slim fellow until his visit to the vet's
for a snip job. After that the weight went on, and the attitude increased
as well *~*~*~*~*~*~* ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
(By sure prognostics)when to dread a shower;
While rain depends, the pensive cat gives o're
Her frolics, and pursues her tail no more.
~Jonathan Swift
March 1999 - September 19th 2001 
1988 - August 2001
Cats tread many tiles,
Both hazard their necks in the fray;
Only Cats, when they fall
From a house or a wall,
Keep their feet, mount theit tails, and away!
~From 'An Appeal to Cats in the Business of Love' by Thomas
Flatman
March 1999- August 8th 2004
Sniffing through wild wood, sagely, silently goes-
Prick ears, lank legs, alert twitching nose-
And on her secret errand reads with ease
A language no man knows.
~Walter de la Mare
1991-2004
Nicknamed Sumo-kitty, he was amazingly agile and
strong for a cat of his size. He was also a cat who hated diets. Where we
live, the cats are able to go outside in a very cat friendly
neighborhood.
Garfield had many friends and whenever we put him on a diet at home he
simply went out to eat.
In his elder years Garfield remained his pushy top cat self, living up to
his name in every way. He was a cat that never met a pasta he didn't like.
This Page Last Modified November 2004.