Dec 20, 2013

Surprise... A Kitten in the House!

Surprise, Cuteheads! There's a new kitten in the house. He's not mine to keep though, I am fostering him for a woman in Virginia who is going to be his new mommy. Sebastian is one of our next transport kitties!

My name is Sebastian. Also, you've taken enough pictures lady.
I haven't ever fostered transport kitties before (have you noticed?), because I'm really only supposed to have two cats and I am so busy (imagine that!), but Sebastian came along at just the right time for his new mom, Michele C. -- and me too!

Michele lost her heart kitty, Simba, the day after we lost Pea. We've been talking online some, and she told me she wanted to look for a gray kitten that reminded her of him to help her heal. So I went looking at who was at our local shelter... and it was like it was meant to be! There was Sebastian, the last of his litter, all alone at the shelter.

I'm too handsome for the shelter!
So I sent Michele his picture Wednesday, and that was that! Yesterday morning we were at the shelter bright and early busting Sebastian out for her!

And I wasn't going to foster, but Michele and I are feeling so much of the same right now, that I decided that Sebastian could come live in Pea's room for a couple weeks while he waited for his ride.

MOMMMMMMM! I'll be home soon.
He gave me a happy reason to clean it and go through her stuff, and now there is a happy little purry, meowing, goofy kitten in there to make me smile!

Michele is a very lucky future Mommy. Sebastian is a winner! (Who likes to talk. A lot.)


TODAY IS THE LAST DAY TO 

Eeeeee! You can still get raffle tickets and donate money -- hurry on over and let's get a great last push for the shelter kitties and doggies!

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Dec 19, 2013

The Bridge is Busy: We Lost Another Parking Lot Kitty

Yesterday we said goodbye to Orange Guy, the oldest kitty in our parking lot.

Orange Guy is an amazing story of an outside kitty. Depending on when you ask his first parking lot mom, Marsha, he is anywhere from 17 to 20 years old. She's said 17 and 20, and Kelly and I have kind of estimated maybe 15. Either way, to live that long as an outside kitty in a parking lot -- he's a legend!

We called him OG for short. I am pretty sure I started that. OG like "Original Gangster"... and I guess also for Orange Guy.

Orange Guy hanging in his bushes.
We're sad that we had to help him to the Bridge, but we are celebrating how long and wonderful of a life he had!

OG had a best friend named Westin. They had a funny little relationship. If Westin was around, OG was glued to his side or rubbing his face or walking in front of him to rub on him and blocking him from walking forward any more. If he saw Westin coming across the parking lot, he's look over, perk up and head on over to meet him. Best friends for sure.


(Mouse over that video up there and click the top left to turn the volume on if you want to hear my squeaky kitty voice talking to them.)

In all the years that I've been feeding him, I've never touched him. OG was not only the oldest of the parking lot kitty crew, but also the most feral. He's stand about a foot away from you and hiss at you while you put his food down. He was all talk though. As soon as you turned around, he be there diving into the wet food. If Westin was coming though, he'd wait for him to get there before eating. That's good manners.


In the past year or so, we've noticed OG getting thinner. He was always a thin cat, but lately he's been just scrawny. We've been keeping a close eye on him, and he's still been his regular self, showing up for meals and bugging the junk out of Westin. He could have had a few things going on (Kelly, one of his other parking lot mommies, thought possibly hyperthyroid or anemia), but none of that was really anything we could have treated in the parking lot, so we let him be OG and enjoy his life. We knew if we took him into the vet for something, he probably wasn't coming back, and we wanted him to tell us when the time was right.

After months of just being OG and us keeping an extra careful eye on him, Kelly started to notice this week that our legend was getting weaker. He wasn't really eating very much the past couple of days and he was a little slower.

Thanksgiving turkey feast in 2010!
Yesterday, when she went to give them lunch (these kitties eat three times a day!), Orange Guy told her it was time.

She told me he was lying there not really being OG, not rubbing on Westin, not really wanting to walk around and he was not looking well at all. She called me and we talked and decided it was time to do the loving thing and help him to the Bridge.

It's always a hard decision to make because, like she said, you can't take it back. But they tell you when they're ready. I really believe they do.

So Orange Guy, our original gangster, gets to spend Christmas with Sweet Pea and all the rest of the parking lot kitties we've said goodbye to over the years.

It's hard to believe, but what used to be a clan of 14 cats is down to just two now -- Westin and Crybaby. That's how it's supposed to be with TNR and proper care, but it's still just crazy to think about. So many wonderful kitties we've gotten the good fortune to love.

Fly free, OG!


P.S. I'd really like to find Westin a home now. He'll be lonely without his buddy and he's a really friendly, totally home-able kitty. He loves to be petted. I'm not sure if he wants to be picked up, but I know he'd settle into a home in no time!

Can I come live with you?

P.S. We haven't gotten Pea back yet, but I think that after I pay for her and her paw prints, there will be a little bit left over in her Pea Fund that all of you so lovingly helped out with. I will use that extra money to pay for OG.

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Dec 18, 2013

Elf the Movie... The Pug Version

The story of Buddy the Elf, reenacted by a family of pugs.

Nailed it.


P.S. Friday is the last day to donate to Santa Paws Drive! Go go go! Lots of shelter doggies and kitties are waiting on Santa!

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Dec 17, 2013

Two Cats Tuesday: Pimp and Moo Help with Santa Paws Drive Toys

Happy Two Cats Tuesday, Cuteheads! Last night Pimp and Moo were "helping" me inventory all the Santa Paws Drive toys that got delivered. As you can imagine, I'm not sure exactly how much help they were...

There are 16 huge boxes of toys in my dining room right now, and out of all of them, I think Moo quickly found which one had the catnip in it...

This box is MINE.
Pimp waited until he saw what was in each box, and then decided to make his move for the stinkiest one...

If I stretch my neck far enough, I might just get to the catnip candy canes...
Aren't they great helpers? Just wait until I take all the stuff out of the boxes and pile it on my living room floor to divide it up for the six shelters. They're going to go crazy with the "Quality Control" job they do.

P.S. There is still time to donate to Santa Paws Drive! The raffle and cash donations are open till Friday. Let's finish with a bang! Thanks everyone!

P.P.S. Sweet Pea helped in spirit. When the catnip candy cane box came in a couple weeks ago, she was rubbing all over the outside of it. So it got her mark of approval too!

Dec 15, 2013

How I'm Feeling Today - #peawatch

This morning I woke up with no alarm right around 6 a.m. and my first thought was, "At this time yesterday, I was with Pea, petting her for the last time and hearing her purr and meow." Right before rushing her to the ER. I hit the snooze button a couple times yesterday morning before I got out of bed. I had set my alarm for 5:30, and I wish I'd popped up then. I would have had a few more minutes with her.

But I am so thankful that we had a transport leaving early in the morning or else I would have woken up later and she would have already been gone. I wouldn't have gotten to say goodbye to her and I wouldn't have had any idea what happened.

I didn't want to get up this morning yet, and I just had this overwhelming feeling of hollowness. I stayed in bed and tried to go back to sleep, and when I did I ended having one of those dreams that just seemed so real. I was walking through some amazing house, and it was like it was mine but the rooms were gorgeous and it was huge and beautifully decorated. When I went into each room, it was like I was trying to focus harder, not believing that was my room. And I'd blink and it would become a real room in my house (like it looks now) for a moment. It was like something or someone was walking me through this gorgeous place to show me.

And maybe it sounds silly, but I just had such a peaceful feeling that it was Sweet Pea showing me that where she is now is a beautiful, wonderful place. And that there is still a piece of my place with her there. I don't even know how much I believe in any of this stuff, but I really felt better, and I slept soundly for another couple hours after.

And then when I finally woke up, I only made two bowls of food and then sat in Pea's bathroom for a while holding her little pillow and just cried. I will probably always associate the smell of the Airwick "Trimming the Tree" plug-in that I had in there with Pea. It'll always smell like her room.

A ton of times yesterday and a few times already this morning, I just like saying her name out loud, because I don't want to lose how I say it. I've said it in the car, at home, I said goodnight to her last night and good morning to her today, talking to the couch where she'd normally be meatloafed then.

It took me forever to change out of my clothes and take a shower after losing her yesterday, because her fur was on my shirt and I didn't want to wash it. It's folded on my bathroom counter still. I'm not sure how long I'll leave it there before I finally do.

I have no idea what to do with her stuff. It's not like she had a lot of stuff, but her hidey bed I bought her because I knew it would make her feel safe and the toys that I gave her that she never played with but were always there with her, the fleece bed with the towel on it still -- I don't want to move any of it.

I remembered this morning that I had bought her a pretty pink collar with a pretty pink flower on it a few weeks ago. I thought it was very "Sweet Pea" like the actual sweet pea flower. I didn't know if she'd ever let me put a collar on her, but I thought if she did, she would just look beautiful in it. It's in a basket in my kitchen.

Her Christmas stocking will stay up. With the pretty pink "P" pin that I bought to put on the white part of it.

Last night I looked at my wrist where I have a scar from her. It's a line under my paw print tattoo from a pretty good scratch that she graced me with when I was trying to put a harness on her before flying with her to Pittsburgh back in October. She did NOT want to wear that thing, and she won. She didn't, but she did leave me with a few marks to remind me never to try that stunt again. In the past couple weeks, I've been putting scar cream on it to try and fade it, because I wanted my paw tattoo to not have ugly marks around it. I'm not putting that on anymore. A mark from Pea by my paw tattoo is perfect. It's what that paw is all about, now that I think about it and it adds to it, not takes away from it like I thought before.

I've just been remembering a lot of things about Pea. I've loved her for years as my parking lot kitty before bringing her home. When I was having a sad time, I'd go to the parking lot just to hang out with her. There was a period where I can't remember what I was sad about, but what I do remember is waking up early on those weekend mornings, going to Dunkin Donuts to buy coffee and breakfast and then taking it over to the parking lot to eat it with Sweet Pea. I'd sit on one of the parking curbs and eat while she circled around me and rubbed my legs and back and arms, all the while with her tail straight up and happy like it always was. It was her that I went to be with then for comfort, even though there were other kitties there also.

I just can't believe she's gone. I guess it was better for her that it was very fast and that she was completely fine the day and night before. We were learning that she had something wrong that we couldn't fix, and I knew that eventually I would have to say goodbye. I didn't know how long she had, but I knew that I'd be caring for her whenever she would have started to get sick and show signs, and that we might have a hard time coming up eventually one day. I guess I'm glad that she didn't have to go through that. It was easier for her, but harder for me. Too soon and too fast is what I've been saying over and over again.

We didn't even get to do one official "Three Cats Thursday" after I finally admitted to myself that she was mine.

I promise not to make this a sad blog for long, but I really feel I can share these things with you all and you'll understand. And it helps me to write. So thank you all. And thank you for all the help with her bills yesterday. I can't express enough how that makes me feel. Thank you for sharing Pea Heart with me.

Here is Pea being a happy, wiggly girl on my couch not too long ago. She was so happy to be inside.


I also uploaded a couple other videos if you want to see. There's one of Moo stalking her around the house (that I use a bad word at the end, but it's so appropriate!) and another one of a live #peawatch in action.

Thanks, everyone. Tomorrow we'll go back to cute videos and happy Cute.

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