Cat Woman or Crazy Cat Lady

I have often wondered why it is that the title “Cat Woman” instantly conjures up images of a sexy, mysterious and ever so slightly dangerous woman, with distinctive feline qualities, usually wearing a cat suit with long boots and often carrying a whip. <Mmm I LOVE boots and whips!>

However, the phrase “Cat Lady” makes people think of a middle-aged woman, with her hair in curlers, wearing a bathrobe and fuzzy slippers, oh and of course she is considered at least slightly crazy and surrounded by cats!! <Hmm I like fuzzy slippers and warm robes in winter but you’ll never catch me in curlers! No comment on the crazy part. LOL!)

Both represent feline feminine and yet portray vastly different characters. <grin> I am probably somewhere between the two most of the time and generally consider myself to be a cat enthusiast. But yes, I am guilty of creating a Facebook page for one of them. <grin>

In fact, anyone who knows me, is well aware of my love of cats. This love affair started when I was a child growing up with a smart, beautiful, compassionate mother, who also adored and bred Persian and Himalayan show cats. I found it fascinating to learn about genetics, nutrition, grooming etc on a breeder / show animal scale and it truly instilled a love of animals at a very early age. It was a natural transition for me to attend dog grooming school in my late teens and I enjoyed that as a profession for many years, working at various facilities such as pet stores, boarding kennels and veterinary hospitals.

Naturally, I have always had cats as pets, although rather than purchase pure breed felines, I became more fond of “rescuing” or adopting kitties in need or crisis. The ones that were left homeless or abandoned by others. Nefertiti (Netty for short) was my first domestic short hair / alley cat who I adopted and loved for several years until she was hit by a car. 🙁 She was a very regal angel.

When I moved to Poughkeepsie I adopted Sheba, (pictured in the foreground, late in years). She was another gorgeous black beauty, who I was informed almost immediately was afflicted with FIV. The vet estimated her age at the time at maybe two and said that she might live 6 months … or depending on how I cared for her, she could live a long happy life. I decided she needed to be an “only child” and indoor only as long as she was with me since she was dealing with a compromised immune system, and she and my shih tzu; “Mistress Foofoo Doggy (Foof for short) tolerated each other as best as possible for many, many years. I had to put Miss Foof to rest in 2010 when I moved to CT, but my Sheba still ruled the household like her beautiful Queen namesake. She lived with me for 13 years and I have been told that lasting that long with FIV is fairly remarkable and a testament to good care.

A few months before Sheba passed a poly-dactyl, mackerel tabby female started showing up on my back porch looking for an occasional meal. She was the first kitty I had met with 6 toes on each front foot and upon researching this characteristic, I discovered that Ernest Hemingway was well-known for having lots of “double pawed” cats and so I named her after him. (Hemi for short but also sometimes “Mama” for no particular reason). When Sheba passed on I was devastated but Hemi was here to help with kitty hugs and lots of kneading with those awesome feet of hers.

She is a sweet girl but she definitely values her freedom and clearly prefers to live outdoors. She will generally spend the winter in the basement or out back in thehot tub tent if it is rainy but when the weather is nice I can usually find her three doors down on Sharon’s front porch where she likes to sleep on a bench and watch the world go by. She comes here every morning for breakfast and gives the boys dirty looks.

My boys started appearing in the next two years after that. Chatty and Roameow (both tabbies) arrived around the same time. Chatty (pictured above and below) basically showed up and talked his way right into the house! (lol) I call him my “golden boy” because his beautiful tabby coat has a creamy golden red undertones. He is very densely muscular and happens to be one of the most amazing hunters I have ever seen which is when I call him the “Chatmeister General”! He literally took out a half-dozen squirrels that were nesting in my eaves single paw-edly and yet he is affectionate as hell, head butting me incessantly. He likes being able to wander the yard during the day and stalk chipmunks and other creatures in the garden but he is almost always indoors came evening. Sadly he and Buster, who you will meet later, fight all the time and I have had to rush him to the hospital a couple of times with infected wounds. I keep hoping that they will work it out the way that he and Roameow have. 🙂

My Roamy little “pumpkin boy” took a lot of work to adopt. In fact, it took over 4 months of feeding him at a distance, as he sat terrified under my car, before he trusted m enough to sit beside him as he ate. We tried many names on him in the early days: Scaredy cat, Moon pie (because his face is so round) and others but it was his habit of wandering that lead to the name. He would often disappear, sometimes for a couple weeks at a time, and I would be outside calling to him and concerned “Roameow – where are you?”. But he’d always eventually show up again hungry, scratched and bleeding. I’d clean him up and slowly but surely gain his trust until I was finally able to get him fixed by the wonderful folks at TEAM who also marked him for me by tipping his ear to help protect him a little on his travels but then next thing I knew… he stopped wandering, moved in for good and became one of the most affectionate of all my babies. He still likes to go out on nice days but he rarely wanders far from home now and so he has put on a little weight earning him the pumpkin nick.

Lucky (also a tabby but the darkest and largest at 15 lbs, of all my fur-kids), he came with that name and maybe it is a bit apropos. He used to live across the street but he would get accidentally left out a lot, and many times I would find him on my back porch hungry and cold in the middle of the night so I showed him the “secret cat entrance” and he has since decided he liked living here best. (Ok maybe not to secret – I have a series of cat doors installed in the house at this point which allow the kitties in and out access on their own terms.) The neighbors didn’t really object so he has taken up permanent residence here and can usually be found stretched out on my bed. He is nick named “Licky Lucky” because OMG if you hold still long enough he will lick you probably close to death. LOL. He is also my diplomat. He is the only one that doesn’t have a problem with any of the other kitties and is often seen playing with them.

Which brings us to Buster. Oy! Buster is an odd man out first of all in that he is a tabby and white but also he is just an odd cat in general. He was adopted when he was quite young, by people who lived in a multi family home to my right, but they never really let him stay in the house. They would leave food in the hallway of the building but this poor kitten was left to wander the street getting into fights, peeing on everything and generally being a dick and a bully. He was never socialized very well to people and he definitely never got along with other cats but he would show up in my yard on a regular basis because I have the cool yard with the pond, food on the porch and lots of lovely cat toys. In fact, he started a life of crime in his adolescent months by sneaking into the yard and grabbing and running away with the kickeroo kong! (pictured to the right now securely tied to the porch) I literally had to chase through the yard after him where he jumped over the fence still carrying his stolen loot but he dropped it on the other side of the fence! I many times had yelled “Cut that out Buster!” and turned the hose on him for one reason or the other to try to chase him back to his own yard, and stop him from being a trouble maker. And then the people moved and simply abandoned him. Initially I had no intention of adopting this freaking cat and I kept hoping some other idiot cat person would take him in. Then he showed up with a bloody gash behind his ear two nights before Christmas in 2012 and well damn .. he was bleeding and hungry and it was cold and Christmas.. so what the hell am I to do? I actually tried re-homing him once early on and the girl said she loved him like crazy and all was good for about 6 months, until they got another kitten whom Buster played too rough with, so he was dumped back on the street in front of my place, and he has been here ever since giving me equal measures of joy and aggravation. He still likes to mark territory even though he is fixed and so I am constantly battling cat scent but I am still fond of him and think of him as my special needs child. No one else will love him in spite of his issues like I do so we are stuck with each other. <smile>
<Edit it is with a heavy heart that I add that I lost Buster on May 31 2017. I found him on the front porch breathing very heavy and I raced him to the vet. They raced to get him stable and find out what was happening and they determined that he was having heart failure and that nothing could be done to save him so I said goodbye. It was truly a shock and I will definitely miss that boy. :(>

Which brings me to the reason for this post in the first place, since I suppose some of you may be wondering why I am posting about all these cats right now anyway. Well, truth be told I had a really rough week here and I guess I am still grieving and working through a lot of very painful emotions.

My newest addition to the household was named Kalico (Kali for short). Born Feb 1st 2016, came to live with me at a mere 5 weeks old, named for the Hindu goddess of destruction, she was a dynamo and the sweetest, smartest most loving little tyke I have ever known. Long haired and extra toed with a tail that looked like a peacock plume when she walked – she was full of life and constantly playing, running around chasing things(especially her full-grown “uncles”. She was also endlessly impressing me with her antics and ability to learn tricks for me. She used to love jumping on my shoulder first thing in the a.m. when I put on my robe and tagging along as I fixed breakfast for them all. She jumped through hoops and hopped from chair to chair for treats and would routinely march up my lap straight to my chest and drop curled up right onto my heart.

She was killed in my back yard on Oct 13th by dogs that were running loose. I wasn’t home at the time and I had tethered her out in the yard with a long cord so that she could enjoy the sunshine, watch the birds and squirrels and chase bugs while I ran a few errands. She adored being out in the garden near the pond and that is where I found her dead. Words cannot express the grief I am feeling right now and although I know it is not helpful and will only prolong the suffering, the guilt that I left her alone out there is eating me up inside. I know the pain will get better in time and I will eventually be able to get up and walk around the house without bursting into tears every time I think of her. I just completely adored her and am feeling very very sad right now and I wanted to share as a way to pay tribute to and honor her memory as well as introduce you all to my other “kids”.

After I lost Kali I added 4 more needy cats. Judge me if you want to but someone had to take care of these sweetheart’s. <smile>

In early Oct I took this adorable black and white tuxedo boy named Mittens into the house. This feisty little fellow showed up on my godchild’s doorstep on her birthday a couple of years ago and stole both our hearts. He is small in stature but bold in temperament and has been living out-of-doors at the mobile home park since spring, but as the days turn colder I am naturally concerned for him and we have all come to realize that he and the pit bull that lived at their place first will never get along. So this may be a trial basis but I am hoping he can integrate into the rest of the clowder with minimal drama because he really is a cute little fellow andso far he seems much happier here than fighting for scraps at the mobile home park.

Late Oct 2016 I got a call from a friend of mine about a senior cat in upstate NY that desperately needed help. He was 10+ years old with a cataract in one eye and suddenly homeless because his person had lost their home and had basically abandoned him outdoors. It had already snowed at least once and this half blind old man was covered in ticks when I rescued him. He is all black but for a locket on his chest, one rear toe and the tip of his tail. I named him Spirit because he came to me right before Halloween, and I liked how when he walked through a dark room all you could make out was the bobbing tip of his tail like a ghost in the dark. He can be a little creepy at times around the other cats, I think in large part to having been an only child all his life but he is settling in ok now I think. One thing that cracks me up with Spirit is how heavy footed he is! I can literally hear him cross the wood floors in the house because he clomps along but I have grown extremely fond of my old man and interestingly enough his eye appears to be far less cloudy now than it was when I first adopted him, I don’t know if cataracts can heal themselves with love and care but it definitely doesn’t seem to be doing him any harm.

My latest acquisitions are Prince Edward aka Eddie and his mother, Queen Victortia or just Torie. They came to me as foster cats through Brass City Rescue Alliance. The family called the Rescue said they found mama on the street with a litter of newborns in September. They raised the kittens until about 4 months and gave away all the litter mates but they had wanted to keep the mother and last little boy but they had to move and couldn’t bring them with them. They said at the time that the found them that the mother was skin and bone but they clearly made up for that because she was quite a chubber when I got her in early april. After losing KaliI I kind of knew I was going to want to adopt another kitten and little Eddie very quickly helped me decide that he was going to be my new baby! His adorable antics won not only me but my whole family very quickly. He is feisty and bold, curious about everything and very quickly made this his home. He even plays fetch!

And I had thought I was going to help his mama find a home through the Rescue but it took her several weeks of being here for her to settle in, stop hiding and relax but once she did I totally fell in love with her because OMG not only is she gorgeous but she is literally the “purriest” cat I have ever met! She purrs ALL THE TIME and it is truly delightful. You look at her .. she purrs. You walk past her on the chaise. and she will be just purring happily to herself. Ok she’s got a quick or two and I have to figure out how to get her weight down a bit but I couldn’t bring myself to make her go through the terror or relocating yet again. However sadly she went missing in the summer of 2017 presumed killed by a predator. (See the update by Hemi)

I have also taken on hopefully temporarily two foster cats : Nya and Magic. Their “mom” is going through a rough time and needed a safe place to put them up while she regroups. I figured it would be a month, maybe two but they came here in April 2017 and they are still here in mid Aug so umm yeah there’s that.

Aug of 2017 also brought me a little darling that I named Itsy Bella. I adopted her from the trailer park that my ex lives in. When I found her she was literally staggering and weak. She weighed just over 4 pounds and I could feel all her bones when I picked her up. I scooped her up and took her to a vet and it has been determined that she has some sort of liver issue because she is quite yellow in her gums etc but it has been very challenging to get her to take the suggested meds on a regular basis. However she has definitely gained a bit of weight and seems to be adjusting to life on the inside. I think this baby was a lot closer to death’s door before she came to live here so hopefully as she learns to trust me and puts on some weight she will get better at taking her medicine and live the long happy life of an adored house cat.

(Sadly Itsy was only with me for 8 months but she was loved and cared for as best I could for those months. She became terribly weak in Feb 2019 and stopped eating. The vet tried but she was not responding and it seemed the kindest thing to do was let her go.)

In Aug of 2018 my BF called to tell me that his co workers had discovered a tiny kitten not even a week old in a utility well at his job. We honestly tried to call a shelter to take her but they did not want a bottle baby and so .. my amazing BF bottle fed her that night and brought her to me the next day and it was truly love at first sight. She loves her “daddy” as this pic surely shows, OK maybe she loves how he tastes – she does have QUITE the appetite!.

It didn’t hurt that she was a calico kitten like the one I lost two years ago when I started this blog post. We named her Calypso and she is now queen of the household. She is playful and sweet and ohh so cuddly .. and I am definitely her “mama”.

If you are still reading and will indulge me a few moments longer I’d like to remember some of the other kitties that have passed through my yard in the last 6 years for meals and other care when I could give it. It helps right now to remember that in spite of this horrible mistake, I have racked up a fair bit of good “kitty karma” over the years Baxter was a handsome tabby and white boy who was abandoned by people a few doors down and used to come to my yard to hang out and visit. He hung around for many months and I had hoped he would stay but another neighbor took him in but I was told he died of a stroke not long after. 🙁

“Red cat” (working name for him while I was waiting for a better name to emerge) started coming around for a month or so to get fed. He was very skittish and leery of me and wouldn’t really let me close until one day I noticed he was limping very badly on one of his front paws. I decided I needed to capture the poor thing and get him looked at. Once I had a hold of him he was very sweet in spite of clearly being in pain. The vet verified that his foot was fractured and he would require crate rest as well as the standard battery of tests and shots totaling $300, which I was willing and able to pay. While at the hospital with him, one of the techs mentioned that everyone was falling in love with him in the back, so I asked if there was a chance that anyone wanted to adopt him (since to be honest I secretly feared one of mine had injured him trying to run him off). They agreed to keep him and find him a home for me and I was delighted when I was told that he was adopted by a nice family. (Felt like a major good deed with a win!)

One that didn’t turn out quite so happy for me was a cat I jokingly called “Jack” an acronym for “just another costly kitty”. Jack was a very sweet tabby male that started showing up here last year and had skin problems that were causing him to lose a lot of his fur, but he had started looking a bit better with regular meals and I was working on gaining his trust. Then suddenly he needed emergency medical attention for an abscess in his face probably from a fight with another cat. That vet bill ended up being over $400 and although he seemed to be recovering just fine and his wounds and surgery incisions had healed (I had him neutered while we were at it) he disappeared the moment I released him outside and never came back. I am hoping that he found another cat enthusiast to call his own and is living happily ever after somewhere, but the sad truth is I may never know.

This is another sweetie for whom I helped to find a fantastic home. He showed up in my yard for a couple of weeks in a row and my dear friend Cindy was looking for a cat so I introduced them. It was love at first sight and Jasper is doing wonderfully! <grin>

Petey was Kali’s father as far as we can tell. I named him after the dog in the Little Rascals for some odd reason and he was a very feral B&W male that would show up mostly when Puffy girl was in heat. I was never able to get close to him but I fed him off and on for a very long time. Sadly, I have not seen him in many months and I have no idea what became of him.

One of my frequent visitors for many weeks whom I had started calling Smoke, turned out to live a few doors down diagonally and is actually named Griffon. He and his people have since moved away and I hear he is doing great.

Puff is Kali’s mom. She is a long-haired poly dactyl calico beauty lives across the street and had had way too many litters in her short life. Sadly her people are struggling financially and cannot afford to take her to the vet to be neutered so a couple of weeks ago I took her to the TEAM mobile folks to get her fixed. I am really happy to say that she is doing great!

OK that is probably just about enough out of me about cats. I will add the gallery of pics below just because we all know that the internet was created to share porn and cat photos. <grin> Thanks for letting me share. 🙂