Back in October of 2005 I adopted two baby kitties from a lady I went to church with.
I've never been much of a cat person, but I wasn't home enough to house break a new puppy and I was tired of coming home every day to a silent empty house.
The cat adoption coercion went something like this.
Me: (sigh) being single sucks.. I'd gotten so used to coming home to someone that now walking into an empty house every day is starting to really get old.
Terri: A friend of mine just had a litter of kittens! (the friend's cat, not the friend) I told her I'd find them homes for her. You should come get one!!
Me: I don't like cats. I'm a dog person.
Terri: Well why not? They're adorable!!
Me: They're cold impersonal obnoxious creatures who only want to be messed with on their terms and act like they're doing you a favor by letting you take up space in their house. (sounds like some people's description of me! )
Terri: Nooo they're the sweetest cutest most adorable little things. You like kittens right?
Me: Sure everyone likes kittens. They're sweet and cuddly when they're small, but they grow up to be cats.
Terri: Oh come on.. just come look at them.
Me: Ooook.
Fast forward - I go to her house after church one Sunday and she leads me to the kitchen where I find the most adorable bunch of peach & white fur balls I've ever seen. I picked a couple of and petted them. They purred and licked my fingers. I admit I was hooked. They were so tiny and soft and adorable.
So I caved. I told her I'd take one and looked over them again to decide which one I wanted. As I'm examining each kitten and staring deep into each pair of tiny eyes to see which one I connected with most she pounced. My friend, not the kittens.
Terri: Mollie... you really should take 2, so they won't be alone all day while you're at work. They're so tiny and there is always someone home here to play with them and give them attention. If you took two they would keep each other company.
Me: Raised eyebrow. (I could give the Rock a run for his money with my eyebrow raising skill)
Terri: I mean it.. look how much they love each other. You said it yourself you're at work all day and it would be home by it's tiny little self.
Me: (caving)
So I ended up with two little peach & white balls of fur. I'm at work as I'm writing this so the earliest picture I have of them is when they were about 3 months old, but even then they're adorable.
Meet Pesca & Blanco
Who and what? I decided if I was going to have cats that they would have unique names. I wasn't naming my pets Felix or Garfield or some other generic cat name. So I got creative. Remember I told you they were peach and white right? Well except for a little white on Blanco's nose when they were kittens you could hardly tell them apart so I decided to make use of the color difference. Blanco is - of course - white in Spanish. Pesca is Peach in Italian. It also means "it fishes" in Spanish, which I thought was pretty appropriate for a kitty. Why two different languages? Well melocotón is peach in Spanish. Ya.. I don't think so. And Bianco is white in Italian, which sounded to close to Bianca to me. I have boy kitties. I was not giving them a complex with female sounding names.
So for a little over two years I've been mommy to two of the smartest, loving, attention needing kitties on the planet. I swear they think they're part dog and human. They meet me at the door when I get home from work. They roll over on their backs to have their tummies rubbed. They follow or rather lead me to the kitchen every single morning as soon as I wake up to give them their treats. They open cabinet doors and drawers. They open my dresser drawers and lay inside on top of my socks. If I'm late getting home or if I go out of town for a day or two it's not unusual to come home and find the kitchen drawer where I keep their treats open. And the treats missing.
I use to give them soft treats out of a can then I came home one day to find the kitchen cabinet open and a can of tuna on the floor. No lie. I swear. Thankfully they weren't able to get it open but I switched to hard treats in little bags after that. I could just foresee coming home to an unconscious cat because one had been waiting on the floor patiently while the other swatted a can of something or another out of the cabinet and onto his head.
I even tried using latches to child cat-proof the cabinets. No such luck. One of my former roommates was standing in the doorway between the living room and kitchen in a house I was renting and she called me over. One cat was on top of the sink pushing down on the latch and the other was on the floor in front of the cabinet pulling the door open. Talk about some smart team working kitties. Let me tell you, I have never in my life wished so much for a video camera than I did at that moment. I'd be rich.
More cuteness
I even had them trained to use the toilet rather than a litter box for a while. Unfortunately my roommate at the time had to take temporary custody of the cat her and her separated husband shared and he was an old cat with a bum leg. Whoever said you can't teach an old dog new tricks obviously never had a cat. There was unfortunately no teaching that old cat to use anything but a litter box. Sure enough as soon as we put a little box back out my cats went right back to using it. Grr. It was so nice not having to mess with litter. They'd hop up on the potty and do their thing and all I had to do was flush!
Well in the past 6 months or so I seem to be a lot more busy than I normally am. I suppose that may have something to do with my decision to finally get a life. Anyway, I haven't had as much time to love on the kitties and give them the attention they're used to. My kitties have very different personalities.
Pesca is very laid back with a touch of mischievousness. He'll jump up on the counter or bookshelf, look at you then proceed to swat something off onto the floor then hop down and go about his business. I don't know if he just likes the sound things make as they hit the floor or if he thinks it's funny for me to chase him through the house yelling like a banshee. He does however love to be loved on. He likes his ears scratched, his tummy rubbed and he lives for playing with (and biting) my feet.
Blanco on the other hand is that timid child that appears to be velcroed to his parents leg for the first 7 or 8 years of their life. He's very very needy. If I'm petting Pesca, Blanco will come up and push him out of the way so he can be petted instead. He'll sit on the bed every night right next to my face and meow non-stop until I pet him for ever about 5 minutes before he'll go to the end of the bed to sleep. If I'm watching TV he'll flop himself on top of my feet and meow until I pay him attention and if that doesn't work to his satisfaction he'll hop up on the back of the couch and meow in my face.
I know, my cats are slightly uhh mentally challenged special. It's ok. I love them anyway.
So with less time to love on them and one cat being much more needy than the other I've started feeling like a neglectful parent and Pesca hasn't been getting the attention and love he's used to. I know you're probably thinking.. dude this chic is wack, they're cats, they don't care. Hmm on second thought, I can't imagine someone who would actually talk like that being interested in reading my blog, but you get what I'm saying or er saying you're saying. Got it? Good. Moving on.
So after much deliberation I decided to put Pesca up for adoption. I would much rather him go to a caring home with someone who will lavish all the love and attention on him he deserves than keep him and watch him sit across the room staring at me with big sad kitty cat eyes because his fat needy brother hogs all the attention. I posted on Craigslist.com and in less than a week I got a call. Don't worry I asked a hundred questions and made sure his new mommy was acceptable, lived in a nice, clean, smoke-free house and was a verifiable animal lover. She even volunteers at the ASPCA so I felt confident he was going to a home that would treat him well. The adoptive parent picked him up Monday evening and I called her later that night to see how he was doing. I'll call again today, just to make sure he's adjusting well.
I'm sad and I miss him, but I feel better knowing he's being given all the attention he wants and needs. Blanco isn't handling the separation too well. The first night he didn't seem to even notice his brother was gone, but every morning and night since then he's wandered around the apartment meow'ing and calling out for him. They have a funny little half meow, squeak dialect they use to talk to each other (and the birds outside) and you can tell he's just waiting for Pesca to answer him. That's the main reason why I gave away his brother instead of him. Pesca is much more people friendly and I was pretty sure he'd adapt to a new home better than Blanco.
So if you're an animal lover I'd greatly appreciate it if you'd send prayers, positive thoughts, happy vibes, whatever you do out to Pesca & his new mommy. Send a few for me & Blanco too so maybe we'll be less sad about losing our friend.
I'll leave you with some pictures of Pesca...
Yours truly,
One cat short of crazy
