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a lovely change of plans
2024 may 11
what's new with the site?
current main projects:
- set up art page
- set up ocs profiles
- weekly game journal entries
what's new with me?
hello again, folks. i had a very interesting friday that i'd like to share!
first of all, i was among some of the many lucky people who got to see the aurora in the northern hemisphere. what a very surreal, sublime experience. you could see faint streaks of green & red shooting all the way across the sky; for me specifically, it was sprawling across the entire eastern half of the sky, horizon-to-horizon on the north & south sides. i find auroras a little frightening, but it was an undeniably cool experience. everyone say "thank you" to our magnetosphere!!
second of all ... the main reason for today's post.
i mentioned a while ago that i was going to make a mushy blog post about pets & animal companionship & husbandry & such. and i probably will! but i was planning on revealing my new cats to you all then. however, something (un)surprising has happened that's made me change my mind, and i'll be talking about
both our new kitties now. let me explain:
( brief discussion of pet death in the paragraph below. )
my girlfriend's parents, for the latest 3 cats they've had, have acquired them through almost fateful means. they've always had 2 cats at once; when their first old boy mars passed away, and their old girl aerin was now on her lonesome, just a little later, a funny, affectionate black cat appeared at their door ( literally ). so they took her in, acclimated her to a life of safety in the home, and they were back to a 2 kitty household. then tragedy struck, and poor black kitty pearl fell awfully ill -- and although only a few years old, she had to be put down. she was an angel. and as aerin was an ancient bag of bones at that point, she sadly followed suite not too longer after.
now they were a 0 kitty household ... but not for long. a scrappy blue & white stray started popping up at their door shortly after the girls were gone. though skiddish, they did manage to bring him inside. back to 1 cat. he's their second oddly-yet-perfectly-timed addition to the household, and if you can believe it, their third shows up a little while later as an abandoned kitten -- not at their house this time, but at another family member's house. but he
did show up right as they were discussing the future, with things like, "we don't want 2 cats anymore" and "we'll never have a kitten" and other such fallacies. all this to say: as soon as they needed a new cat, one just happens to show up, and just happens to be exactly what they want & need.
so.
as we have been planning on getting two cats for a while now, and have been in line for a kitten since februrary, i've been having the thought in the back of my head like,
i wonder if the parents will find a stray for us? we have a pretty sad stray scene in the area we moved to -- military moves in, adopts a cat, then abandons it when they move. it's awful. so we'd been planning on trying to help contribute to the clean up & care of that situation by picking up a stray from one of the local shelters.
you may see where this is going.
yes, in a shocking turn of events, my gf's parents have
yet again found the perfect cat at the perfect time. i'm sorry i didn't get a picture of her face -- it's almost perfectly split down the middle between red & black -- but she was just so happy to see people that she wouldn't sit still for even a second. i believe my girlfriend may have gotten some fancy photos with her camera -- but those will come at a later date!
( look at the beautiful rusting on her coat!! it's so diversely colored! she almost looks like she's a smoke too, with those nigh-white patches!! one of my favorite coat colors, second to colorpoints ... AND TORTIES!!!! )
but yes. we both love tortoishells, i love longhaired cats, we were looking for a girl to avoid spraying issues, and she's what we want in temperment -- kind, cuddly, a bit chatty, quirky, and oddly well-socialized for a "feral". and i do say "feral" in quotation marks, because after meeting her last night ( she's staying with the parents until we can get her examined at a vet's ) we all believe her to be a very recently abandoned pet. they found her covered in dirt, but she was instantly drawn to them when they called out to her -- signs that she both 1) is not used to being outdoors, and 2) is very used to people. she isn't chipped though, hence the abandonment theory.
as well, she has clear nipples, is arching her back like she's in heat ( but NOT yowling ), and is excessively affectionate. we were with her for about 1.5 hours, and for the entire time, she was purring away & rubbing up against us, and just relishing all the pets & attention. although she's tiny enough that it's hard to say, we
also believe she may be pregnant ... or she may just be in a weird heat cycle. she seems young though. all this and more to be determined when we can get her to the vet, hopefully some time in the next week. because ...
... this fucking creature is coming home with us IN A WEEK. next saturday!! and it would be great if we could get this poor tortie girl all checked out & settled before the kitten arrives. these photos are of her at 7 weeks, but we'll be bringing her home at about 15 ( so she'll look a little less head-empty ) -- still a very flexible age for a cat to integrate into a new home, and we've been told she's quite adventurous, meaning she's doubly prepared for the new experience. so we have less of a concern with her settling in, and would like the tortie to get as much time as we can manage before babykitty arrives to make things hectic.
but again, we don't know how old the tortoishell is. and to be frank, we don't REALLY have a great idea of her personality ... the circumstances are very particular at the moment, and she may receed into a shell after all is said & done. but i'm hoping she'll moreso just mellow out, while still being curious & friendly. THAT is my ideal cat!
so ... yeah. kind of a big mix-up in our plans! we were going to let babykitty settle in for as long as she needed, and then START searching for a friend for her. this makes things ... easier though, i suppose? and again, the tortie is just so unbearably kind. i'm really excited for both of them, i hope they get along, and i hope we can give them a wonderful, enriching home!
and i guess i should stop using codenames now. our
MITTED SEALPOINT RAGDOLL shall be known as
TOULOUSE "TOULIE" DES ETOILES, and our
TORTIE DLH shall be known as
LAUTREC "LAUTIE" DE L'AURORE. they will be getting countless wretched & humiliating nicknames with time, of course, but those must come organically.
so that's all for today!!! i just wanted everyone to know about our kitty cats. i'm not sure if i conveyed it properly, but the unbelievable humor of my girlfriend's parents finding us a stray essentially made in a lab for us a week before we bring our kitten home has me downright flabbergasted. but again, it's also not that surprising. anyway, see you guys later! i'll probably be back in a week or two with more cat updates & hysteria. yay!
