I went to Miami, and learned that Suely was the master of the bait and switch. She and I talked again of another black cat, but this time of a tuxedo who also was a hard luck kitty. I agreed again to drive south to her felifilled apartment to take a look at another kitty and possibly let him steal my heart. This time, I was bringing Princess Sophie. She had earned first rights of refusal for any new cats brought into my home.
J had just come into town, and he and I drove again to the now familiar apartment and greeted the feral cats outside her building that Suely fed. When we entered, we saw the little scamp and both absolutely loved him. Sold! Not so fast: Suely says, 'I have Sophie's brother, he's ready to adopt, this little one still needs more shots, etc - he's still very young'.
I agree, and again she leaves J and I alone with the little scamp (his name came immediately) and all the other cats in her apartment. He's a wild one, and Sophie eyes him suspiciously. He won't let me turn him over, and is generally wanting to run off and terrorize the other cats in the tiny apartment. I look at J, sure that this is the cat I want, and tell him that meeting Sophies' brother is a mere formality.
It took a lot of convincing, and truthfully, even Sophie wasn't 100% on board, but her little tiger-striped brother came home with us that night while the little scamp remained. Damn, she is good!
Now, The TigriKiisu (Tiger Kitty) and Princess Sophie, get along great, but it wasn’t always that way. When he first arrived, they fought. To be sure, they still fight. At night, while I sleep, this tremendous clatter will sometimes rouse me from my peaceful slumber. It is the sound of two otherwise silent bodies thrashing themselves into any fixed object in my room. They slam each other into the wall, off the closet doors, into the poorly laid tiles in my room. They make surprisingly little noise themselves: only the occasional muffled mew of protest when one gets too rough with the other. I lift one leaden eyelid and realize the reason for my interrupted sleep and return again with little delay.
At first, Sophie was the aggressor. In the first few days he came home, J would tacitly root for him to stand up for himself as she put him through his paces. As time wore on, however, his greater size and increasing comfort with his surroundings led to him having a considerable advantage over the Princess. In reality, she’s a very demure kitty, and he is very large for his age. He towers over her, and his markings belie his wild cat lineage. I suspect that he is a descendant of a Savannah cat, and with his markings behind his ears, characteristic chirp and tendency to pounce on my computer screen when I’m working at it, I think my suspicions are well placed.
Now, several weeks later, he is my little lover boy. He and Sophie sleep in bed with me, she cuddled up against my leg, and he close by my head. He awakens me the same way each day: with a massage. Truly, he massages me. He will purr contentedly and knead me with paws oversized for his young kittenish body, and just move each alternating with surprising strength on my neck, shoulder and chest until I awake. Occasionally, he will take his rough, sandpaper tongue, and lick the tip of my nose, or my eyelid. It never fails to wake me, in a good mood, every time.
As I can’t stand the smell of a litterbox, and can’t afford a litter genie whiz bang whatever they’re called, I set about to find solutions to the problem of needing to scoop the pan ten times a day and my ability to do it twice, and how I disliked doing it those two times a day.
And so, I decided to potty train my kitties. As in, teach them to use the toilet, and so begins my saga.
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