Here she is, even scrawnier than she looks in this photo. I am trying to rehydrate her, so she gets alternately water and watery milk (along with cat food). I’ll buy kitten milk for her too, which is better balanced for cats, and higher calorie.
I was sitting on the couch holding Conrad Black (the unincarcerated kitten version) and Eva-the-unfriendly starts meowing outside. I know it’s Eva because no other cat in this house meows so loudly. Sister, I say, go let in Eva. She doesn’t like Eva and claims she will run away when she sees who is opening the door. Perhaps, but then she will also stop meowing, so it counts as a win. My sister goes outside and looks and tells me that it doesn’t look like Eva, she thinks it is Matilda.
Matilda!
I go outside and though it is dark and she’s in the bushes, it does indeed look like Matilda. I try to go out but can’t find the right boots, grab two similar left shoes, ask my sister’s friend to find me my boots, and instead my sister gives me my father’s far too big boots. I run out in the foot of snow with snow melting into my feet and she meows a bit more then runs away from me. Hops, really, because the snow is too deep to run. Away.
So I am running after her with my feet and calves freezing off, since it’s minus seventeen degrees out and they’re both soaked, and she runs into my neighbour’s back yard, and I call her for a while, then shake my head and jump their (low) fence. She runs under the deck (has a 5 or 6 foot high unlit storage space underneath), still meowing for me to follow her. My sister has followed me out with a can of wet cat food and catnip, and I open them and try to place them somewhere for her to eat. Eventually I can grab her neck while she’s eating and yank her out from under the whatever they have there.
I take her back inside, make everyone touch her bony bony body (she might weigh 2 pounds now, but maybe not — her normal weight is 4-5 pounds, because she is a runt), and feed her more (she ate about 2/3 of a can of wet cat food). She is currently curled up asleep next to me, and I am figuring out the best way to kill her. I was sure I was never going to see her again.
So my cat is back. It might have taken a month, and there is very little left of her (she is otherwise fine — a little shaky at first, and one small cut, and otherwise nothing obviously wrong), but she is here. I was going to thank people for the nice thoughts, but it was too depressing, so I didn’t. And now I can. Welcome back, Til.
Look, it’s my kittens, finally sleeping near each other again.
Sam honestly is at least three times Tilda’s size (and more than 3 times my little anorexic baby’s weight).
I am lying on my bed and I notice that the annoying black and white cat (to be distinguished from the many other b&w cats in the neighbourhood) is in my window. What are you doing in my house, cat? And then I look and see that my back door is shut, which means that the cat has been here for, at the very least, 8 hours. May still be here, because I have no idea where the irritating thing got to, because I figured he wandered in through an open door. Which, granted, he did, but not recently.
I am distinctly more annoyed by this than any of the other cats.
These cats are ready for adoption, so if there are any Montrealers who are looking for cats, this is your chance.
Matilda just slowly and conscientiously ate a big feather that fell off a feather boa. I sat there wathching her do it, sure I was not seeing what I thought I was seeing. But no, she definitely ate it. I doubt this is going to make her sick — the feather boa has been around, moulting feathers, for months, and it’s possibly not the first one she ate (though I’ve never seen suspicious litter box use or piles of purple cat vomit).
She’s now sleeping; I suppose one gets tired after a big meal like that.
As usual, the cat came back later, but only after a chase scene. So I decided to give her a bit of fresh air at my parents’ house, where again, I had to chase her (my sister was making noise and she got scared. Again).
All that would have been fine, but on the way back I stopped at my aunt and uncle’s place, cat in tow. They locked her in the den (she matches their couch very nicely), and she was there for a few hours. And weirdly, amazingly affectionate. Purring, rubbing on my aunt and uncle and cousins, eating their plants, but mostly very very friendly, and very very cuddly. (Except the brief period where she saw! another! cat! Horrors! Bad!)
I really do not understand animals. She normally hates (a) new people (b) groups of more than 2 people and (c) new places. Especially after (d) being carted around in a car. This time, she was the picture of a cat you would want to have. Why isn’t she like this for *me*?
Unfortunately, Matilda escaped, and of course the weather is so beautiful, I have no idea where she got to. The back door is open, but she has a thing against leaving the balcony, and it also means she’s unwilling to come onto the balcony from the stairs. The front door isn’t open, but I check periodically. Usually she only goes away for an hour or so, but I would love her to be back very soon. It’s too trafficky here.
I am highly amused by this ask.mefi thread about how cats view humans.