Our housemate Quentin came home with orphan kittens on Sunday. He and his girlfriend had found them in the street, in the rain, huddling next to the body of their mom. They were really weak and inactive on Sunday, but we’ve been feeding them (formula from a bottle, then food from a can) and now they’re so much fun.
They are really cute. We refer to them in the household as “grey one” and “black one” since we all have our own names for them. I’m calling grey one Gandalf The Grey And White and black one Palalukan, which is the Na’vi word for the huge scary black panther creature that chases Jake and bows to Neytiri.
I’ve never had a pet before (fish don’t count) so you are about to be treated to OMGPETSPAM.
Grey one has learned to dig in the kitty litter for peeing, but not pooing. Black one misses the kitty litter some of the time, but is also catching on, slowly.
They like to wrestle and it was cute and mild a few days ago (lots of ear-eating), but I noticed today that grey one was antagonizing black one when black one wasn’t in the mood for playing, so I’m not sure how to mom grey one into playing nice. They both love to climb. They both hate baths, but we bathe them a lot because they are the messiest eaters on the planet (they haven’t figured out how to lap things up with their tongue, so it’s like “bowl of formula? Yes, let me dunk my entire face in it and then sneeze and shake it all over everything!!!”). Also their poo is runny and it gets everywhere =( They’ve scratched me up during the baths. My forearms look pretty scary now.
Two days ago, Fritz had grey one in our room, and I had black one in our kitchen, and black one started purring for the first time ever (after some false starts that were hilarious, like clicking nuts together or something). I ran into the room to show Fritz, who was on his way out to tell me that grey one had just started purring, too. We figure it’s one of those developmental things. Black one is now a tiny purr factory… he purrs ALL the time when we’re nearby, even if he’s just standing on the ground next to us. Grey one doesn’t purr as much, but they are both super duper cuddly and love to crawl in our laps and poke around and fall asleep on us. Black one seems more sedate in general, but when he wants something, he REALLY wants it — he meows, purrs, claws, bats, nibbles; he had started to climb up our shirts and scratch our necks (probably cuz he’s looking to nurse on something warm). Grey one was always more inquisitive and adventurous and a little more ADD. He likes to hide under furniture and then immediately start mewing pathetically… to make sure that we look for him, I guess. Does he hide and then feel lonely? Conflicted kitty. He comes out pretty quickly on his own.
Today they figured out how to play with the soft foam “golf balls” we got them and grey one keeps getting his claw stuck in it cuz he hasn’t figured out that he can just retract his claws yet. They’re also getting braver every day and jumping and running and bounding about — they just sprinted for the first time yesterday. Little tiny furry lightning bolts zapping clumsily about the kitchen and bonking into things.
We brought them to Spot rehearsal last Monday, where they were a huge hit, killed productivity to all-time-lows, and pood and peed on alangela’s living room. Much alcohol was sprayed on the carpet that day. There were also many, many, many pictures, and even more name suggestions. Alan’s were Marco and Polo. Chris’s were River and Simon (Tam, which would have worked better if one was a boy and one was a girl). Quentin calls black one Squeakers and grey one Hissyface, because when he first picked them up on Saturday, grey one hissed a lot (he still hisses really occasionally but always still lets you pet him and pick him up and is totally fine). Fritz and Javan call black one Lil’ Blackie, after the horse in True Grit. Gretchen calls black one Beaker, because that’s what he sounds like. haha.
My life has been 100% nonstop kittens. Feeding kittens. Holding sleeping kittens. Holding wrestling kittens. Cleaning kittens. Getting eviscerated by kittens. Bleaching kitchen towels. Wiping the floor. Cuddling kittens. We even brought them to work, which was ridiculous.
I think they are being adopted by Ralph tomorrow. I will miss them very much, but Ralph will be good to them.