That’s where the cuteness ends: Jenny starts by kissing on Tito, they exchange a few licks, and settle down for a minute, maybe a few seconds.
The quiet before the storm
Then the wrestling begins. The headlocks and body slamming, what every Trekker recognizes as the Klingon mating ritual, somewhat different from the Vulcan mating ritual which also involves ass kicking, but of a Starship Captain.
Someone could get hurt…
As I type this, for instance, Jenny is still greeting me home, dancing figure eights under the chair, pawing at my leg and grabbing my arm to rub against. With purring and claws. I’m already bleeding in three spots. I got bit. Not too hard but firmly.
I will show you a paper tiger
Must be the Tortie (Tortoiseshell) in her, the little brute. As a wrestler, she has a very solid stance: wide with hind legs bent. We saw her more than once using this position to wrap Tito in an embrace before slamming him down. Then again, he gives as good as he gets, and even has her retreating often, though never for long. Never for long.
I’m bleeding from a fourth scratch now.
Jenny will also walk on my pillow stopping just long enough to nom on my skull. If I pet her, which I always do, she farts. If my wife leans over to nose bonk her, Jenny’ll cough in her face, like Carol Beer on “Little Britain”:
Her newest trick: not a cough, but a vurp (a burp which sounds vomitous). All I can say is thank Ceiling Cat she doesn’t eat mice. Things are gross enough. Annnnd, I’ve got an eighth scratch… Well, a puncture, more like… Still, I feel like one of Jack the Ripper’s playthings.
The night of Thursday into Friday the 13th, a night of celestial mayhem, turned out to bring Tito and I ever closer…
Storm re-enactment
A storm was moving through the Bay Area, with lightning strikes precise enough to hit not only the Bay bridge but a plane in flight. The plane had to dump fuel and returned safely to the airport.
THUNDERCATS ARE NO GO!!!
At home, as we turned off the computer and prepared to do the same with the TV, I caught something strange from the corner of my eye: a rug shimmying straight for the kitchen. A second look showed Tito hugging the floor and running for a kitchen cupboard to hide in.
Maz, while none too pleased, was comfortably wrapped in a heavy blanket on the bed and didn’t budge. Jenny herself was sitting on the bed with a bit more nervous discomfort than he and watched Tito darting away.
Nightingale Jenny will make it all better...
While I don’t particularly fear that the sky will ever fall, like my ancestors the Gauls, Tito seems to be afraid of it for the both of us. The only spot he considers a refuge is the lower cupboard in the kitchen next to the stove top and behind a crock pot.
This storm kept on moving through, fortunately, and Jenny helped Tito recover with tender grooming and copious amounts of catnip she shared… Tito the Gaul. Wow. We are kin!
It’s 3:40 a.m. and I’m trying to work up a movie review. The boys are pooped and crashed in their spots on the computer desk: Tito in the basket above and Maz in the doggie bed to the side.
I want to play. Play with me.
Miss Jenny still wants to play and is getting bratty about it. She’s carrying this balled up piece of paper, dropping it in Maz’ bed and steps on him to get a reaction. No dice.
She jumps up to Tito’s lair, almost knocking the desk lamp clipped to the side. I can hear Tito sigh, but he doesn’t budge. Down she comes again, picking up her toy once more.
I keeled it.
She bats it into the space between the TV table and the wall and lunges after it, wedging her front end down there while back-pedaling with her rear.
She farts. Oh God she farted.
She comes up victorious with paper in mouth, I guess. I can’t really tell, my eyes watering and the fumes affecting my inner ear: the image and sound on the TV seem out of sync, because sound travels at a different speed after she ‘alters’ the atmosphere. I put my hands down on the desk to steady myself, Jeez… We need to change her diet progressively, but soon. Much depends on this.
All four of our kittoons here have needed a bit of socializing right from the start. It might seem that Maz Whang didn’t, but his universe was turned upside down when we adopted him, as he’d grown up a full year with Sphynx siblings, and a couple other cats and dog.
To be wrenched from his home was traumatic, and the poor beastie gacked and crapped all over himself in the cat carrier on the way to his new digs.
No camera! No camera!
We had to stop, clean him up and comfort him as best we could before driving on.
Sphynxes are social, but on their own terms, which aren’t always easy to decipher. They really are driven by the two related needs of warmth and sustenance, with much playtime in between.
Just like you test the warmth of a baby bottle prior to feeding, you have to ensure your hands are warm enough before petting Maz or he’ll recoil and dart away in shock and horror. I call this “ghosting” because that’s what his reaction makes me think of. We’ve said he’s been very good for Tito (and vice versa), drawing Tito out of his ‘goth’ period following Boober’s passing.
Strangers at first
Finally, Tito was able to chase and play to his heart’s content with the streaker, losing excess weight in the process, and bonding with, well, an alien. Even Miss Jenny finds Mazuzu irresistible: both want to nom on Maz, who’ll leap straight up a couple feet in the air and maybe growl if a tooth racks his spine. Mmmmh. Baby back ribs…
Love happens
Given Tito and Jenny’s “affection” for shoes, I suspect they enjoy Maz’ gym locker smell when it’s time to give him a bath. That’s usually a signal for us to drag him into the tub, but then they love the new cat smell just as much and are all over him again.
Affection? They have it. Tito tricks us into feeding him and leaves the food for Maz, knowing the alien always needs more. Smart Tito…
Maz grooms both Tito and Jenny when he beds down with either in the basket atop the computer desk, later gacking hairballs and meowing his discontent, but what can you do..? Jenny also grooms both, focusing on Maz’ ears in particular, an unexpected boon for us since Maz and Q-tips don’t mix well.
The mutual grooming society in action
One of the biggest changes is something Maz started and Jenny continues: helping Tito find his voice. Because he never was very vocal at all, this watchful little thing which grew into a big cat. He now trills and coos and meows, although always in the higher pitch of a kitten. And it may be early yet to tell, but I think Jenny’s going to be the same. They both will always sound like kittens.
Tito and Jenny
This may sound like a sign of arrested development but I prefer to think of it as a display of happiness, along with Tito’s joy at being picked up and carried from room to room for a few minutes, purring and discovering a new perspective on his world with wide eyes, rubbing his chin on our cheek as we do so. And Jenny’s happiness at going to sleep hugging my hand to her head, like a pillow.
Our two little feral rescues no longer have to survive on mean streets, they only have to romp and warm each other and their “cousin” from outer space.
It’s love
Love is in the air and scarcely displaced by Maz and Jenny’s farts. It’s all good.
I have a thing for feral cats, and Rudha-an has one for kittens. Feral kittens, therefore, are our favorites. We’ll never know exactly where they came from, what they went through, why they are so scared of shoes, think of nothing but murder, and yet are so hungry for affection.
Each one has a story but they’ll never tell even if they could, we just wonder as they teach us to live in the moment.
This week, here are some of my favorite photos of our pointy eared people, followed by a clip of very funny story telling. About a sloth. Enjoy.
Maz and Jenny in a tender momentTito MagnificoMazuzu: art deco or fascist icon?The Queen of Cool
And now, enjoy this very funny sloth story from Kristen Bell on the “Ellen” show.
Hmmm… Is Nightshade Jenny trying to tell us something, I wonder?
Open. Open.Open.
Previously, on this channel, butt-head Maz Whang hissed at Jenny and at my wife when she picked him up to, let’s say “decrease the atmospheric pressure” in the room. Made me wish I had the camera ready, it looked like something out of the first “exorcist” and all I could think of was:
Ego te absolvo in nomine Patris, et Filiii, et Spiritus Sancti!!!!
Not Mazuzu Whang, but close enough. Tito, on the other hand, seems much more mellow and just very curious about the little ball of fur. There is a possibility that Tito could help in bringing her out of her shell, but we’ll explore that later.
Sugar and spice, huh?
In another post, this one about Mazuzu, I’d mentioned that it’s sometimes better to wait for the newly adopted to come up with their own name. And well, beyond the oh-so-sweet blinking gaze of Jenny’s blue peepers, I now sense something more than just the cute, vulnerable fuzzy-wuzzy that makes us go all kajagoogooey and ghoo-buh-ghee? Goo-buh-ghee-ish.
What happened yesterday, I can’t quite discount or otherwise sweep under the carpet. When in the safe room with my wife in the evening, Jenny decided to do a bit of exploring. Wonderful! Yes?
But when my wife was perceived to be getting “danger close” to the dish of wet food, Jenny fixed her with her ice-blue eyes and hissed a clear warning. Sooo-eee! We got us a handful there I think, so let’s see:
Hedwig \he(d)-wig\ as a girl’s name is of Old German origin, and the meaning of Hedwig is “contention, strife“. Actress Hedy Lamarr was born Hedwig Kiesler.
One way the final take over could go is gradual, with cats making more and more non-aggressive displays of domination, as in diplomatic cuteness when asking for food or attention, like so:
This type of display is not unique:
Like Dr. Hubbs in “Phase IV”, we are now reduced to documenting and surrendering to the revolting affectations of cuteness. Well better that than the alternative…
Lo, they’ll soon be reading books…
A final note, this absolutely incredible story of survival, this dog found at sea three weeks after the tsunami in Japan. Three weeks.
Wow! The dog has now been reunited with his owner. 🙂
A tad late today, we have been celebrating hubby’s newly found employment after almost 6 months of wandering through the wilderness.
Though we are celebrating, it is with some sober consideration for millions of other Americans who are either still out of work or losing their job.
Big brother watching over naked brotherTaking care of one another
Hello, my name is Kitsune. No, I’m NOT named after the clothing company. Anyhow, they call me Kitsy for short. I’m a Sphynx , which means I have no fur, although I do have some peach fuzz.
Naked beast that I am, I race around the house with no shame. I’m quite the exhibitionist. I like to yell a lot. I will also steal my humans’ food when they aren’t looking. I get along well with my brother, Tito. I love to sleep on top of him. Sometimes, he gets tired of it and goes to his cushion.
My favorite place to sleep is rolled up in my fuzzy blanket between my humans.
