Before Chris, Frankie, and Floki, there were Tigger, Alex, and others. Here is a photo of Tigger and Alex taken on this day in 2007.
Photo Friday: Classic Tigger and Alex
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Tag Archives: black cat
Grandma’s New Cat
A couple of months ago, my mother-in-law’s beloved cat, Finnegan, died at a fairly young age. I wrote about his adoption three years ago here. Recently, a stray cat started coming to her door. I think the word has gotten out amongst the homeless cat community that her house is the place to go.
This new cat was very friendly and must have had a home at one time because he had worn-out nail covers, but he was not neutered.
I don’t know how long he was coming around. I assume long enough to know he was separated from his original family. So my mother-in-law decided to bring him in and make him an inside cat.
We were there visiting Sunday morning and the cat was happy getting attention from all of us. She had an appointment to get him fixed this week and the only thing left is to name him. Someone suggested Zorro and she liked that name but I don’t know if she officially decided yet.
Photo Friday: Creek Ratz Cat
I dug into the archives again for this week’s photo. This goes back to March 23, 2010, when Rose and I were still living in Myrtle Beach. We often went to a place called Murrell’s Inlet where they had several restaurants and shops. Usually, we ate at a place called Creek Ratz where we sat outside. If you click on the link you can see how nice it is there and, judging by the website, it is almost exactly as I remember it.
Anyway, while eating at Creek Ratz we were often met by a stray cat that hung out at the restaurant. Perhaps he made his rounds to all the restaurants.
I had a habit of ordering the chicken salad, which was essentially a salad with several chicken strips along the top. I always ate the salad and gave the chicken to the cat. Occasionally the cat wasn’t around and I would be disappointed like it was the cat I was going there for, even though the food and the atmosphere were outstanding. I guess the cat just made it extra special.
My First Day Back at the Shelter
I mostly stopped volunteering when I got my lastest job early in the year. It was supposed to be part-time, about twenty hours a week, but the other part-time employee quit and it quickly turned into about thirty-five hours a week. I did manage to squeeze in a day here and there but then we went to West Virginia for two months.
Things have slowed down at work lately and it seems I might be able to consistently get Fridays off so I signed up for a shift last Friday. When I got there I noticed things had not changed much. Cats still needed homes and people still came around looking for cats
There were a fair number of kittens as well as adults cats. It seemed there were a lot of very friendly black cats that day.
There was also a Siamese kitten there.
I texted Rose his photo and she wanted me to adopt him but several minutes later someone came in with his paperwork wanting to adopt him. When a person wants to adopt a cat they take the cat’s paperwork to the adoption office. I imagine these people grabbed his paperwork so nobody else would take him and then wondered around the shelter in case they found a better option.
The Siamese was part of a group of kittens that were very cute and funny. I learned later they were all from the same litter even though only one was Siamese. I know a litter could be from more than one father so maybe that was the case.
While I was standing outside the cage talking to someone, one of the kittens climbed up the door and poked me in the back to get my attention.
Later I saw the same black kitten climb up the door but this time he had a copycat.
The Siamese cat climbed all the way to the top of the door.
I was worried he might hurt himself jumping down from that hight but I had to wait for him to get above the door so I could open it. Once inside I pulled the bench over to stand on and then had a hard time separating the cat from the cage.
The friendliest cat in the shelter and the one I most wanted to bring home was Berry.
Berry had a bad eye infection that the vets could not get under control so they had to remove his eye on Monday. I felt so bad because he was so very much in need of attention. I opened his cage a few times to pet him and he was just all over me. I have a video that I will try to post soon.
Alas, as much as we want to save them all it is just not realistic to think we can adopt another cat, especially since we already have two more than we are suppose to have.
On the Road Again
We got to our hotel room yesterday a little after 2:00 p.m. It was relatively early but the cats needed a potty break and my back was hurting from the car ride.
On the way to West Virginia we stayed at a Home2 by Hilton in Columbia South Carolina. It was a nice room inside the hotel where I didn’t have to worry much about Frankie escaping because even if he got out of the room he would still be contained inside the hotel.. This time we stayed at a Best Western in Walterboro, South Carolina. It was an outside room and not nearly as nice.
Going both ways I wanted our second day to be slightly shorter than our first because I figured we would be sick of driving by the second day, plus we needed more time to settle in at home. So with that in mind, Walterboro was the only option.
Rose typically likes to stay at Hiltons or Marriotts but those hotels, at least in Walterboro, did not allow pets. My only choices were Best Western, Econolodge, Motel 6, etc. We both thought Best Western would be the best of the worst so we picked that one. We may have been wrong.
We got a room near the end and when we pulled in a calico cat immediately came up to our car with a big story. I happened to have Stella and Chewy’s readily available in the truck so I put some down for her while Rose put the top down so we could remove our cats.
Rose thought she was pregnant but then we noticed she was ear tipped. I think she is just smart and knows how to get food out of visitors. It worked on me.
When we got in the room we noticed it smelled like dog. It also was covered with old carpet and Rose was worried about fleas. I wanted to put the litter box on a hard floor, not carpet, for ease of cleaning, but the only hard floor was in the tiny bathroom. I couldn’t put it there. Rose suggested putting it on a towel, which I did.
It wasn’t long before Chris pulled the towel back and then dumped a bunch of litter on the exposed carpet. It was then that I realized I had forgotten to bring a broom and dustpan. All I could do was pick it up with my fingers.
What surprised me was when Chris got into the crate that he was trapped in all day. I found Floki in the smaller crate too but I did not get a photo of that.
I went out later to get dinner and brought some food out for the stray. It was then that I noticed a shy black cat hanging out with the calico. Frankie noticed too.
We left this morning around 6:30. The first thing I did was bring out bowl of wet food and a bowl of dry food for the calico and black cat. The calico was there eating the wet food as I loaded the cats in the car. I never saw the black cat again. Perhaps he was waiting for us to leave.
It is now 8:00 a.m. and Floki is still howling. Yesterday it lasted three hours and then another two hours of on and off crying. Hopefully today will be better.
Photo Friday: Cool Cat
I have been very busy lately and have not photographed our cats too much so I thought I would go to the archives again. This was taken exactly ten years ago on October 2, 2010. I was volunteering for a shelter called Sav-R-Cats and was there photographing cats for Petfinder. While I was doing that, the shelter manager opened the refrigerator and this fellow climbed inside.
Photo Friday: Vintage Flash
I dug into the archives for today’s photo. This was taken August 28, 2005, the day we adopted Flash and Tigger (named Ernie and Dooly at the time). Tigger was adopted by my wife’s mother but she did not adopt his brother, Flash. Apparently, Flash was in such distress over the loss of his brother that the shelter called and said we either needed to adopt Flash as well or return Tigger. Since my mother-in-law was not ready for two cats, we took them both in.
While Tigger was very outgoing, Flash was not. In fact, he was so nervous that he scrunched himself under our kitchen cabinet as soon as we let the two of them out of their carriers.
We named him Flash because when you tried to pet him he was gone in a Flash. Tigger got his name because he seemed to bounce around the house like the cartoon Tigger.
Here are the two of them together a few days later.
Photo Friday: Creek Ratz Cat
All my recent cat photos are still on my camera and Chris is on my lap so I decided to look through old photos for something to post today. As some of you know, my wife and I spent 16 months in Myrtle Beach between mid 2009 and late 2010. It is where we adopted Chris late in 2009. While there we enjoyed going to a place called Murrell’s Inlet.
Murrell’s Inlet had several shops and restaurants, one of which was called Creek Ratz. We liked eating there but I also enjoyed the company of a stray cat that was a regular visitor at the restaurant. I would always order a salad with grilled chicken when he was around and then slip him most of the chicken.
Binx the Kitten
My son recently moved into an apartment with a female roommate that is not his girlfriend (further Stymieing my desire to have a grandchild). His roommate recently got a black kitten that she named Binx after the cat from the movie Hocus Pocus. When he told me about the kitten I asked where he was but he didn’t know. “He’s around somewhere,” I was told.
We talked for a few minutes and then the kitten showed up. I was amazed at how small the kitten was and I asked if he was old enough for adoption. “He is almost eight weeks old,” Chris told me (My son, coincidentally, is also named Chris). He said his littermates were twice as big as him.
I suppose he is right about his age because he gets around very well. He uses the litter box and goes up and down the stairs with no problem. I will be interested to see how big this little fellow gets.
Photo Friday: Best Friends
In spite of the fact that Chris dominates Puck as the self-appointed alpha male, he really cares for him. You saw it in the last post and here is another example of the two of them hanging out as best buddies. I took this picture last night in low light with no flash so please forgive the less than perfect quality. I’m actually surprised it came out as good as it did.
Bad Cat Chris 