Tonight my rants will be taking a short break and instead I'm going to talk about something important.
Cats.
You heard me right. Cats. Typically furry, carnivorous mammals we constantly bump into in our everyday life. And I'm not complaining. I'm an obvious cat person. I see a cat on the street, I approach it. Brief boop on the nose, a little pet if they're of the friendly kind, and small bits of cat food if I happen to have it on me. Brief encounters with this creature can put me in a good mood, especially the friendly ones.
I have had the experience of owning (owning might not be the precise word) cats in the past. Most of them are dead or missing right now (talk about being a good cat-parent). See, what I mean by owning would be something like seeing them around my house a couple of times, give them food until they're comfortable being with us and decide to take over our front porch. Just... casually... pooping all around the yard. They're basically stray cats that we took into our hands. We don't have a local shelter where we can go and adopt pre-maintened cats, so it's all up to us how to take care of them.
This kind of taking-care-of-stray-cat cycle has been around for quite a long time in my family. We live in a suburban house complex, and there are a lot of stray cats hanging around. We couldn't just feed every single ferals, and considering how territorial cats are, once one or two commonly united cats decided to take over our yard as their kingdom, others just naturally avoid the area. Once we also took a group of abandoned kittens from mom's office to home to be taken care of. They grew up well, but then they decided to wander off elsewhere, one by one. Ungrateful bastards.
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| smol villa |
Oldest cat we have had we named Villa. Male cat, white fur with orange coat around his face and tail. He was born in our house around 2011, with one (or two) sibling(s) four years ago, he's still living with us now although his siblings had moved out. He was named such because during his kittenhood (is that a word) he was really playful, and liked chasing this orange decoration around like a football. Mom's really fond of football, and she suggested that name.
Villa's story is kind of sad, because he was such a friendly and playful kitten, with eyes lit up at round objects rolling around and paws to play with others, but one day he just got... hurt. His front left leg got messed up pretty badly, and he became hostile quickly we couldn't even take him to the vet. He then went incognito for quite a while, but went back with noticeable physical change and attitude. He used to like being pet, now he doesn't even let anyone touch him. He doesn't play with our cats anymore, only around for feeding time, with most of his time outside fighting other strays. He was now the territory master, so at least it's an accomplishment. I'm still feeling guilty we didn't get to take him to the vet, though.
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| large villa |
Anyway, after a few years of having domestic shorthairs (read: mutt) come and go, this rare (is it though?) beauty suddenly appeared out of nowhere, hanging around our neighborhood, meowing. Our maid found her and we feed her. We had no idea where or whose house she could be from, because she doesn't look like our usual mutt. She looked like something out of a pet shop, with relatively long coat of fur, and she was very friendly. She immediately made herself at home at our house. After a brief discussion with brother, we named her Joan.
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| ma bby |
To our surprise, she was toilet-trained. Most of our cats initially dropped their bombs around the yard and then we cover them with sands and kerosene to get rid of the smell. Some managed to take it on the litterbox, but we had to train them first. Joan on the other hand went straight to the back toilet where our washing took place, and managed to pee near the water drain. We only found out after we noticed her walking out of the toilet. She became mom's favorite in an instant.
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| ma bbyy |
Things took a positive turn for Joan. She was the first cat mom was willing to neuter, and didn't mind regularly take to vet (because we know she wouldn't run away like others did). She wasn't a playful one, though, mostly just chilling around. Of all the cats we had, I think it's safe to say that she had the most territorial coverage around the house. She even managed to enter the toilet (which most cats never dared to) and my room (and mom would scold because my brother had fur allergies). She likes chilling in the living room, where she would be immediately greeted by eager petting by my brother and me, or foot petting by mom as if she was a walking furry doormat. A huge improvement, considering mom barely touched most of our cats.
To this day, Joan is still alive and well. I don't see her that much because I've been temporarily moving out to another city to finish my college...
...where I made another cat my pet. Meet Ibeng. (read:
e-bank)
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| meet my newest companion |
Ibeng came at a good time, which was during my (hopefully) final college semester where I barely had anything to do other than working on my thesis. Got no class left, so I spend most of time at kosan, writing away, cleaning my room, even took the time to wash a few of my own clothes.. and feeding cats.
But T, how are you keeping a cat at kosan? I'm so glad you asked, my friend. You see, right now I live in a second floor, and the front of my room is an open balcony. Beyond the open balcony is not your average view, but rather, the roofing of the building. The roof was like an intersection for stray cats, and sometimes they stop by to salvage bits of leftover food/trash from the trashbin.
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| roofing |
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| crime scene |
One uneventful night I just had the idea of putting my leftover food on a disposable container and put it on the roof near my balcony. I did this a couple of times and now I have this little
shit begging for food every single day. So I just had to put cat food on my list of expenses because how could you say no to that face?
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| "food plz" |
Basically I just feed him outside my room, he hung out for a bit to groom himself and took a nap on my doormat. His visit could be daily, sometimes he doesn't visit for a few days straight. He keeps me company during late nights of typing (or browsing around randomly), leaves, and then goes back in the morning meowing loudly and waking me up for his cereal (cat food). It's nice because he doesn't hang around for too long or get too clingy, and he would leave if he needs to go to the toilet.
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| nappy nap |
It occurs to me to give him a bath because he's very dirty I can't even pet him (usually I use tissue should the temptation become too strong), but his eyes went wide to the sight of water. I once tried washing him with wet cloth; I got scratches and he didn't visit for a week. Oh well.
It wasn't always peaceful, though. Sometimes other stray cats try to eat the food I put outside, and when Ibeng was around, he would taunt them away. Sometimes the stray cat fights other stray cats around the roof, and Ibeng would just watch from afar because I think he thinks he's safe now he got a human companion that would chase the fight away should it become too annoying.
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| they're fighting, mind you |
Of course Ibeng wasn't the only friendly cat in the city where I am right now. They are everywhere. There are cats in my campus, around my kosan neighborhood, on the street where I walk. Wherever it was, I am particularly grateful of the cats that let me pet them and make my days, become remedy of my exhaustion, or just amuse me with their antics.
Moral of the story? I just really like cats.
