Tulip Kitty

We just got back from a two week trip to the east coast. While we were away the girls both stayed with Eve’s parents. I fretted over them the entire time we were gone. Tulip is fine with us, but very timid and introverted around just about anyone else. I was so afraid that she would hide in a closet for 2 weeks and come back looking like a bag of antlers. One the other hand, Moo is comfortable anywhere and with anyone. I knew she would do her best to manipulate them into giving her extra food.
When we arrived last night Moo perked up with her “Huh!” face when she heard our voices. She followed us all around the house meowing and showing off. She was obviously very happy to see us. She was also very fat! I’m not sure how much she gained, but we’ve got a long road ahead of us.
Tulip was hiding upstairs when we arrived. When we went up to see her she was timid at first. She obviously recognize our voices but it took her a few minutes to warm up to us. She eventually came downstairs to hang out with us. Amazingly she looked like she gained a little weight too.
I loaded them up and drove them back to our house. Moo talked the whole way home, which is about an hour away. I tried to reassure her, but she wasn’t happy about the ride. Tulip didn’t let out a single peep.
I brought them into the house first but left them in the carriers while I unloaded the car. They knew exactly where they were and were visibly happy about it. Once I opened the doors on the carriers, both shot out and ran around the house. They inspected the whole place, then strolled around chirping and meowing. So happy to be home, Mama!
It’s going to take some time to get them back into their routine. They seem to think they can wake us up whenever they want to eat. Guess what girls! The buffet is over! I’m just really glad to have them back. The place isn’t the same without them. And it makes me really happy to see that this is where they want to be.

Everyone sleeping in while I’m up at 5:30 to be at work by 7:30.  You know it’s early when the cats won’t even wake up.

Great news regarding the lost blind cat I posted about a while back.  Although her owner was never located, my friend Janet has been fostering her this whole time.  Janet informed me yesterday that she has been adopted by  by a wonderful new owner named Pascuale.  Pascuale, please forgive me and correct me if I am misspelling your name.  She is now living with a sighted cat, and it sounds like all is going very well so far.  Pascuale, please keep us posted on how she’s doing, and send along a photo with the new sibling(s) if you feel like it.  I’m a sucker for a happy kitty story, and it’s always fun to hear about other people’s experiences with their blind pets.

I realize it’s been a long time since I posted an update.  I’m sure it’s not fun for the readers, but at least know that no news is good news.  The girls haven’t been up to anything particularly exciting lately, but they’re both doing really well.  I was just sitting here a few minutes ago with Tulip slung across my neck, just relaxing and petting her.  I realized just how grateful I am for my time with these kitties.  They truly are the best part of my life.  Without them there would be no reason to get up every day.  I’m thankful for them every day.

Posting for our friend Janet. If you recognize this cat, please help us locate her owner. Thank you!

Here’s a video of the Tulip and Moo showing off their ball-playing skills. This is one of their favorite pass times.

I came home to find Mini Tiger in the pooper. I guess the competition for the litterbox is pretty stiff these days. At least he’s potty trained.

Since I know someone will ask: Tulip likes to play with Mini Tiger by flinging him up in the air and trying to catch him. She was doing this in the bathroom when I left the house. I guess she flung him in there and didn’t bother to rescue him. Better the clean litterbox than the toilet I suppose.

Hello, all.  I finally have a break in my schedule to write a decent update on the kitties.  There are so many things to talk about that I don’t know where to begin.

• I guess I should start off by saying that I’ve spent a LOT of time working with Tulip over the past few months.  Tu is a funny character.  There’s a big, soft heart in there.  It’s just surrounded by napalm and razor wire.  In other words, she has a lot of trust issues.  I’ve been working on this mostly by handling her.  At least twice a day I scoop her up and sling her over my neck/shoulder, something we’ve come to call “tigey scarf”.  At first she’d squirm and resist.  I’d talk to her, pet her, and try to comfort her.  If she struggled too much I’d put her down.  I wanted her to see that she had some control.  Now she appears to look forward to it.  Sometimes she comes to my feet and waits for me to pick her up.  Sometimes I’ll lean back in my office chair and sling her across my neck.  She now sits there and purs, sometimes up to 5 or 10 minutes before she asks to get down.  It’s wonderful.
• I think because of the tigey scarf game, she has come a long way.  If I sit on the couch and watch the morning news while I drink my coffee, she’ll often join me.  She invites herself up onto my lap and kneads at the blanket like Moo does.
• Speaking of Moo, Tulip spends a lot of time observing her behavior and imitating it.  She sees that Moo gets a lot of attention when she comes up on the couch while we’re there.  If Tu wants attention, she comes up now too.
• Moo has a habit of carrying her toys around in her mouth and howling at the top of her lungs to let us know she’s “caught” something.  Tu has just started carrying her Mini Tiger around and doing the same thing.  I’m hoping to catch this on video at some point because it’s seriously cute.
• Tu has a kitty bed on top of my desk.  There’s a chair to the left of the bed.  She hops up onto the chair and up again into the kitty bed.  I mostly leave her alone when she gets in there, but I talk to her a lot.  Sometimes I stick my face right in hers.  She usually smells me then licks my face.  If she falls asleep in there, I pull the bed closer to me and rest my hand on her or pet her head.  She’s now used to that.  If she doesn’t feel like being petted, she gives me some warning first by making the pouty face instead of just biting me.
• On Christmas eve, Eve’s parents came over and spent the night at our house.  This was the first sleep-over for the kitties.  Moo is always up in everybody’s business, and this evening was no different.  However, Tu was also joining in the fun.  She walked around the house sniffing everyone.  I think everyone got to pet her at some point.  While Eve and Mom and Dad were working at my desk in the office, Tulip was right up there in the pile of paperwork helping out.  I couldn’t believe it.  She hung around with us most of the day.  When she felt like some alone time, she went to the bedroom and hopped up on the bed for a nap.
• The slowest behavior to change is her interaction with Moo.  Tulip loves to play, and loves to chase.  Of course, Moo is her favorite toy.  Moo is less enthusiastic about this idea, but will humor her on occasion.  Sometimes they’ll scamper back and forth after each other.  They play well together with toys.  I’ll take turns rolling rattle balls down the hallway for them.  They dart out from their hiding places and chase the balls together.  Too cute.
• Moo and Tu are still working on relaxation time together.  Moo is always the first one to hit the pile of blankets on the couch in the evenings.  Tulip often comes over and expresses interest in snuggle time too.  But she shys away when she discovers that Moo is there.  I’ll usually pick Tulip up, plop her down right next to Moo, then hold onto her and pet her until she settles down.  Most of the time she’ll go to sleep there right next to Moo.  Moo usually tries to ignore her, although you can see that she isn’t happy about Tulip being there.  Moo distrusts Tu because Tu punks her all the time.  Tu is afraid of getting close to Moo because she gets scolded for punking her all the time.  I’m hoping that eventually they’ll both realize that playing nice is OK.

They’re an adventure to say the least.  But we really love them both.  I’m so grateful to have them, and really thrilled that they’re willing to open their hearts to us.

In addition to the loot that Janet sent them, the Moos and Tus each received some new toys from Santa.  Tulip was happy to discover that Santa came instead of Krampus.

Here’s Tu and Grandma playing with some new Christmas toys.

Moo was quite a bit less impressed with the Roomba we got. “Mama, I think Krampus left this for Tulip.”

Wishing you all a safe and Merry Christmas!

The girls received a package of Christmas gifts from Auntie Janet. Thank you so much, Janet!  Here they are enjoying some catnip and their new toys:

As it turns out I recently won an HD Flip camera, so there will likely be lots of videos in the future. I have a fair amount of video already from this play session. I’m planning on splitting it up into snippets of the funny/cute stuff so it doesn’t get too boring. More to come!