So I don't know if I've mentioned this before but I grew up having pet dogs, pet newts, pet hamsters, a rabbit and fish. But I've never had a cat. Big Poppa is allergic to cats so we've never had one and that was always fine with me because I never really felt a liking towards cats. Too many claws. But over the summer it was PattyCake and I's one year anniversary and he had been talking about wanting a cat for a while. He grew up on a farm so to go from that where he had quite a few animals around to go to nothing and living in town, it's quite a change. So I started keeping my eyes open for free kitten advertisements thinking it would be the purrfect (HAHAHA) anniversary gift. Because 1: its cute as fuck and 2: its free. I also asked his roommates if it was cool since it's their house too and I'm such a good person. One said he didn't care and the other said that the third guy wouldn't want one. I then thought maybe it wasn't such a great idea. But a day or two later, PattyCake saw I had sent a message to his roommate and was all like what did you need to message him for? And I was like oh shit you weren't supposed to see that. Then he gave me this look and I was like oh shit it sounds like I'm hiding something other than cute ass kitties from him so I told him the whole thing about how I wanted to get one but roommate #2 said that #3 probably wouldn't go for it and I'm a little scared of #3 so I wasn't gonna do it anymore. Well next time I see PattyCake he's all like so I asked him and he was super stoked so when are you getting it? So now I had to find a free kitty worthy of our affection.
It didn't take long. By the next week I had seen an ad on Facebook for free kitten outside of town and they were white and grey like a siamese cat. I've always wanted a siamese cat ever since I'd seen Lady and the Tramp as a kid. So I was pretty excited. I texted the number and asked if they had any boy kittens since they're cheaper to get fixed and they finally texted back and said "yeah, probably". I didn't really know what to take that as because I was kind of expecting a definite answer as to if any of them have dicks or not. So then I say okay well if any of the grey and white ones are boys could I come and take a look? So they hook me up with directions to their house and I text Coke to say she's coming to make sure I don't get murdered or most likely get murdered with me.
After work we grab a few basic supplies from Walmart and start to head out of town. The directions they gave me weren't very good and it took us an hour to find the place which was pretty much in the middle of nowhere. I finally find the driveway they're talking about and see a truck coming down it. It's slowing down as it comes up beside me and so I open my window and a middle-aged man says "hey, thanks for taking cats!" I'm thinking well I'm only taking one like don't get too excited. He also says that some lady whose name I can't recall was waiting on the porch. So Coke and I continue driving and we're a little eery as to what kind of place this is. We finally come across the front of the house where we see a couple of full grown cats and we're like okay at least there are actually cats here and it's not just a way to entice young kitty-lovers to their house and do who-knows-what with them. We park by the side of the house and get out to go to the back porch where we can see someone standing. Approaching the porch we see many more cats. Like too many cats to count. You think you've seen them all and then five more kittens come popping out of hiding spots. There were black ones, grey ones, calico ones, and then one grey and white. I saw the grey and white one and I was like is that one a boy? I want that one. But the crazy cat lady checked and it was a girl :( but she said there were two more that looked like her but she'd have to find them in the house. Yes, there were even more kitties in the house.
After finding the other two, she confirms that one is a girl and the other may possibly be a boy. I'm like possibly? But apparently it's hard for you to tell if a cat is a boy or girl when they're young. I figured possibly was better than a definite girl. At least then if it was a girl PattyCake would most likely be attached to it when we found out it wasn't a boy and wouldn't care. So we take the kitty back to town, I drop Coke off and call PattyCake to tell him I'm coming over with a surprise. He's like "if you got me a cat, I don't want it." I was like WTF? He just told me he wanted one. Then he explained that he wanted to pick it out and I probably got a plain one that looks like everyone else's cat. I had no idea he was so picky about pet's appearances. But when I pulled up to his house, he came outside, looked at the kitten and said "this one's good" and took it inside. I passed the test.
Since the kitten was white and grey and it was raining that day we were thinking of naming it Storm. Since PattyCake and I both had to work the next day we didn't want to leave Storm home alone all day. So I texted Melaney and asked if she'd be interested in kitty-sitting. She said oh fine I'll help you out this one time but you gotta figure it out after that. So the next morning I take Storm to my house and set him up in the bathroom with his litter box, some food and water and his bed. I later get a text from Melaney saying "wow this kitty is little! I don't think he's six weeks like she told you". So then I'm kind of like oh no is my kitten too young to be away from the momma? PattyCake had the next day off so he ended up taking the kitty to the vet just to ask how old it really was and what we do in the case that he is really that young.
He was estimated to be about four weeks old and was also confirmed to be… a girl. Haha sorry PattyCake looks like you're paying for spaying! They said that she should be okay without the momma but to make sure she ate kitten kibbles for the extra calcium.
Well of course we couldn't keep the name Storm. Actually Big Poppa argued that we should since on X-Men the mutant named Storm is a girl. But I was like we want like a princess name. A cute girly name. PattyCake kept insisting that we name her Ashley just to drive me nuts. But I picked Luna. I've always wanted to get a white kitty and name her Luna. Luna is said to be the name of the moon so she has the colours in her fur and my favourite character in Harry Potter is Luna Lovegood so it was perfect. I mean PURRfect!
I never realized how much getting a pet is like having baby. I've had my fair share of pets before but never was it ultimately up to me to raise it. I had to stay up late and play her out so she'd sleep. I sometimes had to get up in the middle of the night 'cause she was hungry. I was up at the break of dawn because she had decided she was done sleeping. It was exhausting. I'd go into work and everyone would be like wow you look tired and I'd be like yeah the kitten was up half the night, I couldn't get her down. It caused PattyCake and I to fight about whose turn it was to clean the litter box. It was brutal. But it was also amazing. I remember texting my mom, who was now a proud grandma to Luna, when she finally had a solid poop after she'd needed a dewormer pill. Like I sent her an excited text saying "whoo! We have solid poop!" and Melaney replied with "Yaay!" Like the only time you are excited about poop is when you've either been constipated for a while and are finally getting relief or when your kid takes a healthy crap. All the mommas out there know what I'm talking about. You're so proud of the milestones your offspring reaches. Even when it's a fur baby. You're also extremely protective. One time we asked the two roommates if they could just keep an eye on her while we ran to the store. When we returned they mentioned how she'd been jumping off the couch onto the floor. This was when she was only four weeks old and PattyCake was like "Why would you let her do that, she's too little!" This surprised me just because boys aren't good at baby steps. I just expected PattyCake to laugh or something but he was actually concerned. It was so cute. And another time when we had to help my parents move into our new house and we left her with the roommates again, they mentioned something about running to Canadian Tire and how the cat would be fine. I tried not to be too overprotective and say no you can't leave her! But after about ten minutes of being away from the house and knowing she was there alone with plenty of plugged in cords to chew, electrify her and kill her, I started freaking out! I was like PattyCake we need to go back to the house! I ran to the door but it was locked and started yelling at PattyCake who was slowly moseying up to the door to hurry up because my baby could be dead. He opened it and I yelled Luna! and ran up the stairs. She was there playing with her rainbow crinkle ball the vet gave her on that first visit, which is her favourite toy. I think I saw PattyCake feel relief when he saw she was fine. There is no crazy when it comes to your baby.
My mom took care of Luna during the day for about three weeks which we are extremely grateful for and should really bake her a cake or something. She finally said it was time to let Luna stay home alone because she really needed to get some shit done. Luna was such a troublemaker that you needed to constantly watch her. She always wanted to go up to the dogs who were kept in the kitchen in order to be of no harm and she'd hiss at them haha like this tiny thing that could fit in your hand would hiss at adult dogs and scare the shit outta them. She's small but mighty.
PattyCake's parents came to visit and they loved Luna. I was scared she would "accidentally" be found in their suitcase when they got back home. It was so funny to them that she was so spoiled. They only ever had outdoor cats that came and went but never an indoor one. Everywhere we went we would check out things to buy her. She is definitely our little princess.
I went from a total "dog person" to a "crazy cat lady" in a matter of weeks. Although I still love dogs, cats are much less maintenance and their independence is a plus for working people like PattyCake and I. The instincts they are born with are so impressive. For instance, to potty-train a cat, you just put them in a litter box, maybe move their paw through it and they just know 'this is where I shall poop'. Luna only pooped under PattyCake's bed twice. Well we smelt it once and I looked under the bed and found a fresh pile and an old pile. But we sprayed her with the disciplinary water spray bottle and showed her what she had done and she hasn't done it since. I remember with puppies that went on for weeks. I'll admit I did have a kind of crazy method for teaching her not to go under our recliner chair at my parent's house. We were scared of her getting stuck between bars or something if we didn't realize she was under there and went to recline it so I kept having to coax her out from underneath and would say no! She still kept hiding under it. Melaney was like she's a cat and they like small, dark spaces but I was determined to teach her a lesson. After one day when she'd done it three times I finally put her downstairs in the basement in her kennel in a time out. I left the bathroom door open but kept the lights off. My mom was like where's Luna? "She's downstairs in a time-out, thinking about why she's bad." Mom laughed so hard at this. Apparently you can't put cats in time-outs. Well she only ever went under that chair two more times. She knew that every third time she would be put in the dark box so she never went that far. I call that success.
I hope to remain on this level of cat craziness. I don't really want to be on the cat-farm people's level. Although I admire them for caring for so many strays that they say get dumped on their property all the time. I just don't think the cat-shredded couch outside on the porch is something I really desire for my future home.
I'm gonna end this post with a couple pics of Luna Tuna, as PattyCake's mom called her. I bet you'll see why I risked being murdered and fed to cats for the little cutie.
This was taken on the night I picked her up. It's kind of hard to tell but she has pretty blue eyes, another reason why I wanted this kitty. They said they could change but if they made it to about seven weeks they should stay that colour so thankfully she still has them! She's now going on four months.
This is my favourite picture of her and I took it after she thought she lost me because I went down the hallway while she was in the kitchen. She meowed and I was like I'm over here silly and then she ran to me. Totes adorbs!
These were taken when she was sleeping on my lap and then when PattyCake opened a can of pop and woke her up and I captured her bitchy looking expression haha
This is her reading me a story.
This is her sleeping all cute.
This is her peeking out from her tunnel, one of many toys.
May the Force be with you!
RockAwesome and Luna
