I never thought I’d ever say this – but I’m a cat mom now. And it wasn’t by choice. Let me explain. I live on the second floor of a three-storey condominium, with a little ledge outside and an enclosed space for my box-type aircon, which I’ve surrounded with plants. I had this favorite planter that I painted a pastel blue that housed my forget-me-nots, and the pretty periwinkle flowers were just starting to bush out and trail. That is, until one day I noticed it was starting to look a little beaten. And the flowers had wilted away. And there were two kittens sleeping in the planter, effectively squishing my pretty plants. And they had also managed to poop all around the aircon enclosure, which stunk everything up and was a pain in the butt to clean. Honestly, we weren’t off to a great start.
It took me a few days to realize I had strays living in my flower box. These little orange blotches of fur were so small, I barely noticed them curled up in there sleeping, and only realized I had guests after it had stopped raining for a few days and I needed to water my outdoor plants. These were my irresponsible neighbors kittens! So, quick backstory, I have this irresponsible neighbor who has a son who liked to adopt animals, same as myself. He was a sweet kid, and he took care of this shy, emaciated dog named Tuesday, as well as a litter of kittens that he has “rescued” from somewhere. I put that in quotation marks because I don’t know if these kittens actually had a mom that he took them from since they were a whole litter. Also, without the mama cat and his little to no knowledge of raising babies (warm blankets, fed every two hours, goat’s milk and formula, etc.), the litter was slowly dying off, and Jericho would see him take one of two dead ones out to bury in the empty lot next door . The poor things were slowly wasting away in there. I didn’t see him anymore a month in, and found out that he stopped living with irresponsible neighbor, but the furbabies were still there.
So irresponsible neighbor would leave Tuesday, the dog, out in the hallway whenever she had to leave her house, and the poor dog would patiently wait for her until she got back, trying her best to stay small and not be a fuss to the rest of the people on the floor. She’d literally just be left outside to fend for herself – I would take a bowl of water and food out for her so she wouldn’t get dehydrated and have at least a little bit of comfort while she waited for her owner to get home. The least you could do is leave your pet with food and water!
And there there are the kittens. I’m pretty sure they belong to her since even an adult cat would have trouble climbing up to the second floor of our building onto the ledge. And that’s when I realized, she had just left the feral-looking little things outside her window to die. I found the kittens who looked like they were dehydrated and starving, crying for help when they saw me, and it just made me feel incensed at how little empathy that person had. After a few bowls of milk later and slew of cat treats later (thank goodness for the pet shop downstairs), they looked a little better, albeit still scared and anxious.
I think I had gotten to them at a good time because I heard that the other neighbors were complaining about them. Specifically, complaining about how they’ve been pooping in the gutter and how the stench was reaching their units. Our admin had already hired someone to come up and catch them to dump them someplace else. I woke up one morning to find someone had left a plate of liempo on my flower planter that one of the kittens had eaten and thrown up – some asshole probably laced the food with poison. I wasn’t having any of that and told the admin lady that I was adopting them and I would take care of them. I started feeding them outside before slowly bringing them in so they would be safe from the elements and assholes (and just in time, too, since typhoon season was looming).
I’ve never taken care of cats, and didn’t know what to expect. There was a Persian cat that would visit our home in Sharjah when I was growing up, and I would give it a bowl of milk and some canned tuna, but he would go home to wherever it was that he lived after his little snack, and that was about it. So there was definitely a learning curve. One of the things it freaked me out a little was when they started “vibrating” – so that’s what a cat purring sounds (and feels) like. Also, waking up in the middle of the night to find one of them nibbling on my ear like I was some sort of snack, and the chin biting, was something I had to keep reminding myself was their sign of affection, not aggression. I have yet to understand how animals this small can produce poop that can smell that bad – I have two dogs and I can manage their deuces fine, but I need a mask for when I clean out the litter box. I have also gotten my fair share of scratches, all of them by accident, but geez, my legs need an intense couple of laser sessions after they’ve all healed up!
Since they looked like twins when I first got them, and I had planned on getting them adopted anyway, I named them after an ex and his twin for shits and giggles. It wasn’t the best idea. My ex (we’re still friends, so it’s all good) and his cousin found it hilarious. Firstly, because no one wanted to adopt a regular ginger cat, and secondly, because they seem to have liked the names and only respond to Cros and Chin. I tried changing it to Ginger and Snaps, but the new names didn’t take. Crossy and Chinie are cure, though.
Crossy has turned out to be a beautiful, regal cat – bigger and fluffier than her sister. She’ll come in for the occasional hug, but likes to keep to herself and would socialize with her sister and stay out of everyone’s way for the most part. She just likes observing everyone. I swear, she’s exactly like the Aquarius ex I named her after – lives in a world of her own.
Chinie is smaller, more adventurous, and a little firecracker. She’s already gotten into a few fights with Ligaya, my rescue dog, and has been able to hold her own even as a terrified little kitten. She is also the clingiest of the two, always wanting to be carried, nuzzled, and hugged. She is notorious for wanting attention when I’m in a Zoom call or in class and can be quite distracting. She’s the absolute sweetest.
The cats are around four months old now, and so far I’ve been able to manage. Jericho, who lives next door, says he wants to keep Chinie, but we’ve been waiting on his litter box to arrive for over a month now so I don’t know how serious he is for wanting to take her in. I leave my window open a crack and they’re free to come and go as they please, but most days, they prefer to stay indoors and explore the backs of my bookshelves and climb the open pantry. Chinie has gotten into a bad habit of shredding the kitchen roll, and they’ve been waking me up at six in the morning with them cat wrestling on the bed next to me.
I never planned to be a cat owner, but here we are. I have two new furbabies to add to my growing family. Ligaya still isn’t too happy about the new additions, Iggsey is fine as long as they don’t bother him too much, and I’ve caught Crossy on at least two occasions trying to make a go at fishing out Betta Max. It’s a learning process, and I’m cat-proofing as we go along, but they’re sweethearts and they keep to themselves for the most part. There’s an independence there that I appreciate, but it can also be distracting when they barge in on coaching calls and Zoom classes and people can see their tails or the backs of their heads as they come up for a nuzzle.
