Saturday, August 04, 2007

one up, one down

Al, the idiotic orange cat who is allegedly allergic to his own teeth, had been living in the backyard and refusing to enter the house and interact with us.

Suddenly two days ago he had a change of heart, and as I write this, he's purring on my legs. Last night my sleep was disturbed because I could barely move due to a wealth of cats crowding in on me: Al, Iris's cat known as "Frowstomatic the King of the Universe", and a puffy foster kitten. Al hasn't completely mellowed out; he kept waking me up with his growling at the kitten, but he's following me and the girls around purring and meowing for attention.

When I came downstairs this morning, Al was closely following me, just like the old days when he was a treasured lapcat. "Look, I have a new housecat!" I said. "Well, that's good, because you lost one," said the Sober Husband accusatorily.

And that's the horrible thing which happened: two of our foster kittens went into our tiny, fenced in "yard" (which consists of a deck, a few tiny flower beds, a magnolia tree and a tiny lemon tree, and a small square of cement in lieu of a lawn) yesterday, and only one came back in. It's a complete mystery what happened. I called the head of my rescue program to painfully confess this morning that we've lost one.

For three years, hundreds of kittens have been going into that yard, and we've had no injuries or losses. Now suddenly one went missing. The husband's theory is that the raccoon who comes into our yard ate the kitten, but raccoons do not normally attack anything larger than a mouse. They are famously inept as hunters.

The husband has been cross-examining me as though I were the Jeffrey Dahmer of the kitten world, but honestly I did nothing different than any of the other days in which all kittens were safe. We were home most of the day, leaving just to return another litter of kittens to the shelter to go up for adoption and to take Iris to her swimming lesson (and we got dinner out afterward). I thought the tiny yard was completely safe, and indeed there's no way I can prevent larger kittens from going out there. The children are constantly going in and out (there's a door in the dining room leading onto the deck) on nice days. We're going to make some posters to put around the neighborhood, sigh.

I feel terrible, and it comes right on the heels of one of my biggest triumphs as a kitten fosterer. The litter I turned in for adoption were feral kittens who were rejected by the SPCA as unadoptable due to their lack of tameness. We worked so hard to tame those kittens and succeeded. When I got them, they could not be held, and they constantly hissed and growled. When we returned them, they were perfectly biddable kittens who would be a joy in any household.

14 comments:

hughman said...

al obviously knew some kittens were leaving. glad he's back to his own self tho. why is the SH interrogating you about the kitten? i thought he didn't even like the kittens?

Silliyak said...

I suspect Al is somehow involved. Has he gained any weight despite his tooth allergy? I have an image of him as a feline Fat Bastard "I ATE A KITTEN!"

hughman said...

lol, silliyak. somehow i don't see al being smart enough to catch a kitten.

are there hawks or coyotes in the area? grisly, i know but we have both here and there are urban legends of them snatching small dogs.

Silliyak said...

Or the MAGNOLIA TREE! No longer content to merely cause unwary sentient beings to slip, after watching a program on carnivorous plants thru the window has made a meal of kitty sushi. (Or maybe the kitty climbed it and dropped in another yard/area.)

hughman said...

LOL!!! IT WAS THE MAGNOLIA TREE!! just like in little shop of horrors! making an amuse bouche out of small fluffy kitties. watch out al and zoe!

Silliyak said...

You might want to leave some fava beans and Chianti on the deck as an offering of peace.

hughman said...

can you hear the silence of the kitties, drunken housewife?

the Drunken Housewife said...

We put some posters up around the neighborhood today. It could have been a hawk or an owl. There are a very few coyotes in the city, but they would not be in my backyard. The ones which have been spotted so far are on Bernal Hill and in Golden Gate Park (and those GG Park ones were wiped out, sigh).

the Drunken Housewife said...

p.s. That damn tree is capable of anything.

hughman said...

"senator, i love your suit".

Missy said...

I am so sorry to hear about the lost kitten! I am betting on the stray hawk myself--an acquaintance lost a chihuahua to one last year and hawks hadn't been seen in their area before that.

Amy said...

I saw a hawk hopping on a rooftop not ten feet from my window just the other week.

hughman said...

i love your new Drunken Housewife Cooks logo! where did that come from??? ( HINT HINT HINT).

the Drunken Housewife said...

and a big THANK YOU to Hughman for the logo! I'm going to put the other one you made me up on the other blog one of these days. smooches, dh