Cats are cats............the world over
These intelligent, peace-loving, four footed friends-
who are without prejudice,
without hate,
without greed-
May someday teach us something.
-James MacKintosh Qwilleran
Don't you just want to kiss our little fuzzy cat heads? Ok, maybe not. We are Kip on the left and Newton on the right. Yes we are sister and brother but quite opposite in physique and character! We were both born on May 1, 1988. We had lots of brothers and sisters, with names such as Picasso and Fig.
KIPPY:
I am the sweetest girl ever. My nicknames are "girlie girl" and "hippopotamus bottomous pear-body-otomous". I like to do a "shoulder roll" onto my back so that you can pet my huge belly. It's so soft! Here's a picture of me trying to do pushups. Oops! You caught me cheating, they're horizontal push ups! Puuuuuuuush!
UPDATE ON KIPPY! Kippy has lost 6 pounds! Thank you Halo pet foods for making a natural cat food for my girlie girl!
BEFORE PICTURE
AFTER PICTURE
NEWTON May 1, 1988 - March 11, 2001
Newton lost his brave struggle with kidney and heart disease on Sunday evening, March 11, 2001. Here is a picture of him that Sunday enjoying a last ray of sunshine:
Newton came to me as a small nerd with a large forhead and no chin. He looked like the Deliverance kid. Newton was known to run from his own shadow. A sweet boy who loved to snuggle under the covers and stretch his front legs in front of him ("flying"). His favorite toy was his "fishing pole". It brought him great joy. It was like his security blanket. He carried it around with him, dragging it from room to room and calling out. I could hear the plastic handle dragging on the floor upstairs and I knew he would appear with it in his mouth. Here's a picture of Newton a few days before he passed taking a nap with his fishing pole.
KIPPY May 1, 1988 - September 10, 2005
Kippy died peacefully after a particularly painful episode of spinal arthritis. What a joy she was. She was double purring and licking my nose in the final moments. One last silent meow was "heard". Never complaining until the pain was so great. She growled to try and somehow attack the pain. Kippy will always have a secret place in my kittyful heart.
Kippy's last Will and Testament
You cannot see me splayed in the sunroom looking as if I am surfing on a wave of light, you cannot see me lapping up the dripping water in the bathtub, curled on the couch in the TV room, or snoring in the patch of light in the corner. This deceives you into believing that I am not here, but you are only looking with your physical eyes. Look again. Look with the eyes beneath your eyes, the quivering life beneath what you call your life. As you are beginning to discover, it is what you can see with those eyes that is most compelling. It’s time to begin living the shimmery glimmery sunlit life you gave me, but haven’t let yourself fully inhabit.
Everyone knows I had a better life- and death-than most people on the planet. Between the custom stepping stools and the hand-knit blankets., being hand-fed and carried everywhere, having Spot’s Stew to eat, shadows to chase, and corn on the cob to nibble on, there was nothing the physical world didn’t offer for my pleasure. And who wouldn’t want a death like mine – carried around in a cashmere snuggly, touched sweetly until my last breath, with a pearly grandmother sitting softly beside me.
All that was good, but the pleasures of the physical world-the heated cat beds and fancy cat nips, white downy blankets and dried fish treats- were not the real treasure. It was the love, it was always the love,. It was the fact that you delighted every time you saw me. Every time for seventeen and a half years, I knew that just by walking into a room, your heart would fling out streamers of joy, so I kept walking so that your heart could keep flinging, and I kept putting my paws on your face so that your body could keep relaxing, and I kept purring so you would know there was safety in this world, but it wasn’t me any more than it was the heated cat beds.
It was you.
It was always you.
It was time for me to go. I told you I would stay until you were strong enough to live without me, and I did, and you are. Until your heart spread like dragonfly wings, until you didn’t need me to know you had a heart. As long as I was in a physical body, you relied on me. You believed I was the locus of that love. Now you can find out for yourself what is true.
Do not grieve for me. I am in a place where tuna fish juice flows like water, where I can jump like the wind and every place is silky and sunny. If you must, grieve for what you won't allow yourself to have. Grieve for all the ways you separate yourself from this radiance, from lying down in a patch of sun at two o’clock on any old day, from knowing you are beloved on the earth.
New additions! I am extremely pleased to introduce "TRIPPER"
Tripper was born in a barn. His other siblings were quickly whisked away by good-hearted cat lovers. Poor Tripper! He was left to grow big and adult-like. He was beautiful but he wasn't a cute kitten anymore! Plus he was very scared at placement and people didn't pay any attention to him. Check out his golden belly! He likes to spaz out during crazy hour and fly around the house. He likes to bite toes. He loves his blue mouse. The best way to describe him is "happy-go-lucky". Tripper loves Triscuits. We'll put his birthday at April 15, 1999
"PUFFY"
Look how PREITTTY she is! I named her Puffy because she's always in trouble and her tail puffs up all the time! She has a beauty spot next to her nose that wiggles when she is sniffing something. She REALLY wants to be top cat! She was rescued from the Yolo County Animal Shelter...she was a pregnant teenager. No wonder she has a pear body! We'll have to work on getting her figure back. She's about a year old. Her official birthday will be May 1, 2000.
TRAGIC UPDATE: Sadly, Puffy had to be returned to the Feline Lifeline organization. She did not cope well with other cats in the household and was urine spraying. I loved her. I can't get the image out of my mind of her little face as she was put in the carrier to be taken away from me...she was clawing the cage bars. My poor little Puffy, the guilt is incredible and I miss her little white face. Why do they break our hearts so? This poem is dedicated to my Little Puffkin.
In a cage at the uptown ASPCA
she left her musky scent on my hands,
and locked her yellow-orange eyes
on those of a woman in a blue smock
who said she was strange, and when I took
her downtown on the Second Avenue bus
she forced her head through the cardboard box
and looked like a just-hatched bird
making everyone laugh, and when I first
offered her food she ate growling
under her breath, and from the beginning
she came running to me when I said
her new name Puffy, as if she knew
she had the spirit of the dead poet within her.
And I have always loved
how smooth and ticked her top coat is,
how white fur hikes up her front paws
like ballet slippers, how she still
has not grown into her huge ears,
how in cold weather she naps on
my flannel nightgowns, or lies across
vents of the radiator so that only she
feels the heat, and in warm weather
fills my small bathtub with her long body,
and when she doesn't like her food
she scrapes her paws across the kitchen walls,
and as she gets older her white stomach falls
like a loose purse between her legs.
When she is sleeping an old soul's smile
forms on her mouth, and each morning
at 6:45 she stands over me pushing her face
against my ear and she is always stalking
shadows at the door when I come home,
and when I write she sits in the middle
of my lined papers and rubs her orange
and white face against my pen,
and on sad days when I feel stuck inside
I can not resist her,
and I let her be my poem.
WAIT! Don't cry. Puffy got a home summer of 2003. Yay! I hope he loves her. He WILL love her. She is now queen and only cat of her household.
Who's the cutest little cat in the world???"CASEY!"
Hi! I'm Casey and I was rescued out of a storm drain in the summer of 1998 with my mom and other kitten siblings. We'll say my birthday is April 15, 1998. I had dental disease so I am missing all my molars. I'm a little gummy bear! I was the runt so although I am a year older than my brother Tripper, I am small and kitten like. I run and jump and play just like a kitten! I'm the cutest little lovebug cat you've ever met. I will gently bite your chin in my little kitty kiss kiss way. I am a master of the "silent meow". Check out my pink pink nose! I like to play with the cat dancer toy. I like baby food, cream cheese and getting under the covers. Won't you come over and play with me?
THE NEWEST ADDITIONS, JULY 2006"JESSE!!"
Hello, my name is Jesse Jane and I am 10 years old in 2006. I was part of a group of 40 cats that were left without a home when the cat collectors who owned us got a divorce. I am so friendly I never get stressed out and love to greet you, purr and lick your face! My birthday is August 1, 1996
Another tragedy strikes my household. Jesse contracted liver disease and had to be euthanised on September 8, 2006. I only had her two short months. My beautiful, beautiful cat.
Cat Poem
They will not go quietly,
the cats who've shared our lives.
In subtle ways they let us know
their spirit still survives.
Old habits still make us think
we hear a meow at the door.
Or step back when we drop
a tasty morsel on the floor.
Our feet still go around the place
the food dish used to be,
And, sometimes, coming home at night,
we miss them terribly.
And although time may bring new friends
and a new food dish to fill,
That one place in our hearts
belongs to them. . . and always will.
REST IN PEACE MY BEAUTIFUL JESSE
"NOSY!!"
Hello, my name is Nosy and I am 2 years old in 2006. I was part of a group of 40 cats that were left without a home when the cat collectors who owned us got a divorce. I am shy at first but am loving and soft. I have the silkiest coat you will ever touch. I have a thick beautiful cougar tail. I like to trill when I talk to you. I love to drape myself across your lap like a drama queen, longing for a chin scratch! Look at my beautiful markings! I am a tri-tabby. My nose is pointy and I have a mouse chin. SO CUTE! My birthday is March 1, 2004
AN EXCERPT FROM "THE FUR PERSON" BY MAY SARTON
When you go away
I forget how to play.
When you're not there
I forget how to purr.
Your voice in the house
Means "food," means "mouse,"
And your kind lap
Is my warm soft sleep.
I make starfish paws
For your applause,
And I had no name
Until you came
So for all these things
I sit and sing
And for all these ways
I am filled with praise.
Don't you just want to kiss our little fuzzy cat heads? Ok, maybe not. We are Kip on the left and Newton on the right. Yes we are sister and brother but quite opposite in physique and character! We were both born on May 1, 1988. We had lots of brothers and sisters, with names such as Picasso and Fig.
KIPPY:
I am the sweetest girl ever. My nicknames are "girlie girl" and "hippopotamus bottomous pear-body-otomous". I like to do a "shoulder roll" onto my back so that you can pet my huge belly. It's so soft! Here's a picture of me trying to do pushups. Oops! You caught me cheating, they're horizontal push ups! Puuuuuuuush! UPDATE ON KIPPY! Kippy has lost 6 pounds! Thank you Halo pet foods for making a natural cat food for my girlie girl!
BEFORE PICTURE
AFTER PICTURE
NEWTON May 1, 1988 - March 11, 2001
Newton lost his brave struggle with kidney and heart disease on Sunday evening, March 11, 2001. Here is a picture of him that Sunday enjoying a last ray of sunshine:
Newton came to me as a small nerd with a large forhead and no chin. He looked like the Deliverance kid. Newton was known to run from his own shadow. A sweet boy who loved to snuggle under the covers and stretch his front legs in front of him ("flying"). His favorite toy was his "fishing pole". It brought him great joy. It was like his security blanket. He carried it around with him, dragging it from room to room and calling out. I could hear the plastic handle dragging on the floor upstairs and I knew he would appear with it in his mouth. Here's a picture of Newton a few days before he passed taking a nap with his fishing pole.
KIPPY May 1, 1988 - September 10, 2005
Kippy died peacefully after a particularly painful episode of spinal arthritis. What a joy she was. She was double purring and licking my nose in the final moments. One last silent meow was "heard". Never complaining until the pain was so great. She growled to try and somehow attack the pain. Kippy will always have a secret place in my kittyful heart.
Kippy's last Will and Testament
You cannot see me splayed in the sunroom looking as if I am surfing on a wave of light, you cannot see me lapping up the dripping water in the bathtub, curled on the couch in the TV room, or snoring in the patch of light in the corner. This deceives you into believing that I am not here, but you are only looking with your physical eyes. Look again. Look with the eyes beneath your eyes, the quivering life beneath what you call your life. As you are beginning to discover, it is what you can see with those eyes that is most compelling. It’s time to begin living the shimmery glimmery sunlit life you gave me, but haven’t let yourself fully inhabit.
Everyone knows I had a better life- and death-than most people on the planet. Between the custom stepping stools and the hand-knit blankets., being hand-fed and carried everywhere, having Spot’s Stew to eat, shadows to chase, and corn on the cob to nibble on, there was nothing the physical world didn’t offer for my pleasure. And who wouldn’t want a death like mine – carried around in a cashmere snuggly, touched sweetly until my last breath, with a pearly grandmother sitting softly beside me.
All that was good, but the pleasures of the physical world-the heated cat beds and fancy cat nips, white downy blankets and dried fish treats- were not the real treasure. It was the love, it was always the love,. It was the fact that you delighted every time you saw me. Every time for seventeen and a half years, I knew that just by walking into a room, your heart would fling out streamers of joy, so I kept walking so that your heart could keep flinging, and I kept putting my paws on your face so that your body could keep relaxing, and I kept purring so you would know there was safety in this world, but it wasn’t me any more than it was the heated cat beds.
It was you.
It was always you.
It was time for me to go. I told you I would stay until you were strong enough to live without me, and I did, and you are. Until your heart spread like dragonfly wings, until you didn’t need me to know you had a heart. As long as I was in a physical body, you relied on me. You believed I was the locus of that love. Now you can find out for yourself what is true.
Do not grieve for me. I am in a place where tuna fish juice flows like water, where I can jump like the wind and every place is silky and sunny. If you must, grieve for what you won't allow yourself to have. Grieve for all the ways you separate yourself from this radiance, from lying down in a patch of sun at two o’clock on any old day, from knowing you are beloved on the earth.
New additions! I am extremely pleased to introduce
"TRIPPER"
Tripper was born in a barn. His other siblings were quickly whisked away by good-hearted cat lovers. Poor Tripper! He was left to grow big and adult-like. He was beautiful but he wasn't a cute kitten anymore! Plus he was very scared at placement and people didn't pay any attention to him. Check out his golden belly! He likes to spaz out during crazy hour and fly around the house. He likes to bite toes. He loves his blue mouse. The best way to describe him is "happy-go-lucky". Tripper loves Triscuits. We'll put his birthday at April 15, 1999"PUFFY"
Look how PREITTTY she is! I named her Puffy because she's always in trouble and her tail puffs up all the time! She has a beauty spot next to her nose that wiggles when she is sniffing something. She REALLY wants to be top cat! She was rescued from the Yolo County Animal Shelter...she was a pregnant teenager. No wonder she has a pear body! We'll have to work on getting her figure back. She's about a year old. Her official birthday will be May 1, 2000.TRAGIC UPDATE: Sadly, Puffy had to be returned to the Feline Lifeline organization. She did not cope well with other cats in the household and was urine spraying. I loved her. I can't get the image out of my mind of her little face as she was put in the carrier to be taken away from me...she was clawing the cage bars. My poor little Puffy, the guilt is incredible and I miss her little white face. Why do they break our hearts so? This poem is dedicated to my Little Puffkin.
In a cage at the uptown ASPCA
she left her musky scent on my hands,
and locked her yellow-orange eyes
on those of a woman in a blue smock
who said she was strange, and when I took
her downtown on the Second Avenue bus
she forced her head through the cardboard box
and looked like a just-hatched bird
making everyone laugh, and when I first
offered her food she ate growling
under her breath, and from the beginning
she came running to me when I said
her new name Puffy, as if she knew
she had the spirit of the dead poet within her.
And I have always loved
how smooth and ticked her top coat is,
how white fur hikes up her front paws
like ballet slippers, how she still
has not grown into her huge ears,
how in cold weather she naps on
my flannel nightgowns, or lies across
vents of the radiator so that only she
feels the heat, and in warm weather
fills my small bathtub with her long body,
and when she doesn't like her food
she scrapes her paws across the kitchen walls,
and as she gets older her white stomach falls
like a loose purse between her legs.
When she is sleeping an old soul's smile
forms on her mouth, and each morning
at 6:45 she stands over me pushing her face
against my ear and she is always stalking
shadows at the door when I come home,
and when I write she sits in the middle
of my lined papers and rubs her orange
and white face against my pen,
and on sad days when I feel stuck inside
I can not resist her,
and I let her be my poem.
WAIT! Don't cry. Puffy got a home summer of 2003. Yay! I hope he loves her. He WILL love her. She is now queen and only cat of her household.
Who's the cutest little cat in the world???
"CASEY!"
Hi! I'm Casey and I was rescued out of a storm drain in the summer of 1998 with my mom and other kitten siblings. We'll say my birthday is April 15, 1998. I had dental disease so I am missing all my molars. I'm a little gummy bear! I was the runt so although I am a year older than my brother Tripper, I am small and kitten like. I run and jump and play just like a kitten! I'm the cutest little lovebug cat you've ever met. I will gently bite your chin in my little kitty kiss kiss way. I am a master of the "silent meow". Check out my pink pink nose! I like to play with the cat dancer toy. I like baby food, cream cheese and getting under the covers. Won't you come over and play with me?THE NEWEST ADDITIONS, JULY 2006
"JESSE!!"
Hello, my name is Jesse Jane and I am 10 years old in 2006. I was part of a group of 40 cats that were left without a home when the cat collectors who owned us got a divorce. I am so friendly I never get stressed out and love to greet you, purr and lick your face! My birthday is August 1, 1996
Another tragedy strikes my household. Jesse contracted liver disease and had to be euthanised on September 8, 2006. I only had her two short months. My beautiful, beautiful cat.
They will not go quietly,
the cats who've shared our lives.
In subtle ways they let us know
their spirit still survives.
Old habits still make us think
we hear a meow at the door.
Or step back when we drop
a tasty morsel on the floor.
Our feet still go around the place
the food dish used to be,
And, sometimes, coming home at night,
we miss them terribly.
And although time may bring new friends
and a new food dish to fill,
That one place in our hearts
belongs to them. . . and always will.
REST IN PEACE MY BEAUTIFUL JESSE
"NOSY!!"
Hello, my name is Nosy and I am 2 years old in 2006. I was part of a group of 40 cats that were left without a home when the cat collectors who owned us got a divorce. I am shy at first but am loving and soft. I have the silkiest coat you will ever touch. I have a thick beautiful cougar tail. I like to trill when I talk to you. I love to drape myself across your lap like a drama queen, longing for a chin scratch! Look at my beautiful markings! I am a tri-tabby. My nose is pointy and I have a mouse chin. SO CUTE! My birthday is March 1, 2004