Yeap, this page is still being updated! Soon to come: The Scratching Post, where you can read of people who have feebly attempted to electronically scratch my eyes out over this page. I can say now that the majority of them came from AOL addresses, too...take a bow, AOL people! Email addys will be removed to protect the idiots...er, innocent...if you can call them that.
Theme of The Scratching Post: Ever notice how people are extremely quick to make a judgment on your ENTIRE personality based on ONE aspect? That's the closed-mindedness that religions have often showed in the past. Hope you're proud of that, all you people who judged me!
Small disclaimer: You'll notice I don't have any years listed here and have removed all references to how old I was when certain things happened. So basically, anyone reading this can take a gander at how long ago this all happened. You never know, this might've happened 10 years ago, 5 years ago, 1 year ago, or even in the last 24 hours. Just to screw around with all your brains a little.
The cat named Tiger
Actually...okay, it didn't start with her. The first cat I remember was called Tiger. He was a stray that we started feeding. Some time before we moved, he disappeared. We never knew what happened to him.
Well, now I live in Waipahu, a town on Oahu. The place we moved to had lots of stray cats. So one of them, un-amazingly, showed up at our housewarming party...probably because the food was on tables in the garage. ^_^ Well, she looked a lot like this other cat our neighbors had showed us, whom they had named Bitsy. So we thought it was Bitsy. Come morning, we realized our grievous error. But we thought, aw heck, leave the name. ^_^
The cat named Bitsy
And as I said before, it pretty much started with her. I can recall at least five litters she gave birth to over the time we had her. Funny thing is, she outlived most of her litters!
But Bitsy wasn't our only, er, source of cats. ^_^ We used to have a calico one, which died giving birth. We also befriended a gray female stray, who also gave birth but took her litter next door. Dang. ^_^ After awhile, Bitsy stopped hanging around as her kittens took over, and she would return only to give birth, then would move the kittens next door.
The cat named Ikaika
For a brief period, we had a female indoor cat named Ikaika, which means "strong" in Hawaiian. She was the best cat...so cute and loving. Although my sister didn't appreciate the cat breath she would wake up to in the morning. *grin*
One of the things leading to Ikaika's, er, downfall was our lack of a litter box. So she had to go outside when nature called. Well, early one morning, my sister and I woke up to her scratches and meows begging to be let in. I finally did so.
The next morning, I tried to look for Ikaika. I found her in a corner of the closet, hidden from view. And what else did I find? FOUR KITTENS! Well! They spent the first week or so inside the house, and I don't think I need to tell you of all the, er, waste I found after that...*grin*
Alas, Ikaika didn't stay very long after that. My mom did NOT allow her in the house, so we had to put her and her kittens outside. But she was an inside cat and didn't like the outdoors, so she'd meow and claw at the screens to be let in. But we couldn't.
Accidental deaths...
My brother "accidentally" killed one cat of ours, one of Bitsy's kittens. He said he picked it up and it clawed him, so he dropped it and STEPPED on its stomach!!! When I found it later, I can't tell you how angry I was!! We buried it, the second cat to be buried around our house.
The neighborhood kids had a lot of fun with poor 'Kai's kittens. According to some reports, they "accidentally" killed one because they put it in a confined area and threw rocks at it.
I can't say *I'm* entirely faultless, either. You know how cats love staying under cars? Well, I was backing out the car one day, and I felt a thump. When I looked, I saw one of 'Kai's kittens running crazily away. Well...apparently I ran over it. =(
Interjection: You might be able to get an approximate year by the fact I was driving a car. But you never know, eh? I could have been driving illegally. I might have been underage. I might have had some years of driving experience. Or this might have happened just a couple days ago. Who knows?
Bye-bye, Ikaika
I came home one day to find Ikaika and her kittens were gone. I was so sad, because up to that point she was the best cat we had. (I still think so.) I thought she just ran away for some reason. Her two remaining kittens were gone also.
It was only much, MUCH later that I learned the truth. I was talking one day about this cat I was petting just outside our house. My mom said, "Oh, I thought we got rid of all the cats!" I said, what do you mean, you got rid of all the cats?? It turns out that one day, while everyone was at school, my parents had taken Ikaika and her kittens and DUMPED THEM OFF AT THE BEACH!!!! I can't tell you how SHOCKED and ANGRY I was! Not only that they'd treat Ikaika like that, but mostly because of the fact that she was so trusting. I mean, she loved riding in cars! And then she just got dumped off for no reason! My mom said it was because she was wrecking the screens, but that was because she was an inside cat and didn't want to stay outside! *growwwwwwwl*...
I still think about Ikaika, and I get pretty mad at my parents when I do so. I really hope she's alive somewhere...
Our three-legged cat
My dad got fed up with all the cats around the house and "blocked" all the spaces between our fence and the wall with rope. With *rope*, now! And for anyone who knows animals, especially CATS, they can find ways to get through almost ANYTHING...
Well, one of our cats got caught in the ropes. In trying to get free, he twisted his hind leg. We didn't take him to the vet, so the leg became useless, died, and eventually fell off. Yeah, pretty gross, huh?
After that, he was known simply as the three-legged cat. His missing leg didn't hinder him much; we always saw him tearing around the house like nothing. And he lived for a pretty long time, too. ^_^
Our last outdoor cats
The last litter Bitsy kept at our house consisted of three kittens, whom we named Junior, He-Man, and Indy. Indy was female, but she was the most aggresive and adventurous of the three, so we called her Indiana, for Indiana Jones. But she was also very motherly; we would often see her grooming her brothers.
One of the things Indy loved to do was jump on our backs. I'm serious! *laugh* I don't know why, she just liked doing that. ^_^
Junior was a gray cat with dark-gray stripes. He-Man we named because he looked so scrawny, we figured we'd give him a "backwards" name. ^_^ His coat and eyes were the most beautiful I've ever seen! His eyes were a kind of greenish-yellow, while his coat was always very silky, smooth, and shiny. I can't describe him; I really wish we had a better picture of him. ^_^
Bye-bye, cats
Of course, all good things must come to an end, and so did our time of almost constant cat companions. Junior developed swollen back legs -- we never did figure out what caused them -- and one day we found him run over by a car. We were pretty mad because he had a collar, so we figured others would know he belonged to someone. But no, we found him ourselves.
He-Man disappeared from view. He used to come around every so often, but I haven't seen him in quite some time.
As for Indy, well, she was our last outside cat. One day we found her lying in that prone position cats often have. She wouldn't eat, and she wouldn't move, even though we coaxed her. We took her in and gave her a bath. Wrong move, I think. We couldn't dry her off very well, and she started convulsing and twitching. We had to go somewhere that night, but I knew that if we left her, when we came back she would be dead.
And, well, I was right.
No more cats
We don't have any outside cats anymore. Most of them have migrated over to my friend April's house a couple doors down. As for Bitsy, because she wasn't keeping her litters at our house, my sister finally gave her to the Humane Society. She's probably been adopted or, at worst, put to sleep.
Oh well.
A cat named Sammy
We now have one inside cat named Sammy. He's really ferocious and playful. Most of the time he's confined to my sister's room, but more often we've been letting him run around the house. We can't let him out too much, because he tends to run with his claws extended, thus tearing up our carpets.
Sammy is really cute, though. ^_^ Here's a couple of pictures of him when he was a kitten and when he was a bit older. And he loves playing with plastic bags! Sometimes he'll get the handle of the bag around his neck. Something else he likes doing is sitting in what my sister calls the frog position. It's kinda funny. ^_^
My sister's boyfriend is allergic to cats, so she's thinking of getting rid of Sammy. So, I think as soon as she finds someone who wants him, off he goes.
The End?
Well, when I'm on my own, I really want to get a cat. But my boyfriend doesn't really care for them. I tell him to bug off. *grin* I love cats. But don't think that because I like cats, that means I hate dogs. Far from it. It's just that I've grown up with cats, and they've been my friends and comfort for a good part of my life. When you're troubled, nothing beats having a cat on your lap that you can pet and gain comfort from. I've stayed that way for hours, even falling asleep outside on a hot summer day with the cool breezes blowing. I have had good memories and good times with my cats, and I wouldn't trade them for anything in the world. ^_^
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