These photos are from May, when we first got Lorelai.
She was pretty adorable riding in Jacoby’s big yellow stroller.
First we have her ridesharing with Alfred.
He was so much bigger than she was, back then.
She was really adorable in the stroller with Freddy.
But a couple of weeks later, Rory was in the stroller with Angel.
That time, she was really working the cute. Look at her chill!
Alfred is an evil genius, an avid hunter…and a klutz. Not a good combination.
This is Freddy in the laundry room. Once upon a time, we stored bags of dry cat food on the shelves of a tall shelf just out of frame, the top of which you can see Freddy speculatively eying.
Now all the bags have been chewed through, re-bagged, and stuffed into sealed, plastic bins.
Not that he never stops trying to get at them. “There was food there before, there will be again” is his motto.
I mean, look at him sizing up the shelving! We have had to put a latch on the door because if it’s not shut properly he can shoulder it open.
Meanwhile, throughout the rest of the house…
…I think he’s chasing flying insects. I have no idea. All I know is things from the top of the bookcases and the liquor cabinet are ending up on the floor. Sometimes they’re repairable things. Sometimes…like the Hagen-Renaker 1950’s California ceramic Siamese cat “Seated Sookie” last night…not so much.
But the most worrisome habit he’s recently picked up is…he has cracked the mystery of the catio netting! He has discovered a loose spot on one side of the netting that he can get through – no one else has discovered it, yet, thank goodness – but we are back to having to keep the balcony locked up the way it was before we had any netting at all until we can work out a way to fix the loophole.
Sometimes, I wish Abys weren’t quite so smart.
(Edit: As I was writing this post, despite our best efforts, Freddy actually got out through the balcony AGAIN! Third time today!)
Back in April, I posted about Malt, a Japanese Singapura who loves to drag his favourite toy all over the house.
It seems Izaak and Malt have something in common.
Zak absolutely LOVES IKEA mice and rats.
LOVES them.
He also loves to carry them around.
We are always finding them in our bed.
Apparently, this is the best place to play with them.
It’s tempting to call his mousies his “friends,” but he doesn’t see them that way. When he picks them up, he tends to go for the backs of their necks. And then he shakes them. So…probably not friends.
Whatever they are, he loves to carry them around the house.
What’s funny is, we had a load of mice and one rat that lay around the house for over a year, because nobody ever played with them. The best they could hope for was to end up helping to bury the food bowls when Alfred was done eating. So now, whenever we go to IKEA, we of course have to get Zak some new mousies.
The last time we went, we got one of each colour mice, plus a black and a grey rat. And a lion, because why not?
Zak immediately decided he liked the big grey rat the best.
He picked it right up and carried it off.
He had a bit of a struggle with it on the balcony floor…
…and then he carried it into the living room.
His ultimate goal was this little tent we have set up in the living room.
There was a little bit of distraction involving a brown mouse from an earlier IKEA trip.
But in the end, Zak got his rat into his tent.
Alfred is our “extra” cat.
He’s not a rescue, like Angel.
He’s not a show cat; he’s too dark a black silver and he has barring on his forelegs.
So, if he’s not the “special” rescue Aby, and he’s not the therapy cat-life-partner Aby, and he’s not the European showcat Aby (or Singapura)…
…who, or what, is Freddy?
That’s easy.
Freddy is our pioneer.
Our clown.
Our explorer.
Our good guy who’s always there to take care of a new kitten. Freddy may seem “extra,” but he’s as important as any other of the cats in our home.
Back in my old apartment in Somerville,I had this aswesome floor-to-ceiling cat tree from Drs Foster and Smith, and it was well-loved by Harri, Patrick, Tessie, and Gun-Hee…but especially Kylie.
Specifically, the fleece tunnel that hangs from the first level platform.
Most cats want to go high, and eschew the low-hanging tunnel, but not Kylie.
At the time, Kylie had a “knitten,” a little kitten that looked like her. It was her favourite toy, and she, of course, took it with her into the tree-tunnel.
“Hey! Come back here and enjoy this with me!”
But after Kylie was young, the tree went into storage, and no cat got to climb it until we moved to Sweden, but even once we set that old tree up in Björn’s apartment, literally no cat used that tunnel…until Lorelai showed up on the scene.
Rory discovered that tunnel and she owned it.
I know it’s not in focus, but this photo captures Rory’s joy within the tunnel.
“Yay! Tunnel!”
It’s so cute watching her loll about in that thing.
I wonder if it’s a kitten thing? An adult cat can easily fit in the tunnel, but none ever lie in it.
When Izaak arrived, he tried to share the tunnel with Rory.
It was a bit crowded in there for the pair of them (look at Rory’s back foot!), but they made it work.
For a while.
Then Zak started to sort of ooze out the backside of it.
Pretty sure he was pushed…
…because a certain little girl seemed awfully proud of herself once she had the tunnel all to herself again.
“…What? I didn’t do anything. He wanted to get down!”
You may recall my post a while back about Alfred’s obsession with chewing. A favourite is rawhide sticks covered with dried lamb or duck, but I also give him Matatabi sticks and dried turkey feet (our kitchen floor looks a bit interesting). Well, now it’s become a kind of fad amongst the LunaTicks. Jacoby doesn’t really get why Freddy likes it so much, but he’ll steal the chewsticks or rib bones and gnaw on them anyway.
But there’s one cat I never thought would jump on the chewing bandwagon.
Angel.
I mean, she only has THREE TEETH! But there she was, the other day, carrying one of Freddy’s chewsticks around the apartment and chewing on it when she felt safe to do so.
Teeth or no, nevertheless, she persists.
At a cat show raffle, we won a very soft, very fluffy, very pink cat bed. We just saved it in its original plastic packaging until we knew we were getting Lorelai. Her colour is red (as Angel’s is purple, Jacoby’s is green, and Alfred’s is black), but pink is a variation of red, so it works. Finally! A reason to use this fluffy, girly, pink bed! Rory!
Except…not so much. The cat who likes the fluffy, pink cat bed most of all? Is Freddy.
I guess he is secure in his masculinity. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
