Facebook has been reminding me of my epic, life threatening, cat bite.
This is what I was doing hours before Pyret bit me.
I got cold, put on my Aby hoodie, and goofed off with Logan.
Well, to be fair, he fit really well in the pocket.
Logan was such a little sweetheart. I know, Izaak is almost as good…but I still miss Logan everyday.
Today I found a silly old video I made back in 2017 when we only had three cats.
We were all in the kitchen, preparing salmon for dinner.
Angel, Jacoby and Pyret.
I don’t even know why I was taking photos. I mean, it was just an ordinary, everyday thing.
But sometimes, those little bits of random normality are nice to look back.
And I really don’t know what possessed me to make a video…but again, here we are.
Facebook reminded me yesterday of Logan and Alfred, my brothers from another mother.
I had kind of forgotten what scamps they were! They used to get into everything when they were kittens.
Like Logan “helping” me in the laundry room.
And he put himself in that drawer-basket himself.
I’m not sure who the instigator of this little foray to the top of the bookshelf.
It was probably Freddy, although Logan was no slouch when it came to getting up and down from high places. Much better than Izaak ever was.
Then one day, I went into the bathroom and found…Freddy in one of our storage baskets.
Still not sure how he managed to get up there without knocking off any of my Catzillas!
He definitely looks very proud of himself.
This is part of the backlog of photos I have; these were taken 27 June 2017. This was before we had fixed up the balcony; Alfred had been with us three weeks and Logan had been with us just over two weeks. Already the “brothers from another mother” were fast friends.
Freddy grew up with a bigger version of the IKEA tube with his littermates, so this was especially fun for him.
Logan loved it, too.
He pretty much loved anything Freddy did.
That tube was a lot of fun, but they eventually outgrew it. Maybe when we get more kittens, it’ll come out again.
I also took a little movie of them playing. It’s so cute.
These photos are from May 2017. Before Logan died, we had entered him in a cat show in Göteborg. Since we had already paid for the entry, we took Jacoby instead. But he was not allowed into the show because the entry staff misread his vaccination records (they said he wasn’t up to date on his jabs, but he was). It was the same trip where Jake explored Göteborg’s future.
So, we went for a walk around Göteborg with Jake. At Östra Larmgatan 13, we found an interesting black and white mural.
We were particularly enchanted by this cat surfing/skateboarding on a fish.
Oh, everybody’s a critic.
This is the whole mural – it’s actually a celebration of the 50th anniversary of Vans shoes! (Photo from Google Earth)
Going through some photos I haven’t edited yet, I found a few trips we took to the vet late last year and earlier this year. First we have a trip Dashiell and I took to see a vet in Göteborg.
This was only Dash’s second train trip.
He really seemed to like looking out the window.
But unlike the other cats, he was happiest sitting in his carrier with the top open. Which makes sense; Dash and that carrier have been through a lot together!
He wasn’t terribly keen on leaving it when we got to the vet’s office, either.
While we had plenty of room on the ride to Göteborg, on the way back the only car that allowed pets was jam-packed and I had to hold Dash in his carrier on my lap in a cramped, non-table chair. This is because people without pets rudely take up space in the only space we’re allowed to have animals in. Pets don’t even get an entire car; usually it’s only a section of one car. Those people can sit anywhere. It just infuriates me.
Looks like it made Dash a little salty, too.
A couple of weeks later, Alfred needed to go in to be checked over. I think this was the very first time Freddy had one of his breathing attacks.
Of course, just like when you take your car into the shop, he was perfectly fine when we were actually at the vet.
Last but not least, Lorelai and I went for a quick check up back in January. You remember January…before we knew about Covid-19? Good times.
We borrowed Dash’s carrier for the trip.
Rory was her usual perky self.
She had to explore and examine everything.
Of course, the top shelf with the plant was a bit extra.
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That’s better, busy girl. Examine the radiator.
Rory didn’t like the fact that I wouldn’t let her out of the carrier while we were waiting between buses. Guess Dash isn’t the only one who can get a little salty.
A friend on Facebook posted a photo of her cats today with the caption: “Is this really all we do now? We can’t leave?! When is the next cat show?! We’re tired of sitting home!!!!”
Dude…I so know that feel.
Because we weren’t able to go to our favourite show in Örebro this year, we haven’t been to a show since November, when we went with Lorelai and Izaak to Turku. It’s the one thing I really miss since the pandemic started.
So, I went back in my backlog of photos and found this set of Zak at the Turku show, after our collection of show wand toys fell over.
He was so cute, playing with the toys. We mainly only ever play with wand toys at shows, so this was a treat.
I even made a short video of it (click on the image to view it on another tab in Flickr).
When we went to Aino, the Finnish restaurant in Helsinki, I noticed a sign-in book.
When we visited Helsinki with Jacoby in 2016, we ate at this restaurant.
I just thought they needed to be reminded of that event.
Jacoby used to love sleeping underneath the comforters, especially in cold weather.
One afternoon, five days before Jake died, I came upon the sweetest scene ever. Lorelai had joined Jake on the bed, and was cuddling with the part of his that wasn’t under the quilt.
They hadn’t been the closest of cats, and, of course, we didn’t know Jake was going to die within the week. It was so sweet to see them close.
Lorelai is elegant, lithe, and graceful…When’s she’s awake.
Sleeping? Not so much.
And she’s always been that way, actually. The first two photos were taken this week.
But the rest of the photos in this post were taken last July, when Rory had only been living with us a couple of months.
She really folds herself into some interesting positions.
But she seems to sleep deeply, despite her contortions.
Of course, she doesn’t always sleep alone.
Today is also Izaak’s Gotcha Day…last year, on 20 June, I went to Stockholm to collect him. So, sometimes Rory has to share her sleeping quarters with her little big brother.
While he is not quite as…stretchy and bendy…Rory is, he can sleep in some pretty odd positions, too.
Two years ago today, we met Karin at Stockholm Centralen and collected Alfred on our way back from a cat show in Tallinn.
But I haven’t ever posted how Freddy coped once he got to our apartment.
And the short answer is…he was completely unfazed.
No mum? No littermates?
No problem!
I think Freddy was the easiest kitten we’ve integrated into our family, but then none of our kittens have been that hard to introduce to the others.
But Freddy is just so laid back and easy-going…He integrated himself. Of course, five days later, we got Logan, and he had a built-in best friend, but even without Logan, Freddy would have done just fine.
And here’s our Freddy, almost two years later, on the same sofa with Izaak. He’s our genius philosopher, and I love him.
As I posted earlier this month, the Memories that Facebook shows you can be bittersweet. Lately, they’ve been showing me a lot of Jacoby memories. It started with this one, of Strollercat on the way to a cat show in Göteborg in 2017.
I never actually posted these photos here, as this was during the blog’s hiatus.
This is another photo that popped up, I think as one of Björn’s Memories. I called it “Conversations on a train.”
Then there is this one I posted whilst we were at that cat show.
I found this photo of Jake crashed out in the hotel room after the first day of the show was over whilst I was looking for the other ones from this week’s Memories. I had forgotten it…but it is SO Jake.
This is the Memory that came up yesterday…
…another one I forgot about that is such a classic Jake moment. I found Angel sunning herself in a little square of sunshine in the kitchen.
The square was just the right size for one little cat loaf.
And then…along came Jake.
And he decided that he wanted the sun square. I wasn’t able to capture what happened next.
And this last one is the most bittersweet of all, from five years ago Wednesday. Jake loved riding on the front of his stroller on our way home from our therapy visits. I posted the photos here in the blog at the time, but I only posted the video to Facebook. Apologies for the vertical video…I forgot to turn the camera sideways.
Not to make a generalisation about Singapuras, but both Logan and Izaak decided they wanted to be friends with Angel and Jacoby…no matter what.
In Angel’s case, it means Zak gets in her favourite bed with her.
And then he grooms her.
He’s quite serious about it, too.
With Jake, Zak just sleeps with him wherever he is, be it our bed or the sofa.
Does Jake want Zak’s company? I have no idea. But I also don’t think he has much of a say in the matter.
Because still photos can’t quite capture that lovin’ feeling, here’s a video of Zak forcing his affection on Jake and Angel.
Last week I posted about Lorelai’s first visit to Min Vetrinär.
But that wasn’t the whole story.
We took all the Abys to the vet that day. This was before Izaak joined our family, of course.
Alfred got busy exploring the doctor’s supplies.
Freddy! That’s marked “biohazard” for a reason! Get your face out of there!
Oh? It’s my turn?
Wait…a shot? Nobody told me about a shot…
After the shot, Freddy was a little jarred.
But he had his new little sister to cheer him up.
Next up was Angel.
Being the oldest cat, this was definitely not her first rodeo.
But that doesn’t mean she enjoys it.
She took her vaccination like a champ, though.
The last cat to be checked out was Jacoby.
He is always so good at getting his shots. Like everything else he does…he’s just bulletproof.
I wanted the vet to take a look at Jake’s teeth.
He’s an Aby, a breed known for bad teeth…but he was nine years old and had never even had a cleaning. When Angel was his age, most of her teeth were gone already.
But Jake has awesome teeth. Partly because he lets me scrape and brush them…but partly because he just got lucky in the genetic roulette.
All in all, a pretty good day at the veterinarian.
I posted a few of the photos from this series back when I rebooted this blog, but in looking for photos to commemorate Logan’s birthday, I finished editing the rest of them.
These photos were taken three days after Logan came to live with us.
Alfred, coming from a litter of five, was excited to see a cat his age in our house. The adult cats mostly just hissed at him.
Logan was…less thrilled to meet Freddy.
He even managed to chase him off, despite being a month younger and tiny.
But then Logan attacked Freddy!
And Freddy was so excited! A playmate at last!
But Logan proved to be a tough adversary.
And Freddy actually ran away!
With Freddy out of the room, Logan felt free to play with the tunnel we had.
It was so much fun!
Somehow, he managed to put the tunnel in its more conventional horizontal position.
Logan was having a lot of fun playing with the tunnel by himself.
A lot of fun.
So much fun, in fact…
…That he didn’t notice that Freddy had returned! (Look closely at the photo above.)
Wait…what?
Suddenly…Freddy!
Logan defended himself brilliantly.
Especially considering that he was a month younger and a kilo lighter than Freddy.
Such a fierce little cat!
Look at those airplane ears!
Don’t mess with Logan!
Oh, wait.
Looking just at these photos, you would never know they’d end up being so closely bonded.
Unfortunately, I didn’t take videos of this play session, but I got this one of Logan playing with Kalle and a wand toy.
And this one of Freddy and Logan playing in the spare bedroom, aka the “kitten room.” Both videos were made the first few days Logan came to live with us.
We got Lorelai on 4 May 2018 when she was just three months old. She’d had her kitten shots and gotten her microchip, but she was too young to get her rabies vaccination.
Because we took the cats to the vet soon after we moved here, our annual appointment is in June, which was perfect timing for Rory’s shot.
It’s very important to make sure the microchip in the cat matches the number in the passport. Every vaccine the cat gets in his or her life is recorded in their passport, and is checked not only when travelling to other countries, but every time we go to a show.
The doctor prepared the shot…
…and Rory tried to nope out.
Of course, she ended up getting vaccinated. We are the ANTI anti-vaxxers.
Then we let her go.
She was not impressed with being punctured.
Izaak is so very different from Logan in so many ways. But they look so similar. Logan’s eyes were a bit more green, and Zak has a stockier build, but it’s hard to tell them apart in photos. In some pictures, I can only tell them apart by looking at their collars, and, of course, the date the photo was taken.
But their personalities and mannerisms are so different.
One major difference between Logan and Zak is Logan was a climber. He loved to go up on top of things: the cat tree, the hallway coat rack, the top of the bookshelf in the kitten room. And the tiny ledge on top of the refrigerator.
That’s a hard ledge to get up onto, let alone stay on!
Much harder than just sitting on top of the fridge door!
Another difference between Zak and Logan is that Logan was extremely fastidious. He hated to be “dirty” and would stop to groom anywhere, anytime. You may remember what happened when Logan got his Suprelorin implant as opposed to when Zak got his.
Even on the ledge of the fridge.
Logan was such a climber. He was so athletic.
He loved to be as high as he could.
Meanwhile…Zak “The Sausage” Hellqvist can barely jump up onto the counter.
And he is incredibly food-oriented, which Logan was not…but he’s also an extremely picky eater. I have never seen a cat who didn’t like dry food (it’s considered a special treat in our house), but Zak won’t touch it. He doesn’t even seem to recognise it as food. It makes cat shows challenging, to say the least.
I wish they could have known each other. It would have been interesting to see them interact. But of course, if Logan hadn’t gotten FIP we wouldn’t have Izaak. But it would have been interesting to see them together.
I always think about Alfred and his “Brother from Another Mother,” Logan.
These photos are from July 2017, a month after we introduced Logan to Freddy.
They bonded after only a couple of days.
But their bond was deep. I called them “Brothers from Another Mother.” But they really were.
I mean, just look at them!
Logan and Freddy were so attached to each other.
They were so in sync with each other, too. You can see how bonded they were from these photos, taken only a month after we introduced them.
One thing Freddy liked to do was hold Logan down to groom him.
Whilst Izaak is not Logan, and it’s taken Freddy some time to accept Zak…
…it seems that Freddy needs a Singapura brother to take care of and look after.
It’s not the extreme “brothers from another mother” love that Freddy had with Logan, but…
…Zak seems to be an acceptable surrogate for Freddy’s Singapura fixation.
At least, until Zak has had enough of Freddy’s “brotherly” love.
I guess that’s the difference between Logan and Zak…Logan grew up with Big Brother Freddy, and Zak…didn’t. But he tolerates Freddy’s attention well. Enough.
The Daily Abyssinian...and Singapura 