long intermission

 as until recently i was a long term foster for a cat rescue, several kittehs have come and gone. some got adopted, some came to live with me until they passed from age/illness, and my own personal kittehs all passed from illness. i adopted two of my fosters, hugh (who you've met before) and paprika who joined me the summer of 2018. 

fraggle was with me almost every day of her life from 12 weeks old until kidney failure took her in 2018 just before her 16th birthday. by that point she had survived cancer (with hind left leg amputation), and gone blind from high blood pressure, which may have been related to her asthma medication. i still miss her terribly. 

widget also succumbed to kidney failure at about age 17, in the summer of 2016. i had adopted him back in 2007 and he was a very good boy except when he peed on things (even when he didn't have a urinary tract infection!). he was prone to urinary and kidney problems his whole life. 

valentine came to live with me as a long term foster with the rescue because she only liked 5 people on the planet and two of them were me and my roommate. she was ok with a frequent houseguest but ended up falling for that houseguest's dog, rusty, seen above at their first meeting and below a few minutes later. whenever i put fresh sheets on the guest room bed she'd go wait on the bed, staring out the window at the driveway, until rusty (and his mom) arrived. in 2017 she passed at the age of 17, also from kidney failure. unfortunately, kidney problems are pretty common in older domestic cats.

wemo came to me through the rescue, but not as a cat taken in by the rescue. (he wasn't a foster in their foster program.) wemo had developed feline diabetes and since i have type 1 diabetes myself and had lots of experience with diabetes in cats, when his people reached out for help, i tried to help them with tips on managing it. it turned out they weren't in a position to manage his diabetes so the goal was for me to keep him for a while and start managing it and then we could try to work out him going home when they were ready. as his people never ended up being ready for a chronically ill cat, i became his person. he came to me as a senior kitty and was with me until he passed from diabetes complications and a seizure disorder in 2019. 

maximus came to me for fostering and behavioral training. he came to the rescue as a medically needy kitty (lost almost all his teeth to gum disease) but got thrown out of 6 foster homes for violence and destruction. in the two years he was with me he learned to stop stealing food, turned his destructive energy to cardboard boxes, and got better manners with MOST cats. he made friends with hugh and wemo but he tried to smack fraggle in the face. she never touched him but he spent the next two hours across the room at the top of the cat tree with his head down and his ears back. she was already blind, three-legged and in late-stage kidney disease at the time but he found out just how scary her threats were. and he found out that a blind angry geriatric tripod kitty CAN climb the cat tree. until she passed, maximus stayed at least 3 feet away from fraggle at all times. 

he was also violent at adoption events and had to have a special sign. however, he was also the second smartest cat i've ever known and it wasn't hard to teach him that if he didn't make any humans bleed at the adoption event, i'd stop by the birds on the way out of petsmart for a few minutes so he could watch them. maximus was adopted into a family with another cat that he adores and they are best buddies. 

paprika came to live with me as a foster because he was also thrown out of foster homes for bullying other cats. he and maximus fought like crazy and had to take turns living in the library/cat quarantine room while they both lived here. that's why i didn't adopt maximus myself. (maximus was adoptable, paprika remained too violent and unpredictable for an adoption through the rescue so he had nowhere to go except my house.) paprika has also had a lot of behavioral therapy and training. while he remains fairly unstable around most people, either hiding or prone to violence, with just me he has turned into a needy cuddle bug. paprika used to be known as "alien face hugger" for attempting to rip off faces when picked up, and now is a cat who insists i pick him up and hold him like a baby multiple times a day. as i recently left the rescue, i adopted him because i love him and anywhere else he would probably end up euthanized for his violence. 

i have fostered hugh since he was 2 years old and considered unadoptable for extreme shyness and his semi feral need to go outside. he's still allowed outside a little bit, for a couple of hours in the evenings. as he has matured he is less needy about it, but not being able to go out at least a couple of hours a week will lead to bad behavior. but hey, if a cat is going to get mad at me and pee in the house for it, at least he pees in the shower. easiest to clean spot in the whole house. he gets along with everyone and has never shown any signs of violence to people and has only occasionally been seen defending himself against other cats. even at the vet or having his nails clipped, he doesn't even hiss or slap you with a paw. meekest cat i've ever know. but he did finally come out of his shell, no longer hides under the sofa or runs away when you try to pick him up. i was even recently having my roof replaced and he spent some time sitting in the window watching the activity outside the house. he's an old man now but in good health and i also recently adopted him when i exited the rescue. 

in the past few years i've had a lot of personal upheavals, back to college to finally get my degree and completely changed careers. multiple family members have had medical problems that i've needed to be there for or that have kept me from being able to focus on creative things, like this site. for the moment, things in my life are finally starting to slow down and stabilize and i plan to write some in it in the nearish future. this has just been an update on the kitties that inspired this page and who has passed and who is still here. 

as i am no longer volunteering with the cat rescue, you won't be hearing from any foster kittehs, just hugh and paprika with the occasional possible guest spot from the ferals that dine on my front step or hugh and paprika's cousins/siblings who live with my sister and my parents. (my parents actually adopted paprika's brother, he is named weasel and is also unstable but not violent. he likes to live behind bookcases. as you can see, they are pretty much twins except that weasel just constantly looks anxious and worried.)

here's hoping i will be able to bring you new kitteh content soon!