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Hungry Eyes

At the Ponggol Nasi Lemak branch in Tanjong Katong, there is always a little cat that darts and scurries under and in between the parked cars in hope of scraps from the tables of the pavement diners. He keeps his distance and isn't as insistent as strays elsewhere can be, but there's no questioning what he's after. I took the photo on the left while waiting for Alec to bring back our plates of nasi lemak.

Born Again

I have not always been a big fan of the current Pope but upon reading this article in the NYT, I felt all our theological differences melt away. Truly, I can now wholeheartedly accept and follow his leadership of the Cat-holic church, and am keen to learn and absorb his many teachings about the Cat-echism. Furever and ever, amen.

Introducing Orlando

This is Orlando. Orlando appeared out of nowhere on my family's doorstep (it's weird, either someone left him there deliberately or he had an uncanny ability to wander to where he would be totally pampered) about two weeks ago, with a very skinny body and distended belly. Since then, my family has fattened him into healthier kitten proportions, cleaned, de-fleaed, de-wormed and toilet-trained him, and he's now in good condition to go to a loving home.

Update on 10 Dec 2007: Due to unforeseen circumstances of extreme cuteness, my family informed me over the weekend that my mother cannot bear to part with Orlando. As such, he is no longer up for adoption.

He's a plucky little guy and has formed a sweet wrestle/play relationship with one of our other house cats Dinky who is about three times his size. He's also incredibly friendly (the other three adult house cats aren't anywhere as friendly to strangers) and does the whole sitting on your lap purring until he falls asleep thing, which will never get old, never never never.

He's hard to photograph because if he sees the camera lens he runs right up and sticks his face in it, so I had to wait until he was distracted with something else.

If you read Cute Overload...

...I believe this qualifies as an "ENH!"

I can haz pawburger?

Num num num.

Pwease adopt me!

Please leave a comment or email "name of this blog" at gmail if you can help little Orlando out, or know someone else who can. I'm absolutely dying to keep him for myself, but the flat where I now live with Alec isn't very cat suitable.

If You're Smitten, Adopt A Kitten!

Seriously, people, we need to find them homes. I'm gonna pimp them a bit more right now, and if you think you know anyone who might be interested in gaining karma, increasing the cuteness levels of their daily existence and falling deeply in love, please direct them to this post!

You might have noticed from the pictures in the previous kitten post that two of them are pirate kitties. So after naming them Jack Sparrow and Davy Jones, my mother and sister went on to name the remaining two Smee and Blackbeard, but after some genital scrutiny it was concluded that Blackbeard ought to be renamed Tigerlily.

This is Smee. I think he's the second cutest after Tigerlily, but don't tell the kittens I've been ranking them like this in case it's damaging for their self-esteem.

Davy Jones is perhaps a little less photogenic than his siblings, but he's just as happy and healthy and I think his centre parting is quite sweet, like an old man with Brylcreamed hair. Or Hitler.

Jack Sparrow is so hyperactive that none of his portraits came out well, so I had to settle for some action shots instead. Here he is trying to climb the cardboard fencing we initially used to keep them enclosed, while Smee snoozes on the left.

And here he is inspecting a flowerpot for clamberability. Tigerlily looks as if she's playing with a dead palm frond, but she was actually falling asleep in that "head droop... head droop... I'M AWAKE I'M AWAKE! ...actually, no I'm not...zzz" way.

Lastly, here they all are with their long-suffering mom. You can even see Smee's little paw kneading her belly.

If you're interested, please contact me! "name of this blog" at gmail!

Stray Thoughts

Over time my family has come to be responsible for the care and feeding of about nine stray cats, three of which live in our house and six of which hang out regularly in our driveway. The numbers change over time depending on which cat wanders into the neighbourhood and gives birth (my parents sterilize as many as they can but some slip through the cracks) or which cat meets with tragic death.

Mandy was a orange tortoiseshell kitten who, when carried, would snuggle blissfully in our arms, look up adoringly at us and beg to be carried again once we put her down. We loved her, and were in the process of slowly cleaning her up for life indoors with us. On the same day Alec took me to Sultan Shoal to propose to me, back at home my mother gave Mandy a bath, let her scamper around on our carpet until she dried off, and then put her outside to play. Shortly after, she wandered into our neighbour's driveway and their dogs mauled her to death.

My family ran over when they heard the commotion but it was too late. My mum tried to carry Mandy out from under their car, where she'd crawled, but Mandy was in terrible pain and bit my mum deeply in the hand. My sister then took over while my mum attended to her gushing thumb and carried our dying kitten back to our driveway. Her body fit perfectly into a small shoebox.

Not wanting to spoil what they already knew would be a joyful weekend for me, my family didn't tell me what had happened until I returned the next day with a ring on my finger. At mass that evening, I knew I was meant to be happy, thanking the Lord for the wonderful blessing of having Alec in my life, for the rest of my life. But I couldn't stop thinking of Mandy.

I didn't write about her here at the time either, because I was trying to focus on being happy about what had just happened in my life, and to share that with all of you. Since then my family's fallen in love with two black and white tom kittens, adopted into our home in anguish after their brother got killed by a car and we couldn't bear the thought of them meeting the same fate. So we've gotten over Mandy, as well we should, because like it or not, these things happen to strays, and we can't give all of them homes. But that doesn't mean I've forgotten her. I don't think I ever will.

I don't have a picture of her to show you, but I take pictures of the orange tortoiseshell strays I see, because they remind me of her. Here are two of my most recent ones:

On the way to Aljunied MRT

In Old Airport Road hawker centre

I know the hawker centre cat looks a bit sullen here but he was actually very friendly and got lots of pats from people passing by on their way through the hawker centre. When an aunty at the popiah stall saw me taking photos of him, she came over excitedly and asked if I could help take some for her on her camphone, which she didn't know how to use. "Can you put the cat as my wallpaper?" she asked (in Chinese), "My husband's photo is there now but I want the cat instead."

There isn't really a point to this post, it just struck me that it's been nearly a year since Mandy died, and I haven't written about her, plus with the new camera I've been photographing lots of cats lately. Be kind to strays, it's a hard (and often very short) life for them.

Shock And Aww

Singapore's extreme humidity is generally a bad thing for me.

The eczema I'd had my entire life here disappeared completely for the 4 years I was in England, only to return with a vengeance almost as soon as I returned.

I trekked happily through Turkish desert heat with no problems, but every time I perspire here I break out in heat rash.

In England my hair is capable of being fairly attractive. In Singapore it is an unmanageable mess of frizzy curls unless regularly and expensively fried to within an inch of its life.

When I was giving my flat in London the final massive clean before moving out, I spent days surrounded by dust-thick air with not a single adverse reaction. In Singapore the mere act of sweeping or vacuuming renders me snot-nosed (or more accurately, sdot-dosed) for the next hour.

By now I bet you think this is another of my pointless I-hate-Singapore rants and are beginning to think that this blog has seriously jumped the shark.

HOWEVER!

None of the above is the point of this post at all. It is all merely prelude to my referring you to this discussion on static electricity and the stroking of cats, which has given me the first reason ever to be grateful for humidity.

Yay humidity. Yay fingers and faces buried in warm fur, yay little damp noses on smile-plumped cheeks, yay purring shock-free footrests. Sparks fly daily between my family and this beauty, but they're all metaphorical.

Fuzzy Logic

While chatting with my mum on what she got up to while I was away:

My mum: Daddy and me went to Chinatown for the first time.
Me: That's nice, did you have fun?
My mum: Yes! I bought Alec some cute cat coasters for his new balcony table.
Me: MUM!!??! He's a guy! And he doesn't have or want a cat!
My mum: That's exactly why he needs cat coasters.
Me: ......

One, Two, Three, Four...

...I declare Kitten War!

If there's a kitten cuter than Squee in the universe, I fear I may not survive seeing it.

Addendum: a slightly odd conversation I had with Alec last night.

Me: At this Kitten War site there's a kitten that's shooooooo cute! It's called Squee! There's another kitten called Sox that's cute too but there's something special about Squee that I really like.
Alec, eyes half glazed over: So, is Squee a black kitten?
Me, surprised: Yes! How'd you guess that?
Alec: Well, in all these contests, you always like the black one.

[To put things in context, here are some recent reality TV favourites of mine: Fantasia, LaToya, Jennifer, George (LOVED all of them in American Idol 3), Uchenna and Joyce (Amazing Race), first Anwar and then Vonzell after Anwar got boring (American Idol 4).]

Pint-Sized

If only I'd had a pint glass close at hand when Casey was still kitten-sized.

My Naked Pussy

The scene: Casey running madly back and forth between the kitchen and the backyard.

My mum: What a streaker! Our cat is such a streaker!
Me: Er, mum, a streaker is someone who runs around naked.
My mum: Yes, I know. Doesn't she run around naked?
Me: ......

Casey At 5 Months

For weeks I've been accumulating a pretty large backlog of photos I'd like to put up here. Many record cultural observations, or moments of beauty or humour, capturing my view of the world around me in my attempts at artistic exploration.

However, none of those photos will be displayed in this post. Instead, here be cat pics.

Casey is now 5 months old. On her first visit to the vet, she entered gibberish into her own veterinary records by wandering onto the keyboard as the vet was typing. She is very strong and can pin big healthy adults to the sofa for hours on end, simply by draping herself across a belly, falling asleep, and generally being warm and fuzzy. Her favourite food is finger, but she never breaks the skin.

Cute and she knows it.

Completely unposed, I swear.

Hasn't quite grasped the distinction between terrapin food and water and cat food and water.

[Before anyone goes reporting me to the SPCA for cruelty to terrapins, let me just clarify that the terrapin spends most of the day clambering around the backyard and sunning itself. It only goes in that small tank to sleep and eat.]

The Unbearable Cuteness Of Being

In two weeks, Casey the kitten (full name Casey Underfoot) has managed to worm his way into everyone's affections, to the extent that even my usually taciturn father has been sighted jiggling around singing "Look, Caseykins, nice juicy slippers!" (The cat is obsessed with his house slippers and stalks them incessantly. The rest of us theorize that they must need a wash.) Meanwhile, my mother, whose nine cats of her youth never knew vets, worming tablets, or flea powder, has borrowed three cat books out of the library and we're taking him to the vet for his first checkup this week.

At dinner today, Yuping informed me that she wanted more kitten photos, and I'm only too happy to oblige.

Not quite heavy enough to get snipped...yet

I call this one Reclining Nude

Snug, bug, rug

To anyone getting sickened by all this cuteness, I can't promise you less kitten pictures, but I will at least point you in the direction of Clay Kitten Shooting, where my current high score is 76. Beat that, mofos.

Happiness Is A Warm Kitten

I know this second lapse into cat pictures will substantially harm whatever chances I ever have of cutting-edge indie cool cyberbabeness, but really, cutting-edge indie cool cyberbabeness doesn't seem very important at all when you have a warm kitten fast asleep on your lap.

After 10 years on the Internet I am finally the stereotypical Web nerd whose site contains pictures of my cat. Oh happy day. :)

Foundling

We'd been hearing a kitten crying from the empty house next door for the past two days, so today my mum and I went over to investigate. She came running towards us, mewing loudly, the moment we appeared.

We carried her home and put her in the back bathroom with a box, an old T-shirt and some shredded newspaper for kitty litter. She wouldn't keep quiet while my mum was trying to tutor a student, but promptly fell asleep purring once put on my mum's lap and stroked. She's friendly, not in the least bit scared of us, and spent most of the evening stalking my feet.

I don't know if we can keep her or not, because I used to have all sorts of allergies when I was a child, and we don't know if I've grown out of them yet. We're also rather fond of our furniture and would rather not have it scratched to bits by a feisty cat.

But I kind of love her already.