Twenty-One and Counting (The Russian Invasion)

At one time, the Russian Mob had individual URL's instead of names. Each began www.vokra.ca/cats/ and the extensions were as follows: 52-and-elliot-black-kitten, 52-and-elliot-bw-kitten, 52-and-elliot-tab-kitten, and 52-and-elliot-not-caught-yet-kitten. (Don't worry, there's not a test at the end of the posting, and even if there were, you guys would ace it!)

When Maria finally trapped not-caught-yet in June, she had the four kittens living with her for a time. Then they went to stay with Karen Duncan for a little bit while they were getting ready for their new foster home. The young woman who took them in next also gave them their names. She called them Natalia, Anastasia, Rasputin and Vladimir. The Tall Lady is undecided but I'm fairly sure that Heidi hates kittens.

Natalia

After their stay with her, these four little beauties came to live with us. Natalia (Miu Miu) was our little shy girl with her silky black coat and huge yellow eyes. Fostering her was like having Taylor back with us. The Tall Lady and I spent hours looking for the poor little fraidy cat, and still more hours trying to convince her that we didn't really believe that the best thing about kittens is the white meat. Eventually, Talia came out for meals, then for treats, next to play with the feather wand or the laser pointer, and she finally rewarded us by coming out just because we asked her to.

Anastasia

Anastasia (Ada) is one of those strange-looking kittens who will grow up to be an amazing beauty. Her black fur isn't exactly black, her white fur not really white and her whiskers kink and spiral off in all directions, as if they were embarrassed to be seen together. Ana was an instant lap cat, with a soft, wet nose and a purr like thunder. A few minutes after we went to bed every night, Ana would land as light as a feather on the Tall Lady's handmade quilt, and would snuggle down between the two of us to sing us to sleep.

Rasputin

If Talia reminded us of Taylor, Rasputin (Check) was another Tabor. He was a gentle, easy-going diplomat whose main concern seemed to be everyone else's contentment. Even Brie liked him. He was a hauntingly beautiful kitten with huge paws and a tiny, polite voice. From the moment we met him, we knew that Ras would be the first of the Russians to be adopted, and we hoped that his new family could make him as happy as he would try to make them.

He was adopted by a perfect family and had a nice dad, a kind mom and a beautiful eleven year-old human sister who were ready to love him forever. When Rasputin died on September 23, we were as devastated as they were.

Vladimir

52-and-elliot-not-caught-yet-kitten is Vladimir. I can't honestly say that I'm surprised that he was the last to be trapped - Vlad was our James Cagney kitten. He had the strut, the swagger, the timing and the attitude. Like Cagney, what he lacked was size - like Cagney, he didn't give it much thought.

We think that the other three kittens have some Maine Coon in their background - obviously, Vlad had a different daddy. In spite of being the smallest of the four kittens, his was the biggest personality, and his the most voracious appetite. When he found out that he liked Rice Krispees, the breakfast table became a battleground and I was usually on the losing side.

When Vlad's adoptors came a-courtin', he knocked them down and twisted their arms until they agreed to take him home with them.

Talia was the last of the kittens to be adopted. Since October of 2009, we'd fostered fourteen kittens, and counting our three big girls, we'd had seventeen cats in four years. Our co-op's eight paw policy has never presented any problem. Our neighbours are among our most dedicated fans. The ones with allergies just take their meds before dropping by, and they remain until their sneezing and scratching begins to upset the cats.

Yup - seventeen cats in four years, and now our friends at VOKRA had decided that it was time for a bit of Chinese... 

Chaos Looming

Twenty-One and Counting (The Amazing Aquacat)

Aquacat II

 Two years ago some VOKRA volunteers trapped a pregnant cat whom they named Maddy. She had six kittens on December 10, 2009, but Maddy had a horrible case of coccidia, and four of them died very soon after they were born.

The two survivors were a little girl, who was named Sapphire, and a boy with pale, yellow fur who was called Lemon.

Now, Sapphire seemed just fine as the kittens were growing up, but little Lemon wasn't learning how to walk properly. He used his front legs like crutches, and he dragged his back legs along behind himself. He kept falling over, but he kept right on trying. Finally, he learned to put his back feet down on their heels, and he turned his toes out so that he had training wheels (of a sort). Lemon still fell, but now he could go further and faster than he could before.

We think that Maddy had distemper when she was pregnant, and that Lemon's cerebellar hypoplasia was the result. That meant that the part of his brain that controls his motor skills was underdeveloped - or if you like, he had problems with his drive train. There is nothing wrong with his higher brain - Lemon might not pass his university entrance exams on the first try, but I bet a few of us didn't. 

When the Tall Lady and I met him, his name had been changed to Lennon. Some of the people at VOKRA felt that the name Lemon implied that the kitten was a lemon, and that it would compromise his chances for adoption. But he was Lemon when we first heard about him, and that's what we kept right on calling him, much to Karen Duncan's frustration.

Lemon the Conqueror

Because Lemon was a kitten, Xena and Brie hated him. Because he moved differently, and was as likely as not to trip and fall on them, they hated him even more. He stumbled and fumbled, he rolled and he tumbled, but eventually he got where he'd planned to go - though sometimes not in a timely fashion. We learned pretty quickly that it was a good idea to pick him up and put him in his litterbox if he was headed that way. Sometimes he appreciated the assistance, other times he resented the interference. He missed the mark occasionally, but he always gave it his best effort.

Every day he was with us, he worked and played hard, and he got stronger and steadier. He also just kept on getting nicer. In time, Karen negotiated a course of physiotherapy for him. A young woman named Jacqueline Gibson had volunteered her time, talent and facilities to VOKRA. She has had wonderful success with a good number of injured and otherwise disabled dogs, but Lemon would be her first feline client. Jacqueline's company was called Aquapaws Hydrotherapy Inc, and thus was born the Amazing Aquacat.

The Amazing Aquacat

Lemon and Jacqueline had four sessions together. He loved her, but he hated the big swimming pool in her basement. Every Tuesday afternoon, she would put on her wetsuit, and she and our pleasant, even-tempered hero would have a half hour swim. Every Tuesday, Lemon would paddle and kick for a few minutes longer with Jacqueline's supporting hand under his chest, until he was eventually swimming like an otter as well as howling like a banshee. But every Tuesday after we left her, poor Jacqueline would rub her swollen eyes and scratch at the welts on her arms where her skin had been exposed to his fur.

You see, Jacqueline was allergic to cats, so four sessions were all that she could handle. That was quite all right with our boy - he'd already decided that he was allergic to hydrotherapy.

Lemon had a couple of people who were interested in adopting him, but when they saw him, they decided quite fairly that he'd be more than they could handle. When Mary and Percy met him, though, it was love at first sight.

Lemon is now spoiled, pampered, cosseted and adored - everything that he deserves. My friend Margo asked me the other day if Lemon was my favourite. A good foster parent doesn't have favourite children, I told her. All of them are equally loved and treated fairly and impartially.

I think Margo can tell when I'm lying.

Happy Birthday, Lemon,

Have a wonderful day!

Twenty-One and Counting (Charlie and the Angel/Return of the Tiger)

In February of this year, Brie and Xena had very nearly recovered their tenuous grip on sanity, and the Tall Lady and I were going through a severe case of kitten withdrawal. I attended a VOKRA meeting at Karen Duncan's house, and it was there that I heard about Charlie's Angels.

Charlie

Four kittens had been trapped in Surrey and had been named Drew (as in Barrymore), Diaz (like Cameron), Lucy (Liu) and, of course, Charlie. Drew and Diaz had already been adopted, but Lucy and Charlie, who were living at Karen's, needed a foster home. They were both ready for their family planning options to be exercised. In fact, Lucy was putting on a bit of girth, and Karen was concerned that there had an excess of familial familiarity.

Lucy

Our friend Kim drove the three of us to the Killarney Veterinary Clinic, where the kittens were rushed off into their kennels to get ready for their surgeries. The Tall Lady and I were to pick them up when they had recovered. When we called the next morning, we were pleased to find out that not only had Lucy not been pregnant, but that Charlie was a little girl as well.

Charlie is a cheeky little medium-haired tabby and Lucy was a beautiful silver-grey and tortoiseshell with perhaps a touch of the exotic orient in her pedigree. I can't say that either of them was especially shy or scared, but they were distant and guarded with us.

Shortly after they arrived, we got a tearful phone call from the lady in North Van who had adopted Raja and Darcy. Both were terrified of the boys and she was afraid that the adoption wasn't working. She tried for a couple of days more, and then called us again to ask if she could bring them back to us.

Raja (aka Darwin, aka Rufus) came back first and as soon as he was gone, Darcy became the family lapwarmer. It seems that he was the shy one, and as soon as she was by herself, Darcy was just fine. When we got our tiny, terrified tiger back to the ol' homestead, it took about ten minutes for him to climb back up on our laps. After that, he was ready to meet the new girls.

Cat Nap

Charlie and Lucy already loved Xena and Brie, just like all of the other kittens had, so it was no surprise when they fell in love with Raja too. They had a great deal to do with calming him down, and we hoped that he'd have a positive influence on them as well, but no such luck. When Raja was adopted for the second time, they were still no closer to being ready for their adoption.

Sure, they loved the big girls, and they even liked us well enough, but we still could not touch them, and we began to wonder if they might not do better in another foster home - maybe one with just their foster parent and them.

Lucy was our first tragedy - after she was moved, she fell from a seventh floor window, and was never found. Charlie has gone to live with our friend Maria in what is very likely Cat Paradise. When we last heard, she still wasn't ready for adoption...but we keep hoping.

Twenty-One and Counting (The Lepers, the Tiger and the Powderpuff)

Kimball and Cricket

Kimball and his sister Cricket arrived at our door on the 18th of November with two flats of food, a bag of stove pellets and their own little prison cell. Cricket had an infected eye and they were terrified of everyone and everything. Of course, they escaped from the cage (I think that they had a friend on the inside) and from the bathroom almost as soon as they arrived. All of us want to foster the cute, healthy kittens, and the Tall Lady and I were really no different. We hustled them back into solitary confinement, rubbed Cricket's ointment on her eye, and gave her her oral meds as often as she needed them. I have a small scar on the palm of my right hand shaped like the letter C where Cricket tried to sign her name.

When we found out that they both had ringworm, we asked if they could be moved somewhere else, and I've always felt badly about that. Fortunately, the somewhere else turned out to be a great foster home where these two tiny terrors became pets! They were adopted together and were thriving splendidly the last we heard.

Darcy

We were given another chance, though. Our VOKRA mentor Mickey called us one Saturday morning to ask if we could drive down to the West End to rescue another foster parent from her two horrible kittens! The Tall Lady stayed in the aptly named Escape with the motor running while I went upstairs to see just how bad things were.

I found a small apartment where there was really no place for a kitten to hide, another cage and a handy cat carrier. The plan (such as it was) was to open the door of the kennel and herd the kittens into the carrier. The kittens had other plans however, and they slipped through two different gaps in our trap, and into the specious freedom of the little living room.

Raja

It took us a few minutes, but we caught the tiny, terrified tiger by the scruff of his handsome neck and dropped him into the oubliette, where his pretty little powderpuff of a sister soon followed.

Raja (later Darwin) and Darcy (Dempsey aka Squirrely) were our Christmas kittens. After the initial terror of the move, and braving Bedtroll Brie, they became gen-you-wine pettin' cats, but Raja was always a little more highly-strung and skittish than pretty little Darcy. She was the first to try out the laps, the first to sleep on the big bed, and the first to try to eat a seven-foot prelit Christmas tree.

They were the softest cats we had so far, and two of the prettiest, so it was really no surprise when the couple in North Vancouver with the three nice boys wanted to adopt them both. This time, the Tall Lady and I delivered the kittens to their new home, and it was magnificent! We wanted them to adopt us too.

Their house was everything two small, friendly cats could ever want, and this would be another happy ending - wouldn't it?

Twenty-One and Counting (Strange Invaders)

The Tall Lady and I followed the news on the Vancouver Orphan Kittens Rescue Association's website for a long time after we adopted the Flying Fellini Sisters. We kept noticing that there were recurring themes; VOKRA needed money (done), VOKRA had a lot of cats (agreed), VOKRA needed more foster homes (hmmm...).

So, there are we two in our comfortable little home with our two little furry paragons. We began to debate the reasons for fostering other kittens. Of course, there was never any question of housing more cats - we didn't have the room, we didn't have the time, our big girls would be upset, the place in which we live has an eight paw pet policy.

Nope, no chance, can't do it...

Tabor

Tabor (now Cooper) arrived in the third week of October, and might have spent as much as fifteen minutes adjusting to his new surroundings. A strange home was just something new to explore, new people should be all right if he was careful about trusting them. As for the two hissing, spitting, growling harridans in the living room, well, that would be fine too. Why, he'd just go right up to them, shake a paw or two and introduce himself...

Big, brave Xena ran away from him, screaming in horror, while our sweet, gentle Brie thumped his little noggin until it rang like a gong! Tabor kept trying, Xena kept running, and Brie kept buffeting his little, flat cranium. Fortunately, he kept Aunt Fraidy and Aunt Grouchy from noticing that there were two other kittens in the house.

Taylor

Taylor (Stella) left the dubious security of her cat carrier and took refuge behind the couch on one of the occasions when Brie was trying to knock the ambassador's head into touch. It wasn't her problem. If Tabor wanted to offer himself for sacrifice, well done and good on him, but Taylor had more sense. She wasn't going to accept this change at all, and she was determined to stay in her sanctuary until the horror was over.

The problem was, that Tall Lady kept kneeling down, looking under the couch and talking to her. Then, there was the other one, the big, fat bastard who moved the couch away from the wall, and actually tried to touch her! Taylor was certain that it was some sort of sinister conspiracy...but the talking was okay, and the petting really wasn't all that bad. All right, she'd come out, but there was no way that she was ever going to get up on either of those warm, comfortable laps...

Timber

Timber had security measures of his own in place. He had decided that the best thing he could do was to remain in the cat carrier and not to attract any attention to himself. All of the carriers stayed on the floor of our living room for about a week, becoming a kind of small trailer park, and Tim could travel from unit to unit in relative safety.

But those damn' people kept putting their hands inside his carrier and touching him too. Sometimes they brought him little treats called Temptations, and then his stronghold would be invaded by his brother and sister - or even by the big, grumpy cats.

Our VOKRA friend, Mickey told us that they'd given us the easy kittens for our first foster, and they had done. It was no time at all before all three had become professional lap cats. All of them loved Auntie Brie, in spite of her heavy fist, but they absolutely idolized Xena. Taylor, in particular, would follow her everywhere, trying to learn all of the magic and unlock the secrets. It wasn't long before they would be adopted to three different homes, where they were loved, pampered and spoiled, and our apartment would feel oversize and empty...for awhile.

Twenty-One and Counting (One, Two and Three)

Pepper

The Tall Lady and I will probably not be putting our Christmas tree up this year. Last year, we found that it had a tendency to collect all sorts of strange, furry ornaments. The heaviest decorations, of course were always attracted to the top of the tree testing how quickly they could topple it, while the little, foolish ones stayed near the bottom where they could play with the power cords and chew on the pretty lights. Now that I think about it, our tree wasn't up for very long last Christmas either.

It's not like the good, old days, when our calm, gentle, well-behaved Pepper was still with us. In fact, I doubt that Pep would have approved of any of the strange invaders who have come into her home since she left it. When she died, we decided that we wouldn't get another pet, and we stuck to our decision for about a month. Then we found Xena and Gabrielle on VOKRA's adoption page.

Xena

Xena was eight months old when we adopted her, and she was a shy and terrified little girl. I remember the small, skinny kitten with the magnificent sword fern tail slinking down our long, strange hallway, stopping now and again to see if those people were still here, or if the nightmare was finally over, and she was back home with her good, kind foster parents. In the three years since, she has become a calm, confident adult. She is curious and playful, loving and graceful. Xena is our big, perfect cat.

Gabrielle

Brie is our little, odd one. Gabrielle was far too formal an everyday name for this little nutcase, and Gabby just didn't suit her, so the Tall Lady cropped her name in the middle. Brie is a dribbler. When she is enjoying her laptime most particularly, you are very likely to be blessed with a little, clammy drop of catspit as well as a great huge smile. She and Xena were both spayed long before we met them, but with Brie, the vet missed a bit. As a result, she goes into false heat every twenty-one days or so, and for the next three days, she rolls and squirms and caterwauls, and makes ridiculous attempts to seduce her big sister. Xena has thus far been too polite to comment, but it's easy to tell that she is not amused!

In October of last year, their world went to hell. That was when the first wave of aliens landed.

T'n'T'nT