the trick is to keep breathing

Mr. Poof Poof will be leaving us Monday afternoon. I have a service coming to the house so he can be surrounded by comfort and familiarity. He's declined, and it's time. Expect a big fluffy embarrassing memorial post.

There are two preludes to this story:

(1) So Rydia still fights with the boys occasionally; this is worse at the townhouse, because with all of us - and Becky - there, space is pretty limited, meaning Rydia doesn't have a very good "safe haven" she can run to when she just doesn't want to be bothered with their bullshittery. They get along fine most of the time; it's really just when one gets in her all up in her space (it's usually Marzy), or when sometimes they (read: Marzy) interpret her as playful, and try to bat at her tail or boop her nose. She'll howl and hiss and sometimes swat. Depending on how they reply, it can continue, although usually they get the message and leave her alone.

It isn't anything bad, although I don't like when it happens. It's just a feline assertion of boundaries. Rydia is made of cranky cat hate, anyway.

(Side note: how come I can't just hiss and swat when somebody comes into my space and bothers me? KIA SOUL I AM LOOKING AT YOU)

(2) There's a pack of stray cats that live out by the dumpster. I saw them for the first time a couple months ago: there's a little wild patch of brush and bushes and stuff leading into the woods behind the dumpster, and they chill in there. There's a mom and at least 3? 4? kittens, mostly black and grey, and some of them are fluffos; the kittens are not kittens, they're at least ~6 months old, but they still follow the mum like a pack. They seem pretty feral; they looked curious about me, but certainly didn't want to come out of the wild brush and investigate.

So last night about 4:30 I was awakened by the howl-snarl-hiss of Rydia and Marzy getting into it. Gee, thanks, cats. I rolled over. But it didn't stop: suddenly there was just howling, that low warbling mournful-angry-painful deep howl that cats do. By the time I had gathered my poor sleep-stiff brains together I'd realized that it probably wasn't Rydia, because it sounded like it was coming from outside (I have my window open pretty much forever). I went to the window. It sure sounded like a very unhappy cat. Now I'm picturing a cat run over by a car or something awful. So I got out of bed and went downstairs - subtly checking to make sure it wasn't any of my cats - and then slipped outside.

Right in front of the neighbor's townhouse are two of the ferals: the black one and another one that was hiding under a car that I couldn't see. Neither one would approach me, although they kind of sat and stared. They'd at least stopped howling - maybe one was a lady in heat; maybe I'd interrupted cat sex - and eventually kind of slunk off, which made me feel better because hopefully neither one was injured.

So I have a new goal now. My goal is to befriend the dumpster kittens... enough that I can take them in to get them all fixed. I'll pay, I don't mind (although I'll take donations!), and I'm pretty sure they're feral enough that they won't want to live with people anyway - they can go right back to the dumpster. I just hadn't really thought about it until last night, but I want to make sure they're taken care of, so that there aren't suddenly 40 dumpster kittens next spring.