Last Sunday, Monster suffered a major stroke leaving the right half of his body paralyzed and lost consciousness about five seconds later.  He remained unconscious for about ten minutes then suffered a grand mal seizer.  He did not regain consciousness.  I made arrangements to have him euthanized but his breathing was already growing shallower and by the time we got to the vets he had passed.

     He was a wonderfully loving and affectionate cat but unfortunately succumbed to feline leukemia virus.  The virus had not actually given him leukemia but had suppressed his bone marrow badly and he could not make blood, hence the stroke.

     This Friday my wife and I went to Paws and adopted two more cats.  In a way I worried that it might seem disrespectful to Monster’s memory but after not having cats for ten years I decided I really liked having one around and I feel Monster being the loving cat he was would not want me to miss out.  He really struggled to stay with us.

     We had planned on adopting “A” cat but there were two kittens that had been together and they were both super friendly, and my wife, ordinarily not a cat person, was so taken by them that she suggested we adopt them both so we did.

     This be Tulip.  She is 7 months old and was three weeks pregnant when spayed (they aborted the fetuses).  She had just been spayed yesterday so was a little hissy with her partner in crime but still warmed up to us humans something incredible.  She loves to lay in my chair either next to me or behind me.  She is a very small cat, in part probably because of the early pregnancy, and is grossly underweight but she is eating well, ate three cans of kitten food the first night we had her, two cans the subsequent day, so we expect this to be a temporary condition.  She also appears to have some conjunctivitis in her right eye.  We will be seeing the vet on Monday.  She is a Siamese mix, the only place the non-Siamese part of the mix is apparent is on a few of her toes which are white, like a Siamese with socks.

     And this guy be Lucas.  Lucas is five months old and generally is in one of two states, passed out or totally bouncing off the walls.  But he too loves human attention.  He is a mix between  solid gray and a gray tabby, the tabby markings are visible but faint.  His beak doesn’t stick out quite as far as Tulips but he isn’t flat faced either.

     Both of these cats share two qualities in common with Monster, they love human attention in general, and they love a good belly rub which most people know is uncharacteristic of cats.

     Tulip has been a bit hissy with him, he always wants to play and she wants to recover from the surgery so there is a bit of a conflict of interest at present.  He just had his nuts whacked but doesn’t seem at all concerned or slowed down.

     At any rate having these guys in my life is a delight. They’ve both been tested for feline leukemia virus and come up negative.  We are keeping them as indoor cats so that they stay this way.