The Family

Fred snapped this a few hours ago -- finally, these three together in a photograph. In order from the left: Marmy Fluffy Butt, Dobby, and our newest addition, Uncle Kitty Big Balls.

That they are related is clear. Marmy is Dobby's mother and Uncle Kitty Big Balls' sister. We took Marmy in when she and UKBB were both strays, and she was about as hugely pregnant without bursting as possible.

She had a litter of five, of which we kept the runt, Dobby. Marmy remained almost completely feral for another year, but this past year she turned some mental corner and became a very loving and sociable cat. She's not particularly bright, but she seems happy. She has become a real girly girl lately, and demands more one-on-one time than any of them. Very, very coy is she.

Dobby, you've met.

Uncle Kitty Big Balls. What a guy. He remained on the street for another year or so, although he came to visit now and again. The visits were becoming fewer and he began showing up with wounds, loosing hair, etcetera. There was a long stretch where he seemed to have disappeared and we feared the worst. I had put my foot down after three cats, but felt horribly guilty.

Last April, I was in ICU on a ventilator (just hanging out), and Fred came into my room looking terribly distraught. He said there was something he needed to talk to me about.

"Oh, my God, he's leaving me. He can't handle this anymore."

"Uh-oh. Maybe he wants to disconnect the respirator, the bastard!"

So I wasn't exactly the Reigning Queen of The Cogent!

He informed me that UKBB had turned up just as he was leaving to come to the hospital to be with me, and he was very sorry, but he simply was going to have to take him in. He looked to be near death, and was holding a rear leg off the ground, and clearly had abscesses all over another leg. He barely had any fur left and he was almost skeletal.

How wonderful that acquiescing to such an easy request could make someone so happy. So he left me there in ICU, and ran home to trap this wild and dying cat.

UKBB and I recuperated in syncopated time. Both of us needed a long convalescence. Sadly, part of a rear foot had to be amputated, and he battled severe infections post-op. We dutifully downed our antibiotics together, though it was clear from the beginning that I was just some girl... whereas Fred? Fred was his saviour! He still suffers something akin to a feline panic attack when he cannot locate Fred within the bazillions of rooms and acres of land here at Marlinspike Hall, deep deep in the Tête de Hergé (très décédé, d'ailleurs).

He has become our first overweight cat, though if The Castafiore and Fred are to be believed, no one is feeding him little treats shaped like fishes, tasting of eggy tuna, and designed to prevent furballs -- because his fur! His fur is thick and beautiful, the softest thing we have ever felt, our friends have ever felt, even the parish priest is astonished by the silky nothingness of his mane...

So, he's fat and we are not to blame. It is perversely pleasing to see him eat to his heart's content, after all his time hungry and cold on the street.

I cannot keep from laughing out loud when he looks at me. He looks like a Wise Guy, a mafioso. All banged up, eyes crossed. When we're not around, he likes a good stogie. We don't promote smoking but somehow his humidor is ridiculously well stocked with the best cuban cigars. That Bianca!

He has a very sweet and sensitive spirit. He spent almost no time acting ridiculously feral like his sister Marmy had done. No, he took to domestication as if he were the original housecat.

Here is his mugshot:

Our fourth cat, the awesome Sam-I-Am is the eldest now, which is a shock to him, and to us, as he spent many years in the position of postulant. Dobby has been a new life force to him, and I catch them playing like maniacs, Sammy behaving like he was but a few months old, and not a decade into this affair.

But this post seemed more dedicated to The Family: Marmy Fluffy Butt and her valiant brother Uncle Kitty Big Balls, and The Dobster.