Friday Cat Blogging III
By 
In honor of Kevin Drum (RIP), let’s do some cat blogging. We’ll kick things off with a goodbye. Some of you may recognize this fine gentleman, Beau (2008-2025) from my disqus avatar. A striking long-haired tuxedoed gentleman, rangy with a large frame. He was vain, self-important, demanding, neurotic, and not the least bit shy about voicing his discontent with your various shortcomings. He was also a charmer; few humans who were deemed worthy of his attention escaped his charms. Particularly given some minor underlying health problems (kitty asthma, a heart arrhythmia) he was a picture of health, vitality, and energy right up until he wasn’t, with a number of health issues slowing him down starting last summer. A couple of months ago, it was an unexpectedly fast-spreading cancer in his leg that was his downfall. He is missed by all who knew him, including his housemate Ellie (b. 2009):
Ellie’s relationship with Beau was complicated; suffice it to say that Beau’s skills at charming and delighting his fellow humans didn’t extend to other animals, who he viewed with a deep suspicion. But Ellie loved him anyway, unconditionally and despite his abuse and disinterest. Both are primarily indoor cats who get some limited semi-supervised backyard time when the weather’s nice; when a neighbor cat would intrude into the yard Beau would lose his mind trying to intimidate and frighten them, to no avail, while all Ellie had to do was cast a glance with her remaining eye (she lost the other one to cancer at age 4) in their general direction and they’d flee in abject terror. But despite her ability to strike fear in the heart of her fellow cats and more than a few dogs, she’s a sweetheart. Built like a linebacker, her small frame holds one of the strongest cats I’ve ever encountered, although she rarely uses her prodigious strength for any purpose other than thwarting efforts to trim her nails.
She took the loss of Beau pretty hard, and was visibly depressed and lethargic for weeks. She’s doing much better now, though, in no small part through the introduction of two creatures who early signs suggest may be more capable of reciprocating her efforts at friendship:
Nova (L) and Willow (R) are sisters born under a porch in Bremerton on Halloween, 2024. Immediately upon their birth, they and their stray mother were brought inside and given an easy life. As occasionally happens, the feral mamma cat took the invitation to leave street life behind and didn’t look back, and she and her six offspring have now all been adopted out. Their adopters suspect this may be a case of superfecundation. In addition to different color schemes (Nova is fully black like Ellie, with the exception of one tiny white spot on her chest, visible in the picture below, while Willow is a classic tortoiseshell), Nova is much sleeker, longer and larger and has a kind of long, triangular face, while willow has a smaller, more classically cute head and a smaller stature, and we are told they resemble two different male cats in the local stray community near their place of birth. Half-sisters or full, they are fully pair-bonded.
This is a lap shot from a few weeks ago; whenever you see a scene like this in my lap it’s a safe bet a spirited wrestling match is about to begin; one will groom the other and grooming will turn to biting and it’s off to the races. My lap has been designated the primary arena for wrestling matches, which makes my habit of hosting cats in my lap while trying to work untenable. I haven’t spent extended time around kittens since we adopted Beau at the end of the second Bush administration (Ellie was just shy of a year old when we got her), and it’s been a delight to have the chance to do so again, even if occasionally exhausting. As is often the case for hand-raised indoors kittens, they have no stranger danger whatsoever and should you visit they’ll be chatting you up, demanding pets, or climbing in your lap or inviting you to play in a matter of hours, if not minutes. Both have a somewhen inexplicable-for-cats fondness for potato chips, and will hound you endlessly if you try to eat some without sharing. Their utter fearlessness has one exception: the human sneeze terrifies them, sending them into full-on panic mode, fleeing the room at top speed and looking for cover.
Bonus Nova goofy shot:
