Update 1: I never thought I’d say this, but you can stop throwing money at me! You’ve covered my expenses and gave me enough to buy a couple of Pootie Pads for the boys. There might be a couple of cans of Fancy Feast in there too:) I am rarely at a loss for words (see diary), but you all leave me speechless. Your kindness, selflessness, love, humor and encouragement are too much for a mere ‘thanks.’ It seems too small. But it is all I have. Thank you!
Original diary...
Hey Peeps! If you’ve been following BF’s (aka CameronProf) diaries, you know that some crazy woman drove from Oklahoma to Detroit to adopt his cats. Yes, that crazy woman is me.
Before I start into the story and pics of the adventure, let me give major thanks to Gaelsdottir for being my voice during the trip. Between spotty internet service, unsecured wifi and, well, upset cats, I couldn’t update everyone personally. She did it for me and I couldn’t be more grateful.
(tl;dr funding link gf.me/u/y46h5y)
On to the adventure!
I will start with the road trip — anything involving BF’s home I will leave for him to tell.
BF warned me that Cloud and Sylar tend to whine for the first 10 miles of any car trip. We can uptick that to 40 miles. The cool thing is that they can whine in harmony! In all my decades of being a minion to cats, I’ve never heard harmony before. So, we’re starting our adventure in interesting ways.
The next 10 hours were, thankfully, boring. I did learn that Sy farts when he’s stressed. And he was stressed. A lot.
We landed in Missouri for the night. Once I freed them from their carriers, they explored. And farted. Only after food and water and catbox and exploring everything else in the tiny room, they decided that I was worthy of petting them.
‘Worthy’ is debatable...
Can I go under this? I can go under this!
Things I learned during my first night with Cloud and Sy… 1) cats fart, 2) PeeWee, whom I adopted from BF years ago, learned her unique Pet Me Now! habits from Cloud, 3) I don’t have enough lap.
Now for the fun stuff… home and the introductions. Many of you know that I have my own herd. They do not take kindly to me leaving. Apparently, they do not take kindly to me leaving and bringing home gifts…
My herd discovering the bird bath
Now is the time to go into a little back-story on my herd...
- PeeWee you all know. I adopted her from BF about 5 years ago, and is Cloud’s little sister. Among her many adorable habits, she tends to go all-in when she wants affection. Head-butts? Nope. Full body-butts? Yep. Cloud does the same thing, so I now know where she learned it.
- Merlin is my affection monster. The kindest, sweetest, fluffiest kitty that ever was or will be.
- Puck is the elder statesman of the house. He’s Alpha. He’s been through the ‘integrating the household’ 4 times before. He has no effs to give.
I tell you this because once I let the boys loose, everything changed. For the first time in my cat-hosting adult life, I was alone in a room. For hours. Sy and Cloud were busy finding things to hide under (yes, you can track farts to find them). Pee and Merlin were pissed at me for leaving and thus hiding. Puck didn’t care and just curled up in his usual blanket and napped.
Then chaos happened… aka dinner. Meal times are better regulated than a Swiss watch. They MUST happen at certain times, established by Puck’s internal tummy clock. If I sleep a little late? Puck starts swiping stuff off my bedside table (a moment of silence for 4 ashtrays, 2 ipads and a lamp). Merlin drops toys on my head. Pee just body-butts my face. So when I say that my herd declined a meal? Yep — chaos. The good news is that Cloud and Sy ate heartily. They even ate from everyone’s dish, much to Puck’s annoyance (that’s his job!).
- Side note — BF didn’t tell me that Sy will literally put his paw in the water dish and scoop out the water to drink. And he’s not that accurate. I will forever have the cleanest floor:)
After dinner, Cloud and Sy were feeling more adventurous and came out of their hidie-holes. The ‘herd integration’ was happening. Sy shat in my office (I have since reintroduced him to the catboxes, so no worries). Cloud discovered PeeWee (hissing ensued, but the pic below happened).
He started it!
Merlin hissed a lot (I’ve never heard him hiss before), but tolerated everyone.
Cloud on the left, Merlin in the middle (being tolerant) and PeeWee in the basket. Hissing not pictured.
Sy discovered the cat toy basket!
This smells good!
Puck napped in his basket.
Old pic, but shows how many effs he has left
In other words, we are all doing fine.
Now, if you’ve read this far, let me thank you again for all of your kind comments, good wishes and encouragement. It helped. You asked if you can contribute to the adventure? Sure! I set up a little GoFundMe to cover $600 (hotels and gas only). If you want to contribute financially to the adventure, go for it. If not, no worries. If you want to but are struggling yourself, please don’t. Your kind thoughts are enough.
Here it is again… gf.me/u/y46h5y
One last ask — are the Pootie Pad sisters still around? I will use some of the proceeds to purchase 2 new pads for the boys. If so, message me.
If you’ve read this far, thank you. I hope my many many words here let you experience some of the adventure. And this is only the first chapter:) I promise to hang out in the Pootie diaries and keep you updated.
