And one of him hanging out with Quigley at the window.  They like to sit there and watch the leaves get blown around.  Quigley really enjoys Matthew and will give him baths sometimes.  He also doesn’t mind that sometimes Matthew will grab his ears or flop on top of him.

He’s a good cat.

When I went to get a closer look this little guy came out and began rubbing up against me like I was his long lost friend.  As I petted him I noticed he was not only thin (I could feel his ribs) but he also had some fresh cuts on him and no collar or tags either.

Since I wasn’t sure if he would let me take him inside I decided I would at least set out a bowl of food for him and some water.  I really shouldn’t have worried about it though because as soon as I got to the door he walked in like he had lived here all along.

The other cats didn’t seem to appreciate his presence though.  Misto hid, Wicket hissed and ran upstairs, Cooper sniffed at him and then hissed and backed off, but Zane, our cat who has no fear of anything, sniffed at the new guy until he got hissed at and then he just backed up and laid down like “It’s OK, I’ll stay over here so we can still talk”.  He even tried to bat a toy over to the new guy so they could play ball – the gesture wasn’t returned though.

We have decided that if we can’t find the owner of this pretty boy we will keep him and name him Quigley.  As of now Quigley is up in the painting studio with some wet food, some dry and a big bowl of water and seems to just be happy to be away from the great outdoors.  Zane is hanging out near the door wanting to hang out with the new guy, and the others are looking at us like “Why did you let that one in here?”

I hope we can find the owner, but I get a strong feeling that we have another mouth to feed from now on.

**UPDATE**

Quigley is hanging out in the painting studio right now to keep him away from the others.  When I walked in he was curled up on the shelf near the window enjoying the sunshine.  He barely moved but it was more out of being comfortable than anything else.  He drank about 1/4th of the water we put out for him (I refilled it) and has eaten some of the dry and wet food too.  Seems like all he really needs is a steady supply of food, a good brushing (and a bath) and a neutering which will cost $85.00

**UPDATE 2**

Well, no microchip and the vet says he’s about nine months old.  Handled the drive really well but is now conked out under the easel.   Guess it’s all up to the fliers now

Yes, they sleep like that a lot.  Matt and Coop are buddies, which is kind of nice since Coop is only a few months old and that means Matt will have him around for a good long while, God willing.

She was right too.  Zane gets into enough trouble for at least five cats and when caught does he show any remorse?  Not one bit.  In fact, if anything he just makes a mental note about not getting caught the next time.

Cooper on the other hand is the good little mama’s boy.  He likes to curl up with the wife and purr.  Most of the trouble he gets in is because he will follow and join Zane in whatever mischief is brewing.  Only the fact that he is about half Zane’s size keeps him from causing as much trouble as his big brother does.

The funniest thing though is Cooper’s favorite toy – a cube of ice.  Cooper discovered how fun they were when a cube bounced out of the ice dispenser while I was filling a glass.  As soon as it hit the floor he pounced on it only to have it go flying away from him, and that began the grand game of Cooper sliding across the floor to get the ice cube, and it sliding away from him and Zane will join in too.  It’s like a game of kitten ice hockey

Now, any time put a glass in to get some ice I get two tiny faces staring up at the ice dispenser waiting for that small bit of frozen joy to come out.

It’s been a quite a few weeks since I last posted anything and a lot has happened in that time, so I will try and address it all in the order things happened.  That’s usually the best way, start from the beginning and  go until you reach the end but a lot of stuff has happened including new additions to the household, computer repairs, holidays, new jobs and a new place to live and all the things that go with moving in.

First off, we landed in New Mexico without incident.  No flat tires, exploding engines or attacks by zombies or liberals (though often you can’t tell the difference).  The new house is nice enough, everything in here is builder grade so it’s a place that I keep looking at and thinking things like “If we were to rip out that pony wall in the kitchen, we could move the cabinets out further…”  so maybe if it turns out we will be staying on a more permanent basis and decide to buy something, this rental place could be our first home.  What a concept,  kind of stunning really!

Speaking of which, this is the view we get from our house.

The place is pretty nice but we’ve had a few problems right off the bat.  The people who lived here before us were slobs of the utmost degree and apparently had a hamster that they allowed to go anywhere it wanted.  We had to pull out the oven to have the igniter replaced.  It’s a gas oven – one of the things I would change if this place was ours.  Anyway, as we pulled it out I discovered that while the rental agents did have a cleaning crew come in, apparently they only cleaned what was in plain sight.  Behind the stove was a huge collection of trash, dirty laundry (yes, and I have no idea how it got there) dirty dishes and silverware and, worst of all, the entire area was covered in hamster droppings.

I cleaned it all up and later called the agent about what I found and was given the old “Oh, gee we are so sorry…” which generally means they aren’t sorry at all and they wish you would quit calling them.   Now, if this were the only problem I would most likely let it go and get on with things, but it’s just one of quite a few.  The sliding glass door has those blinds that you pull to cover the door and keep the neighbors from seeing into your house except in our case half of them are broken or missing along with the pull rod.  The oven door gasket vents heat so much that it makes the knobs on the stove very hot to the touch, the washer smelled like urine when we moved in (bleach helped with that) and the dryer takes two cycles to dry a load – and it’s a gas dryer.  It’s been two weeks since I told them about this and still nothing has been done.

I am now slowly working up to a war stance on things.  They are going to try and fix the dryer but they said if I want to put my own dryer in that’s fine – but I have to store the owners dryer here.  I told them that the leasing agreement says nothing about storage for the owners stuff and if I move it out then she needs to find a place for it – or, I can store it here for $25 a month.   We’ll see what they say.

The new job is going pretty good.  Not what I went to college for, but right now I am just happy to have an income.  I’ll be in training for a month more and then it’s onto the production floor where, with the bonuses I can earn, I could double my salary which would be very nice indeed.

Finally, we added a couple of new additions to the family.  We were over at PetsMart and wandered by the adoption center and fell in love with a couple of boys that were there, Zane and Sam.  We filled out all of the paperwork and decided to hold off on taking them home because Sam was feeling a little sick that day and had diarrhea and the adoption center wanted to make sure he was OK before letting us take him.  Well, they found out that everything wasn’t OK with Sam, he has a neurological disorder and he’ll need special care and a very attentive family.  Luckily for him his foster mom has fallen in love with him and one of her cats has taken to mothering him so I think he has found his forever home.

As for Zane, well we got him and found a little brother for him named Cooper.  Cooper is about half of  Zane’s size but you wouldn’t know that from the way he goes after Zane.  Right now I can hear the two of them upstairs thundering around their room playing keep-away or wrestling, or just running because they love to run.

This is Cooper

And this is Zane

There’s lot’s more to catch everyone up on, but for now I think I have rambled enough for one day.  Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and that the New Year brings better times for you.

I think she’s pretty happy with it.

Click to embiggen

Her favorite thing was to keep me company while I worked away at the computer.  If I was too busy to pet her she would grab my hand and pull it to the top of her head to get a scratch.  Her other favorite spot was curled up on the back of my chair and leaning against my neck. She was my very personal neck warmer.  I would call her “Quazo-bear” because she was like a big fluffy teddy bear and was always wanting to be held.  Her favorite way was to be held over one shoulder like you would if you were burping a baby, I think she like the view from up there.

She would have made a wonderful mother.  She mothered the other cats we have and often broke up the fights they would get into.  She had a mouse toy for a while that she would carry around with her, clean and then sleep with.  She loved everyone and never once hissed or tried to scratch, even when being given a bath the worst she would do is give a sad little meow to say “Why are you doing this to me?”

I wish I could have done more to save her.  I wish that somehow I could go back in time to the alley I found them in and get her and her sister before they were so malnourished that the vet was surprised they were still alive. She was so tiny that once I lost her because she had crawled under the blankets on the bed and I couldn’t tell her lump from the natural folds in the sheets.

When I found her and her sister Misto they were in an alley and Quazo came out and meowed at me.  It was almost like she was saying “You’re going to take me home now, OK?”  I picked her up but she started squirming and wanted down.  I found out why when she, a kitten only a few weeks old, led me to her sister who was hiding in the trash.  Neither of them had any fur from the neck down, they had so many fleas that they had chewed off all their fur trying to get rid of them.  I took the to the vet a few days later once they had been eating had had plenty of water.  He looked at them and declared that he had no idea how they were still alive considering how malnourished they were.

Once, when they were very young kittens, I woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of scratching by the bed.  I looked down and saw Quazo’s furry little butt sticking out of my sock drawer.  I reached down, removed her and closed the drawer only to be woken again by even more frantic scratching.  Wondering why she was wanting to get to my footwear I opened the drawer again and out popped Misto.  The two of them then ran off to play in other parts of the apartment and I went back to sleep with a smile on my face.

I know that her diabetes had something to do with her all too short life and I did all that I could do to make the time she was here a wonderful time for her.  All I can do now is look at an empty chair where she would sleep and know that it will always be empty.  There will be other cats, probably dogs too, but she and Misto were my very first pets that I had on my own and that hole will never be filled.

This is how I will remember her.  Furry, rolly polly, and a bundle of love.  She was special and I thank God for giving her to me.