the feed @ blackchicken

Read part one and two of this story.

Over the years, Si had to learn to adapt to living with several different cats.  Each time a new cat joined our family, Queen Si managed to keep her place on her throne.  There were periods of adjustment.  These usually entailed several weeks of sleep being hijacked by the blood-curdling screams of feline warfare.  Despite the odds, Si always emerged from the battlefield victorious.  Within weeks, Si would once again be leading the daily line-up for rations and coveted treats.

Queen Si atop her throne

In 2005, our two-cat household instantly became a seven-cat household when we decided to adopt a fluffy and precocious stray that had been found in an abandoned refrigerator in the front foyer of our apartment building.  I suppose a start like that deserves a bit of an explanation.  Our landlord had been storing an old fridge and stove in the foyer of the building.  On his usual Monday morning visit, he noticed that the door of the refrigerator was shut tightly instead of propped open as he had left it. Upon opening the door, a shell-shocked – but, very thankful – cat leapt out from inside.  Now, the landlord had a bit of a soft spot for animals, especially cats.  He’d been known to let strays live in some dilapidated sheds in the backyard, and he proudly claimed to have rescued well-over sixty cats by whisking them away to a nearby shelter in his beat-up Cadillac chariot.

There was something about this stray, however, that made the landlord wait before taking her to the shelter.  She certainly was a beautiful cat, and her demeanour was perfectly Zen.  He figured she must have belonged to someone and wanted to try and find the cat’s owners.  There was an empty apartment in the building, so he set up the cat with its very own pad and enlisted the help of hubby and me to care for it.  Within a couple days, we had named her Bijoux and had decided that we’d like to adopt her if no one stepped forward to claim her.  So, that’s how Si gained a new sister – but, it wasn’t until a couple weeks later that we discovered that Bijoux was carrying four little ones who would soon shake up the homestead.

Mama Bijoux and the Itty Bitty Kitty Committee (2005)

Si, and her brother, Buddy (a stray who had moved with us from another city) soon found their quiet home invaded by the mischievous antics of Mama Bijoux and the Itty Bitty Kitty Committee.  Peanut, KatStevens, Screech, and Tink arrived in early February of 2005.  Now, Si had never spent any time around kittens – and she wasn’t too fond of chaos.  True to any great leader, Si valued order and stability.  As if sensing the potential danger from Si, Bijoux gave birth in our bedroom.  So, it was easy to keep Si away from the kittens when they were too small to even have a chance of defending themselves.  Once the kittens started getting more agile (and subsequently using us as unwitting jungle gyms in the middle of the night), we relocated them into the living room.  This was Si’s first paw-to-paw introduction with a miniature feline.  The kittens learned relatively quickly to avoid the big, grouchy one.  It only took one kitten’s curious advances toward Si, followed by a swift thud of the kitten’s head bouncing off the floor, for all the kittens to get message.  It was a knock-out, and Si continued her reign as the heavy-weight (literally) champion.  Eventually, stability and order was restored when the kittens found new homes.

Si had never really bonded with another animal, despite having lived with well over a dozen different cats.  Most cats learned very quickly to steer clear of Si.  Si was untouchable.  There would be no feline-to-feline cuddle sessions and if any cat dared to try and clean her, they were met with a deep growl and swift smack upside the head.  Yep, Si was a loner for all intents – that was until a spunky little stray named Kali joined our family.  Kali showed up in our backyard one day while we were barbecuing.  This oh-so-tiny stray cautiously approached, clearly looking for something to eat.  It was easy to tell that she was starving.  Try as we might, we couldn’t get close to her.  So, we tossed her morsels of food which she graciously devoured while keeping a suspicious eye targeted on both of us.

View from an office window

The next day while I was working in my home office, Kali came strolling along a fence outside my window, sat down and watched me.  I guessed she was wondering when we were coming outside for dinner time again.  So, I put out some kibble and water, and later that evening hubby and I constructed a make-shift house in the backyard for her. For several weeks we dutifully refilled Kali’s food and water dishes and tried to socialize her so that we could take her to a shelter.  Of course, it was during this time that we grew a fondness for her.  We also began to suspect that she had been horribly abused by her previous ‘caregivers.’  That’s when we decided that we couldn’t take a chance by letting her be adopted by a stranger who might not give her the same quality of care that we knew we could.  And besides, she was warming up to us – particularly hubby who you’ll recall is somewhat of a Cat Whisperer.

It was during an evening when we were taking our cats for a check-up at the vets that hubby looked out back and saw Kali laying down in her make-shift house while the rain poured down around her.  Hubby looked at me and said, “Can we keep her?”  Admittedly, I was reluctant because we had just lost a cat and also just said good-bye to the last member of the Itty Bitty Kitty Committee.  I swear Kali heard hubby’s plea because when I looked outside at her, she was looking directly at me with such haunted eyes that there was no way I could reject hubby’s pleas. “If you can get her into a cage and to the vets for a check-up, we can keep her.”  I’m pretty sure hubby was out the door with cage in hand before I even finished my sentence.  Astonishingly, Kali climbed right into the cage.  To this day, I’m sure she planned the whole thing.  So after a visit to the vets, Kali came home.

Kamikaze Kali

Now Kali isn’t the smartest kitten of the litter – or at least that’s what she wants you to think.  So, when she met Si she didn’t quite understand that it wasn’t a sign of affection when Si swatted her across the head.  Kali was relentless with Si.  She clearly understood that Si was the alpha cat, and she seemingly wanted to be her right-hand feline.  Wherever Si would go, Kali was in tow.  When Si would fall asleep, Kali would quietly nuzzle up next to her.  On more than one occasion Si would wake up from a slumber to see this unrelenting cat peacefully curled up beside her – TOUCHING HER NO LESS.  And each time Si would have this “WTF?!?” expression on her face.  She would hiss and quickly retreat from Kali, yet when next she fell asleep, Kali would be right back at it trying to win over the Devil Cat. I’m pretty sure that Kali crossed the line when she decided to start bathing Si.  Si would have none of that and she’d lunge at Kali pinning her down so she knew that was NOT OKAY.  Kali was also always trying to play with Si.  Kali was a kitten after all, but Si was well into old age and play time was a rare and short occurrence.

Kali and Si (2010)

For the most part, Si grew to tolerate and even like Kali. I would wager to say that Kali was Si’s only feline friend.   If you’ve ever seen the Looney Tunes episodes featuring the big tough bull dog, Spike and the scrappy annoying little dog, Chester – that was Si and Kali.   Yes, Kali annoyed Si, but she also gave Si purpose again.  Si changed Kali, too.  Slowly, Kali began to learn how to toughen up and not be so fearful of every noise or person.  It was after Si passed away that these qualities began to emerge more vibrantly from Kali.

Stay tuned for the conclusion of Si’s story in About a Cat…

M. xo