Happy 5th Gotcha Day Annifursary to Freya & Heimdall!

Happy 5th Gotcha Day Annifursary to us!  Five years ago today, we were kittens at Salem Friends of Felines in Salem, OR.  We didn't know it then, but our lives were about to change drastically, and for the better!  SFOF is a wonderful no-kill shelter, and they have kitties in rooms where the public can come in and socialize with them, plus foster homes for those who need more direct socialization.

We loved being part of the kitten room clowder, but we were 3 1/2 months old and the oldest in the kitten room.  We really dreamed of a home of our own, like our other two siblings had.  They were adopted before our new purrents met us.  Instead of our current names, Freya was Furkins and Heimdall was Fonz.  Do we look like those names to you?  Our siblings also had names starting with F.

The day before we got adopted, Mommy had seen Heimdall's picture online on the Save A Cat game on Facebook.  It's a game that uses real shelter cats' profiles from Petfinder and donates ad-based revenue to the participating shelters.  She and Daddy had been thinking about getting one or two tuxedo kittens, but it was only two days after Skylar had passed and they weren't thinking about doing that right away.  Little did they know what Skylar and Lydia had planned for all of us!

Anyway, Mommy saw Heimdall's picture and noticed how much he looked like Skylar.  She went running out to Daddy and showed him the picture, then he searched for the rest of our biological family on Petfinder.  He found Freya's picture, and noticed right off how much she looked like Lydia!  The rest, as they say, is history!

Mommy and Daddy went down the next day and met us.  At first, we didn't want to interact with them, but then they found our favorite toys (a fleece wand and a feather wand) and played with us for a bit.  We were surprised, though, when Daddy came back in with a carrier and the lady who volunteered there.  The lady picked us up and put us in the carrier, with Daddy reassuring us and Mommy watching from outside the room.  We cried a bit, but once we got into the car Freya put her paws through the carrier mesh the whole way home.  Heimdall curled up against her in the back of the carrier.

We got our new names on the way home.  Mommy named Freya and Daddy named Heimdall, which is kind of cool because Daddy is Freya's person and Mommy is Heimdall's person.  That's the way everyone knew it was going to be, too, because Mommy was Skylar's person and Daddy was Lydia's.  So why wouldn't it be expected that the same would be true for us?  Freya is the Norse goddess of war and beauty, and Heimdall is the Norse god who is the guardian of the Rainbow Bridge.

Once we got home, we came out of our carrier with our tails and heads held high, exploring our new home with all the excitement and wonder that comes with kittenhood!  Our new family greeted us like long-lost friends, and we've been here ever since!

Remembering Skylar....

Skylar, there isn't a day that goes by that we don't think of you and how you lit up our lives.  I dreamt about you, and woke up feeling a presence behind me on the pillow.  No one was there, at least no one living, but I believe you came to visit us so I smiled and said hi to you.

In some ways, it doesn't seem like it could be five years since you left us.  In others, it seems like more than that because our lives have changed so much since then.  Your other mommy, Erin, and your little boy, JJ, are doing fine.  We know you loved them just as much as you loved your daddy and me.  We all tell JJ how you knew he was there before Erin did, and how you used to sit on Erin and purr at him.  I'm so glad that Erin could be with us when we said goodbye to you, hard as that was for all involved, including Dr. C.

You were one special boy, Skylar, and we cherish your memory and the memories of our time with you.  You were so full of life, even at the end when you were so sick.  You kept your word, sending us new twins in the form of Freya & Heimdall, who inherited the same respect from the others as you and Lydia had.  We see your influence in their lives every day, even though you never actually met them.  There's a reason we gave Heimdall your name as his middle name, because his personality matches yours in so many inexplicable ways.  He's sleeping on the computer desk as I'm typing this, dreaming away.

Carbon took over your role in the household when you left, and has become just as much the "bouncer" of the family as you were, keeping peace between the others, although always deferential to Rori, who is still our Big Kitty (alpha).

I'm sure you greeted my mom last year and are taking good care of her, along with the other furries she knew in life.  That gives me some comfort.  I know you're with your beloved sister Lydia, and the others who went to the Bridge.

We miss you so much, dear Skylar, but we're glad to have had the gift of knowing both you and your sister while you lived.  Thank you.

Love,

your mommy Karen.

Happy 10th Gotcha Day, Tabby & Carbon!

Happy 10th Gotcha Day to Tabby and Carbon!  This is a picture of them when they were just a few weeks old, after they came to live with Daddy.  They were in a free kittens cage in Clatskanie, OR, where Daddy grew up.  He and Mommy were driving through on their way to Long Beach, WA, for their first beach trip together, and Mommy saw a sign on the feed store billboard:  Free Kittens.  All the way down and all the way back, Daddy kept asking Mommy to help him remember to stop.  Sure enough, there were two little kittens in the cage on the porch!  Carbon was 5 weeks old and Tabby was 4 weeks old.

Needless to say, the rest was history!  Daddy picked up Carbon while Mommy picked up Tabby, then they switched after a few minutes.  Carbon threw up on the way home, but Tabby loved the trip, even looking out the side window and trying to climb on Daddy (who was driving).

Once at their new home, the little house in SE Portland, Tabby dove headfirst into Mommy's cake while Carbon curled up in Daddy's work boot for a nap!  Later on, after playing, eating, and using the litter box, it got really quiet in the house.  Daddy and Mommy noticed and started looking for the kittens.  They looked everywhere, to no avail, until Daddy had a brainstorm.  He opened the top two drawers of his dresser, and four blinking, sleepy eyes, along with two big yawns, greeted him!  The kittens had climbed up the back of the dresser using the drawers as stairsteps!

Daddy's a lifesaver!

Autumn writes:

We're so proud of our daddy!  We've been hearing little birdies cheeping in the fireplace for a few weeks now.  Our purrents said the birdies built a nest way up high in the chimney and the sounds were echoing down to us in the house.  Daddy put a big piece of cardboard across the opening so that we couldn't get to them and they couldn't get in the house itself, in case they came down that far.

A few days ago, I woke Daddy up trying to climb the fireplace screen to see if I could move that cardboard piece.  I could hear the birdies even clearer, and they made quite a racket!  Their nest fell down into the fireplace!  Our purrents put the junk mail in the fireplace instead of shredding it, but we haven't been able to light a fire for a while because of the nest.  That turned out to be very lucky for the little birdies!  There were four alive, and one that had been dead for a while.  The four live ones let Daddy pick them up (with gloves, of course) and put them in the cardboard base of a water bottle package.  They were flopping around and trying to fly, but couldn't yet.  Mommy says they'd just gotten their adult feathers but hadn't learned how to fly yet.  She said they looked like robins, and the nest was made of sticks.  I thought they looked like fun to play with, but Daddy said ikke (meaning no).

Daddy took them out and put them up on the top of the roof so the mama birdie could find them.  We heard them cheeping the next morning, so they survived until then and were calling for their mama.  We hope they're ok now and have learned to fly!  Please don't make anymore nests in our chimney, birdies!  Daddy's going to put a chimney cap on it so they can't get in.