Darla!

Category: cats

I am 100%, undoubtedly, a crazy cat lady

There was a time back in elementary school when I found a little stray kitty at the school playground. Little me was sad for the poor kitty meowing around, so I took him (it was a male) to class and hid him under my desk. After school, I took him home riding an angkot (a small bus). My mother was super angry when I told her everything and sadly I had to let him go because there was no way that we could take care of him. He ended up becoming our casual pet; he roamed around the neighbourhood all day and he’d go back to our house to eat leftover food that we left for him in our backyard. Sometimes he’d nap there. When he finally grew up, he brought home a litter of kittens at one point. The kittens were his, apparently. I still don’t know about the mother. But the cats were gone one by one. I don’t know what happened to them. We eventually moved from the house.

I’ve gone a long way from there. Now, I can’t even listen to a kitten meowing without becoming full of tears. In fact, I’m on the edge of crying everytime I see a stray cat, especially if it’s skinny. I even put cats in my prayers every night. Does anyone else do that too?

Two weeks ago, Chop-Chop fell ill and I almost died of crying! I lost four cats during Nov ’13-Jan ’15 and the pain is something I don’t want to experience ever again. Chop-Chop’s symptoms matched those of Billy’s before he died three years ago. I was very worried when I found Chop-Chop vomitting and losing his appetite. I took him to the clinic as soon as possible and the vet told me that she couldn’t determine if it was a virus or merely a stomach bug just yet, so she gave him some antibiotics and vitamins and then I took him home. Thank goodness he got better in two days. He’s back to his old self now, chasing Jessi around and trying to fight her (she just wants to be left alone, Chops!)

To me, losing a cat is one of the most excruciating pains in life. I cried every night for over a week when I lost Molly. I’d do anything to keep my fur babies safe, healthy, and happy.

Dara | Bloglovin’ | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook

23 May 2016
How I Met My Cat

It was about half a month ago. As I was preparing to go tutoring at 2 pm, I heard a sad cry. It was a little black kitten in front of a vacant house across the street. I was already running late and I thought the cat mama was near, so I left the kitten there and went to Bandung.

However, when I came back home at 6.30 pm, the sky already dark and the rain pouring, the little kitten was still crying. At that time, its voice was already hoarse. I could tell that the poor thing was thirsty. But it was nowhere to be seen, just a voice cutting through the sound of raindrops. I couldn’t just stand there listening to that sad cry, so I grabbed my umbrella and a flashlight.

I found the little thing in the backyard of the same vacant house I had seen it earlier in the afternoon. He (it’s a male) was shaking and his eyes were all swollen shut. I took him home and put him in a cardboard box. I didn’t have kitten food, so I fed him Jessi’s food mixed with water. He ate noisily (nom-nom-nom) while Jessi kept a safe distance from the strange creature.

He’s so small!

My husband agreed that we could keep him for the night, then I had to search for the mother the next morning. We knew by then that the mother was the neighbourhood stray black cat that we occasionally fed. I didn’t find her the next morning, but I did find her with her band of kittens two days later. I presented the little kitten to his mother. They embraced. The mother licked him and licked him and licked him. . . . She kept licking and pushing him until he fell into the sewer and left him there crying once again. And I was like what.the.actual.heck. I took him back home and washed him clean. Then we (my husband and I) decided to keep him for good and name him Chop-Chop.

As we had already guessed, Jessi loathed him during his first days with us. There were a lot of hissing and growling and crying (on Chop-Chop’s side). Chop-Chop couldn’t even use his litter box (I keep his & Jessi’s apart) and he went everywhere: under our bed, under the cupboard, under my home office table, in the laundry basket. The house was a mess.

Then all of a sudden, they became BFFs, so far as destroying the curtain together. Now they nap together, play tag, run around the house and knock things off in the process. The house is still a mess, but it’s a happy mess now.

So without agenda, without any plan, we have two cats now. It’s been years since the last time I had kittens, I almost forgot how annoying kittens can be, moreover kittens with no mother around. Thank goodness, Jessi is willing to take care of Chop-Chop i.e. licking him and playing/teaching him how to fight. She’s a nice big sister. I love them both so much 🙂

He’s a biter, just like Jessi 🙂

Dara | Bloglovin’ | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook

8 February 2016
Fifteen Days with Jess

Today marks the fifteenth day Jess lives with us. It’s been a fun adventure so far. She’s super sweet and funny (here’s a hilarious Instagram video of when she didn’t want to stand up). It took her only three days to know the secret spots inside our house. For a used-to-be stray cat, she’s adjusting pretty well. But yesterday I found her inside a trash bin in our kitchen, looking for something to eat, even though her food bowl was not too far away from there and it was full with dry food. She used to live in the street and looked for food in people’s trash cans. Perhaps she still needs more time to love dry food.

She is really curious, if not nosy. She watches me while I’m doing the dishes, doing the laundry, cooking, putting my make up. She even waits outside the bathroom door whenever I take a bath. She constantly tries to get inside but I always lock the door. She will jump and follow me once I’m out of the shower. She really loves me.

But it is clear that she prefers Afief to me. There are days when she completely ignores me and keeps looking for Afief, who is at work. She won’t answer to me but voluntarily approaches him and naps on his lap while he’s on his laptop. Whenever he comes home after work, she will meow repeatedly and won’t stop until Afief pulls her up and hugs her. She is so spoiled by him.

We love her very much. She’s our little furry bundle of joy. She is still quite thin, but we will surely make her chubby 😉

5 March 2015
A New Family Member: Jess

I had been lonely since Miss Molly passed away. There were moments when I randomly burst to tears and cried for half an hour. After several weeks considering, we finally decided to adopt a new cat. We rescued this stray tabby female cat from my mum’s neighbourhood on Wednesday. We named her Jess, but we call her GoJess (like cheering her up: Go, Jess! Go, Jess!) The inspiration behind the name was, of course, Jess of New Girl. Why? Because she has quite long hair for a local cat and it reminds me of Zooey Deschanel’s hair (LOL. Can you believe it?)

She’s a little bit naughty and very active. At night, she likes to run around the house as if she’s chasing something that can’t be seen by us. (Yes, the thought of ghost has occured several times on our heads, but we’ve decided to ignore that thought.) At day, however, she likes to take a long, long nap. Like, all day.

If you think that we’ve forgotten about Molly since it took us less than a month to get another cat… No, we have not forgotten about her. I still love her very much. But, I think perhaps it would be better to channel all the love to another cat in need rather than crying myself to sleep every night. I buried Miss Molly under a window at my house and it has become my habit to look at it everytime I open/close the window. I still love Miss Molly very much, but I’d like to focus on moving on with Jess. Molly will always have a part in my heart.

23 February 2015