This is them, my two kids,
Roula and Thina. In this picture they were about 10 weeks old, two or three weeks after I
got them in the summer of '96. They're half of quadruplets, one of their brothers lives
with two other cats with a friend of mine, whose sister is the mom of the biological
mother of the litter of four. Genealogy is tricky, isn't it? I have no idea what happened
to Brother#2, I heard a rumour he was adopted as well.
Originally, I had planned to adopt only one. Actually, not even that: my landlord of that
time didn't allow any pets in the apartment. Until I saw the little critters for the first
time when they were only two weeks old. Roula, still nameless then and hardly bigger than
a mouse, looked so funny with that red streak on her forehead. It took me less than a week
to decide that the landlord could put his contract where the sun doesn't shine, I was
going to have a kid. Er, cat. But being a working mom, it hardly seemed fair to leave the
little one all by herself for most of the day, so it was an easy decision to adopt both
sisters. I haven't regretted it for one second since then.
They're quite little, really. They don't look anything like their one brother, who is a giant of a tom, heavy too. Thina is the most slender one, Roula is a compact little feline. Thina's fur also is slightly longer than her sister's, and somewhat softer. Both of them have a screwed up "colour scheme", as if they couldn't decide what colour they wanted to be. Roula's left side has large portions of ginger through the overall black/gray/white, including an entire paw. Thina's got specks of ginger all over her. I suppose they're basically tabbies, with latent ambition of being torties. Maybe they take after their mom, not really knowing what they want, or wanting to be a little of everything...
Thina's very talkative. She starts giving me an
account of her day as soon as I come home from work in the evening. She meeps and mews
incessantly, and expects replies, too. Naturally, I'll oblige -in any of four languages,
including Cat.
Roula is more of a serious one. She gives me a deep "hello" when I come home,
and that's it. She's quite shy, too. You wouldn't know from just looking at her (with that
superior "Bast was my aunt" look on her face), but whenever there are visitors,
she hides behind a curtain or on top of a bookcase for at least 24 hours or the end of the
visit, whichever comes first.
They both love sleeping on my lap, in fact, they have been taking turns while I was
writing this. Both are also expert purrers. And something of amateur skin removers: they
like to "knead" my arms, unfortunately they try that with extended claws.
They're model children, really. They don't break things, aren't fussy about their food
(well, usually) and don't use their claws on the furniture (just on me). And they really
love their mom, and vice versa, of course!
A while ago, Thina got ill. Didn't eat, didn't drink, didn't talk. She nor her sis had
ever gotten sick before. It got me worried enough to take her to the vet in the middle of
the night. Well, he wasn't too pleased about being called out of bed (it was only 11!).
Turned out she had nothing worse than a severe cold. The guy also insisted she had
to be older than two, he was sure of it. He was also quite sure she had to be preggers,
because of some bite marks in her neck. Thank god we have more than one vet nearby,
because that one won't be seeing me again any time soon. Nobody tells a mother
she doesn't know the age of one of her own kids.
As for the bite marks, well... Thina and Roula never leave the house, so they couldn't
have come from a tom. Not that I ever would have thought that, after all, I have seen on
more than one occasion how Thina gets them. Every so often, the two of them get
"playful", and one thing leads to another, until Roula feels like playing the
tom and actually mounts her sis, biting her neck and humping away merrily. Yep, my cats
are dykes, too. I suppose they really do take after their mom...
Athina died during the night of 27-28 January 2000. |
