Felicity Banks

Spicy Kittens

June 5, 2023 at 11:59 pm (Cat pics)

Middle age has little in common with one’s twenties, except that both are times of reflection on one’s life and especially career:

“Is this how I want to spend the rest of my life?”

And, “If not, then how?”

My obsession with cats and especially kittens has remained a constant my whole life, and the experience of fostering Buttons, while often difficult physically (cleaning, even the lightest possible cleaning, is quite painful for me), was also fascinating and delightful. So perhaps it is worth doing again.

Anyhow, meet Cinnamon.

As you can see, Cinnamon is utterly terrified. That sweet little mite put up a good fight, though.

So how did I manage to acquire another spicy little friend to try to socialise?

Well, on Sunday Lizzie went to a local church youth group for the first time, so I hung around for a while to check it went well. It went very well. She immediately fell in with a girl who lives on a farm which turns out to have its own small colony of feral cats that they feed each night… including kittens.

They’ve tried to get help without success, so I spent some time (a) Negotiating with Chris (who is strangely reluctant to have more feral cats peeing on our bed and suchlike), and (b) Looking online for a way to get vet bills paid (for both neutering adults and socialising kittens) since I certainly can’t pay them myself.*

I have applied to be a volunteer foster carer for the RSPCA. It turns out they’re recruiting at the moment, which is rather excellent timing. I spoke to someone at the RSPCA today who said that yes, they’ll take any cats I bring in—and yes, there’s an excellent chance I could foster them myself.

Cinnamon is the runt of the litter, with 3ish siblings (or perhaps they’re from a different litter). I actually caught one of the others but I had Lizzie hold it in a shopping bag and it managed to escape out the top. Arg! Cinnamon also escaped, but was already inside the house so it was easier to re-catch him.

The owners will try to catch more tomorrow, and my nephew and Lizzie and I shall return on Wednesday. Buttons (our previous foster kitten) was unlucky enough to be an only child (or possibly an only surviving child), which is unhealthy for kittens and the main reason we couldn’t train Buttons to stop biting so much.

So, wish me luck!

(And no, fostering kittens doesn’t pay. But the RSPCA supplies their volunteers with food, litter, equipment, and vet care, which is excellent.)

*In other midlife-crisis news, I was fired this week. It was a babysitting job and the kid and the parent were both EXCELLENT (a rare combination) but the location wasn’t great. So when the kid’s schedule changed, I was semi-pleased to be fired. It is an opportunity for me to think carefully about what work I can actually DO and get paid for.