Right. Kitty spam

[spacedlaw]

Let me warn you: This post will be heavy on pictures.
I encountered loads of cats while I was visiting Minnesota in June and I took pictures of nearly all of them...

Let's start with a little Magic:



Magic is a F1 (early generation) Bengal: His dad was a leopard. The poor mite has been much abused in his early existence and even got totally declawed. Before encountering Lorraine, he did not know love from a human and did not think he could trust one. He's learning slowly but surely and his curiosity is bound to get him out of his shell. Look at him tring to check me out from behind the screened door...

Lorraine loves Bengal cats and she has rescued a few. But before she started doing that, she actually got two of her own.

Meet Venus Seaweed:



And Miss Malena Mim:



I was surprised to find Venus much more playful than she was last year. More cuddly too. Last year, when I visited, Mim was a kitten and she was the little devil going after any toy. Or any makeshift ones, like... human beings. She used to climb me like a tree. A not altogether enjoyable experience, especially when you are in your pyjamas. Does wake you up though...

But Lorraine's heart is vast and when I was there she had also rescued some kittens - had them spayed and got them their shots and found families for them and their mother too!

There were two little grey ghosts:





and a little red one:



I also met "The Royals", a couple of Bengals that were fostered at Lorraine's house. She has since then decided to adopt them because if the female is fairly trusting, the male, who is an F2 Bengal and therefore still pretty close to the wild, is not. In fact he hissed at me mightily when I tried to take pictures of him. They cannot be separated so, after agonizing over the matter of sending them to a shelter or not, Lorraine decided to keep them.

Meet Queen Mab:



And King Lear:



(Tuna did manage to capture his attention long enough for me to take a not so blurred picture of him)

But Lorraine's house wasn't the only cat-packed house I visited while I was there.

Meet Princess the Fey:



Semi feral, Princess loves her cuddles. But she loves them on her own terms and she is known to bite the hand that strokes her to let her wishes known. And she knows what she wants and how to get it too: At some point, she ambushed me for a cuddle and covered me with white hair...

Meet Coconut:



Coconut thinks she doesn't get enough cuddles, that the other kitties are getting far more than she does. She could well have a point, the poor mite...

Because there is also Zoe, of the beautiful blind eyes:



I had shared a room with Zoe last year and I had come to realize that this kitty was starved for cuddles. Back then, she slept ON my neck. Whatever way I would turn in my sleep, she would be there, purring madly.
This demanding thing seems to be even worse now that she has become blind (an effect of excessive blood pressure apparently). I had the most tremendous problems taking pictures of her because she always wanted to get closer to me, to snuggle up. Needless to say, she got tons of cuddles from me (and I plenty of grey hair all over my clothes, I spent most of my stay with sticky tape in my hand).

A real heart throb...