Gone to California….

Paddington is an awesome cat, so of course he has a MySpace. Here is an early version, before he moved to San Francisco. I hope you can read this screen shot of Paddington’s profile. It’s cute and funny, written with a little help from Laura and Ryan.

It’s getting awful lonely around here.  Everyone is moving to California.  First Paddington, then Laura and Ryan. Paddington, an awesome cat with a big personality, spent one wonderful year with us before his owner Cynthia claimed him in June.  Now he’s living in San Francisco. Laura and Ryan have moved farther south to Huntington Beach, Surf City USA.

Some of you may already have read the tale of Paddington and Bones, a pair of Turkish Angora litter mates.  Five years ago in Lawrence, Kansas, my daughter’s friend Amber rescued their mother, who turned out to be pregnant (shocking, isn’t it?) Amber very cleverly and diabolically emailed a photo of the newborn pair of kittens to my daughter and her roommate Cynthia. It was love at first sight.  My husband and I were the lucky chumps who got to transport the little darlings by car to Boston.  They actually were quite good travelers. For more of this fascinating tale and cute photos, you can click on The Brothers Angora, Chapter One.

This is the last time I saw Paddington. He was on his way to the airport.

The brothers lived together for two years in Boston, but split up after their owners’ graduation.  The boys were reunited last year, so we were briefly a three-cat family, although Malcolm refused to have anything to do with them.  When Paddington left,  Bones called forlornly for him.   Separated again? He could hardly believe it.  Who would he sleep with? Who would he tussle with?  (Yes, there was some sibling rivalry.)

Paddington, left, and Bones, before Paddington moved to San Francisco.

Last week, Laura and her boyfriend moved to California, too, leaving Bones behind for now.  Bones wanders around the house yowling for them. I feel like  yowling, too.

The many faces of Paddington, who has one blue and one amber eye, which is a trait often found in Turkish Angora cats.

The Brothers Angora, Chapter One

Bones and Paddington quickly make themselves at home wherever they are. Bones, on the left, is deaf, a trait that appears in Turkish Angoras. Paddington, on the right, has one blue and one amber eye, a frequent and even favored Turkish Angora characteristic. Turkish Angoras are known as the “swimming cats.” Bones loves standing in water in the sink.

We parents do crazy things for our children.  My husband and I volunteered to help our daughter move her belongings to a new apartment with two roommates while we visited her in Boston, where she attended college.

Usually, we flew, but this time we were bringing some small pieces of furniture, a computer and housewares in our minivan from Kansas City — a round trip of about 3,000 miles.  Our daughter gave us a list of what she needed.

“Oh, can you bring our kittens?”

“You have kittens?”

“Amber’s cat had kittens.”

My daughter.  What a jokester!  “Don’t they have homeless kittens in Boston?”

“These are Turkish Angora kittens.”

“Hmmm.” I didn’t know what a Turkish Angora kitten was, but how could that be important?

“And they’re rare,” she continued.

I sighed.  Still not impressed.  My daughter wasn’t going to be breeding and showing cats.

 

Paddington and Bones find a warm spot on the dashboard to enjoy the drive to Boston from Kansas City. Here they are somewhere in upstate New York.

“And we promised Amber we’d take them.”

I pondered this information.  “No.”

A cry of dismay. “We’ve already named them.  Cynthia’s is Paddington, and mine is Bones.”

Well,  now that they had names, they were claimed.  It was settled then.  We’d be driving a pair of two-month-old kittens to Boston. No problem.  My husband and I didn’t cave in quite that easily, but it was still embarrassingly fast. (Part of the negotiations involved a small ball python.  Another story.)

On a break from classes, my daughter flew to Kansas City to get the kittens from Amber.  When my daughter walked in the door of our house with one crying kitten clinging desperately to her shirt, she looked miserable.  Motherhood can be hard.  But the kittens quickly adjusted to their new temporary home. They didn’t mind being confined to a bedroom and bathroom area, because our old cat, Malcolm, didn’t much like them in his territory.  Soon, the kittens discovered how much fun it was to pull all of the toilet paper from the roll and shred it.

“We’ll keep the cats in a carrier,” I said, when my husband wondered whether it was safe to have kittens running loose in the car.

Cat owner Amber emailed this photo to my daughter and her roommate. They were hooked when they saw the snuggling newborn brothers, which they immediately named Bones and Paddington. The brothers’ mother was rescued from a home of a woman who had more than forty cats.

Confining the kittens lasted for about the first half-hour of the trip. The meowing was unbearable, so I released them. Once freed, they leapt and sailed around the minivan.  They watched from the windows and slept some times on the dashboard.  Online, I’d found motels that would take cats, and the kittens were surprisingly quiet when we settled in each night.   They snuggled next to us.  We also spent some nights with friends along the way.  With the kittens in the car, we stopped only for gas until we reached each night’s destination.

We moved our daughter into her apartment in the Fenway Park area. (Another story.)  There was hardly room for her and her two roommates to move around.  The kittens quickly made themselves at home, climbing above the clutter. I missed our furry passengers on the drive back to Kansas City.   To be continued.