Archive for July 14th, 2008

Lorisidae Catus?

July 14th, 2008 by garrison

Our friend Martha sent an e-mail a last month explaining:

I responded to a loud meowling out my kitchen window. She stood there plaintively, a petite grey and black striped cat with yellow eyes on my ten dollar ikea chair. When I opened the window she leapt up, meowling more loudly. I let her in the basement-  she was probably pregnant and too clean to be one of the cats who lives behind us.

And I went to bed- it had been a long day.

Early Saturday I went downstairs to find kittymom had made it through- she came out and drank some water after two days. Her litter (i thought there were three of them) were tucked under the tub and I could only hear their squeaks.

It turns out there were eight tiny mewlers (donner, blitzen, oh- wrong story) in that litter; although I’m told the young mother clearly knew her way around the neighborhood and cared for her babies, after seven days, she disappeared without a trace.  Rather than call the FBI’s missing person’s unit, Martha and her husband Jim carefully cut into their bathroom wall and extracted the hungry little buggers.

Lysa and I had been talking about adding  another cat to our furry tribe, so we promptly sent a response to say that we would be thrilled to adopt one. Last night we drove out to Queens and met Martha, Jim, and their next door neighbors, all were exhausted from meeting the demands of eight diminutive despots. Through photos and e-mail, Lysa had more or less determined which one she wanted and upon her arrival it promptly fell asleep in her arms, sealing the deal.

Social obligation precluded an immediate retreat, and the time we spent believing we were enjoying the company of friends, food, and drink became the perfect opportunity for another of the sneaky little bastards to fall asleep on me. Fortunately we escaped before being talked into a third.

Now we’re the proud parents of two adorable fuzzy mutant Felinae/Lorisidae cross breeding experiment. If you can’t picture a loris, think of a bush baby (Galagidae) or aye-aye (Daubentoniidae); if you have no idea what such creatures are, just think of little wet nosed night monkeys, or look at the photos below.

Tres adorablesSize referenceThe circle of litter.They are _always_ hungry!Little pink tongue.