Friday, March 30, 2012

Tweets Delivers and the Bette Davis Geneology

Just after Baby had her kittens up at the park (and here), Tweets had hers in our neighborhood.  I could tell when I saw her at Sammy's the other night, that she was sporting a new trim waistline.

A very pregnant Tweets

Tweets now, en guarde
I wasn't sure where she had them until I saw her guarding a gate at the empty lot across the street and a couple of doors down from Sammy's - a lot that at the moment is filled with yellow wild flowers, as it is every year at this time.  The owner sends a bulldozer to bulldoze once a year when it gets overgrown.  I just pray he waits long enough for Tweets to wean her kittens.

The field where Tweets chose to have her kittens


Tweets was Bette's kitten from two summers ago.  I only met her last summer, but I got the story form Sammy's daughter.  Tweets was an adult when I met her, and I was sure she had been spayed, like Amber, by someone else in the neighborhood, because she never got pregnant.  I was dead wrong and was shocked to find her pregnant this year.  We blew that one royally.  But we can't say that, because it's life, and new life at that, and it is a gift, and we will welcome her kittens, and any and all kittens, and and any and all new life, as we welcome the spring flowers.

There was, until recently, another couple renting in our complex who were kind to cats.  We were sure they were the ones to spay Amber, and Tweets, but obviously we were wrong about Tweets.  And the thing is, we could have easily picked up Tweets and taken her straight in, because she is perfectly friendly; there would have been no need for a trap.

When Sammy's daughter comes to Cyprus she feeds the neighborhood cats, which many vacationers in Cyprus do, and lets them in her dad's house, which is how they get so friendly.  She asked me last summer, when she left, to look after Bette Davis, Bette's last litter, Theo and Minnow, and Bette's past kitten, Tweets.  Simultaneously, Sammy asked me to look after his pool while he was abroad, which is how the feeding station at Sammy's started. 

Meanwhile, back at our house, Amber had called our newly rented garden her own, and the more I got to know Bette and Amber, the more I began to suspect Amber had been one of Bette's kittens, from a litter even earlier than when Bette had Tweets. 

Bette Davis

Amber Davis??



But one day last summer, I went to feed the kittens, Theo and Minnow, at Sammy's, and both had disappeared, along with Bette.  It wasn't until many days later that I saw Minnow drag herself up to the feeding station with a broken leg and bite marks in her tiny neck.  Considering it an emergency, I picked her up and took her to the neighborhood vet, the one who does sheep and goats, and he told me while simultaneously talking on his cell phone, watching television, and examining Minnow on his waiting room coffee table,  that Minnow's leg was not broken.  Well, it was obvious it was!  So we then took her up to Niccosia to our wonderful vets George and Christina who recognized right away she had a broken leg. 

MInnow last summer with her broken leg; George and Christina,  our vets, said she looked like a little soldier coming back from war.  She deserves The Red Badge of Courage!

Minnow now, in an awesome photo taken by Nik.  She is still a very tiny, fragile cat

Here's a drawing I did of Minnow:

Minnow - Too Small to Catch


So that is how Minnow came to live with us.  I was on the lookout for Bette and Theo ever after, and I next saw Bette when she, late one night, dazed, stumbled up to our house drooling profusely and unable to eat, and we thought she had been poisoned.  We took her to an emergency vet in Limassol who told us it was a bad tooth, pulled it, and sent her home with us with a course of antibiotics.  So that is how Bette Davis came to take over the Master Bedroom.  BTW, When we took her in for spaying, we found out that she could be up to 4 years old, an astoundingly old age for a street cat!  Bette doesn't really get along with the other cats in the house, or take kindly to anybody getting on her bed, so we ration her time out of the bedroom.  Ahem.   Here's Bette :)




We had about given up on seeing Theo again when one day he leaped triumphantly over the fence into our yard, put himself under our feet so we constantly tripped over him, and now we are still tripping over him, only in our house.  :)

Theo "Underfoot", as Nik calls him :)  He's a real Mama's boy, but a tough, husky young cat, unlike his sister Minnow.  Theo is short for Thiriou - or strong beast, in Greek
Here is a drawing I did of Theo:

Sweet Theo


So, in review, we see that Tweets current litter, who we have not met yet, are Bette Davis' grand kittens, and Amber is Tweet's Aunt.  We think.  It's the best we can figure.

PS  One more thing about this family:  They all have an awesome left hook, claws like fish hooks, and an uncanny ability to get through a door before you can.  I dare anyone to try and beat them!!

Theo and MInnow sleeping together


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