Big Van Playing with Kittens?

I took a siesta this afternoon because it is inhumanely hot here.  So this evening when Nik got home, I was just waking up.

We have this huge awesome German made fan we use downstairs to keep cool.  We don't use air conditioning.  Hardly anybody uses air conditioning in Cyprus because electricity is so expensive.  It's always been expensive, but the costs have doubled in the last year, since the explosion at Evangelos Florakis Naval Base destroyed the nearby Vassilikos Power Station, the main power source on the island (by the way, the nearby fishing village mentioned in this article was us - hello).  Here's the aftermath of that.  Hmmm...

Our awesome fan

When I left the US nearly 7 years ago, I remember thinking electricity was the last great deal left in America - my power bill often being no more that 25-30 USD..  This was after gas went up in the US and it got ridiculously expensive to heat our homes.  Now I don't know.  Maybe electricity has gone up there.  But here it is insane.  You can expect to pay hundreds of Euros to cool your home.  So, no, we don't do that, and neither does anyone else, but perhaps the big chain stores and companies.

We have ac, but we don't use it.

So as I stumbled downstairs to make some coffee, our giant awesome German made fan was on and oscillating away, and it is as loud as all get out, so when Nik and our dog Muji walked in after taking a walk, and Nik started trying to tell me something, I was straining to hear what he was saying.  But it sounded a little bit like, "When Muji and I were walking tonight we saw Big Van over at Sammy's playing with two kittens."

Muji

Pretty sure I heard him wrong I asked, "I'm sorry, you saw Big Van...playing... with what?"

And sure enough he said two kittens.

There are still kittens at Sammy's - 3 we have seen - but we are pretty sure they aren't Tweets', because they are so young.  For the first time, I saw a black and white one over there yesterday that completely freaked out when I walked up on him.  Well, he surprised me, too, and he took off like a little wild man and went running up under Sammy's giant satellite dish,  overgrown with passion flower vine, and got all tangled up in the vine, freaked out some more, finally made his way out, and shot over the wall to the next door neighbor's garden like a tiny canon ball.  Phew!

So Big Van was playing with the kittens at Sammy's.  That is just amazing.  We have never seen him play. It has taken Moonpie all this time to begin playing since his alteration.  Oh, he's been affectionate, crawling into my lap and nibbling at my hands, and he has just begun playing a little dart and dash with me on the way to the feeding table in the morning at the park, but I have yet to see him play with another cat or kittens. 

Moonpie has grown increasingly affectionate since his alteration

So that Big Van was playing with tiny kittens is not only heartwarming, it is very surprising.  He truly is an altered cat!

Big Van wants to play with kittens, who knew?

We are so glad he has made some friends!