History of "my children's" Cats (Brandal, Megumi, Akemi, Ryoko)

And then, in 1995, we were joined by Brandal (Kung Fang van de Chippycats). He adopted Mei-lan as his meowmy, and proved to be an endless delight, especially to Gerda who still loves him more than any other of our Cats. He visited us lots of times, and always tried to make friends with our Old Ladies, Pooky and Siru, who -I am sorry to say- were not much charmed by such a boisterous youngster. The result was that we ourselves hesitated to be adopted by Kittens of our own..

Brandal

In October 1995 Mei-lan, having started to live on her own in a room in Rotterdam in August, discovered that human companionship is just not the same as feline. Whereas human roommates are always away during weekends or not there when you need them, cats and especially Siamese are always there for you. So we consulted FELIKAT's Kittenboard, and visited the cattery "van de Chippycats" owned by Dr. A.J. Berkel in Wormer in the province of North-Holland. We were welcomed by a host of Siamese, and Norwegian Forestcats, who were all very curious who these strangers might be. Mei-lan was immediately taken by Kung Fang, a Redpoint (in America this is called Flamepoint, I think) male. His litterbrothers and sisters all had Chinese names. Some like Yu Lan, one of his sisters, real but some, like Kung Fang, taken from the menu of a Chinese restaurant nearby. Mei-lan decided to give him the Indonesian name of Brandal, which when applied to chili paste means very sharp/hot in Indonesian, but when applied to persons means the naughty, the mischievous one.

Brandal spent the first few days of his life with Mei-lan not in her room in Rotterdam, but at our home in Leiderdorp. Having come from a home with lots of cats to play with, he naturally also tried to seduce our old ladies Pooky and Siru into playing with him. He hopped after them with lopsided jumps, tried to touch them gently on the back with a v e r y careful paw, even uttered the crooning sound his furmother used to call the kittens, but no dice. Siru just hissed threateningly when he came too near, but Pooky -apparently having completely forgotten the miserable days Manja made her live through before she discovered Golda as her refuge- made it her job to chase him through the whole house, running him into corners where she sat fixing him with a jaundiced eye and daring him to escape past her. This did not bode well for our own plans for new kittens. And we had so hoped that new young 'uns would bring some fresh life into our cat scene!

Brandal took wonderfully well to his new life with Mei-lan in her room. Most of her housemates loved cats too, and -despite initial misgivings: those creepy, aggressive Siamese, you know- Brandal was an unqualified success with most of them. He developed one deplorable habit however. His way of getting attention consisted of trying to remove the pictures from the wall, and actually sweeping bric-a-brac and books from the shelves. All this with a face that expressed the challenge: "Well do something about it, then at least you will be paying attention to meee!" He considered our own home -where he and Mei-lan stayed quite regularly- as his own, and didn't desist from trying to get the old ladies to play with him. Otherwise he was an ideal guest, who knew when to obey strict edicts and when not. He had one special "thing", an old shawl of Mei-lan's which she used to line his carrying basket with, and which he used to drag out of the basket to every place where he wanted to lie down. This was quite a funny sight: a small kitten determinedly dragging quite a large shawl everywhere, more often than not falling over his own feet whenever he trod on the shawl.

At first he had a voracious appetite, he ate almost everything. Lettuce, pepperoni, ham, cheese,fruits, etc. He even drank tea, when it had cooled off that is. We think he picked this up when he was a very small kitten at the Berkels', notwithstanding the doctor's assurances that the kittens were not allowed ON the dinner table. Immediately afterwards he chuckled quite evilly telling a story about one of the kittens taking a flying leap from somewhere else and landing in the middle of his dish of -you guessed it- tomato soup. His lusting after non-catfoods has tapered off a bit with the years, but he still feels that he should share everything we eat, he must at least be offered some titbit of it just to be able to decide whether to partake of it or to decline.

As Mei-lan is living in a town apartment in Rotterdam Brandal is not used to being outside, and he simply loves being out in the garden when staying with us in Leiderdorp. Climbing trees especially! Jeroen was so taken with Brandal that he decided to put himself up for adoption by a Siamese kitten too.

Megumi

Jeroen had very definite wishes, he wanted a lilacpoint Siamese female, so we had to consult Felikat's Kittenboard again. It took us to the same province, Noord-Holland, but this time to Oostzaan, the cattery "van de Elsekatjes", owned by Mrs. van Elsland. Here we found Lindsay van de Elsekatjes, who as you can see had a beautiful ice-white overall colour, and very delicate lilac points (in the picture she's three months old). He decided he didn't like the name Lindsay, and rechristened her to Megumi, a heroine of his from some Japanese Manga strip.

Megumi entered a household with lots of mainly male visitors, who used to enter the room crying out loud: 'Hi Megumi, how are you! Come and play with us!' No wonder that she got used to running away, and hiding under Jeroen's bed as soon as the doorbell rang. Her favourite plaything was rather peculiar too, a wire coathanger, which she used to drag and carry around the room, sometimes growling ferociously if she thought someone was about to take it away from her.

Megumi is not as used to our home in Leiderdorp as Brandal is: she only visits us when Jeroen is on vacation, and during New Year's Eve, because of the huge quantity of fireworks being used in Jeroen's neighbourhood. The one we live in is much quieter, and besides Jeroen is roaming all over the city from midnight until the wee hours of the morning, and he prefers Megumi to be with people during the time that big bangs are produced everywhere. A disadvantage is that Megumi every time she stays with us needs a few days to remember that she's welcome here too, and to get used to a l l those s t r a n ge cats roaming our house. Although very attached to Jeroen Megumi is quite a bitch (, what a word to use for a cat, eh?), and as soon as any of our cats show their interest in making her acquaintance -to which they have a perfect right, it is t h e i r territory, isn't it- she gets quite aggressive and quite scared too. Then she hides in one of the many hiding places in our house, and only comes forth for food and water, and for the litterbox I'm very relieved to say.

In the summer of 1997 Megumi had an accident at Jeroen's, and the vet thought it necessary -in spite of our misgivings- to immobilize her left front paw by taping it because one of her fingerbones had been broken. Initially she applied a bandage to prevent Megumi from standing on it and to make the swelling go down. After this she planned to tape her paw. Megumi made short shrift of the bandage, so Jeroen had to visit the vet again the next day. The swelling had almost disappeared, so the definite taping was applied. This too Megumi did not like at all! Such a strange appendage to her left paw, she hated it, and quite determinedly set out to destroy this too. She wounded herself quite severely in getting rid of it, so within three days there we were back at the vet's again to get the last remains of the bandage removed. Her left paw looked horrible: at least three long and deep slashes made by her own fangs, and she couldn't -and still can't- retract her thumbnail completely. The wounds had to be anointed three times a day with a salve, that took away the itch and precipitated the healing, so she wouldn't keep the wounds open by her constant licking. Jeroen didn't have the time, so Mama sacrificed her summer vacation to hold and soothe Megumi while Daddy applied the salve very carefully and tenderly, but it hurt anyhow and to this day Megumi is a bit afraid of me. We spent two or three weeks doing this three or four times a day, every day.

Jeroen wanted to have a litter by Megumi, so I consulted the Felikat secretary of the pedigree for a suitable partner. We were recommended one Ramon van Diaspora, a seal tabby(lynx)point Siamese. Ramon and Megumi took to one another, and on November 7, 1997 Megumi gave birth to three kittens, assisted by Jeroen -the first one, Ryoko- by me -the second one, nameless- and all by herself the third one, Akemi- after we had both fallen asleep exhausted as we were. We suppose that the numerous visitors to the 'woman in childbed' -Megumi didn't seem to mind, she took excellent care of herself and the kittens and looked radiant like the queen she was- had something to do with that. She'd spent such a long time at starting labours for another one that we had the vet come over, and have a look at her and the kittens. He gave her an injection to speed up delivery of the third one, and sadly informed us that one of the kittens had a split palate, i.e. the one I had helped delivering. I spent the night in the lying-in room, woke up at seven in the morning, looked at the litter and said: "My God there are three of them now." Whereupon Jeroen took a look, sat back, knuckled his eyes, and said: "Let's just make a new start.....you're right, there are three of them now!"

Notwithstanding my advice -after having consulted experts, who were all of the opinion that she had little chance or none to survive- to Jeroen to help the little "nameless" over the Rainbow Bridge, he wanted to try. For this he had to feed her with a pipette as -due to the opening in her palate- she couldn't get enough vacuum to maintain her grip on Megumi's nipple. She drove her mother quite crazy with her pitiful cries of hunger, and that's when Megumi developed the habit to dump the kittens with Jeroen as soon as they started to be too much trouble. She seemed to have boundless faith in Jeroen's ability to solve every problem concerning the kittens. After a second day of constant care and worry he phoned me and said he'd decided to follow my advice after all, and would I come and drive him to the vet with "Nameless", whose belly had turned blue and who was to weak to even cry anymore. As I felt a special bond with this kitten, I quite egotistically told him to ask his mother, I simply didn't have the heart or the courage for it anymore.

Except for this habit of dumping the kittens with Jeroen, when they got to be too much trouble Megumi was an excellent mother, when she didn't 'delegate' her responsibi- lities to Jeroen, that is. The two remaining kittens, Ryoko and Akemi , developed in a satisfying way showing even then their differences of character. Akemi is a bit braver than Ryoko, but very calm about it, while Ryoko is a 'tomboy', trying to climb everything, finding holes where no one thought they existed, and gnawing on her fur when she has an itch, which is responsible for the -sometimes- deplorable state her coat is in. When they both were still with Jeroen, they had the mock fights all littermates have: confronting one another; then fighting one another, and subsequently 'ignoring' one another

On New Year's eve they came to stay with us for the first time. Here in Holland the whole -or almost the whole- population likes to 'play' with firework at 24:00hrs, especially in the neighbourhood where Jeroen lives. In our neighbourhood in 'sleepy' Leiderdorp there is much less of the big bangs, screaming rockets and so on, so Jeroen thought it better, that they would spend a week with us, as he was going on a holiday immediately afterwards. Megumi is very shy and prone to hide in the attic, but as she had her litter to watch out for and no Jeroen to delegate responsibilties to, she felt compelled to stay downstairs with them, where they had quite enough strange environment to discover and to scout. Doorak, my Somali, about whom later more, was about seven months old then and liked to supervise their activities: All in all they liked it with us, when they were kittens that is.

Akemi went to Mei-lan, when she was 13 weeks old, and Ryoko stayed with Jeroen, who educated her to be a circus artiste. She now jumps almost 2 metres far from tables into Jeroen's hand, and about 1.8 metres high when he holds his hand at that height. Even if he moves his hand during the jump she knows how to twist herself in the air so tha she lands safely in it.

On to Pics again! (WARNING: this file takes REALLY long!)