"My" Present Cats (Doorak, KuniYoshi)

And then we were joined by KITTENS, first by Doorak and a month later by Kuniyoshi. The old ladies didn't like these youngsters either, although Kuni spent a lot of time with them, in the 'puter room where they slept.

As already said, we decided to look around if could find some kittens wanting to adopt us, because the old ladies -we thought- could use some company, preferably young- to liven them up a bit. We fixed a date with Klaas and Jacqueline van der Heide of the Siamese cattery Calvencade Cats in Helmond. Just to take a look, you know, not to buy, because we wanted to orient ourselves and shop around a bit. Besides Gerda might want a Siamese, I was looking for a ruddy Abyssinian, and the brunt of 'educating' 13 week old kittens would be falling on me, being the houseman and all. So we made it very clear that we did not want to buy, we would only come for a look-around. When we'd said hello to all the cats and kittens, and had been ex- and intensively sniffed for 'strange stinkies', we sat down to enjoy the hospitably offered coffee and to 'talk cats', after all we had some experience with cats and more to the point: with Siamese and Oriental Shorthairs.

That was when Jacqueline turned 'wily'. She 'dumped' all the kittens into Gerda's lap, where they started to play with one another. All but one that is. He climbed up Gerda's chest until he'd found a comfortable place to look her straight into the eyes, and he kept staring at her. Gerda -determined not to be charmed into buying- firmly put him back with the others telling him to 'go play with your brothers and sisters'. He, however, repeated the exercise twice, and Gerda was already half sold. At that moment one of the two 'furmeowmmies' entered, lay down on the floor and started calling the kittens to lunch. The whole bunch let themselves fall off Gerda's lap, ran to mommy and started to suck vigorously on their favourite nipple. 'Prince Charmer' having a longer way to go of course was late in arriving. He shouldered away one of mommy's own kittens -who were a week older, and at the age of 7 whole weeks that makes for a big difference in size- and annexed that one's nipple. Gerda, who likes her boys assertive, cried out: "YESSS!", and in fact was wholly sold from that moment on. It was just for appear- ance's sake and to salvage some of our pride that we only asked Klaas and Jacqueline to reserve that kitten, because we wanted to consider things more carefully.

The end of the matter was that I convinced Gerda it was fated that the little one had 'chosen' her, and that she shouldn't go against karma, being the one sixtyfourth part oriental (Indonesian) that I am. That evening I phoned Klaas and told him we'd buy the kitten and could he wait before registering him because we wanted to name him ourselves. Gerda -who liked the Japanese name Jeroen had given Megumi very much- and I started to look for a name and found one in a book we had on Japanese painters. Utagawa KUNIYOSHI, an artist who painted a lot of cats. Japanese bobtails to be sure and certainly not Siamese, but anyhow: CATS! Besides we liked the sound of Kuniyoshi, and of all the abbreviations and pet names that could be made of it. Kuniyosh, Kuni, Yoshi, Koen (pronounced: Koon with a short "oo' sound, and actually a Dutch name), Koenepoen, and Koentje (pronounced: Kooncha) being a diminutive of Koen in Dutch. So now a period of anxious anticipation started. Klaas was very nice about it, he regularly eMailed us to tell how Kuni was progressing and how he was 'withstanding the ordeal of his inoculations' etc. etc.

But I -poor little old MEEE.......still had no CAT, no kitten of my own, as Kuni was definitely Gerda's, after all HE had chosen HER and not me! So I went surfing the Net again and arrived at the page of Cor and Ria Konink (cattery: Ravottersgaarde), who played -and still play- an important role in the independent Association for Abyssinians and Somalis in the Netherlands (SAN). We made an appointment with them to see whether I really liked Abyssinians so much that I wanted one. We went there on a beautiful, sunny day, and were received by Ria in a house that was being redecorated and that was full of Abyssinians. And I loved them, I really did! Such beautiful spirited creatures! But we weren't lucky, Cor and Ria only had a blue kitten for sale and he lacked the ticking I found so beauriful. Besides, one way or another none of the kittens tried to'hit me with the eye', so I felt I hadn't been chosen, and we took our leave without an Abyssinian. They told us that there was to be a show in Rot- terdam on August 24, and we decided to go visit it.

And there the most extraordinary thing happened. When we entered the show we almost walked into the first carré of cages, and in the third one to the right -I always try to circle widdershins, feeling that this is lucky (for me) the same as the number 13- there was a cute litter of -no NOT Abyssinians- of Somalis the half longhair variety of Abby's. One kitten was sitting in the litterbox with his back turned toward the visitors: "I don't want to have anything to do with all those crazy people!". I said: "Hi, puss!", and he looked up, turned around, and stood up against the cage trying to sniff me. I extended my fingers through the bars and after having sniffed, he started purring like mad. Only tirteen weeks old and he could already produce a considerably loud sound! As I'd come for an Abyssinian, we -very determined- ly this time- went on to see what Abyssinians there were. I couldn't get rid of that special feeling, however, so whenever we came in the neighbourhood of that cage, I went and stood looking at his 'contemptuous' back in the littertray. Not making any sound this time. And each time he turned around, looked at me, and stood up against the cage, mewing with the tiny sound of a 13 week old kitten. As if he felt my 'vibes' and wantred me to caress him. I told Gerda about it when this had happened for the second time, and she wanted to see it for herself. So around we went again and I repeated the whole procedure, with the same result of course. Gerda laughed out loud at first, then said: "Heheheh (evil chuckle), here you are: chosen yourself by a cat you weren't looking for."

So! We asked the owner/breeder, Kris But, of the litter if we could hold the little fellow for a while, and after looking us over very carefully she put him on top of the cage. He walked over very deliberately to me, started to climb my chest, nestled around my neck, and started to PURRRRR! Kris told us that his name was Apollo Of Glastonbury Tor. Now I really knew that this boy was my Karma. The official name of our first Siamese, Bumipol, had been Apollo too and one of my favourite authors is Nevil Shute, whose book "No Highway" has a lot about Glastonbury Tor, allegedly being the place in Britain where Christ stayed some time with his uncle Joseph of Arimathea and where he would return on His Second Coming. When Kris added that the name "Of Glastonbury Tor" had been their THIRTEENTH attempt to get a cattery name registered, I KNEW that I would be very unlucky -not to say unhappy- in the future if I disregarded this abundance of good omens, and I paid Kris the dues LOL for his adopting me. Kris promised us to bring him to Leiderdorp the next Wednesday as she would like to see where he was going to, and to see the 'old ladies' -about whom I had told her in the meantime- for herself.

F i n a l l y Wednesday August 28th was there, and at around four o'clock Kris and Johan, a friend and neighbour of hers, rang the doorbell. Kris opened the cage, and Apollo walked out of it as if he was HOME already. He sniffed the air, went to the kitchen, jumped onto the dishwasher, and started eating from the foodbowl in the windowsill. Kris said: " You glutton, you!" and made some sort of a sound with her lips at which he immediately jumped off the windowsill and came running to her. I imitated the sound, he ran to me, nestled around my neck again and -you guessed it- started to PURRRRR!!! When he thought he'd produced enough affectionate sounds he began reconnoiter the house as if he owned it. He sniffed noses with Vesta, but as he was used to a cocker spaniel and a Rhodesian Ridgeback at home, he didn't think a Dobermann anything remarkable. She wanted to play with him, but he -politely - declined, and continued his ivestigations. As he came unto the 'old ladies' in our 'computer room' he expressed pleasant surprise at finding those 'strangers' (to him) he'd already smelled, and started making overtures to them: "Please play with mew (tiny, nearly inaudible sound with wide-open mouth)". Pooky and Siru made it very clear, however, that "HISSSSS, WE do NOT want anything to do with youngsterssss, ccccertainly NOT to play with them, HISSSSSS!" After which -good-natured softy as he was, still is, and hopefully always will be- he turned away with a not-so-polite hisss in return, and continued his reconnaissance.

In a short time he felt completely at home

On to And Pictures OF COURSE!