Personal Note: New Family Member Oreo

We have a new family member!  A spunky little kitten we named Oreo for obvious reason.

So here’s what happened.  I mentioned in a blog last year that a cat gave birth to kittens under our back deck and we fed them and they grew into our outdoor cats.  There were five kittens last year plus the Mama Cat.  We named the kittens Shadow, Star, Twinkle, Patches, and Witchy.  Shadow and Witchy were pure black cats.  Star was a black cat with a white star-like patch on his chest.  Twinkle was the same except the star patch on her chest was about half the size.  Patches was a black and white, almost in the tuxedo arrangement.  Mama Cat was identical to Twinkle.  Once grown you couldn’t tell them apart except that Mama Cat would hiss at you all the time.

Four of the five kittens survived.  Witchy either hurt her hind legs or developed some sort of physical problem.  She hobbled for a while.  I tried to catch her to take her to a veterinarian but couldn’t.  Ultimately she disappeared, either left or died.  The four kittens made it through the winter, grew into healthy strong cats, and commanded our backyard as their personal territory.  Mama Cat would come and go, but mostly stayed away.

Now I’ve used gender nouns so far, but frankly I can’t tell which of the kittens are male or female.  Come the end of spring, there were a bunch of kittens with the now grown cats.  At one count we had a dozen kittens running around our back eating the food we leave out.  How many different litters there are, we’re not exactly sure.  Mama Cat came back to deliver another set of kittens.  Patches is definitely the mother of another set.  It’s possible that Twinkle, who looks like her mother, is also a mother of a litter.  Here is either Mama Cat or Twinkle nursing her kits.

I can’t tell if that’s Twinkle or Mama Cat, but you can see the kittens are black or black and white.  Quite a few of the kittens are black and white, and that’s because I suspect the father is a big black and white Tom Cat that wonders the neighborhood.  Other colors of the kittens are either all grey or grey and white.  Here is an adorable grey and white we call Pickles.

Now we also have gone back through the pictures of the backyard and found Oreo with his mother.  That’s Oreo playing with the blue string. 

Only Oreo has that white ring coloring around the back of his neck.  So we know that’s him.  So his mother is either Mama Cat or Twinkle, I can distinguish the two. 

So what happened is Matthew wanted one of the kittens for inside for the longest time and was plotting to grab one when the opportunity presented.  One morning, while the kittens were feeding and Oreo was not on his guard, Matthew swooped him up and brought him in.  This was on Tuesday (Sept8th) just after Labor Day.  Rochelle and Matthew brought him to a veterinarian on Thursday who said he was healthy.  So in less than a week, he has become integrated into our home.

The vet assigned him a birthday of July 3^rd (7/3/26) which would make him eight weeks old, but frankly I think he’s closer to six or seven.  But July 3^rd is it.  The other important information we got from the vet is that he is male.  I can never tell with cats.

So here are some pictures.  Here’s Matthew with his new best friend.

Rosie and Oreo have gotten along from the beginning.  God bless Rosie for not being aggressively territorial.  However, Tiger, our cat of eleven years, has not.  He avoids Oreo, stares at him, and has even hissed at him.  If anyone has advice on how to get an older established cat friendly to a new kitten in the house, I could use it.  No pictures with Tiger yet.  Here’s Matthew sleeping with Oreo.

This recalls when Tiger was a kitten and would love to sleep in Matthew’s bed.  From eleven years ago when Matthew was five years old.

 

 

Let’s end with two more.  Oreo like most babies has bursts of energy and then crashes.  They seem to go in two cycles of two hours of running around and then crashing  Here he is crashing on top of the couch.

And finally what I consider a really beautiful picture, I’ll end with this.

One other note.  The name Oreo was Rochelle's idea.

Photo Essay: December 2025 Snow

The first snow storm of the winter always makes for some great photos, and this past Sunday (Dec 14^th) we had our first.  It was only supposed to be about three inches.  We wound up with over double that.  So much for having faith in their predictions.

Let’s share some photos.  First from my bedroom window looking out the back of the house.  I’ve mentioned this before, but behind my backyard used to be a convent.  It was sold and now is some Hasidic Jewish facility.  But I am still blessed with open field from my window.

 

It does look like a snowstorm, doesn't it?  It was coming down hard at the time of that picture. 

Now looking out my front window.

 

Here are a couple of snaps around my neighborhood.

 

It was only six inches but a fluffy snow.  It looks so much more.

Here is one from my backyard.  Look carefully and you will see one of the black kittens leaping through the snow.

 

I mentioned about the litter of black kittens born in my backyard.  They are still there!  Here is a zoom in of the kitten.

 

Speaking of black pets, here is Rosie standing out very well against the white snow.

 

 

 

The old dog (she's now eleven years and four months old) loved it out there.  

When I got over to my mother’s house, I took a picture of her Madonna.

Call her Our Lady of the Snows.  Actually that is a title of the Blessed Mother under Our Lady of the Snows.  It goes back to the year 352 when a summer snow storm hit Rome.    

Since it was Sunday, we made it to Mass in the snow.  Thank God for four wheel drive.  Here is Our Lady with the Christ Child covered with snow.

All the donated Christmas wreaths hung along the church fencing were dusted with snow.  Here is ours.

Finally since the day before, December 13^th, was the Feast Day of St. Lucy, our pastor still had the statue of St. Lucy by the sanctuary for veneration.

My family has a special devotion to Santa Lucia for several reasons which I will save for another day.

Personal Note: Kitten With A Cup Stuck On His Head

Well I had a strange incident Saturday morning. I was walking Rosie and I noticed this little kitten under a SUV parked on a driveway. It was acting strange and when I looked more carefully it had a white plastic cup stuck on its head. It couldn’t see, but it could hear, and I think trying to hide.  It couldn't get the cup off. I wasn't sure what to do. I walked past not to scare him off, to the next house down the street to let him relax. I tied Rosie to the house railing, hoping no one would come out. I snuck up behind the kitten. It couldn't see me of course. Knelt under the SUV and grabbed him, held him against me with my left arm while I pulled the cup off its head. The cup was really stuck. Poor thing would have probably died. And then I let him go and he scrambled off. He was gray and white.  He was a tiny thing. Probably recently broke away from his mother. 

It broke my heart to see the little tyke compromised like that.  I wonder how long the cup had been stuck on his head.  Perhaps all night.  Perhaps he was reaching a point of resolution.  He did struggle when I held against my chest.  It was probably frightened as can be.  The cup seemed like it was a child’s cup, for a toddler, and it had some residue of food inside.  I can see how a little kitten would stick his head all the way in.

I was surprised at how successful my plan turned out, sneaking behind him and grabbing him.  There had to be some sort of divine guidance to it all.  I was that poor kitten’s angel.  It felt so nice to hold a kitten again, even if it was just for a few seconds.  I can still feel his little legs pushing against my chest.  I would have liked to have taken the kitten home, but we really can’t fit another pet in our home.  Plus I was too far to be able to hold him all the way home without him wriggling out of my arms.  I hope I at least see him around the neighborhood.  I wish I could have taken his picture.

The incident has been on my mind ever since, so I thought I would put it into a blog post.  It happened on the Saturday before Divine Mercy Sunday, and all I have been thinking since was “mercy.”  I went out of my way to give the kitten mercy.  Perhaps, I thought afterward, I am just like that kitten with a cup stuck over my head unable to see.  May God give me mercy as well.  I think I will call him Mercy if I see him around.

Lines I Wished I’d Written: How the Cat Works

I have not been reading much this whole summer.  I’ve gotten lazy and the evenings are taken up with following baseball, my sports love.  But I have been reading the ASPCA Complete Guide to Cats, and found an interesting and well written chapter titled, “How the Cat Works.”  I’ll post some parts of the chapter, subsection’s title which I put in bold.

How the Cat Works

In the words of Leonardo da Vinci, “the smallest feline is a masterpiece.”  The cat is one of nature’s most elegant examples of form following function.  The design of the feline physique is perfectly suited to a predatory carnivore’s needs: detecting, pursuing, catching, killing, eating, and digesting prey.  In fact, the cat’s basic form has changed relatively little since wildcats first appeared some 30 million years ago.  The many species that now inhabit the world’s jungles forests, deserts, couches, and armchairs all follow the same basic blueprint.  Although most domestic shorthairs aren’t likely to catch anything more exotic than a few extra hours of sleep, today’s pet cat is built very much like its wild relatives.

Framework: Bones and Muscles

As any cat owner knows simply by watching, the cat is built for grace, flexibility, and power.  From a sitting start, it can jump up to nine times its own height.  It can make its chest and shoulders narrower, to squeeze through almost impossible tight spaces.  It can sleep curled into the shape of a letter O and, immediately upon awakening, stretch and form an inverted C, pressing the chest almost to the floor.

Sinuous Spine

Where does the cat get its remarkable elasticity, both in motion and at rest?  The first place to look is the animal’s spine.  Because cats’ vertebrae are flexibly connected and have particularly elastic cushioning disks between them, the feline spine is extremely supple.  A cat’s ability to right itself in midair so that it can land on its feet and to make rapid changes in direction while pursuing or capturing prey are both made possible by the flexibility of its spine. 

The flexibility of the cat’s spine also contributes to its fluidity and speed as a runner.  To reach top speed—about thirty miles an hour—a domestic cat depends on its spine as much as its feet and leg muscles.  When running, cats can lengthen their stride, and thus increase their speed, by alternately extending and flexing their vertical column.  When the cat’s feet push off to start a new stride—the claws serving as spikes for traction—the cat’s body stretches to its maximum length.  The cat’s running style thus resembles a series of elongated jumps or bounds.  The cat increases its speed by lengthening its stride with each bound, until every stride carries it about three times the length of its own body.  Many other mammals, especially humans, rely on a more pistonlike sprinting style, in which the key factor is how often the feet make contact with the ground.

Stretching and Squeezing

Another special feature that contributes to feline flexibility is the tiny, rudimentary collarbone, which helps cats lengthen their stride when sprinting by allowing them to extend their forelegs fully.  The lack of a long, anchored collarbone (as humans have) gives cats the ability to squeeze through tight openings by literally compressing themselves to fit the available space.  Moreover, the feline shoulder blade is attached to the rest of the body only by muscles, not bone.  This gives the shoulder blade tremendous freedom to move as the cat moves, enhancing the cat’s flexibility and grace and extending its long running stride. 

Legs and Toes

Whether running or walking, cats land on their toes.  Such digitigrade locomotion is the hallmark of a sprinter.  Animals that land on their full soles of their feet, using plantigrade locomotion, are better suited to sustain exertion.  Bears and humans, for example, have a plantigrade footfall.  Cats hunt using great bursts of speed (after which they often end up panting). 

The spring in a cat’s legs is phenomenal, thanks in part to the construction of its hip, knee, and ankle joints.  These joints have very little give from side to side.  They are very stable and strong and can withstand great force applied in one direction: forward.  When the cat’s hind leg muscles contract, the three joints extend in an instant, giving the animal enormous thrust to carry it either high or far.  The cat’s landing is cushioned by the thick pads on its feet, and by the bones of its feet and wrists, whose intricate construction makes a stable two-point landing on its forepaws possible. 

Explosive Power

One look at a cat in profiler provides an obvious clue as to why cats are such marvelous, explosive athletes.  In proportion to its overall body size, a cat’s hindleg muscles are enormous, as is its “launching pad,” an exceptionally long rear foot.  These anatomical features translate into tremendous power and mechanical advantage when a cat springs or leaps.

The cat’s particular type of athleticism may also come partly from many “fast-twitch-fatiguing” cells contained in its skeletal muscles.  As their names suggest, these cells produce explosive movement, but they use up their energy stores in a flash and tire easily—as does the cat, which has relatively few “slow-twitch” fibers to give it endurance.

Energy Conservation

Because cats lack the staying power of plantigrade long-distance runners, conserving energy is a must for them.  Even the way a cat walks can save energy, as the contralateral gait cats sometimes use—left hindfoot moving more or less in tandem with the right forefoot, and right hindfoot moving with the left forefoot—is mechanically very efficient.

The best energy-saving strategy, of course, is to stay put, and cats are masters at it.  Their brain chemistry makes it possible for them to spend more of their time asleep than awak.

Lightning Fast Nerves

When cats are awake, an intricate network of nerves radiating from the brain and the spinal cord operates in high gear, receiving and transmitting information and governing sensations, reflexes, and motor functions throughout the cat’s body.  The lightning speed at which the cat’s nervous system operates is illustrated by the well-known feline “righting reflex.”  Thanks to this and its remarkable flexible spine, a cat held feet upward and dropped will have its feet pointed downward, ready to land, before it has fallen twenty-four inches.

Dexterity

A cat’s wrist bones and their associated tendons and ligaments give the cat a measure of manual dexterity—not close to matching our own, or even a raccoon’s but enough to enable the cat to get mice out of hiding places (or food out its dish) with a handlike scooping motion and to hold onto trees.  This ability to pronate the wrist (carpus)—turn the bottom of the paw toward the midline of the body—is not common in the animal kingdom.  But then, neither are most creatures as graceful and nimble, yet powerful, as cats.

That’s enough for now.  Isn’t that fascinating?  It reminds me of an engineering project, only thing God being the engineer. 

Let me end this with a recent picture of Tiger, here sitting on the windowsill.  That sill is a good three feet off the ground and he makes a smooth calculated leap onto that less than two inch ledge. 

Isn't he a handsome kitten?  He's four months old now, and that picture was snapped three weeks ago.  I had to put a stop to him going on that ledge.  Early one morning, while the birds were chirping out there in the trees, he climbed up the window screen to the top.  It’s a good thing the screen didn’t fall out.

Matthew Monday: Strange Bedfellows

Our adorable little kitten, Tiger, has taken to our home.  He loves exploring it all; that is, all he's allowed to explore.  He is, however, afraid of Matthew.  Matthew handles him a little too roughly and doesn’t exactly hold him in a secure and comfortable manner.  So Tiger runs from Matthew when he approaches.  At one point Matthew broke into tears crying that Tiger doesn’t love him. 

Well, Tiger proved him wrong.  First, the two of them share the same bedroom.  We keep Tiger in Matthew’s room, though he gets free roam of a good portion of the upstairs.  One night, past midnight, I went to check in on Matthew as I usually have done, and now have a quick play with the kitten.  To my surprise I found Tiger cuddled into Matthew.  And not just that one night.  Here are pictures from several nights.  These pictures are taken in the complete dark, and the light comes only from the flash.

These first are from  a sleeping bag type of thing that Matthew sometimes sleeps on the floor with.

Those are from the same night.  Here’s from another.

I thought when Matthew got back to sleeping on the bed, Tiger wouldn’t be able to get up there.  The bed height is still higher than his extended height on his rear legs.  But somehow he’s able to get up there and snuggle up.

Notable Quote: On Cats By Leonardo da Vinci

The smallest feline is a masterpiece.    

~ Leonardo da Vinci

We’re enjoying having a kitten in the house.  Leonardo really had it right.  A cat is an absolute masterpiece of creation.  The movements and balance and strength are sheer artistry.  We’ve had Tiger now almost two and a half weeks.  Here are some pictures.

He certainly likes tight little spaces to cuddle into.

A box turned sideways (above)…and a little cave (below).  

He likes to play with Matthew’s toys.  They share the same room.

And I thought it humorous to have a Tiger attack a lion.

And he’s certainly developing that cat attitude. 

Personal Note: Our New family Member, Tiger

Of course this was completely unplanned.  Thursday, May 14^th (I date it for posterity’s sake) after dinner at about half past six Matthew and I stepped out for Matthew to bike ride to the local school yard.  It’s just a couple of blocks away and they have a little track on level ground for him to circle.  We turned to go into the backyard and right there on the side of the house was a local stray cat, who was caught by surprise.  Seeing the two of us, she darted up the block.  But nearby, frozen with surprise was a little kitten.  It didn’t know what to do, and when we approached it he sped in a different direction than the big cat, into our back yard, where he hid behind one of the garbage cans. 

We chased him and I reached behind and pulled him out.  It was the cutest little thing.  I didn’t know if I should leave him out, and yet taking him in would be a burden.  We had never had cats before.  We already have a demanding dog, who is still an overactive pup.  We already have a five year old boy who consumes all our time when he’s not in school or asleep.  I could have put him down and let his mother—if that was his mother who darted off, though I some doubt because the coloring was completely different, and she, if it were a she, showed no motherly concern for the tike.  But he was so darned cute.  And I don’t know how many kittens survive into cathood living in the streets.  He was so passive in my hands.  He wasn’t afraid. 

I called my wife over.  If she said no, that would have been the end of that.  She too warmed to him.  She gave me a bunch of questions—legitimate questions on the difficulties.  She had suspected she was even allergic to cats.  I just shrugged.  She didn’t say no.  He had the prettiest face I had ever seen on a kitten.  Matthew insisted we keep him.  So we brought him in.

We didn’t know how to care for a kitten.  We couldn’t even tell if he was male or female.  My wife emailed a few of her friends who have cats and they recommended replacement milk.  We weren’t sure how young he was.  I went on the internet and found something that you could gage an age.  I estimated four weeks.  That was too young to be taken from his mom, so we rushed out to get the replacement milk.  We set up a crate from when Rosie was a small pup for him.  He drank the milk.  He wasn’t scared and he just relaxed in your arms. 

We got in to the Vet the very next day.  By then I had found a better gage to estimate his age, which I figured now to be five weeks.  The Vet agreed.  He was healthy, though he’s had diarrhea.  We learned about kitty litter and feline bathroom habits.  He quickly took to a litter box.  He’s so darned cute covering his movements, and pawing the granules.  The Vet said he was male.  My wife wanted to name him Thor, which I hated, and I wanted to name him Simba, which my wife hated.  Matthew named him Tiger, and it has stuck. 

When we went to fill out the Vet ID form, it asked for a breed.  We had no clue, so we asked the woman at the desk.  “Domestic Shorthair,” she said with authority.  Then it asked for color, and he has several colors.  “What color would you say he is?” I asked.  I held him up, she squinted.  “Grey Tabby.”  So there’s all the pertinent information.

OK, here are some pictures.  He’s being kept in Matthew’s room for now.

So far Matthew and Tiger are getting along great, even though Matthew handles him a little roughly.  Here they are watching a movie on the video player.

And I think my wife to her surprise has taken to Tiger the most. 

And now I have someone in the house who has as grey a head of hair as I do. 

Now when they find a stray grey hair on the ground, they can’t say it’s from me.