Five days into new space. Let me tell you about these three, because I have mostly been posting numbers and I would rather tell you who they actually are.
Boots is ten years old as of September, which means she had a birthday in a bedroom that is not the one she sleeps in now. She has nineteen fewer teeth than she started the summer with. What that means in practice is that her mouth does not quite close the way it used to, so she drools when she sleeps and wakes up doing this slow jaw-stretching chew, like someone working out a cramp. She gets the drool on her own tail. I wipe it off. This is apparently just our arrangement now.
In July she tried dry food and it hurt so badly she backed away from the bowl. Last month she started eating kibble by choice. I watched her do it and had to go sit down.
She has her own room here, which was not a preference but the entire reason this apartment mattered. She is still working out whether she wants to share space with the other two, and I am letting her decide that on her own schedule. She has earned the right to take her time.
Sable is our tortoiseshell. She came to us in May after being abandoned, and she is suspicious in the specific way of a cat who has been let down before. She has also figured out that the sound of mouse-clicking means I am at my computer, which she has decided means laser pointer time. I bought an automatic laser pointer specifically to buy myself working hours. It half worked.
She also, for reasons I cannot fully explain, goes completely feral over my worn shirts. Specifically around the armpits. Rolls on them, sniffs them, becomes a different animal. I use a natural deodorant and I think there is something in it she regards as a controlled substance.
Cosimo is four and a half months, grey, and legally a menace. He was born eighteen days after my cat Prince died, which I noticed and have not drawn any conclusions about. He gets neutered next month, assuming he does not start marking before then, which is a race I am currently watching.
Sable and Cosimo are bonded, and this is the part that surprised me. When it was just her and Boots in separate rooms, Sable was constantly at me for attention, increasingly so. Now she has a kitten to wrestle with multiple times a day and she is visibly more content. She is four times his size and still lets him pin her. They cuddle. A friend put it well: having each other when I am not around is huge.
That is why I will not separate them, and why "three cats together" was never negotiable.
Where things stand.
The biggest hurdle is past. Lease signed, deposit paid, everyone moved. That happened because of this community and because one person gave $1,900 last week, who I still have no way to thank directly.
We are at $4,157 of $10,000.
Still ahead:
November 1: $1,590 rent
November 15: $795, second half of the deposit
December 1: $1,590 rent
January 15: $400 pet deposit
And the plain truth of the last week: bills kept coming and my account has gone negative more than once. Furnishing an apartment from nothing costs more than I planned for. Almost nothing came with me from the shared household I left.
On income. I have interviews and conversations actively in motion and I am pushing on several at once rather than waiting on any one. Nothing signed yet. I think that changes soon. I will say so here the moment it does.
What I am asking for is the bridge between now and then. Not a rescue, just enough stability that the cats stay housed while I get work underway.
GoFundMe: https://gofund.me/5afebfc71
Venmo: https://www.venmo.com/u/Jehoseph
PayPal: https://paypal.me/TheDivines
If you have already given, a share beats another donation. 20+ people got us this far. Your networks reach people I never will. Send it to one person who likes cats.
And if you are near Eugene with furniture you are storing and no longer want, I would be grateful. A bed especially, for Boots's room. Right now it is a room she was put in rather than a room that is hers, and a bed would let me actually spend time in there with her instead of visiting. A table, chairs, a dresser, whatever. Message me and I will arrange pickup.
For anyone new. Boots was found starving outside our old neighborhood in late June at 6.7 pounds, crying out and backing away from her own food. Her surgeon said it was likely the worst oral pain a cat can experience and her tissue was too damaged to hold sutures. That surgery was about $3,450 and this subreddit helped pay for it. She is 8.26 pounds now and her bloodwork is normal.
Her complete veterinary file from Echo Hollow Vet Hospital and Urgent Care in Eugene is available to anyone who asks. I completed full moderator verification here in July.
Three months ago one of these cats could not eat. Last Saturday she rode to a house in the woods and now has a window to sit in. Thank you for that.
