a snapshot of my morning routine

[sciatrix]

Ishka has never, not once in her entire life, received either food or affection.

never.

Comments

[notasupervillain]

LITERALLY STARVING TO DEATH

[sciatrix]

WITH HER DYING BREATH SHE BEGS FOR SUCCOR

[notasupervillain]

A single morsel of tuna

[rydra_wong]

I am always impressed by how cats who are ON THE VERGE OF DEATH can tell you about it so loudly and at such length.

Much, it occurs to me, like sopranos in operas.

[umadoshi]

Much, it occurs to me, like sopranos in operas.

You win the day. ^_^

[siderea]

"♬♪ Feed me! It's so easy to feed me!
Just open the damned can
It's for this you were hired
If you feed me, you'll understand what happiness is
Look a new meal
is required. ♬♪ "

[inky_magpie]

This is the song my boyfriend's cat sings regularly ;) Are you quoting something?

[havocthecat]

She looks DEVASTATED, let me tell you. Simply DEVASTATED.

[sciatrix]

Oh, she hasn't given up hope yet!

(She was fed about ten minutes after that photo was taken, too...)

[viggorlijah]

She demands justice! Justice for Ishka! Her right to be worshipped, total domination and all tuna in existence have been denied!

I would not be brave enough to have bare toes that close to that pissed off sweet face of indignation.

[sciatrix]

She is in fact the bitiest of our cats, so that's probably a fair assessment. (Normally she's a "pet me pet me HARDER HAAAARDER wait too hard chomp" kind of kitty, and she has very good bite pressure control and rarely actually hurts, so hey. We let it go.)

[kore]

POOR POOR KITTY

who bears a striking resemblance to our cat at five AM every morning

[swingandswirl]

Truly, you have failed in your role as cat staff.

(Also what a pretty kitty.)

[sciatrix]

She is honestly kind of weird looking; this is what Ishka looks like standing up at eye level, up at her full height. She is very cute, though, and fortunate enough to look plump and huggable even at her ideal weight.

[lazaefair]

This is our tiny yappy fluffy white dog every morning and every evening. You ask him, we regularly beat and starve him and his life is an absolute vale of abandonment and tears. He is in no way a spoiled prince who was originally bred to decorate the laps of French ladies in the drawing rooms of Versailles. That's just slander and lies.

[illariy]

What a poor, (love-) starved cat! :D

[to_do_list]

She is adorable!

My cats (2 brothers, 9 years old) acknowledge affection, but wow, do they yell at me for food every single day...

[umadoshi]

Kitty's life is THE HARDEST.

[sciatrix]

The thing I find hilarious and wonderful is that Ishka is a survivor of not one but two hoarding situations: she was born in one of those old, very bad hoarding houses that winds up with one pregnant queen spawning her own inbred colony. Then the rescue that took her in was one of the sort that gets in over its head and doesn't adopt the cats out enough and winds up not entirely sure how many cats there are--at least eighty--which are cared for by dumping kibbles in a heap on the floor and getting out of the way.

And then Ish had a bad case of ringworm when she came to the rescue we were fostering her through. She's our only true foster fail when we were fostering; Arthur doesn't count because there was a vacancy and he auditioned very hard. And so she lived in the ringworm room for months with hordes of kittens under treatment, getting "fatter and sadder" the whole time on the free range dry food. (Rescue coordinator's words.) When she finally got out, she was one foster among twenty odd cats in our coordinator's house, and she was so shy that H never saw her move--she appeared to teleport from moment to moment, but she was friendly enough. Just a quiet, snuggly queen who took what affection was offered and was grateful for it, as long as you didn't move too fast.

Then she moved in with us, slowly expanded mentally into the available space--we had two cats at that time, Peter and Janet who has since died--and also lost a bunch of weight as she went from free-fed dry only to wet only with actual portion sizes. Within a few months she turned into the hard-playing, demanding, bossy little queen that sits and glares up at you until you pet her, tries to steal everyone's phone so she can play the phone games herself, bites mostly gently when she's overwhelmed and demands that you scritch her harder if she isn't yet, muscles cats twice her size and half her age away from any wand toy in the offing, and generally grabs her kitty life with a single-minded hedonistic stubbornness.

Of all our cats, Ishka is the one who knows full well what a shitty life looks like, and Ishka is the one who is fiercely determined to never go back. She's stubby-legged and bobtailed and weird-bodied and has one lazy eye and brays like a donkey, and if I die in my sleep she'll probably eat me before the body gets cold. I love her unreasonably.

[umadoshi]

She sounds like a truly marvelous cat. I'd so glad she wound up with you, especially after such a rough start!

[rydra_wong]

She's stubby-legged and bobtailed and weird-bodied and has one lazy eye and brays like a donkey, and if I die in my sleep she'll probably eat me before the body gets cold. I love her unreasonably.

Weird-shaped cats are frequently the best! Okay they are all the best. My late lamented cat had a crafty angle on this, being in all ways the Generic Short-Haired Tabby With White Bits except that he had the feet of a cat several sizes larger.

[staranise]

Ishkabibble.

[sciatrix]

Sqeeeshka!

[brigdh]

What a total cutie!

[osteophage]

I love her.