This series started out as a diary of life with Chai, AKA TrashCat, who we obtained by convincing a four-year-old to cat burgle him out of someone's house (he was neglected terribly neglected, don't call the cops 🤣).
You'd think after all the drama our little master of disaster has wrought upon us, we'd stick to one, right? But you know, cats are like pringles....... no ... not the "once you pop you can't stop" thing... you flipping weirdos.... I mean, you can't just have one 🤣😜
Warm and Fuzzy Chai - My New Favourite Child
Chai - Part 2: The Racoon Trash Cat
Chai - Part 3: The Master of Disaster
Chai - Part 4: The alien abduction and the electric fence
However, with my mom having immigrated to the UK, our furry family has tripled in size since my last kitty post, and I thought it would be appropriate to rename the series to accommodate all three furballs.
Squeek and Lexi at my mom's house, just before the move.
Squeek and Lexi had been living at my mom's house, since @Matthew-Williams and I moved in with @Zakludick, @AimeLudick and @MerenLudick, getting fat on salmon (which later was lifesaving for Lexi - keep reading and you'll see why in the next chapter of this series).
Before I moved in with Zak and just after my divorce 5 years ago, I was living with my mom. Back then, I brought my kitty Levi with me to join Squeek who is my mom's cat. Squeek was adopted alongside her brother, Bubbles, from the SPCA about a year before we moved in at the end of 2017.
Matthew, consoling Levi in his last few days with us.
Squeek, in my mom's garden, visiting the spot we laid Levi to rest.
Unfortunately, Bubbles and my own cat Levi, both passed away during Covid Lockdown in 2020. They died just a few weeks apart from cat leukemia. It was absolutely tragic to lose two beautiful boys in such close succession. I have never had to put an animal to sleep and to have to do it twice in a row was just indescribably painful. Levi was around 9 years old and bubbles was only 3. They went from perfectly healthy to organ failure in a matter of weeks. I cannot emphasise this enough: Please vaccinate your kitties.
A very excited 8 year old Matthew with 4 month old Lexi
So, with only little Squeek in our now very empty house, we adopted Lexi, just in time for Matthew's 8th birthday! A gorgeous mix of Tabby and Siamese, she melted my heart at first sight. I put the word out that I was looking to adopt, but was dubious about adopting an older kitten, especially a female as they are just simply far more adventurous. The older cats get, the harder it is for them to adapt, and as much butter on paws and closed doors and quarrantine as you can try, cats will be cats. If they want to escape, they will. Upon meeting 4 month old Lexi, she trotted onto the patio of her then-current owners, of her own free will, to come and greet us and immediately rolled onto her back and demanded tummy rubs. With those perfect pitch-black paws, and tabby markings, I swear I couldn't get her into my car fast enough 🤣
The grief of losing Levi hit Matthew incredibly hard since Levi was already around while I was pregnant with Matthew. They'd known each other their whole lives and had become incredibly close. Levi was my other child, and Matthew was not alone in his grief.
Lexi and her completely extroverted personality won us over so flipping fast, it was crazy. She really is an enigma, as on the one hand, she's a total cuddlemuffin, chasing us to bed at 9pm for sleepy time, but on the other, she is a ruthless hunter.
Squeek was quick to take Lexi under her wing - as the kitten she never had, and had her jumping from roof to roof, terrorizing the neighborhood birds in no time at all.
On one horrific occasion while we still lived with my mother, I was cleaning under Matthew's bed and after following a trail of feathers, found a poor beheaded budgie. Of course, I was horrified and simultaneously mortified. I thought to myself, "Oh my god. This is how mothers of murderers must feel. So, do I knock on all the neighbors doors and ask people to identify the poor headless bird? Do I just quietly bury the bird in the garden and pretend it never happened? No Body, no crime, right?" Lucky me, I went downstairs and continued my domestics, only to follow another trail of feathers to the washing machine. In the small gap between the washing machine and the built-in cupboard, I found another budgie: but this one was still alive! Zak and the kids had Banana (a female budgie) and the one I found was definitely a boy, so we managed to capture him and drive him to Zak's house, where we put him in the cage with Banana. Unfortunately, the poor guy didn't make it through the night. We did try though. Following this incident, there were weeks of awkwardness, as I tried to gently approach neighbours to find out if they had missing birds. Eventually, It came to light, that LEXI (with some assistance from her master, and according to witnesses) had broken into our next-door neighbours' house, Knocked the budgie cage off the counter, so that the plastic base was dislodged. She then STOLE BOTH BIRDS dragged them into our house, and murdered them! And then she'd still come to cuddle with us at night like she was the cutest most innocent soul on the planet.
Oi vey....
So lets cut forward to four weeks ago, just before my mom left for the UK and we went to go fetch both Lexi and Squeek. Part of the reason I did not take Lexi with me when we 1st moved was because of her bond with my mom and with Squeek, but also because of Banana. I knew that poor bird wouldn't stand a chance. However, Banana passed peacefully of natural causes in April this year.
To fill the gap that Banana left in our children's hearts, we adopted
(sort of stole) Chai. We always calculated that my mom would go back to the UK at some point, but we weren't sure when and if that would ever happen, but she did, and now we have 3 cats!!!
My evil plan is complete!!!!
Lexi's 1st meal in her new home.
Lexi and Chai, communicating through the door
A Squeek begins to emerge (please excuse the arsenal of plague medication 🤣🤢)
