Spooky Pickles

𝙹𝚞𝚕𝚢 𝟷, 𝟷𝟿𝟷𝟺, 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝙳𝚒𝚊𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚜 𝙾𝚏 𝙵𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚣 𝙺𝚊𝚏𝚔𝚊, 𝟷𝟿𝟷𝟺-𝟷𝟿𝟸𝟹

Current residents and why they are residents:

Pookie - 2 year old female British shorthair - FIV+

Penelope - 3 year old(?) female Persian - poops and pees outside her litterbox. I'd have to check the records on her age, because I'm pretty sure we know her birthdate.

Honey - 3 year old male British longhair - honestly he's just really cute.

Mugsy - ??? male Persian/Himalayan - misaligned jaw + some health problems. i actually don't know how old he is. I know he's under 10, but over 2.

Jazzy - 5 year old male persian - I don't THINK there's anything really wrong with him. He's been returned twice, though, so I'm like... 'ok, guess he just lives here now'. I'm holding out hope that someone will want him at some point.

Nikolai - 5 year old selkirk rex - my boss swears she's going to adopt him out one of these days and we probably will. eventually.

This is Morgan, Bobby, and Alice (from left to right).

Alice is probably our most feral cat. She's crate trained so my coworkers can handle her when I'm not present (I can pick her up briefly to put her in a crate or on a scale but that's about it). She usually doesn't like being this close to the grey boys but peace is stored in the heated bed.

Morgan absolutely HATES me very much. He was brought in at 6 months old, mostly feral, along with his brother. Against all odds, his brother became a perfectly well-adjusted cat and has since found a home.

Bobby has recently decided that he's actually fond of me and will give me little headbumps now.

He's known me for ten years.

Here's Roosevelt. He's VERY shy and generally only comes out for food. I can pick him up, brush him out, and handle him in general. I think that, with the right person and right approach, he could find a home.

And this is Clyde (still drugged up from a vet visit). Clyde is the friendliest of the ferals, but I'm using that word pretty generously. Most of my coworkers can pet him and he's very interested in interacting with people. It just takes a lot of time and patience to get him to that point. Like Bobby, I've known him for ten years.

Finally, there's Moxie. She doesn't live with the other semi-ferals because she's very mean to the boys (she's nice to Alice, who is EXTREMELY intimidated by her). She generally likes me, but isn't very keen on anyone else. She likes to sit in my lap, lets me clip her nails, and I can generally move her around as long as she's not on a high perch.

She arrived as a four month old feral kitten. The usual window for human socialization closes at 3 months (tbh it gets complicated because there are several socialization windows, but this is considered the standard). Since she was late socialized, she imprinted on me, so she's a handful for everyone. And, honestly, she doesn't even like me sometimes.

I appreciate them for what they are. Honestly I prefer taking my break in the feral room or garden. It's nice to spend time with an animal that doesn't make any demands of me. They don't expect anything. They don't ask for anything.

Your mom/aunt/grandma/etc remarries and they are actually a cool person, you use their first name. So if you were to introduce them they would be: Aunt Jane and Bob.

For this week's Off Topic Tuesday: my shameless plug for Tidal.

I've seen posts circulating Tumblr complaining that Spotify has too much of a monopoly on music streaming, and it does! Part of the reason I switched to Tidal was because I do like to avoid supporting businesses I think have too much of a monopoly in favor of supporting "underdogs".

Another reason I switched to Tidal was because Spotify was having too many scandals for my taste in the content they platform (like allowing Andrew Tate's podcasts on how to traffic women, or Joe Rogan's COVID misinformation podcasts).

And also, as the linked article points out, Tidal has higher quality audio, and also pays artists better than Spotify.

The drawback is that Tidal doesn't have quite as much content as Spotify, for example Tidal is mostly music focused and has very few podcasts or audio books. For me this hasn't been an issue though, I just switched to using Pocket Casts for podcasts, and I'm not much of an audio book person in the first place (but I also know there's better alternatives than Spotify for listening to audio books, some are even through your library and support your local library!).