Pooky and Siru both crossed the Rainbow Bridge in April 1998. Even though they were very old -19 and 17 years resp.- and so weren't much fun anymore, they kept loving us until the end, and are sorely missed on this side.

Pooky

Sometimes intricate stories demand the introduction of characters before it is their turn, so Pooky has already been introduced. But let me do it again. After Bumipol had crossed the Rainbow Bridge, we thought it only fair to look for another cat for Jeroen. We tried the HKG variety, but Manja wouldn't accept Peppi; she chased him all the time, and when she caught him she fought so ferociously the poor kitten was covered with marks from her nails. Luckily we found another home for him in Eindhoven. We got two reports on him: he was doing well and seemed to have gotten over his 'nerves', and he turned out to be a she, had gotten pregnant and was delivered of a fine litter of four.

We still needed a companion for Manja, so off we went to the Felikat Cat Show in the RAI building in Amsterdam in December 1979. We could search our heads off, however, there weren't any meezer kittens for sale anymore. All had been bespoken. The only available kitten was a Blue Oriental Shorthair female, whose littermates were part of an experimental breeding programme to achieve silver shading in OSH's. So we couldn't get a proper pedigree for her but only a certificate of descent. Jeroen was taken by the little blue darling, however, and the breeder assured us that Orientals had the same character and build as 'proper' Siamese, so we decided to take her with us. As we didn't have our cat carryall with us -which was a rather shabby and bulky briefcase anyhow- we decided to put the little thing into my jacket, nice and warm we thought. In the car during the drive back to Leiderdorp my belly got even warmer, and a betraying 'odeur' filled the interior. It turned out that Pooky had contracted a quick-acting bug at the show, and now had a touch of diarrhoea. So the drive home was somewhat anticlimactic; instead of general rejoicing over our new 'child' we were reminded by an all pervading 'smell' that babies can and do stink.

After the initial difficulties of settling in which I already described on Manja's page, Pooky turned out to be a very affectionate -for Jeroen and me- kitten, who really bonded very strongly with Jeroen, and to a markedly lesser degree with me. Pooky showed a marked preference for 'roofwalks'. Whereas Bumipol had only once escaped from the roof window in our attic room; he'd clambered up to the ridge, where he was scolded by sparrows and jackdaws. The latter even swooped on him -in formation mind you- only swerving away at the last possible moment before collision, thereby scaring him so he didn't dare to descend the roof again despite all our attempts to lure him down with food and snacks. It took an intrepid worker from the municipality to climb after him and get him down. Pooky was smarter. She did not make herself conspicuous on the ridge but just walked on the roof's sloping side to the next open roof window, and went visiting. She once stayed away for three days causing us to be miserable for all that time. We had a major search action mounted, friends and neighbours were recruited, the whole neighbourhood resounded for three days with cries of 'Pooky, Pooooky, Pooky, whre are you" in a variety of voices. No Pooky. Until a distant neighbour in our row came to our door, and said: "Your cat is gone, I think? She may be hiding in our attic." It turned out that his wife -who was afraid of cats- had waked up during those nights thinking she saw a cat in the bedroom windowsill. As soon as she lighted her reading lamp, however there was nothing there, so she'd blamed it on a dream. Pooky in the mean time had gotten so scared that she wouldn't come to us. Even Jeroen's peremptory: "Pooky, come!!!" didn't help this time. So we had to make a trail of dry cat food to the window in the bathroom from where she could jump on the shed's roof and from their on the ground, where Jeroen stood waiting for her. You can imagine how relieved we were, after having had the experience with Bumipol.

We decided to persuade Pooky to have a litter, so we consulted with the pedigree people of Felikat (our Cat Fancy Association). We were lucky. A rather renowned breeding male named Sandokan lived in Katwijk, a village on the coast near to Leiderdorp. Pooky visited Sandokan, and they fell in love immediately. We collected her after three days, and she turned out to be pregnant in due course. After about two months, on a Saturday morning, she woke me up telling me that something was the meowmatter with her. Until then she hadn't shown very much aside from eating much more than usual and getting a bit fatter. We even had to have all the doorhandles point straight up, as we didn't think her habit of jumping up, clinging to the handle and opening the door with her hind feet would be very good for the kittens. But now she herself seemed to think that something was going to happen. As long as I stayed in the bedroom she was content to stay in some sort of baby's camp bed, which we had organized as delivery- and baby-room. I could tell that she appreciated my ministrations - softly rubbing her belly in the direction of her tail- very much. But she insisted that I stay with her. When I went downstairs to have brunch, she got up and followed me, all the while making louwoudly clear that she didn't liwike this. I asked Gerda to accompany her upstairs so I could eat my brunch in peace, but when Pooky saw who it was following her, she resolutely turned around, went down the stairs and made it VERY cleawear that she wanted meeeow, and not Gerda.

At about eight p.m. she started labouring in earnest, but it took until 11:30 p.m. before four kittens had been born. As was to be expected she made a shambles out of it this first time. The first kitten was born with its hind parts first, so she started to clean that first, leaving its little nose and mouth alone. So I had to clean that, and severe the umbilical as well! Which -possibly- seemed a good idea to Pooky, so she left the cleaning of the other little faces and severing of all the umbilicals to me. Perhaps she knew that I had read up on the subject, I had certainly told her so over and over, and her insistence on my presence probably indicated her knowledge. Jeroen, of course, had been woken up, but he stayed awake only long enough to admire the first kitten, and spent the rest of the time lying on our bed, fast asleep. Three males, Ebony Oriental Shorthairs, and one female, Havana OSH. When everything was quiet on the front again, and the kittens had their first suck, I felt Pooky's belly to try to establish that there was no kitten left. And it was well I did so, because I felt a definite lump in the region of the uterus. So there was still one inside. After an hour of waiting for the labours to start again -nothing doing- I phoned the vet, to ask him what to do. He told me to wait for another hour and then get into the car with Pooky -and litter- and drive to his place, so he could do something about it. So after an hour of heavenly rest for Pooky and a lot of anxiety for us I told Gerda to phone the doctor that I was coming, and got on the way for the drive to Hazerswoude and Dr. Kroll. When I arrived half an hour later he was ready for me. He palpitated Pooky, gave a snort, applied some pressure and pshshsht, Pooky was relieved of a very full bladder. I couldn't have known it, he said, but Gerda certainly should have! Back home Gerda was waiting up, came to the car, and anxiously asked:"What is it, what is it?" I told her it had been a full bladder rather than a fifth kitten, and she gave a little giggle, saying: "Oh of course, she hasn't been to the loo since early this morning!" After so many sleepless and strenuous hours I was in no mood to laugh with her so I resorted to a snort of my own: "Yeghgh, WOMEN!" , meaning Gerda as well as Pooky, of course!

OF COURSE the KITTENS were a delight! Except for one who had already been spoken for -his human wanted to call him "Yves"- we gave them Indonesian names. The Havana Puss we called SiRuwet (the noisy one, the chaotic one). She was sooo stupid. Whenever Pooky sounded the dinner bell by lying on her side and loudly purrrring, the others all crawled up to her, got hold of their own nipple, and started on a good long suck. SiRuwet (or Siru for family) crawled the other way, loudly complaining that she couldn't find Mommyeee! The other two Ebonies we called SiJahat (the naughty one) and SiTikus (mouse).

We had been afraid that Manja wouldn't accept the kittens, so the first days we kept her out of the bedroom to her vociferous annoyance. As she seemed to be curious rather than aggressive, we decided to try it, under strict supervision naturally. She stood up against the babies' bed, and sniffed. Pooky didn't seem to mind. We told Manja -as if we needed to- that these were nice kittens, to be loved and cherished, and certainly not to be attacked. Manja jumped into the bed, and started to lick the kids, as if she had never made a profession out of chasing kittens. Occasionally -mostly after too many visitors to our bedroom- Pooky thought that a more hidden place was better for the babies, and started to transfer them to her hidey hole in the attic. Curiously Gerda was the one in command at such times. She only had to point at the bedroom and tell Pooky: "You know very well that they BELONG there, bring them BACK!" and off would Pooky go, to her hidey hole to obediently bring them back to where WE felt they should be. When I,, her preferred "midwife" tried the same trick it didn't work at all , she only listened to Gerda! When the babies got bigger, we transformed Mei-lan's playpen into a cage by stapling mosquito netting inside the bars and putting a hardboard lid on it. Manja showed Pooky how to get out of the access opening, which we had made in the lid. And went on being a model aunt who was always there to mother the kittens when Pooky wanted some time off.

For weeks and weeks we didn't have to entertain our visitors; as soon as the kittens woke up, all chairs were turned to face our Cat's Castle - a 4x4" covered with sturdy carpet with all sorts of platforms, hidey holes and such attached to it- and the evening's entertaiment started. They went , and sometimes even WTP'ed (I leave the explanation of this to your own imagination). It was sad we had to relinquish three of them to their own humans. Happily they didn't all arrive on the same day to collect them.

SiTikus went to live with people who already had one meezer, he still lives this day (July 7, 1998).

SiJahat went to live with our vet. He already had four domestic cats, but as soon as Jahat arrived, he took over the management of the whole household, cats included. The vet's house was situated on some sort of an island surrounded by 3 rather broad ditches, and a river, so he had the free run of the garden. Here he used to catch birds, which he then took with him into the kitchen, where he put them into the food bowls of the other cats, turn by turn. We don't know what has become of Jahat as one day to the sorrow of the vet and his whole family -cats included- he went missing. We suppose that he boarded one of the sailing boats, which often moored at the vet's landing stage , hid himself only to appear when the owners of the boat were far away on the river already, and so didn't know where he'd come from. We can only hope they were cat lovers too!

Yves went to live with a lady friend of lady friends of ours. As it turned out she had a very irregular and demanding job, so she wasn't at home much. Yves couldn't stand the lack of company, and got morose to the point of even attacking his human. She understood, however, and found a good home for him on a nearby farm, where he turned into the terror of all mice and rats for long years afterward.

Siru

Siru stayed with us, and took Manja's place with Mei-lan, when Manja had to leave. Perhaps as a consequence of her (non)feeding habits as a kitten she developed into a very grrreeedy cat. She really stuffed herself whenever there was an opportunity. As a matter of fact all of our cats always liked titbits from the 'human' table. They even tried -and liked- sateh (Indonesian, spicy cubes of meat on skewers roasted on charcoal, with an Indonesian peanut or 'kacang' sauce), which were really sharp with red chillies. Pooky took only a few pieces, but Siru always yammered for more. She inherited the gene for BIGnes from her father Sandokan, and became one and a half times as big as her mother, who after her pregnancy returned to being dainty almost to the point of being skinny.

She didn't like Golda as Pooky did. Golda had a brother, Caesar, who was a really big German Shepherd -except for the floppy ears he got from his part Dobermann mother- and who loved cats. When I say loved I mean REALLY LOVED them. His owners lived in farming country, and Caesar regularly found stray kittens, who had been left there to fend for themselves by the rather heartless farmer owners of their mothers. He took them very carefully into his mouth -rather like a mother dog carrying her pup- and took them home, where he provided the warmth they needed and more or less blackmailed our friends into keeping yet another cat. It so happened that he came to visit us just when the kittens were out of their playpen for the first time and scampering around on the floor. Caesar uttered a -pleasantly- surprised "Wrroofff" at which the kittens turned around, and were suddenly confronted with this strange dog! I'd never seen kittens spit like they do in the Disney film, but now I saw them spit! None of them liked dogs afterwards, not even poor innocent Golda, who'd always protected their mother. Siru got used to Golda eventually, but she only tolerated her and never got around to liking dogs.

You should think that now we had one cat for each of our two children, we ought to be very satisfied. But no, Siru promised to be a beautiful cat, and we had plans for her. In due course she became mature, and as is girl cats' wont started yowling her little heart out, although you could see she didn't quite know for what reason. Pooky, however, did and -perhaps out of jealousy- fell into heat out of turn right after Siru stopped. Who -not to be outdone- started up again on the last day of Pooky's heat. All of our cats had been 'blessed' with very loud voices, and their YOWOWOWLS were ten times as loud, when they 'hankered' after a LOWOWOWOVER. They really leaned into VOICING their complaints as it were, and always chose rooms with an echo to do it in. Pooky and Siru -unhappily- were no exception! Besides they started to mark their territory, something Pooky had never done when she was the only 'whole' female in the house. Female cat I mean. Our whole Cats' Castle stank and they started to mark other places too. This 'merry'-go-round lasted for about three months, after which time I can assure you we were at the end of our tether. Our mental and physical exhaustion impaired our brains -I think- so we took a rather rigourous decision: within the week Pooky as well as Siru didn't have any urge to YOWL again, after two visits to the doctor. Later we regretted this decision very much; after all 'helping' only Pooky would have been enough to stop the merry-go-round. But as with so much in life it's no use crying over spilt milk, so there we were with two cats, and no prospects of another litter of our 'own'.

Life became rather placid after that, except for Manja's illness. And the time we had to collect Siru from the animal shelter, where she had been brought by people living quite a ways from us, where she'd asked for shelter after having lost her way home. And the times when we had to collect Pooky from some neighbour's attic, when she had got it into her head to go out of the roof window again, make a stroll on the -sloping- roof and see what other people's attics looked like. It offered a good opportunity to observe them and learn a lot about cats' behaviour. The books tell us that the lowest member of a cats' hierarchy always has to 'lick in' when she wants to join another cat in a favourite place. Well, Pooky was and stayed the top cat, but as soon as Siru started getting bigger than Pooky, the latter now and then 'brown-nosed' up to Siru. Not always mind, but enough times to invalidate the rule. The only rule that was ever abandoned, was the territorial rule. When Pooky started to really get weaker than Siru, she left the role of defender of the territory -which in our observation always falls to the oldest cat present- more and more to Siru. At night they played some sort of musical chairs. Pooky went to bed with Jeroen, and Manja -later on Siru- with Mei-lan. After some time -mostly when the children were in a deep sleep- they came downstairs again (have you ever observed that OSHs like their Siamese cousins descend stairs as if a herd of -not so small- elephants were coming down) and scratch the door of the living room until they were let inside. When we went to bed, they started the night under my blanket, rolled together in the hollow of my knees. After some time they switched to Gerda, left her again to see whether the kids were still there and so on and on. We got used to that quite soon, and lifted the blankets in our sleep as soon as some scratching -always very carefully- made it clear that a cat wanted 'under'!

Golda was about twelve years old, when we observed that she had troublke breathing, didn't run anymore, and even lost interest in 'reading the paper' when she was taken for a walk. She only wanted to relieve herself as quickly as possible, and go home directly afterwards. After some days of hesitation -Golda had such a big place in all our hearts, we just couldn't bear to lose her- we faced the situation, and went to visit doctor Kroll. He was away on vacation, but he had someone else taking care of the practice. This doctor confirmed what we'd already been afraid of -after all 12 years is quite an age for a big dog- Golda's belly was so full of tumor that it had started to exert so much pressure on her lungs that she had trouble getting enough air. And this would get worse rather quickly, the doctor gave us one month in which her condition would severely deteriorate causing her much pain. He talked us out of our feelings of guilt for not having come sooner to have her operated: such a big tumor was most probably a malignant one, so an operation wouldn't have helped. The humane thing now, however, would really be to help her cross the Rainbow Bridge. Mei-lan couldn't bear to leave Golda behind so we made an appointment for the next Monday and took her home for a weekend of leavetaking. Golda seemed to understand it. I took her by car to all her favourite places in the neighbourhood, let her sniff around a bit, lifted her into the car again and so to the next place. She wagged her tail a bit whenever I opened the tailgate at another place, lifted her out and said: "Go on Golda, look what's there". That Monday I went to Hazerswoude with Golda, and she died in my arms, quite peacefully.

We had deliberated about adopting a new dog, but decided against it. In the first place Golda was irreplaceable, and secondly we thought we could very well manage with two cats and two CATS only. Within three weeks, however, Mei-lan complained that she didn't get out of doors anymore for lack of a dog who had to be walked. Then Jeroen started rebellious mutters that there was no one at home to greet him when he returned from school -Gerda in the mean time had started again to be gainfully employed, at an office- but imagine with two cats in the house: he felt he wasn't welcomed ostentatiously enough! And then Gerda said she was missing someone to talk to and to argue with. Two children and two cats! Then I had to confess that I missed my late night walks with Golda too. In our village a dog is a valid excuse for being abroad late at night. You can't walk the street alone at that time, or you're in danger of being considered a peeping Tom, even more so as your eyes are almost irresistibly attracted to every lighted window: it is customary in Holland NOT to draw the curtains at night. So after long discussions we decide to go to an animal shelter to see whether a dog could be found that we wanted to adopt. Mei-lan wanted a little "Boomer"-type dog, or something softhaired and fluffy, which could be cuddled. Gerda concurred. I, on the other hand, wanted a DOG, i.e. someone you could talk to on a basis of equality, someone to be respected. Luckily for me the first dog we saw, and which Mei-lan thought so cute, so adorable, was a very nervous, yappy -although cuddlesome- type, which wouldn't fit our collective personality at all. At last we settled on a "small" Dobermann pinscher, called

Vesta.

  Little did we know that Vesta had a history, which made her not the best choice we could've made. Only later we discovered that due to her sterilisation she was incontinent and had to be kept on ephedrine all the time. Moreover she turned out to have a slight epilepsy, which made her -when being walked- turn around and head for home, whenever she had an attack. It also turned out that she had been relegated to the shelter not only by her first boss, but by three subsequent ones as well. This had made her a nervous wreck -of course- and she was afraid of even leaves rustling in the wind. After about six months of frustration: us giving Vesta simple orders to obey -in Dutch of course- and Vesta showing all the signs of wanting to obey but not knowing what to do, we discovered that her first boss must have come from England, she "spoke" only English!

Once we had learned the correct commands she was the most obedient dog ever. Only out of doors, however, inside she thought it her responsibility to guard home and family against all comers and unknown phenomena, and she didn't want to have her "Bark Off" button clicked. Not that we knew what command to use for that! We tried: Quiet, Friends, It's Allright, Shut up, Be still, Ly Dead consecutively, but nothing really worked. We considered returning her to the animal shelter, but we couldn't find it in our hearts to do that to her again, and so we decided to give it our very best try to restore Vesta to the original faith in humankind every dog is born with. And with time the poor thing became almost a normal dog again. She especially loved Gerda and Mei-lan, who really must be "dog people". She would gladly have given her life to defend those two; Jeroen and I -she apparently felt- were men, and should be perfectly able to fend for ourselves.

Pooky and Siru definitely did not appreciate the new addition to the household. In fact they refused to accept her for almost two years. They lived upstairs during that time; in their own apartments we used to say. Until one summer got extremely and everlastingly hot -for Holland that is- and they couldn't keep ignoring their hankering for the garden, and its breezes that gave a suggestion of coolness. So one afternoon, we saw first one grey and then another brown streak of lightning flash from upstairs through the sliding doors and into the garden, where they immediately sought refuge in the "velvet tree"(Dutch name for Rhus typhina). With that Vesta's spell over them was broken; they resumed their life downstairs as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened the past two years. And so life went on, children growing up and leaving home for their own rooms, when they started their university studies; cats and dog growing older, and more tolerant of one another. Pooky did not ever transfer her love of Golda to Vesta, but she was never as afraid of her as Siru was. Although the latter also grew to tolerate her rather than always feeling the necessity to defend herself.

To the children's chagrin they had to concede that Pooky as well as Siru were too old to be relocated to their new rooms in Leiden and Rotterdam, and so had to be left at home in Leiderdorp. Mei-lan was the first to decide that this feeling of "missing something" was due to of a feline companion, and who asked us to try and locate a kitten for her, who would be willing to adopt her. A Siamese, of course, more specifically a redpoint male. A year later Jeroen also felt that the time had come to be put up for adoption by a Siamese, but his preference restricted itself to female only. The rest of this story will be told in the chapter History of "my children's" Cats (Brandal, Megumi, Akemi, Ryoko).

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