Marmalade

Here is Marmalade. I didn't make his name up—it's on his tag. He was so big and hardy and friendly. When I walked away from him, he stayed in the above position for as long as he was in my visibility range. Spotted on Maynard near Falkland (where else?).

Lost CAT!

This is a poster for the lost cat "Mica". She is supposed to live on Gottingen. She is lost and all alone.



This is Wu Tang. I saw him right after i read the "LOST" poster for Mica and let me tell you, i thought i was going to be making Nancy's (see poster) day, by having found her cat. But no. Wu Tang was not Mica and i was not going to be able to reunite the separated siamese to her human mother.

p.s. Wu tang is the name of the cat as indicated on its tag. I did not name it. If i had it would have been Andy.

UPDATE: Wu Tang might be RTF's cat Lorenzo, that he blogged about in " I am siamese if you please".

Logan

Here is Logan. I thought his real name would be on his name tag, but no. He was just a nice cat, on the driveway of a house at Cogswell and Creighton. There seem to be two kinds of cats in this world: cats who like meeting passers-by and cats who don't. Logan is of the first kind.

The Tortoise and the Kitty

http://view.break.com/293055 - Watch more free videos

Subway man + cat + kittens: West 4 station

On the way home last night LL and I saw this man and his three cats (two little kittens and one possible-momma cat) in the subway entrance.

I asked if I could take his (and cats') picture and he kindly said yes. And he told me how calico cats (the one that looks like my baby kitten, right by the man's blue shoe) are always girl cats (all the kittens in my kitten's litter were calico, and all were girls), and I told him how orange stripey cats are almost always boy cats.

It's amazing that the cats stay with him and don't just run off into the night; I wonder how he gets around with them all without losing them.

Harris = Chicken?

Unfortunately, those "lost cat" posters for Chicken are still up. There is one of those posters on the screen door of a house on Bauer, which probably means that's where Chicken should be but is not. But I did see one colour lost cat poster for Chicken, and Chicken is a marmalade cat like the one I at first thought was Sampson but later named Harris.

So maybe Harris is Chicken? If I see him again and it turns out he is Chicken, I'll return him to his house on Bauer.

Mindy.

This is Midnight Mindy.

She lives on Agricola Street. I was riding my bike and upon seeing Mindy I swerved to the opposite side of the rode to capture several night shots of this lovely lady. It was hot out that night and she found herself a cool cement block upon which to lay and watch the traffic and pedestrians. She was, as we like to say, people watching.

Honey.

This is Honey. The type that comes in jars and sticks to spoons. I found her at dusk, outside of her yellow house with the red decorative. She was the type to roll in the gutters and get herself all dirty with pebbles and sand and grass. But I am sure to her, the amount of cleaning that she would have to do later that evening was worth it for the loving attention she received.

Simon's Cat

This qualifies as cat blog material because it's so universally true!

Cat tricks

Ok this is the worst picture in the world, but you'll get an idea. You'll just have to come to New York for the real thing.

This cat is called Nick. He sits on his owner's head to help his owner make money. Even when his owner walks around, Nick still sits there. If he gets taken off his owner's head, he'll climb back up there ("Go upstairs, Nick").

An impressive trick.

Window Cat on Maynard

It's an inadequate shot, I know, but here is one of two furry cats I see in this window on Maynard Street. They are very contented cats and seem to enjoy this perch. Whenever I go by to take a photo, however, they are not there—or their owners are home as is indicated by the sounds of their voices coming from within. It would be a bit awkward to take a photo of their window while they are in there.

I suppose I'll have to start looking elsewhere for neighbourhood kitties—I seem to have exhausted my supply here for now.

Single black and white male.

Meet Simon. He is a very friendly gentleman who i first meet while he was sitting on the steps of his house. I stopped at first just to take a picture, but soon i realized that there is more to Simon. Not only is he handsome (and single ladies), but he has extra digits. That's right Simon is polydactyl. So if your looking for a good time with a pleasant and loving male, Simon might be the one for you! Swing by to the corner of Bauer and Cogswell and just say 'hello'.

A-Mew-Sing Duo

Walking up the 45-degree incline that is Beacon Hill after a jaunt at the hardware store, my hubby and I spotted these two cats.





Maybe they are siblings. (One was sitting on the sidewalk, and one was lazing in the window. But they weren't interacting at all.) At any rate, they live on stately Mt. Vernon Street at a ritzy-looking residence, so they are probably rich felines. I will call them Grey Poupon and Cashmere.

I crossed the street to visit with Cashmere. He was feeling a bit shy, so he went into the little garden and sat just beneath a big leaf. I talked to him and tried to get him to look at me, but I wasn't cool enough to be his friend.



I like him anyway. And Grey Poupon, too.

Nina: Spongepaw

This is Nina, who lives at my house. I think she's mine, but she might be Marie-Hélène's, who placed Nina under my care when she moved back to Québec—and who may come back to take her home. I hope not.

Here is one of the cute little monkey things that Nina does (see picture). If there is a little jar or cup of water, and if she's thirsty, she doesn't let the fact that her head wouldn't fit into the opening stop her. She simply dips her furry paw in the water like a sponge and laps it up from there! It's so cute, except when she does it with my dirty paint/ink water.

Sampson?

I saw this guy on Maynard Street, and I think he might be Charley's Sampson. He was so nice and friendly; when I squatted down to call him over, he meowed and trotted over and again, and we became good friends whilst bonding over a hearty scruff-scratch.

Update: Charley speculates that this couldn't be Sampson. I've decided that this guy's name is Harris. Harris Bonaventure.

Romeo and Juliet

Romeo lives across the street from me in one of the many tall/skinny Dutch townhouses in my 'hood. He usually goes in and out through a basement window, but often when I come home he is stuck outside. He looks at me expectantly, but then dashes off when I come too close.


Juliet lives next door, and I've never seen her outside. This morning Romeo was in his usual spot by the bike rack, and he was miaowing to Julie, jumping on and off the window sill, trying to get to his girl behind the window. Then Julie's mom came and clapped Romeo away, but he lingered under a car, eyeing me with suspicion, waiting for a second try.

W 113th St, Manhattan (unusual)

On my way home last night I actually saw a cat on the street in Manhattan! Poor kitten (she looked about 6 months old), she had no tags, was VERY skittish, but also friendly; I stopped for a while to talk to her and by the time I tried to walk home I almost couldn't because she was winding herself between my legs.

Really hard to take a photo of though since she moved so fast and the light was low AND it's just my phone camera.

I thought about taking her home because no cat should really be wandering around Manhattan alone, but my house is so inhospitable to cats right now that I've moved my baby kitten to the office. So I didn't.

But then, this morning on the way to the subway I saw this:



So I guess she'll be ok for now. (I'm not good at naming like Tom is, maybe he will name this little one?)

Flufferson

Here is Flufferson. I might have blogged about him when I took this picture back in May of last year. But this being a cat blog, and me being in a part of town today where there are not too many wandering cats, I decided to break this one out again.

Flufferson is a filthy but very cute and friendly kitty who lives on my old street (Curzon St) in Toronto. He lives near the corner at Queen St E and is often seen basking on top of parked cars, the picket fence, or on a driveway with a few other mangy cats. On this particular occasion, there was a truck parked in front of the house with its window slightly open, and here, Flufferson managed to trap himself in the cab! He was trying desperately to get out to greet me. It was the most sad and adorable thing.

Chicken

I think I would like to post "missing" posters here as well. It's sad to think that some of the neighbourhood cats are roaming about without their owners knowing of their whereabouts. Go home, Chicken, your family misses you.

Wallace

I don't know this cat's name, so I will call him Wallace. Wallace is an old black cat who roams our neighbourhood. He has been known to peek into my bedroom window and spook Nina, at least on one occasion. Ever since, Nina peers longingly and intently into the back yard from said window, hoping to exchange strange cat-body language gestures and growling sounds one might never have thought would be possible for a cat to produce.

Poor old Wallace—he seems weary and tired. He didn't know if he wanted to deal with me or not. He ran up to me, and then he jerked rather suddenly when I reached out to touch him, and he walked away. He was not mean, just a little bit skittish. I like Wallace.

Cat in the Cradle.

This is a cat that i see very often. It belongs to a house that doesn't have screens of its windows which allows the playful cat to protrude it's body out of the second floor windows. Although it seems like the cat is always about to jump to make a great escape, it never does. Perhaps it realizes it likes where it comes from. If this cat had a name it would be Fern. Then people could also call it Fern Gully, Fern-iture and Fern-ace. And people would like this cat.

Response to Sue: NYC Persian Cat

Same cat as Sue's (two posts ago). I think I saw him near Magnolia Bakery or thereabouts. Someone at the studio where I work thought this might be Winston, but on closer inspection, we determined it is unlikely. It would be a shame if his name weren't Lance.

Broome St NYC

It's not uncommon to see cats in stores in New York -- since they can pull their own weight by taking care of pests. This one in a store on Broome in SoHo was super friendly, and followed me and LL from window to window as we looked at all the marvelous merchandise. (The store was closed.)

Just before that we met another cat inside a store (no photo) -- quite the opposite since it had NO interest in having its head rubbed.

West Village NYC

I think Tom can also provide a picture of this one. Not quite in my neighborhood but there are fewer cats on view in New York so you can't be picky.

I am Siamese if you please

So this is one of the neighbourhood cats. He's a Siamese, I think. I was surprised by how friendly he was to me; most purebred cats, if they are allowed outside at all, tend to be snobs (no offense to purebred cats). I was trying to capture his gorgeous azure eyes, but he was too smiley and rolling-all-around for me to capture them.

Since the precedent has been set to name these stranger cats, I will name this guy Lorenzo. He does have an ID tag, so if I run into him again, I'll find out his real name.

Cats in the 'hood.

This is a cat that i found while walking to the Halifax Shopping center last summer. I got down on my knees and played with it for a while. I don't know it's name but it should be Sammy.


In the foreground is my former polydactyl cat, Plum. She is looking at the black cat sitting on the fence.


These are two cats that I found on Falkland street. I think that they are buds because I see them together quite often.


This cat is one of my favorites. He is hard to get close to and I have chased him on several occasions in the past week. Sometimes it sits on the window frame and cleans itself, before his owners open the window and bring him back into the house. I don't know his name but i sure hope that it is Sampson.

The gray cat from a few doors down

This is the gray cat that is usually resting on the stoop leading up to the neighbours' front door. Their door is usually wide open without anybody in sight except this little beauty. She might be a guard-cat. I like her. She looks a lot like my first family cat, Annie.

About this blog

Cats are everywhere in the neighbourhood. And they're our friends. I make friends with most cats I encounter on my walks from here to there. Some are shy, some are outgoing. Some are skittish and some are mellow. All are funny.

My favourite cats are window cats. These are the cats who are watching you from their perch on the sill of their owner's window. They are much more courageous, calm and arrogant from behind the safety of a window. They know they're the shit, and that's why they're on display in the street-level window.

But cats of all kinds—whether window cats or sidewalk cats or stoop cats or stupidly relaxing in the middle of the road cats—they are all our friends. This blog is to chronicle the meetings we have with our neighbourhood cats, if for no other reason than that they are funny and are the beloved of we, the cat people.