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Hello all, Santa here!
2009-11-02 07:14:03 | 17 Comments
Hello all, my name is Santa and I will be posting on here along with our dear Mr. Michael Flux. =) As some of you may or may not know, yes I am his girlfriend. So he decided to have me help out with posting on the site. Figured may as well introduce myself. :p
Don’t really have too much to say about myself, mainly love to draw a bit in my spare time- which lately I seemed to have none of. Also enjoy writing, or at least did over the summer. Now the only writing I do is for school, with the exception of this of course. Also love animals very much. I volunteer with a wonderful animal rescue from Michigan called Paws for Life Rescue and Adoption. I’ve been with Paws for Life since they started out sometime around November 2007. In that time the rescue has managed to save the lives of countless dogs and cats, and I did my best to play a part in that. The area in which I live has far too many stray cats, and over the past two years, the number of cats that came through the rescue thanks to me and my younger cousin is somewhere around 80-90.
One thing I love most about Paws for Life is that it’s a no-kill rescue. So animals do not get euthanized. We work our hardest to find every animal it’s forever home. Speaking of finding homes for animals, not only were both my own cats rescued by me, but so was Michael’s cat Aeon.
In the case of my cats, Meowth and Mashka both were February rescues. Meowth I met back in December of 2006, my mom refused to let me take him home, so for three months I would go visit him where he lived outside not far from a car wash. Every day for about 2-3 hours a day I would spend sitting out in the cold with him hiding inside of my coat. Finally February 03, 2007 my mom agreed to take in Meowth, and he came home to live with us.
A year later on February 22, 2008 my cousin and I were visiting an old apartment complex in which we used to live. She noticed something sitting in a broken air conditioning vent, being the way I am, I went to take a look. Turns out it was a cat. (Big surprise there. =P) Cat darted off and I chased her for a few minutes through the snow, then she jumped into a building through a broken window and I followed. After cornering her, she sat there hissing at me. Regardless I wrapped her in my coat and made a run for it. Once safely inside a different building we let her out into a small room. Suddenly the hissing cat was purring and cuddling with us. Poor thing was all skin, bones, and fur. Not to mention that the tips of her ears had been frost bitten.
Seeing as we were volunteers of a rescue, after being tested and receiving her shots the cat went to be spayed. Surprisingly enough, she already had a spay scar- meaning someone must have owned her before she ended up in such a shit situation. Still, the rescue placed her up for adoption, and I took her home to foster. Within the first week she had found a happy home. All was going well until the people’s grandkids came over, Mashka (what we named her) decided to be aggressive towards them, and she was automatically returned. For about a month she lived with my mom, Meowth, and I, and terrorized Meowth all day long. She truly was an angry cat at first. Then once again she was adopted form us. This time we received a call within twenty-four hours to come and pick her up. She was harassing the other cat the adopters had. After a few more weeks she managed to calm down, became close to Meowth, and to top it off, the tips of her ears fell off do to the severe frost bite. Luckily she did end up gaining some weight.
The finally in April we ended up adopting her, she was having trouble finding a home because of her temper, and by then she had become accepting of Meowth. So now the two are happily causing trouble together. Even though Meowth and Mashka are they’re real names, for some reason I still prefer to call them “The Boo” and “The Moo.”
Aeon on the other hand, he is a very recent rescue of mine. While out on a bike ride I noticed a small orange kitten hiding underneath someone’s car. As I approached him he meowed and came closer, but the instant I tried to grab him he took off. After a good hour of chasing him with some help from a neighbor, I managed to catch him. Turns out he was also a lot more cuddly then he seemed at first. After Michael met Aeon he decide to foster him, but just like I, it seems he is a “foster flunky” – someone who ends up adopting their foster pet.
Sadly one thing wrong with Aeon, he must have been hit by a car or something before I rescued him, because he was limping. Turns out he had a broken femur. Luckily it did heal up, but he will always have a bit of a gimp.
As much as I would love to continue telling you all about my different cat adventures, I think I should call it a night. – Or rather a morning, seeing as it’s about 6am at the time of me typing this and I still haven’t any sleep. Hope you all enjoyed this introductory post. You will soon hear from me again. Bye for now. ^_^
chun
awwwww you're a kitty heroine :)! I'll be enjoying your cat rescue posts ;P
Santa Flux
@chun, Thanks. There'll be more to come. ^_^
Seantaku
I am a huge animal lover so reading this post made me very happy. If only more people could help out in situations like these.
Great first post and I can't wait to hear more from you!
Santa Flux
@Seantaku, Thanks. I also wish we had more people in the world who actually cared about helping animals. Such a shame that the vast majority of the human race is worthless.
Heferkimbo
Good for you!!!.... but i still think they have very long whiskers.. hmmm, it must be michigan´s water :P
Anyway, nice to meet you... is you name really Santa?, not as in santa claus.. but as in Spanish santa?, wich means saint..beatiful name
Santa Flux
@Heferkimbo, Don't think it's the water, but who knows.
And yes, the name really is Santa. And yea, it does mean saint.
lightningsabre
I saw this on Twitter and I thought Michael was blogging about Santa Claus, lol. Don't mind me, Hallo Santa! Pokemon fan?
Good to hear your story, especially Mashka's. Must've been quite difficult to get her to get used to everything. You have very good patience ^_^
Santa Flux
@lightningsabre, Yes, I am a Pokemon fan, but my cousin was actually the one who named him. :p
As for the patience, ha, as if, that only exists when it comes to animals. ^_^
Ayumiin
Nice to meet you! Great introductory post. I am a cat lover myself who has taken in random kittens off the street (to the point of having like 10 at one time...) so it was a touching and aww-inducing post especially since these days, I no longer have cats.
But yay, I'm looking forward to seeing more.
Santa Flux
@Ayumiin, Glad to see another cat lover. ^_^ And I'm sure I'll have many more animal related stories to post.
Jambe
It takes a lot of time and certain toughness to do animal rescue ¢
What do you draw? Anime, toons, anatomy studies, technical work, full-on illustration? Anything ∨
Tangentially, this video of a unique rescue project was inspiring to me (Cat House on the Kings):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwM6f0liHpo
Michael Flux
@Jambe, Off topic, but yeah, really do need to get around to fixing this damn commenting system which seems to drop dead with some random characters :p
Santa Flux
@Jambe, used to draw lots of anime-like wolves. Working on people, but haven't done much drawing lately.
As for the video, it's quite a wonderful place, read about it several times before. ^_^
Jambe
Urgh, I used an (and) symbol. This broke one of my previous replies on the site. Should've known better!
... rescue. You're a decent and honorable person!
... illustration? Anything (and) everything? Digital or physical media or both?
The rest came out fine. Also, I have ten cats living with me! We have an old farmhouse... I got one of the local farm cats to trust me enough to bring its kitties into the garage and that's where they all hang out. A previous generation of 4 is now, oh, seven-ish months old (one hit ≤
The mom is a TINY black and white cat and the dad was a mackerel (striped) looking tabby. Older generation was black and white with one pure black, and this recent generation there are 3 pure stripe, one black ≠
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jambeeno/sets/72157622246588805/
Your cats are beautiful by the way, and have cute names! I can't figure out what to name any of the kitties in the garage - I instinctively call them all "kitty". Thinking of going with a theme - something like Egyptian or Norse myth or... God knows. No cats in the house proper now - my old (really old) cat Bumpus died early this year. Great life, that cat had. Looking forward to having "cat shenanigans" in the house again - just doing a lot of renovation atm, so letting them keep to the garage for the time being. They have a big pile of old blankets and boxes and a whole section of garage segregated off as "the kitteh zone".
Jambe
Again with the symbols! I'm a dolt.
... (one hit on the road (AND) killed) and a recent generation of six. Got one of the six adopted but plan on keeping two of the first litter and... honestly I want all five of the remaining recent litter but don't know if I can manage it. Nobody can resist kitties!
... 3 pure stripe, one black (AND) white, one striped on top and white on bottom, and one white with striped patches.
Sorry I borked these posts repeatedly. I'm a goober.
Michael Flux
@Jambe, Yeah, sorry about that, just really been needing to get around to fixing this damn commenting system for a while now :p
Santa Flux
@Jambe, very beautiful cats they are. I think it'd be a good idea to wait till the kittens are 8-10 weeks old, then take them and the momma cat to any local humane society to get them spayed/neutered. If you choose to keep all of them, then good for you, if not I'm sure local rescues wouldn't mind helping you adopt them out. ^_^
I'll try and find some old pics of some of my first stray cats (the ones who got me into animal rescue) and make a post about them.