Post by @quester@mementomori.social

2026-07-26 13:24 UTC

#Cats from my past, a thread/6 Roope. The magnificent licorice tiger. He was rescued as a kitten from being put down by my sister and her then boyfriend, now ex-husband. I know she had good intentions, but being exposed to her ex was not good for Roope. He and Bastet met during our evacuation period in 2011, when our apartment was deemed uninhabitable for a couple of months. We bounced from place to place, trying to rely on relatives for help. Bastet stayed with my parents, until they decided they didn't want to help us anymore (this was the straw that broke the camel's back for me with my folks, long story). So we resorted to my brother's apartment, where one of my sisters was also staying, another long story, which I won't go into. But Roope was there as well, because the sister who rescued him decided they wouldn't want him in their house anymore. The first picture is of Roope and Bastet sitting at a window in my brother's apartment, Roope waiting for a chance to escape outside, and Bastet just enjoying seeing stuff outside. Roope ran away outside a couple of times, but always returned eventually. Before this, we had had encounters with Roope at my parents' house, amd we witnessed him stealing plum pies and growling as he ate them, making sure no one took them from him. But during the couple of weeks we stayed in the apartment Roope was in, he and Bastet proved to get along really well. So we gave it some thought, and decided that we'll take Roope in to live with us. The best decision we made at the time. It was clear Roope had been abused. He didn't like being held, and if you pet him "too long", he would slap and bite you when he had enough. And the growling and/or running away and hiding with his treat also told a story. But during his six months with us he slowly realised that we're not bad. Eventually he figured that our affection didn't come with bad consequences. One day I was taking a nap, and woke up to a heavy weight on my legs. Imagine my surprise, when the weight turned out to be Roope, sleeping quite soundly on me! That is the second picture. He didn't exactly jump onto our laps after this, but if we were lying on the bed on our stomachs, he might climb on us and find a comfy position to sleep. And he stopped being aggressive if we petted him for longer periods of time. That was great. Roope also became a sort of a pinball cat. Not as eager as Bastet was, but he did enjoy roaming the tops of the pinball machines, and always came to look if a game was taken away or brought in. Roope's greatest skill, though, was his ability to find his way to the strangest of places. The fourth photo is of him on the top level of our cleaning product shelves. There's no specific way to get there, unless the cat either jumps as high as it can and then gets some additional boost from the lower shelves. The strangest thing, though, was the time we found him from the hallway's hat rack, which has zero lower levels, just coats or hoodies that really don't have any leverage to help a kitty get that high. We didn't have the security cam in the hallway back then yet, so this will remain a mystery. As I mentioned, Roope was only for six months with us. Turned out he had a tumor, which, as it grew, started to block his urethra. And by the time it was evident that it was really bad, we had to make a tough decision. He was only 4 years old. But he left a huge impact on us. He was a wonderful cat, and really enforced our willingness to rescue older cats.

Replies (1)

@quester@mementomori.social 2026-07-26 13:56

#Cats from my past, a thread/7 Vallu, who we lost this February due to cancer. She was 12 years old, and we got our lives enriched by her for nearly a whole decade. Her name was given by her original owner, my partner's friend, who got her as a kitten. Her full name was Viiksi-Vallu (the Finnish name of Yosemite Sam) due to her really long white whiskers. She came to us because Vallu did not get along with her original owner's older cat. She tried to dominate her, as this older cat was not very well, so to ease her last years he decided that Vallu needs a new home. Thus she came to us. It was in 2016, specifically in February (hence almost exactly a decade with us), while I was away on an exchange period for school. So my partner got to witness her first moments in her new home. While the friend was at our apartment, Vallu had no problem roaming around and getting familiar with the new space. But once he left, her demeanor changed and she basically hid the first week. She was slowly easing into her new situation, and then I came back home and we were basically back to square one 😅 Vallu took a long time to come to terms with that I'm not scary. She took a liking to my partner a lot faster, there's something about him that cats and dogs really like about him. It took maybe a month for her to finally allow me to approach her while she was lying somewhere. So at first I carefully approached her, speaking with a light toned voice. So when she let me sit down next to her without running away, I would do that for a bit and then when it looked like she might rush off, I left the room. But I was persistent and eventually she let me pet her. Not long after that she would let me pick her up, and eventually she would force her way onto our laps. So persistence is good. She never really made best friends with Wäinö, but she tolerated him. He would definitely would had loved to have grooming sessions with her, but she would have none of that, she'd either run away, slap him or hiss at him. There were periods when we had to separate them, because Wäinö would persist for way too long and really piss her off and she would then growl and hiss and attack him if he even got into her line of sight. So a few hours, or sometimes a few days, apart helped and once Vallu calmed down things would get back to normal. This video is of Vallu doing something she sometimes mischievously did; licking a plate and utensils clean on the kitchen work top. Sometimes you could head the clink of utensils or the coarse kitty tongue working on the glass plate, or a baking sheet on the stovetop 😂 We fairly quickly learned that it was not smart to leave baking sheets with chicken fat on the stove unattended. Otherwise Vallu would be all over that! Vallu didn't reply to us talking to her like Bastet did, but she absolutely would run over if you called out to her. Because usually it meant either lap time, treats or that there was a bug to catch. She once found a centipede in the living room and followed it around the room before scoffing it down. She loved chasing bugs. Her favorite places were the cat plank tree my partner built onto our living room window behind the curtain. She'd observe the goings-on in the backyard from there. Or hid there is there was something scary, like the vacuum cleaner. And she loved the wall plank and the cat bed on top of the bookshelf in the bedroom. Actually both she and Wäinö would sometimes fight over who got to sleep on the cat bed on the shelf. I still miss Vallu, she was a sweetheart and one of the funniest kitties we've had the privilege of having in our lives.

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