In late October 2007, Brian and I approached the Robin's Nest table at the Niskayuna Petsmart. I filled out a volunteer application and told them we were interested in fostering cats and kittens now that we had our own home.
On November 3, 2007, our very first fosters arrived! A litter of three beautiful girls, whom we named Ptera Dactyl, Anya, and Charlotte. Their parents belonged to a family with low income who was being helped by L.H., a local rescuer who assists and advocates for low income families with cats. L.H. helped the family, who lived in Hamilton Hill, get the parents, Maisie and Chollo, spayed and neutered, and agreed to get the girls fostered and adopted out so that they would not have to go to the shelter to fate unknown.Anya and Charlotte were both buff-colored tabbies, Charlotte having long hair while Anya was short-haired. Ptera was white, with a buff colored spot on the back of her head; she was also polydactyl, with one extra "thumb" on each front paw, and an extra toe on each rear paw, about halfway down the foot from the rest of her toes. All had what L.H. likes to call "the concerned look", where the eyes have a shape to them that makes the cat look "worried"; it is a physical structure, not an indicator of mood, but it definitely registers with our species as them looking worried!
They had adorable personalities; Ptera liked me and no one else, and would come up to me wherever I was, saying, "Mow yow!" Anya showed signs of having been weaned too young, and would suck on her sisters' bellies. Ptera developed the habit of sucking on her own belly, and when the sisters finally told Anya "no more", she also sucked on her own. They still do it today, in fact. The three of them were pretty much normal, adorable, cuddly, playful kittens in every way. Because it was the holiday season, this would be the first and last year I'd set up our taller holiday tree; the girls, especially Charlotte, managed to knock every ornament off, then knocked almost all of the branches off except the bottom ones.The girls were all spayed on December 3, 2007 by Dr. Hernas in Schenectady. Dr. Hernas is a kindly vet who has done a lot to help local cats in need; she cannot provide the s/n service for free, but she does discount it for rescues and rescuers. She also keeps a cage in her waiting room where kittens and/or cats for adoption can be seen by her clients.
The day after their spay, the foster coordinator called me to tell me to bring the girls to the adoption clinic that weekend. I really freaked out, because I was not emotionally prepared for that. For some reason, I thought I'd have a little more time with them than that, and suddenly they were going to be gone and out of my life forever. I cried all night, and thought about how my little Ptera would feel being torn away from me, how Anya would feel when she was torn away from her sisters. Charlotte was more independent and gregarious, so I wasn't worried about how she would handle getting adopted, but my baby girls! My sweet little Ptera and Anya! Ptera, who loved me more than anything else in the world! How could I break her heart like that?
In the end, it turned out, I couldn't. I had fallen hard for her, and I also adored her sister. We were also in the process of grieving for our cat Teya, who had just died of cancer at the too-young age of nine. We had a cat shaped hole in our hearts, and it made me weak!We adopted Ptera and Anya ourselves; it was official on December 18, 2007. I don't regret that at all.
Charlotte was adopted by Jenn T., who was one of Brian's coworkers. He'd been bringing in pictures to tease her, and so she came over to meet Charlotte after I called her up begging her to
adopt Charlotte so I'd never lose touch with her. When she arrived at the house, I placed Charlotte in her hands and told her, "This is the one you're taking home." There was no way she could resist; Charlotte was an exceptionally beautiful little kitten, and she had an angelic personality. So she got adopted 12/15/2007. When we went to the adoption center to get the paperwork filled out, Robin took one look at lovely Charlotte and said, "This is the one you're giving up?!" I told her that it was because of Ptera's attachment to me, not because they were pretty.
