On this joyous celebratory weekend, let me introduce Moose, the cat. Moose's life started out tough, but now he gives hugs. First, some context. Singapore has lots of semi-stray cats, who live in HDB apartment complex ground floor open areas, and are generally well-fed, neutered, yet subject to the rain and various infections. They have short hair, clipped ears to show they've been fixed, and usually have bobtails:
Since lock-down, we've been brisk walking sauntering on the highway bridges, given fewer pedestrians and great views. (Also, for the record, in Singapore we wear our masks outside the home except when eating or exercising, as below.)
So, on this highway bridge over the river, nowhere near human sources of food or rodents, and we saw a little sad, wet cat sitting in the gutter. The first night, he fled to the precarious river-side ledge, so we fed him and left. The second night, I sat down and chatted with him. Then I called Barry to bring me some tuna, a duffel bag and his bike. Moose made no protest.
When we got him home, things started looking up for all three of us. First, having eaten (a lot), Moose cleaned himself up nicely.
Then after a short stint of hiding, he came out to say thanks, and we learnt that he's chocolate brown with medium-length fluffy fur!
I think he was happy with the situation.
We had to give him a bath to get rid of his lice. He said he was cold, so Barry ("not a cat person"?) warmed him up with a hot water bottle. (It's 27C in our house.)
Not pleased.
But Moose is a sweetie, and he forgave us once he got dry and even fluffier. Here, we shared some morning loves.
From the vet, we learnt that little Moose had lived a rough life on the streets, undernourished, his growth stunted, with foreign matter in his stomach (plastic?) and a small cleft palate that makes him sneeze when he eats. He's 8-18 months old.
Moose let us de-louse, de-worm, vet-inspect, brush and cut out his matted fur, with nary a claw nor a hiss. And he managed to de-plastic himself with his improved diet.
He says he's better suited for working from home.
We were pretty sure he liked us.
Over 2 weeks, he gained nearly 25% of his body weight, and started to tell us that he was a pescatarian and preferred fish to meat, please.
He also liked our friends. Here you can see his forehead bald spot from sleeping on the pavement. (Moose's, not Raed's).
I wanted to keep Moose forever, but Barry is terribly allergic, so I had to get one of them adopted. Yesterday, that happened. Moose is in a wonderful forever home, with a lovely cat person who loves him as much as we did. We cried a
little lot when he left, but this is now our best event of 2020. Moose has a special thank-you for Keri and Jeroen, who delivered us cat supplies overnight AND found his adopter!
We've been finding more new ways to pass the time. Matching masks, a do or a don't? And are sloths now overdone? Oh look, Barry has a kayak, thanks to Anywhr "daycations", which are now a thing!
What else have we been doing for fun?
After appreciating many other types of beverages, it was time to learn about the leaves.
Barry got to pretend to be the tea master.
So did I, but the shadows make it look like I've been rained upon.
Our conclusion: Tea is still not our thing, but there was learning, and tiny pots, so fun was had.
After this, we went to the Intan, which is a private Peranakan (mixed Malay/Chinese culture) museum featured in the Singapore Airlines safety video. We were star-struck.
Alvin Yap showed us his collections, cooked for us, and even played piano, all of which was spectacular! (No pictures, you have to go see for yourself!)
