Missing Cookie... ...

Cookie has been missing for the past 4 weeks. I've looked around the whole block for her, asked a few neighbors whether they have seen Cookie, but nope. No signs of her and none of the neighbors knew her whereabouts either.

Sigh. I really hope that she is well and alive.

The day when we adopted Cookie as our cat, I kind of knew that this day would happen. Although we took her in "officially", she was still free to roam out of our apartment whenever she felt like it. Many a times, she would spend her afternoons chasing after birds at the void deck or I would catch her eating grass at one of the grass patches at our car park.

As much as I always call her "Cookie, the Stupid Cat". I really miss her a lot and wish that she will somehow find her way home.

Another little yellow bird saved

Almost 10 months ago, I saved a little yellow bird and I called him "little yellow". As I have mentioned before, as much as I love animals, I simply do not have the same love for birds. Even pretty little parrot with rosy cheeks did not melt my heart, so I gave Little Yellow away to a friend and end of story. Or so, I thought...

A few weeks ago, while I was hanging out my laundry to dry, I saw a big, bad and hungry crow trying to peck a small little yellow bird to death at the ground floor car park. Poor little fellow was no match for the crow, which was easily almost 4 times its size. Although I have no love for birds, I could not bring myself to witness Little Little Yellow being pecked to death.

Luckily father-in-law was at home that day, so I gave him a yell that I need to run out to do something and he stayed at home to watch over Beanie, while Mommy ran out like a mad woman to save a little yellow bird.

I shooed the crow away and tried to catch Little Little Yellow, but the little fellow was so traumatized that it tried to fly away too. To cut the story short, 3 Banglah workers saw me trying to catch a bird and I roped them in to help me.

So there we were, 1 chinese woman and 3 Banglah workers chasing after a yellow bird in the car park at 1 pm, under the hot sun.

Thankfully 1 of the workers caught the bird and there, I saved another little yellow bird.

Geez, at this rate, I can run a Bishan Bird Park already! Anyway, I passed Little Little Yellow to the same friend who have adopted Little Yellow. So there, now he has a pair.

After all the trouble, I hope these little birds are happy to be alive!

My Poor Cookie

Now that I am always so busy with Beanie, I really do not have time for Cookie at all. Cookie camped outside my bedroom for 2 days when I first returned from the hospital, but I barely had the time to stroke and shower any attention on her. It was heartbreaking... ... I really felt very very guilty.

After a while, cookie must have realized that she is no longer the baby of the house and being the independent cat, she began to spend less time over at our place and spend her time prowling the void deck once again. She would still come over for dinner and she still sleep over at nights, but she no longer follows me like a puppy, like she used to.

Sigh.

Thankfully, Cookie is a popular cat at our block, and she has many other godmothers and godfathers who dote on her, and feed her as well. So, at least I know she is still being well taken care of.

Nonetheless, I really still love Cookie a lot.

Another pet?

And I said I do not exactly like birds... But somehow, I ended with birds in my house once again.

This little yellow cockatiel flew into my neighbour's flat last Sunday. It was slightly injured with a bleeding left claw and a bruised nose. My neighbour's cat, Meimei, is a great hunter, who brings home dead birds,lizards,bugs,leaves... ... etc. The moment she saw Tweety, she was all ready to pounce on her. Luckily, my neighbour managed to catch MeiMei in time and saved Tweety's life.

So, to cut the story short, Tweety ended up at my place instead. How's Cookie taking Tweety's presence? She is totally NOT interested in Tweety at all.

Haha, my black-and-white cat took a look at Tweety, wrinkled her nose and went back to sleep.

Cookie, the cat with ZERO killer instinct.

So, a friend passed an old bird cage to me, and Tweety is now residing in my guest toilet. Whenever I'm free, I'll put Tweety's cage at my planter box so that it can enjoy some greenery and sunshine.

I tried to entice Tweety to come out of its cage to explore my house, but it isn't interested in leaving its safe haven and it is currently still rather defensive and keeps biting my hand whenever I have to handle it.

Hub seems to find Tweety very cute and keeps bugging me "how's the bird? How's the bird?" whenever we are on the phone.

Seriously... I find Tweety a rather silly thing, which poos all over the place, and not being very interactive at all.

Maybe I should let a bird lover to adopt Tweety instead.

Cookie, the baby until the REAL baby arrives

Cookie's sulky corner. This is where Cookie likes to sulk. Whenever she is displeased about something, she will sulk at this corner. But not that we care anyway... Haha.

Cookie has to check out EVERY new piece of furniture in the house. Nothing escapes her eyes... This Ikea step-stool becames her personal step-stool to the retro cabinet, where she likes to hang out when I am in the toilet doing some hand-washing.

Once again, Cookie has to lay her paws on everything. Even this little canvas box that I bought .

This lamp as well...

Cookie is usually rather lady-like when it comes to her sleeping positions, unless she is dead-tired. Guess this was one of those days when comfort was more important than style.

Cookie is a semi-stray cat, which we kind of adopted when we moved into our flat about 1 year ago.

Previously, she treated our place like a hotel and only came over whenever she felt like it. Now, she will start running towards me at the void deck whenever I take out the house keys and will follow me up the stairs to my flat. She sleeps over every night and follows me around in the house.

Now that Hub is away in Hong Kong, it is Cookie who keeps me company and I spend most of my evenings talking to her, as if she is a person. She will usually just flinches her ears or gives me an occasional yawn as a form of acknowledgement. At times when I am eating some prawns or fish, then I will suddenly become her new-found best friend, and she will become very "manja", rubs my legs, paws me at my thighs with her little right paw and looks at me with her big, golden eyes, of course, begging for treats.

I have grown to be very foud of this little cat and I hope that Cookie will continue to be part of our lives when Little Beanie arrives.

But I'm afriad that Cookie will have to learn to sleep in the living room soon... Currently, she is sleeping at a corner of my bed. When Beanie arrives, I will have no choice but to let Cookie sleep in the living room instead.

Sleep training for Cookie gotta start soon!

Useless Furniture

Of course, Cookie must check out all the new items in the house. ;)

Hub and I have a weakness for useless furniture. In fact, we often walk into a furniture shop with the intention to buy item A, but more often than not, we will walk out of that shop buying items X, Y and Z instead. Not only did we NOT buy item A, we usually ended up spending MORE than the budgeted amount to buy silly items instead.

That was what happened a few weeks ago.

We were supposed to shop for a single bed, meant for the confinement nanny, which will also double up as Beanie Girl’s bed as she grows older. So, we have been visiting furniture shops, looking for a cool yet functional (and hopefully reasonably priced bed). Ikea didn’t quite cut in under the “cool” factor, so we visited shops like John Erdos, Air and Motto.

But as usual, instead of buying a bed, we ended up with… … a retro looking cabinet and 2 wooden planks-paintings instead, which of course busted the budget for the intended bed.

Of course, both of us love the retro cabinet… with the iron grill as doors, we simply couldn’t resist…

So, thankfully, we managed to buy a simple single bed from Ikea for only $69 and that made me feel so much better about our impulsive buys.

Hrm… I bet Beanie Girl can’t tell the difference anyway between an Ikea bed and a “cool and funky” bed that costs 4 digits.

I promise that Mummy will still make your room looks as good and as chic as the rest of our house!

Cookie in a box

Cookie's latest obsession is a box. In fact, it is a really small box that can barely contains her. But, of course that fact doesn't bother her and she continues to squeeze into that tiny, little box, pretending it is her safe haven for many, many nights until the box finally went "SPLIT" last night.

I was sitting on my bed laughing at her when the box gave way and as you can see, she seemed rather embarrassed.

Cookie got a bit upset that her safe haven wasn't as snug as before, and she decided to come sulking on my bed instead. Although I taped up the box for her, but it wasn't good enough for this fussy little cat.

Anyway, I will leave the box as it is and I wonder whether Cookie will return to her safe haven once more.

Cookie's first accident...

A mini-saga happened early this morning.

Cookie all along has been a relatively well behaved cat. She doesn't scratch my furniture, and have so far only vomited hairballs ONCE on my carpet. She eats all her catfood (although she is very fussy about the brand of catfood), and so far, has never peed or pooed in my apartment ever.

Until 2 am this morning.

She usually sleeps at the corner of my bed and will usually wakes me at by 7 am to have her breakfast. But last night, she became restless in the middle of the night, and tried to wake me up by coming to me and whimpered ever so softly by my ear.

I didn't know what she was after, so I ignored her and concentrated on getting back to sleep. Then I heard her jumping off the bed, and a few seconds later, I heard FARTING sounds...

What the hell?! I immediately jumped out of the bed, switched on the lights and saw the sheepish Cookie trying to cover her shame. She had diarrhea on my bathroom mat (the one that she is lying on, in the picture above)!

Being 2 am in the morning and hadn't really woken from my slumber yet, I went ballistic and really overreacted. I screamed at her and carried her outside towards the door. Maybe she was really sick or I had really frightened her, she struggled free, dropped to the ground, and vomited out her dinner from earlier this evening. She was still in my bedroom.

ARGH.... you naughty cat! First you pooed, then you puked in my room!

I went a bit crazy and carried her out of the house, and left her outside. She vomited again just outside my door, looked a bit hurt but walked away shortly.

I was too overwhelmed by the smell and the mess to think coherently. After cleaning up the all the mess inside my room and outside the door, I realised that I had been a HORRIBLE cat mummy...

Cookie had already tried to warn me that she really needed to go but I didn't recognise her signals. She must have tried her best to hold it in but diarrhea, being diarrhea, she couldn't control it anymore but to relieve herself in the bedroom. At least she was smart enough to pooed on the bathroom mat instead of my bed.

I felt sooooo bad and guilty, at the same time worried about her since she was most probably not feeling too well. But it was already almost 3 am in the morning and I had no idea where did she run to.

Haiz, so I couldn't really fall back to sleep after that. Woke up in the morning with a headache and light sorethroat instead... most probably due to the lack of sleep.

Hopefully Cookie, being the smart and hardy semi-stray, will self-medicate herself with grass or herbs to sort out her digestive system. Meanwhile, I will be keeping a lookout for her, and bring her to the vet if she is still unwell.

To bring her to the vet, will most probably be another major saga, coming from the previous experience! I really hope that she will get well soon!

The Saga of bringing Cookie to the Vet

One of my mom's cats, 小小 had an open wound near his anus. And so, on last Sunday, My mom and I decided to bring him to a vet.

Since I would be going to the vet anyway, I might as well bring Cookie along for a check-up right?

The plan seemed easy enough, Cookie would have her usual morning snack at 10 am (yup, her usual breakfast is a 6.30 am), and after that I would just coax her into the carrier and off we go to the Vet.

It didn't happen like that. Ok, it did until the part when I was supposed to coax her into the carrier.

I borrowed the carrier from my neighbour, and placed it on the floor. Cookie was curious at first and was sniffing it, wondering what the hell it was. I used her fav toy and almost got her into the carrier when she suddenly became suspicious and turned 180 degrees!

Damn, I lost my patience and grabbed her, wanted to push her into the carrier in "one swift action". Cookie turned into this demonic creature full of claws, fangs and hisses, and she was smart enough to use her front paws to push herself against the entrance of the carrier, twisted out of my hands and swiftly jumped away!

Then came the part when I chased her around the flat and she ended up being stressed and pissed. Everytime I approached her, she would just hiss and run away. I even asked my neighbours for help, all 4 adults still couldnt handle her and one of my neighbours ended up being scratched by her. As for me, I was wearing rubber gloves, so no scratches for me. Heh Heh.

After 20 mins of huffing and puffing, we gave up. I was late for 小小's appointment with the vet already, and simply did not have the time to chase this stupid cat around.

In defeat, I let her out of the house. Before she left, she turned around and looked at me in distaste, turned her nose up in the air and calmly walked away.

Argh. This cat is freaking killing me!

Cookie, in her "sulky" mood.

Cookie and her new best friend. Hee...

My days with Cookie.

It has been half a year since we have moved into our new flat and all these while, Cookie, the neighbourhood cat has been keeping us company.

On weekdays, she will usually wait for us at the void deck in the evenings, and she will respond to our calls by running to us immediately upon hearing her name, and she'll meow while she trots over, seems to be telling us "what took you so long....?"

she will then follows us upstairs, and stations herself right in front of the gate because she HAS to be the first living thing to step into the house. Then she'll head straight for her water bowl and spend a few minutes lapping some water. After that, she will bug you relentlessly until you feed her.

Dinner is usually a small portion of canned food mixed with pieces of boiled Kunning fish. She has learnt the word "fish fish", and will immediately jump up from her sleep/nap if you ever mention "fish fish" to her, which is, of course vey cute. Heh...

We recently got ourselves a white porcelain cat as a decoration item, and Cookie at first, mistook the procelain as a real cat. She saw the porcelain and froze, her whiskers pulled back and she immediately leapord crawled towards her "new enemy". It was really hilarious!

She then stared at the porcelain for a few mintues, with a puzzled face, most probably thinking "hey, this idiot doesn't move?!" She moved even closer and started sniffing the porcelain cat.

Her body language immediately relaxed upon realizing that the procelain was a fake and she simply went to her usual corner to nap. Not at all interested in her "new best friend" anymore...

Haha.

That stupid cat. But how I love her so.

Cat Slaps Dog - Very Funny & Super Cute

This reminds me of the relationship between Hub and I. Of course, I'm the cat and he's that gong-gong dog.

Fugly, the pigeon didn't make it...

Despite of my best intentions, Fulgy didn't make it. In fact, it died on Wednesday night. Seems to me that it was suffering from indigestion.

Sigh. I've tried my best to save that pigeon...

Fugly, the baby Pigeon

Last Saturday, when I was walking home after gotten my hair styled for the Shanghai Chic party, I came across a baby pigeon, which was walking around with a limp.

Before I proceed, I shall tell you something about myself. As much as I am an animal lover, I simply DISLIKE birds. Ok, I can tolerate them but I find birds stupid, smelly and basically flying bags of bacteria. ESPECIALLY PIGEONS.

I find sparrows kind of cute, white turtle doves very gentle and beautiful, even mynahs seem more spirited. Other than Crows, which I EXTREMELY dislike, pigeons come a close second.

And a baby pigeon stood in my path and it was the ugliest thing I had ever seen. At first I thought it was a sick bird but upon close inspection, I realised that it was a baby pigeon. It was making baby chirping sounds and was walking with a limp. It must had fallen from its nest from the nearby trees.

Argh.... I hate pigeons! But I simply couldn't bring myself to ignore that baby bird. So with my head of freshly curled hair, I picked up the bird and brisk-walked home.

Hub's reaction was as expected. “Eeeeek, that bird looks sick. Why dont you just bring it back to where you found it?”

Well... If I were to return the bird to where it was found, I believed it wouldn't last more than 3 days. Anyway, I thought that the bird might be able to feed itself, so I put it in a box, with a slice of apple and a small saucer of water. With that, I headed out to attend the party.

Hours later, when I checked on the bird, it didn't touch the apple at all. Even when I placed the apple really close to its beak, the bird had no idea what it was and continued to make chirping sounds.

Damn... this bird still had to be hand-fed and I have never hand-fed any birds before! I tried to feed it with some cooked pasta and to my horror, the stupid bird had no concept of OPENING its beak. So, I figured that I just had to pry open its beak and force-feed it.

The moment the bird swallowed something, it finally dawned upon its tiny brain that it was food and started pecking at my hand frantically. After a few trails and errors, and some research on the net, seemed that I could feed the bird with a combination of bread and cooked fish (Cookie's leftovers).

It has been 3 days and the bird is still alive! And it is not limping anymore! So in the mornings I have to wake up 15 mins earlier just to feed it before I head out to work. Cookie, the cat is curious of the little fellow but so far, leaves the bird alone.

I just hope that the bird can grow asap, and learn how to feed on its own and I can then set it free.

It is still the ugliest bird ever and so, I've named it, Fugly. If anyone has any experience in feeding baby birds, please kindly share! If anyone wana adopt Fugly, even better, PLEASE contact me!

Ip Man Cat 叶问猫 葉問猫

Hub showed me this video last night. SO CUTE! And this cat really looks like Cookie! I'll go home and check whether Cookie can perform such stunts as well!

Cookie still thinks it's World Cup season

During the crazy days of World Cup, I would wake up at unearthly hours to catch some live football action and somehow, Cookie, with her super senses, could figure out that I was awake and would swing by to keep me company. Although I must admit that the whole block could probably hear me shout with joy whenever Spain scored, so Cookie's "super" senses might be overrated.

USually at about 3 am, she would meow daintly at the door and I would let her in, and both of us would watch football together. She would happily park herself at her favourite corner on the sofa and I would just sprawl myself on the sofa while drifting in and out of consciousness...

There were a few times when Hub would wake up to the sight of a daintly cat, curled up in a corner with a very UNDAINTLY human being snoring away on the sofa...

But now, World Cup is over but Cookie doesn't know that. She is still coming over at 3 to 5 am in the morning, meowing out to us, to let her in. Im the heavy sleeper, so I cannot hear no shit, but Cookie is kinda driving Hub crazy as he is a really light sleeper.

To add icing to the cake, Cookie, being a really smart cat, has figured out which window is our bedroom window and started to meow outside directly outside the window instead of the door! *no worries, we stay at the 2nd floor with a HUGE window ledge, so Cookie will not have the danger of falling off the ledge*

Of course, me being the pig, is still blissfully unaware of what is going on. Cookie is a very daintly cat, her meows are usually very soft and meek. Like "mmmmmmeow", so I doubt the neighbors can hear anything as well.

But Hub can hear her every meow in the morning. So far, he is ignoring all her meows so as NOT to encourage her from coming over in such unearthly hours. I hope Cookie gets the message soon...

Or else, I'm going to have end up with a grumpy hub with panda eyes.

Cookie, the black-&-white cat

I first met Cookie one late evening when Hub and I walked over to check out the reno of our new place. She was relaxing at the void deck and actually came over when I called out "meow meow".

She was very friendly and endearing, and I was thinking to myself that this cannot be a stray cat. She was too trusting of humans, she must have been previously someone's pet.

Subsequently, I would always bring a can of cat food whenever I went over to check out the reno. In fact, I made a point to walk over almost every night, so that I could feed Cookie.

Very soon, Cookie recognized my calls and soon, was responding to my voice and would start running over when I called her name.

Now that we have moved in, we learnt that Cookie used to belong to a family on the 3rd floor. But for some reason, she was being "banished" to the void deck. I also realized that there are easily at least 5 other people at our block who are feeding Cookie, and almost everyone who stays at my block knows that this black-&-white cat is Cookie.

Cookie follows me around when im at home. When I was watching World Cup, she was sleeping on the sofa, next to me. When I was doing some work on my dinning table, she would jump to the table and sleep near me. When I was handwashing some laundry in the toilet, she camped outside and waited for me.

It is VERY difficult not to like this cat. Furthermore, she's a talking cat, she will talk back with different "meows" whenever you talk to her. SO CUTE!

The catch is that, she is ultimately not my cat, and she is used to roaming around at the void deck, and will always want to head back to the void deck. I can't keep her at home all to myself.

The good part of having a part-time pet: I dont have to clear her litter box nor her hairballs.

Ok, I think I can deal with this compromise!

I know this is a bit late, but HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!

How many babies is this poor mother carrying on her back...? I counted 11. OMG. She's a super-what-ever-animal she is!

I'm sure all mums out there feel like this super-animal-mum once a while. But all of the mums told me that carrying all that 11 brats (0r even if it's just ONE brat) is all worth it.

To my mum: It's our turn (3 of us, brats) to carry you on our backs now. Love you, mum!

I'm not a big fan of making animals wear clothes. I've always thought that it is unnatural for them and most probably awkward as hell.

Until I saw this picture... there's something about this cat's expression.... He looks almost human, doesn't he?

For some strange reason, he actually looks as if he is born to wear that shirt and play rugby.

Geez...

To keep a pet or not…

I’ve always had pets at home when I was a kid. Not your usual cats or dogs… but some rather exotic creatures as well….

Other kids played with toys, not me. I had no toys, but I played with my pets and brothers. Best childhood ever. At times I wished that I had become a vet or something since I really like animals. Maybe I can be a zookeeper during my retirement! That can be my second career!

FYI: below is the list of animals I once had them as pets:

1) A pug, the cutest, ugliest and stupidest dog in the world. Oh, but I loved her so much!
2) Chicks. 3 fluffy, yellow, chirpy little things lived in my bathroom for a period of time. Well, until they were about to be chickens and we gave them to my aunt. And shortly after that, I remembered my aunt gave me some home-made KFC.
3) Ducklings. Yes, I once had 5 ducklings… I have no idea how or where my mum got these ducklings. But they were SO CUTE! They made the cutest little “quacks” and I had so much fun bathing with them. I remembered that I fed them little “live” fishes and spent many hours just observing their EVERY move. It was like a mini National Geographic “Live”.
4) Rabbits. In fact, we were trying to keep a litter of newly-born rabbits alive as their mother rejected them. My mum and I were taking turns to bottle feed these little bunnies. Aww… baby rabbits are the cutest.
5) Hamster. I had a really nasty one. I remembered that it was constantly biting me and my brother. Not only that, it was like a demonic little thing, always climbing its little cage, trying to escape. One day, it succeeded. We woke up one morning, and the cage was empty. We never found it.
6) Salamander. See… I bet many of you do not even know what a salamander was. It was like a water lizard, a little slimy but it was red and black in color. Really pretty… I bought it from a little obscure pet shop. However, it didn’t last very long…
7) Gold Fishes. It was actually my mum who was really into gold fish. We had a huge tank and these fishes eventually started to spawn. Unfortunately, none of the fries made it. I had a lot of fun playing doctor with the dead fishes. I happen to know exactly how the insides of a gold fish looks like.
8) A baby ball python. Ok, it belonged to my senior in college and I babysat it for 6 months or so. I was like the only girl crazy enough to keep a snake in her hostel room. Not only that, I let it roamed around my room once a while. It really liked my monitor and would always coil itself under it (During those days, monitors aren’t the slim, sexy LCDs. They were the size of a bed). Then its little pink, forked tongue would stick out with that tiny little “sssss”. So cute lah!
9) Terrapins. Ok, not my favorite kind of pets. I had more fun looking at the gold fish than playing with the damned terrapins. I hope they are still happy living at the MacRitchie Reservoir.

Currently as I am still living with the in-laws, I do not keep any pets, but my mum has 7 cats and technically, one of them is mine. I’m thinking of bringing her over to my new place once it is ready. Not only that, I also intend to keep 2 rabbits, and some gold fishes.

But my worry is…. What will happen to them when Hubby and I were to travel??!!
Argh….. then I will have to either trouble my neighbour or my brothers. That’s the sucky thing about having pets.

However, once you have pets, the urge to keep some furballs alive and kicking will always be there. I cannot wait to have my OWN furballs.

Life of a stray dog…

For those who know, I’m almost running a mini-SPCA at home… My mum is a very kind hearted lady who ends up adopting a few stray cats and these kitties are now part of the family and are very much loved.

She is also part of the “reserved” team of aunties of the Cat Welfare Society, as like if those aunties are too sick/out-of-town to feed the neighborhood cats, my mum will stand in for a few days…

A few months ago, I got to know that my mum has also adopted a few stray dogs near her work place. According to her, there are about 7 stray dogs living in a quiet corner of the CBD area. I’m not going to pinpoint the exact location, in case the AVA decided to cull the dogs…

According to my mum, previously these strays were being fed by a kind-hearted soul, but somehow, the mysterious kind-hearted soul stopped showing up and these poor dogs began to starve.

Seeing those skinny strays looking frantically for food, my mum begun to feed these dogs with her left-over lunch or dinner. Obviously that was not enough for a pack of 7 dogs… then she started to COOK meals for the dogs. She will usually cook some cheap cuts of pork with unpolished rice, and make a conscious effort to feed the dogs in the evenings.
Even during her off-days, she would still make her way down at night to feed the dogs.

2 days ago, I decided to tag along with Mum to take a look at these dogs. Due to the up-and-coming Taiwan trip, she has begun to worry about these poor dogs and whether they can survive for 9 days without her. These dogs are REAL strays, which mean that they are wary of humans, and are not happy puppies which will run up to you to be petted.

There were only 3 dogs when we arrived at the site. Mum said that we were late and a bunch of them had already gone out scavenging for scraps. The remaining 3 were left behind to protect their home turf. They kept their distance when we poured the food into 2 buckets that served as feeding trays and didn’t approach until we walked away.

They were really thin and mangled-looking. They had to fend for themselves, no proper shelter and had to scavenge for scraps just to survive. All these are grown dogs and I do not think it’s possible to re-house them to be domesticated pets. Nonetheless, they are sweet-natured and seem to understand that we’re here to feed them, and were actually quite docile.

Any kind souls out there who is willing to pop by every 2 days to provide some fresh water and food for the dogs while we’ll be away for 9 days?