Syamala Kalyanasundaram, Casio & Pete
Casio joined our family in April 2018. I was looking for a cat who resembled my husband's cousin's cat, Melo, a charming older dude with cow-like black and white fur. Casio had been found in an A/C compressor with his siblings when he was 2 weeks old. His lovely rescuer had been trying to adopt him out for months without much luck—strange because he was even more adorable looking then, and cuddly. He came to live with us when he was exactly a year old.
Casio is a cuddly, lovable weirdo—we always find ourselves amused by his quirks. He has HUGE expressive eyes and talks to us with his wide range of weird vocalizations. We always know what Casio is thinking and feeling, he wears his heart on his sleeve. He was a muscular, lean, handsome young dude when he was a youngster, and isn't the brightest bulb (probably our favorite trait of his), so we have always referred to him as a "juicehead". He LOVES people and is always around when we have guests. When we go out of town and don't have someone staying with him, he gets really upset. He can't tolerate being away from humans.
Casio
Pete
“Living with cats has changed me in literally every possible way. This might sound a bit dramatic, but I feel as though my adult life was incomplete before I started living with cats.”
Pete came to us as a 6-week-old sickly foster kitten on July 19th, 2018. He was parasite-ridden (took him over a year to test parasite-free, after multiple rounds of dewormer) and had surgery on his horribly infected eyes the week before. He was a tiny, potbellied, blind runt with a sad, sparse coat of fur. Our foster kittens before Pete had come in a pair; Pete was our first solo kitten and the youngest. He was displeased about his state of affairs (understandably so) and was hissy for the first week—though it took us a while to recognize that he was hissing (clearly a lot of work for his little throat). It was not difficult to fall in love with him. Before long, Pete was enthusiastically playing with wand toys and taking naps on our chest. A few weeks later, when Pete's adoption profile went up, James and I almost immediately decided that we could never say bye to Pete.
Casio quickly adapted to the role of Pete's older brother. Casio was older, bigger, healthier, and naturally fell into a dominant role, teaching Pete how to be a cat. They are so bonded and inseparable that everyone assumes they're littermates.
Casio is very intuitive and attuned to our emotions. Whenever I'm particularly upset, Casio always comes over to me and sits on my lap or lies on my chest, headbutting my face and purring. His favorite activity in the world is headbutting our face and/or hands—my husband James has to hide his hands at night for fear of being woken up by Casio spotting them and enthusiastically headbutting them. Casio also has a weird primitive 6th sense. He sat on my pregnant belly all night and didn't move when I first went into labor, something he'd never previously done.
Pete's personality is naturally very different from Casio's. Pete has no facial expressions and very rarely vocalizes (only when he's so excited about getting fed that he can't contain it). Pete is very intelligent and timid with strangers. He knows how to get what he wants (which is food 99.9 % of the time). He is extremely attached to us (he sleeps under the covers between us and continues to allow us to carry him around like a baby) but he is wary and unfriendly toward humans he doesn't know. He becomes best friends with all of the foster kittens though, unlike Casio who is uninterested in them. Pete plays with them and grooms them, while Casio ignores them. Pete has also helped socialize a number of angry kittens, by demonstrating affection towards us in their presence.
Our dog Nari joined our lives on November 21st, 2019, and was also a foster fail—she has such a great temperament that it was impossible to not adopt her. Casio and Pete were UNHAPPY to say the least. They couldn't believe that we allowed her to live with us and were very open about it.
Living with cats has changed me in literally every possible way. This might sound a bit dramatic, but I feel as though my adult life was incomplete before I started living with cats. I feel kind of the same way about my dog, partner, and human child, but not as profoundly. In more practical terms, having cats has helped my capacity to nurture and take responsibility for living beings. Having a human child didn't feel like a big adjustment.
As you can imagine, life with two cats, a dog, and a baby means there's a lot of poop. A reasonable amount of vomit. Things get gross. It's also lively, chaotic, hard work, and the best thing ever—I can't imagine living any other way. It's awesome to have all these eccentric, friendly characters around. I guess I’m one too.
I'm lucky to have a partner who does a LOT of the work in taking care of all of them. I wouldn't be able to do it alone, largely because I'd have no one to laugh and complain about it all with.
Syamala Kalyanasundaram is a cat rescuer and foster. She lives in Boerum Hill with her two cats, dog, baby, and husband.