At long last, the chaos died down. It started at dusk and lasted the whole night. Loud drums and speakers, horns and beeps and bangs, the sky ablaze by firework and fire cracker, even though that day was so hot it’s still 34 C (93.4 F) at 9 pm when it should be around the 20s.

In my house, it’s been chaos for the whole week. The vet clinic who cared for the crushed girl called me and said her mother went crazy and they can’t handle it, so they are sending her over.

The first night at home, she was OK, the next day she tried to tear away the wire mesh on the windows. The next day she shredded all the boxes and ripped apart all the towels. She peed everywhere, she howls and yowls all day and all night, literally. Through the next three days, half of books and notes were in bits and pieces. Some were unread yet already completely damaged. It was 400 pages novel and 600 page literature about physiology of small animals. I put them out because I planned to work on my mouldy, damp and fungus laden bedroom this holiday.

She is clawing and swatting, and her constant meowing got on everyone’s nerve.

I thought she was probably in heat, so I sent her off for spaying and my kitty ambulance vet kept her for two days, which gives us a little bit of air, but my vet can’t wait to return her, if only her own (human) baby was not sick, because she “torn down everything to bits”

In the two hours journey from my vet to us, she ran out of things to shred in her carrier, so she tore away her bandage. By the time she arrived, all her stitches were gone.

It’s one of the reason I only spay at my kitty ambulance vet. She spays from flank, the incision is small, less than an inch. There are only one or two stitches, so when a feral runs away, in worse case scenario, and rip her bandage and sutures apart, she won’t have the whole bowel dragged on the street.

She didn’t want to eat, she didn’t want to drink, she just meow from morning to morning and make everyone murderous.

Some suggested calming collar, some suggested a cage, some even suggested barbiturates injection.

“If anybody can [handle her] it’s you, Josie”, one said.

It’s not about handling anything; but you know, she has probably been a feral the rest of her life. She will like the comfort of a home, but she never lived in a home. She always has blue sky and the sun and the moon. She owns the rain and the green grass. She jokes and whispers to the stars.

All of a sudden she was taken into a cage, then moved into a crate, then moved again into the barrack of a clinic, then her kitten was taken away and returned with all sort of bandage and tubes and pipes. She knows it’s her kitten but she smells like drug and antiseptic.

And when all that isn’t enough, she was yet again into a crate and yet another new home full of other cats.

Two weeks and she has the whole new world crammed and shoved into her faster than she can digest.

It must be overwhelming, and if I was her, I’d go crazy too.

So, I opened the door.

I let her out to explore the front yard. I let her sniff and run and roll and peek and not leave a single leaf unturned.

When all of that is not enough, I followed her out and tell her which way to go, which way not to go.

I took a deep breath, believed in her instinct, and let fate lead the way. She is feral, she has nature’s best navigator.

I turn back in and clean the house for the sixth time. Grizabella was so happy she runs laps around the house. Michelle plays with a box for the very first time in history, Charlie the Persian never let kittens go near him, but that night, he let kittens slept all over him.

When all the chaos died at dawn, I wiped the freezer clean, the last thing in the house after the floor and the dishes and everything else, and for the first time in a week or so, we can all rest without smelling urine in our sleep, and the mad hustle of Ramadhan and all that it entails.

In the morning, four hours later, I tiptoed across the quiet house full of exhausted cats, and peeked out; curious.

She was there, on the gardener’s shelves, looking back at me.

I opened her a pouch of Whiskas, and went back in.

Throughout the day, I came out several times and every time, I only need to stand on the top of the stairs, and she will come by and sit and lay down.

She is a sweet cat. She never uses her claws, she never uses her jaw. She draped on my lap like a rag doll, she sleeps leaning to my back when I sat for a while on the stairs, seeking peace to return within.

When I go back into the house, she will go back into yet another whole new world.

This time, she will always have blue sky and the sun and the moon. She owns the rain and the green grass. She jokes and whispers to the stars.

And the comfort of a home where she can always return to and enjoy as long, and as much in her own term.

~ Josie

paypal.me/whiskerssyndicate

So, if you are interested in what was going on that took me the whole day off everything…

Every year, Indonesian cities and towns will shut down for one month at the end of Ramadhan. Banks are closed, shops are closed, vets are closed, doctors stop practice, pharmacy is not available, offices shut down, buses stopped… 99.99% of people will go back to their hometown and celebrate Eid with family.

Usually, it will start to happen three days prior to Eid, and ends three weeks after.

This year, it starts one week earlier. It starts Monday, June 11, 2018. Eid is June 16, 2018.

Since banks will be closed, I have arranged for all of your donations to be withdrawn to my bank account half on Wednesday (June 6, 2018) and half on Friday, June 8, 2018. I do this because banking volume will double or triple and I don’t want glitches, which both PayPal and banks are notorious for.

Monday morning, however, no money in the bank account.

I went everywhere, ask everyone, and all said, electronic money transfer should be going as normal.

Well, maybe the system is over crowded so it’s a bit slow.

I waited several hours, no money.

I waited to the end of the day, no money.

I finally called the bank, and the officer who answered the phone said that for that particular bank, everyone is going for vacation, and they won’t process anything until soonest June 20th.

But I transfer the money the previous Friday! Banks were open on Friday!

Well, since it’s the last day, the bank decided that everyone has some celebration before holiday so maybe someone missed my transfer. Still, since everyone is on vacation, even phone banking will be off. People can transfer or whatever if they like, but they won’t be processed until soonest June 20th.

I don’t care whatever they do! Banks are open on Friday so they should do their job.

How can they be so ridiculously irresponsible?

I have gradually prepared for the holiday so the cats have enough until the 20th, but I will only have USD 18 through the holiday instead of USD 180. It means I have no spare for emergency.

Thank goodness my vet is a human being and so she won’t cut me out of service.

Christine Alice has suggested services like Western Union, but I haven’t been able to contact them to confirm whether they are still available during the holiday. And even if she sends money through Western Union, it will take a few days, and I will not get anything until close to June 20th anyway and still pay more than PayPal. So what’s the point?

The whole fiasco started at 7 am Monday morning down to 2:30 am Tuesday morning and I still can’t get someone to give me the cats’ money and when I turn to my family we got spats instead (one misunderstanding to another and few short thinking) that ends very recently at 7:16 pm Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Facebook apps did not allow me to respond to any post whatsoever. I thought it was just Android being nuts, but Christine Alice use iOS (iPhone) and she can’t interact either so all these sour miss-happenings is just getting bitter by the minute.

All of those and I still have to deal with the crushed girl who needs surgery, her mother who lost it, went nuts and create trouble, the girl with stitches going home, another lady cat stranded in some rubble in a remote area without access to food, so I have to trap her or she starve to death, kittens sick, two bottle babies, the colony, a gaping hole on the wire mesh in the cattery…

Still, I cannot just disappear because experience taught me that if I stop posting just for one day, visibility drops and people stop coming, and if people stop coming the cats stop eating so…

I am totally grateful to Christine Alice who posted on my behalf. I am totally grateful that she took time to learn my actual situation before delivering some firm and assertive lecture in the comment seeing from just one side of the story, I am totally grateful for everyone who keeps coming and commenting and sharing, I am totally grateful because just like Francesca, only half side of my world went into hell while the other half, miraculously, by your graces, managed to stay on earth.

Hallelujah. Bless you all.

~ Josie

Look, I really need to get out of this for a while. The whole kitty season – bad monsoon – Ramadhan mish mash is driving me crazy and even though I have been squeezing my brain since morning, not a single word comes out.

One of those master class ad on Facebook said “Where do I begin? You stare at a blank paper in front of you and bleed”.

I’d be dead by then if I follow that advice, although I admire the writer who said it. Besides, it’s advertising, there has to be drama in it, and whatever expertise he is offering for USD 90 is scripted, written.

Looking around me, it’s like the end of World War II. Every single thing from yesterday newspaper to upside down, food bowls are on the floor. It doesn’t equal atomic bomb, of course, but it’s no lesser mess than the actual war zone.

The cats are also on the floor; sleeping with their belly full. Take Carol (Malaya’s baby) for example. He should have his own masterclass in sleeping on totally weird places and he done so tummy up or head dangling upside down. I’d love to know how he doesn’t get himself a stroke.

Tiptoe I was instead. I have the whole week of fundraising to take care of and no one will buy me if I just post a sign that said I am burnt out and had a stroke of writer’s block.

I went to my room, packed my laptop, and slipped out of the door like snake slithering in the middle of the night. I have this particular cafe in my mind that I know will not be full whatever the time and occasion, I love the sandwiches there, and I haven’t eaten the whole day.

Before I begin, an Instagram post doesn’t hurt.

What I got instead is a message about a stray cat who hangs around a certain boarding house and a request to pick it up.

I get hundreds of those everyday; and ninety percent of those admitted – with various level of truth – that they don’t have the money to care for the cat, yet (multiple choice) stay in elite area, use fancy phones, wear expensive clothes, ride gorgeous car (with gorgeous price), all of the above.

So, I am not going to delve into it, waste my time, my energy, and gives me nothing but bad mood and whoever I talked about will only look like this 😀 and life goes on.

If the girl was not wounded, I would have said no. I am full and I can’t handle it. Even if I can, I will not extort more and more and more money to care for this cat or that cat and they still end up dead from an outbreak due to overcrowded house. I am not a hoarder and I don’t want to cross the line and be one. Nor will I be donning some sexy suit and be some sort of super hero anytime soon. Even if I am one, those super heroes themselves said: You cannot save the world alone.

Like, how many out of 1,600 Whiskers’ Syndicate’s follower actually contributed, much less being active? You all see my thank you posts. You know the names.

All of these well meaning people will not understand because it’s not and will never be their problem what happened. They just report, and whether or not someone out there is responding, they pat themselves in the back and consider themselves a hero.

They are, to a minuscule extent, though that most often doesn’t help.

This time, the girl hangs around an elite area. I don’t think it ever occurred to the reporter that he can help by keeping the girl in a box or something. Her place is between the cafe and my house so it’s ridiculous to criss-cross mad traffic home, pick up a carrier, and go back cris-scrossing even madder traffic, and pick the cat up.

I do what I do best: pushing my luck and trusting my gut’s pitch.

Took a taxi, stopped midway to give my driver a chance to break his fast, and go ahead pouring over Google Maps, looking for bearable pathways.

When I got there, the reporter was gone (I had a feeling that’s intentional, but I am not judging anything without solid evidence) but he told the concierge about me picking up a cat, so people there just stare at me from top to bottom as if I am descended from Venus (never heard of someone who drive across town plucking stray cats off the street, never even have the idea that that sort of street plucking creature even exist); but they get the cat anyway, and still stare at me looking like this 😮 even until my taxi disappeared from sight.

She absolutely won’t stay put inside my bag, and her blood is smearing my clothing all over, but she is kind enough to eventually just sit on my lap while I call my vet, and we got home in one piece.

I left her in a cage, went back out to the colony, and go back as soon as I can, so I can give some first aid to that seemingly ouchy back.

The more I clip her fur so it won’t stuck into her wound, the more I see that her infection had spread. I sterilized a scissor and try to lift a little bit of loose skin and whoa! river of pus.

I squirted mild peroxide to clean her up, but someone will have to hold her because those loose skin needs to be cut.

When my vet came, we can’t find the end of it, so I figured she just take her because we need to spay her anyway.

She called me the next morning saying that she ended up stitching the girl halfway across her back because her infection is eating her flesh.

So, she is Frankenstein on one side and Francesca on the other.

Whatever it is, she is completely different when she went back home. She is calmer, and comfortable, and she loves to speak with her round, adorable eyes instead of meowing her lungs out like the first time.

She loves the window, she loves watching Kaka rolling in the deep (of the front yard) and she loves sniffing Sierra when Sierra sat on the other side sniffing her.

She doesn’t mind little kittens sleeping all over her, but she minds if I try to check on her stitches.

That’s not fair.

But then again, her life has been Halloween half the way, and she has just started on the Christmas way, so, she is taking each day, and maybe one day we’ll be Saturday night.

~ Josie

paypal.me/whiskerssyndicate

The night before I went to pick up our crushed little girl, about 10 pm, a teenager sent a message to Whiskers’ Syndicate page.

She wrote in proper English, save for abundant of emojis all over her messages.

She was the one who asked for Customer Service.

Teens. They think it’s cool, they think it’s fun, the whole world think it’s annoying and impolite, but what do they care?

She has three days old baby cats, four of them, whose mother has not gone home for about three days, so out of mercy she took them in, but three of them did not survive. She feared for her life over the last one, so she wanted help.

The other thing is, she said she doesn’t have money. Typical, but she wants me to pick the kitten up immediately, or she can ask her dad to drive her over. It was 10 pm.

I have crazy cough and flu and the only reason I asked the finder of the kitten to wait overnight is so that I can rest and be well enough for a tough and long day; but who am I to ask for leniency?

She wanted me to give her a map, she wanted me to… whatever.

Her dad drove her to my place at 10 pm at night in a USD 20K white sedan. She jumped out of the car after I waited a little while, hand me over this tiny baby she kept in an online shop box with nothing but two scraps of styrofoam and a saturated kitchen towel, one hundred thousand Rupiah (about USD 10) and a plastic bag containing human baby soy milk, and a bottle.

I took them all and said thank you, then went rushing back to the house because the baby was cold. Dead cold. She was still there, but barely.

You guessed I skip the night instead of resting for the next big day? You are right.

I put the baby on heating pad, I warm up my hands and gave her a massage, I checked her nose, and I found that her tongue was turning blue.

First of all, this girl gave the baby soy milk. SOY milk. The bottle and the nipple is cheaply made and the hole is too big. She fed her too much, and too fast, you know where I am going. Soy milk went into her nose, soy milk went into her lung.

The baby’s suffering is real. Fluid in the lungs is like having a boulder crushing its chest. And this is soy milk. Every minute it stays in there it will rot and it will poison its immature, helpless system.

And nothing we can do about it. It’s a painful, slow death, and we can only hope the baby cough it out, or watch it suffocate to death.

I gave her warmed subcu, so I won’t add any burden to that suffering lungs. When she will not stop screaming and hacking and cackling and wiggling, I wrapped her in a sheet of linen, and hold her close to my heart, hoping that my constant heartbeat will calm her down. Eventually, when I was too tired to stand or sit, I put her down on the bed, and put her close to my neck, right by the vein. Then she sleeps.

I have no choice but left her in a bundle of blanket the next day, especially because the crushed kitty situation is far more complex than expected, but as soon as I come home, I lift her up again and put her close to me, and she calmed down.

Every single night, when my kitty ambulance vet came, we tried what we could. I even bought oxygen for her, and I keep praying that she will cough all the soy milk out. We read everything, asked everyone, the answer is the same: pray.

Two days and the teen wrote me again, in such cheerful note – based on her emojis – asking about the baby.

I told her the baby was still with the vet. It was.

I tried to ignore those cheeky, annoying emojis and be appreciative for her attempt to help the baby. I don’t want to discourage her from helping animals in the future. I want to help her help me rescue many more animals. I know this is probably the first time she ever do this in her life, and like many nowadays, they spend more time browsing the fifty shade of internet than go straight to the vet which might cost less than their time and data charges they spent browsing. I tried to be respectful and patient, and wise. It’s hard because the suffering baby is in front of me fighting for her life, but I am older, I am wiser.

With as neutral tone as possible, I told her the baby shouldn’t have been given soy milk, just because cats are lactose intolerant. If kitty milk cannot be found, it should be low lactose newborn baby milk. I told her not to feed the baby too much and too often, I told her the nipples of the bottle is too big. I don’t want to even get started on the mixture of the milk and the temperature et cetera. She is a teen, she won’t get it.

Her answer:
Oh, sorry! I didn’t know any of those. I only follow what pet store waiter told me and the internet 😀

I know it’s hard to read someone’s tone on the internet, so I tried to give her the benefit of the doubt, but what’s with that 😀 ?

Did she think this is a joke? Is this funny at all? Like you messed up with something and oops and laugh? Or was it a mistake? a typo? or?

And then some more lines in which she mixed period, comma and semicolon (so I have no idea what sort of context should I put her lines in), and she closed it down with “Thank you, Aunty <3 <3 ”

Ah, those never ending, out of place, improper emojis that turn all meanings upside down!

By the end of the the conversation I have nothing left to hold my respect on.

So I told her straight forward:
Usually people do. Thinking that the vet is expensive (and not worth it) and follow the internet. It’s not their cat, so if the baby died, it doesn’t matter, they will just laugh it off. The baby suffers, and it might die, but if it died, it’s not me who kills her.

It took her a little silence, but then she re-wrote her sentences in proper Indonesian without emojis, and she clearly wrote that she wasn’t playing game when she did what she did.

I hope it’s for real, and I hope she really learned.

I don’t want to delve into it. I will stop at the fact that she was trying to help, and that she made mistakes everyone made, and that she was sincere in all her effort, and for that I will give her as much respect as she deserves.

I was standing under the cross that moment. It’s customary to me that every time I walk out of the door I would touch the leg of my Lord on the cross and ask for a blessing for whatever I do next pertaining to rescue, but that night, I look up, and ask:
Lord, if it is just to teach a spunky teen the value of life, why torture four innocent baby cats? and why it is me who has to endure whatever ugly result that it entrails?

But God suffers on the cross because of everybody else’s sin and His mother can only watch in the same agony until the end.

The baby died that night, despite all our effort. I cried, but those are not sadness over the loss of life. Those tears were sadness over the whole thing and friggin emojis, and internet.

Maybe part of it was gladness, relief, that such beautiful, dilute tortie will not have to suffer anymore on her martyrdom.

And that at least one more person will learn to love and to value.

~ Josie

paypal.me/whiskerssyndicate

The stupid thing is, I got the wrong number. My brain does show its blank spot that time, especially if I open too many things to process.

It was supposed to be the house number 8, but I went to house number 10.

I know she is just a maid, but I speak to her with the same courtesy and best intention as I do to everyone else.

She is OK at first, while I ask for her master and he said I got the wrong name. She replied kindly, and with the same smile. Obviously, I apologize, went to see my cellphone again and saw that I was suppose to go to the house next door. Houses there are as big as soccer field so next door house is about few hundred steps away. I lifted the carrier I put on the floor by my foot, thank her for her courtesy and response, and walked away.

She asked me, after several feet, where do I get the carrier. I turned back and told her I brought it with me. She asked me what is in the carrier, I told her it’s empty.

This time my brain is on the right place. I get it that she suspected I pick up something at the house.

I went back by the door and show her the carrier and asked if her master or mistress has this kind of thing, and she said no. I asked her if she can see anything that belongs to her master or mistress inside the carrier, and she said no.

I asked her if she needs to search my body or my back, but by then the smile had gone far away from my face.

“I am just asking” she said, “Just in case”

“What good maid you are” I said, “Your master should not put their one billion cars (there were two) at front there unattended and expect you to act like surveillance camera or guard dog and prejudice every visitor. If they want to be cautious, put up a fence, and answer your guests from behind bars”

I turned away and walk to the correct house, but it seemed the brief skirmish had changed my face that the maid there shrank when she saw me.

Good for me, I kept my honor and manners intact.

This time, the master of the house himself went out, introduce himself, and lead me to his backyard where he kept the kitten and her mother as per my request to my old friend the day before. Away from the elements, inside a brand new, spacious cage, lined with clean training pad, a bowl of water.

Brand new spacious cage is over half a million Rupiah for me, but small change for people like him.

I moved the cats into my carrier, I thanked him sincerely and profusely for keeping and caring for the cats generously, and I wish him blessings in abundance.

I told my taxi rider to take the highway so we can arrive at the other side of town as soon as we can, and on the way, posted the photos to Christine Alice so she can help me update.

It was empty at the clinic because the chief surgeon and his wife (specialist in internal organs for cats and small animals) were out, but their son (also a vet) is available, so the little girl went in right away.

There were numerous, numerous X Rays; partly because the baby was screaming and squirming in pain, but we do not have MRI, or CT Scan. We only have X Ray so unfortunately we have to turn her over to all sort of positions so we can get clear shot on what was happening and how to fix it.

She was, apparently, crossing the road when she was crushed by a huge, billion Rupiah huge cars like those people in that complex have. The membrane that kept her digestive organ split and her intestines went out to body cavity. Her hip joint broke, and her pelvis snapped out of its place.

The urgent action, should be putting her intestines back and sew her organ pocket up, otherwise, she cannot eat. If she eats, feces will got stuck in those disarrayed intestines and many other problems will occur. There is another X Ray film that show small feces on its way out and about to be stuck, but the head surgeon keep it for his reference while doing surgery.

Then another surgery to put her broken spine back together, and return her snapped pelvis to its place. She will lost her long, beautiful, ringed tail.

After the two or three surgeries, it’s a long, long road to recovery.

No one is sure if she is going to make it. There are five vets there and everyone said it’s a tough situation and not so much chance.

I have to sign lots of papers and even asked if I have insurance, but I don’t have one. I don’t even have a name, so this one is named after me.

I am given an option to take the girl home and come back everyday, or I can leave her in the clinic.

In all honesty, I don’t mind working round the clock to help her, plus it will save money, but in my bursting out sanctuary and six sick kittens, it will be selfish to risk infections that will add her suffering.

Not to mention Ramadhan traffic. If I hadn’t take the highway, we will be stuck on the road for over four hours instead of arriving within 45 minutes to the clinic,

I am not a super woman despite all of you say, I don’t have helicopter, and the kitten deserves better than just me and I will afford whatever it takes if it will give her a chance that has been crushed away from her.

Her mother will be kept by her side because she still have a lot of milk, and she still nurse her baby. Since the baby still cannot eat solid food until she recovers enough, mother’s milk is better than IV.

She managed her first surgery by now, but she has a long, bumpy road to cross,. We have time, but not too much.

As Christine Alice posted yesterday, a donor who asked to remain anonymous has offered to match USD 400 for her care. I have told my donor that people do not usually come and give through weekend, because weekend is time for self and family, but my donor went ahead anyway. “For those who care enough to come”

~ Josie

paypal.me/whiskerssyndicate

Other posts about the baby girl, in chronological order:

https://www.facebook.com/wearethewhiskerssyndicate/videos/818107228387014/

https://www.facebook.com/wearethewhiskerssyndicate/posts/818218881709182