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artwork | older work | statement | resume | more Cluster Memories from Fort Bast Recollections of the artist's feline family by Dana Frostick
Early decisions At a very young age I made two decisions. 1) I wanted to be an artist. 2) I never wanted to have children. These decisions have guided my life and I have never changed my mind. I've been fortunate to be able to practice my art with much support, but I received a lot of push back during my early adult life about not wanting kids. Regardless, I made it through my child bearing years without conception and I am grateful even now that I didn't have to raise a family. But I think that living with cats has allowed me to express my need to nurture something. Over the years, I've discovered that I have become a cat fanatic of sorts. My motto is "everything for the cats." I'm among those people who love cats to the point of stupidity. I have coined the term "kittiot" to express that feeling. The naming of cats In this short history of my memories, I used initials for the names of humans for privacy, but I don't think cats care about the idea of privacy. The names we give cats are just words that we use to help us identify them — cats have their own names that they don't share with us (thanks to T.S. Eliot for popularizing this concept). This short history is a catalogue which names the cats I've called my friends. I've included all the kitties who've lived with me throughout my life as well as some who have merely passed through. I was inspired to compile it as a companion to my exhibition of paintings and drawings at Anne's Visual Art Studio Gallery in October, 2026. The cluster We all know a group of lions is a pride, but for domestic felines there're many other nouns that can represent a group: clowder, clutter, glaring, pounce, and cluster. My cluster consists of dozens of cats that have lived with me during my adult life, mostly at my long-time home known as "Fort Bast." Named in honor of the goddess of cats, Bastet, my home provides a secure fenced yard around it to keep random dogs from easily entering. The paintings shown in "Cluster Memories from Fort Bast," depict portraits and narrative stories of a number of the cats who've made up my feline family through the years, all overlaying an abstract base inspired by my long term series, "Elaborate Doodles." In the beginning (1962-1981)
I've loved cats my whole life.
Growing up, I remember only a few cats in our house. Mom thought they were too much trouble. Early on, there was a tabby cat named Tiger. For some reason, Tiger (or a look-alike) scratched and bit my twin sister on the arm. There was a cat named Epsilon that I think was also a tabby. My first clear memories of cats were litter mates Nicole (tabby and white) and Pepper (black and white). Nicole and Pepper were my older sister's cats. Mom didn't like them in the main part of the house, so they had to spend a lot of time in the utility room. That made me very sad. One time, in an attempt at freedom, Pepper crawled into the space above the ceiling and fell through the ceiling tiles into the family room. Kirkland (1981-1982)
After high school, I eloped to Kirkland, WA, a suburb of Seattle, with my boyfriend, "JB," and we got married there. JB and I adopted three little feral kittens living near our house: Caine (tuxedo) and Abel (tabby), and Little One (tabby with white). The joy that cats have brought me has always been punctuated with pain. The first time I experienced the tragedy of the loss of a cat was when Abel died. We think he got into some slug poison in the garden next door. JB and I hadn't even gotten jobs yet, so we had no money. I watched in anguish as little Abel convulsed, unable to even take him to the vet. Thankfully, he passed quickly and his suffering ended. In Kirkland, I met JB's Grandma "MH." Visiting her house, she was telling us about her cat, Athena (black). I saw a small fluffy thing on the floor and went to pick it up, thinking it was her toy mouse. It was not a toy. It was a gift from Athena! Like her namesake, she was a fiery-eyed goddess. One of JB's cousins, "TB," stayed with us for a while. He brought a small cat named Kabal (grey manx) from Spokane with him. Kabal was the only tailless kitty I've ever known. He didn't seem to mind too much, but I remember his balance wasn't as good as Caine and Little One. Henrico (1982-1988) After a year in Kirkland, I got homesick and we decided to move back to Richmond, VA. We brought Caine and Little One home with us and stayed temporarily at my parents house in their downstairs area. The cats had been used to roaming, so we set up a cat entrance in the bathroom window. Little One didn't stay around very long. I hope she found another place where she was happy. Not long after returning to Virginia, JB's uncle, "SH," decided he'd had enough of living with Athena in Kirkland. While Grandma MH was out of town, SH nabbed Athena and flew her out to Richmond. He said she was done for if we didn't adopt her, so we added her to our little family. The worst thing I ever did to a cat happened to Athena while we were at my parents' house. I had been drying a load of clothes. I opened the dryer to check if they were done, but couldn't tell if they were still damp, so I left the dryer door open. A little while later, I came back, shut the dryer door without checking it, and turned it on. I started hearing a thumping sound and I couldn't figure out why. It hadn't made that noise earlier and I wasn't drying any shoes. I thought it must be off balance and went back to see if I could fix it. I opened the dryer door and to my horror, I saw Athena inside! She meowed loudly and dragged herself out of the machine. I called a local vet and immediately took her in. They gave her a shot to help her with shock and kept her for a few hours to ice her down. She was ok when we got her back. Truthfully, she became a nicer cat after that experience.
Richmond (1988-1991) When JB and I moved to a small house of our own, we brought Caine and Athena with us. We lived there for several years with a bulldog named Boris and a pitbull called Elizabeth. At the beginning of 1988, we split up and I moved to Oregon Hill. I couldn't bring any pets with me, so I had to leave them all with JB. JB rented a different house in Oregon Hill with my friend, "GT," and was able to keep the animals there. He ended up moving back to the west coast and I moved in with the animals again at my friend's house. A little while later, I moved across the street into a home with some other friends. Caine and Boris came with me, but Athena and Elizabeth stayed with GT. One of my friends had two other cats who lived with us named Mimi and Azure, both black cats. I started dating "BT" at this time. He brought over a young ginger kitty to join us that we called Uther. BT loved mythology, making art, and bonfires. In 1989, during a bonfire where a giant effigy of Bast (Bastet) was burned, I was marked by the fire with the shape of a cat. I felt that symbol was significant and have tried to act as a servant of the goddess since then.
The cluster increases After a few years renting in Oregon Hill, I finally was able to purchase a small house near Bryan Park. When I moved there, I brought Boris along with Caine, Uther, Mimi, and Azure. My cluster started growing from there. First came Ralph, a creamsicle kitty that was brought by "LB," a friend who roomed with me for a while. LB later brought in a little kitten, Kira (fluffy grey). Poor Kira didn't make it to adulthood. It was at that point that I met my future husband, "RC." After we had been dating for about a year, he moved in with me and brought his little Persian cat, Brigette. Brigette was very old already at that point so she was only with us for a short while. Brigette loved to snuggle with Boris the bulldog which he stoically endured.
Silly At my job one night, a co-worker brought in a box full of kittens. I tried to avoid looking at them so I wouldn't be tempted to bring one home, but at the end of the night, there was one still left. It was a cute little black, grey, and brown tabby that was so small it fit into the palm of my hand. I thought it was a female and decided to call her Selena, but when I got her to the vet for her first visit, I found out she was a he. So Selena became Selenium, or Silly for short. I know the arguments saying cats should be kept inside. They kill birds, it's safer for the cats, etc. But I can't stand the idea of keeping cats prisoner inside a house. They are independent creatures that need the freedom to roam. To me, keeping a cat inside its entire life is a sentence they must endure for no fault of their own. Yes, they may live longer inside, but I feel like the quality of their life is diminished in return. And I'm sorry they kill birds, but they also kill pests like rodents. Silly's life exemplified a cat's need for being in charge of their own actions. He quickly became an intrepid hunter. One time, he brought home a rat that was almost as big as he was from the creek at the end of the road. Silly would wander off at times but always came back within a day. Once, he was missing for three days before he came limping home. His hind leg had a spiral break in the femur. Our vet couldn't fix him but recommended a specialist who was able to pin it together and wrap wire around it. After some time healing, Silly was good as new. Even with his injury, Silly was nearly 20 years old when he died. He was the oldest cat I ever had. By far I spent the longest time with him of any in my cluster.
Wild cats roam free Back in the early days of living near the park, there were a lot of free cats in the neighborhood. Many of them would stop by for food and a visit. Occasionally, they would stay for a while. Frey was a large long haired grey and white cat who stopped by and sort of adopted us. It was hard to tell if he really wanted to be included, but he stayed around enough that we became friendly with him. One morning, we found him lying peacefully next to our fence. It looked like his little heart had just stopped.
Across the street from my house, there was a large oak tree in my neighbor's front yard. A mother cat periodically brought a litter around there to see if there were any vacancies at nearby homes. A couple of them started hanging around so we adopted Bump (tuxedo) and Static (grey and black tabby). Static didn't stay long and we never figured out where he ended up. But Bump was with us for many years. She was what many folks would call a crazy cat. She had a way of staring with a loopy look. Bump would pick spots she liked, and pretty much spend all her time in those places for months at a time. She liked being next to the washer and in the side yard a lot.
In the next batch of kittens from the oak tree, we discovered Kilbasi. She was a lovely little grey tabby but was born with only three legs. She was missing her front left. It didn't slow her down much, but she couldn't jump as high as most other cats. We had a lot of nicknames for Kilbasi like Squeaker and Squiggims. She loved to sleep next to RC and was very gentle and sweet. We tried to adopt one more kitten from across the street, a white cat we started calling Endora because we thought she wanted to come inside. But when we tried bringing her in, she didn't like it and left immediately. We never saw her again and so far, I've never had another white cat.
Charlie One morning, RC and I were having coffee and a little black kitten came into the back yard. RC took him around to the homes nearby to see if anyone would claim him but everyone said they didn't recognize him. RC told one neighbor, "We found this cat," and they replied, "Congratulations!" so he became part of our family. We called him Charlie because he was a little dickens. He did goofy stuff like balance on the deck and try to catch his tail between the rails below him. Charlie became my coffee kitty. He would sit on my lap every morning while we had coffee in bed and his black fur showed up as coffee colored in the sunlight. I loved my Charlie more than all the other cats I had then or before. It was around this time that my cluster was at its largest. We had eleven cats plus Boris even though we never had a litter of kittens. The rule was that if a cat wanted to stay we made sure they were neutered or spayed. Everyone got along fairly well. They were allowed to come and go as they wanted and we had food and water bowls all over the place. Over the years, the number dwindled periodically. My response when people said I was a crazy cat lady was that my numbers are going down, not up!
Minerva I found Minerva in the parking lot of a nearby shopping center. I had parked next to an old confederate earth work that was left in place and when I opened my car door, I heard a cat crying frantically. Meow, meow, meow! A dingy orange kitty insisted she needed my help. There were no homes in the area, so I felt like someone must have abandoned her there. I couldn't leave her and brought her home with me. After a short time of adjustment, we allowed "Mini" to meet the rest of the cluster. She immediately identified Charlie as my favorite and made it her goal to replace him in my eyes. She would constantly try to attack him with her kitty kung fu. I've never seen a cat use those moves before. It became difficult for Charlie to spend time with me in peace and the coffee kitty routine was ruined.
Fort Bast (2010's) I couldn't really blame Mini for her behavior, but her jealousy had a significant impact. Charlie started spending his mornings on the front porch instead of inside with me. The house was located on a corner, and at that time, even though we had a six foot privacy fence around our backyard on the street and alley sides, our front yard was totally open. One morning we heard a ruckus out front. It sounded like dogs barking and a scrabbling sound on the deck. I ran outside and found two dogs over Charlie in the side yard. The dogs ran off when they saw me and I leaned over Charlie. To this day, the look on his face still haunts me, full of fear. I brought him in and laid him on the bed. He was still alive but he couldn't move. We took him to the vet nearby but they came out shortly after and said he had passed. I vowed that no dog would ever be able to just run into our yard again. RC and I installed a fence around the front. I know that a dog could still gain entry, but the sound would give any cats outside a little warning. With the fence in place, our home became Fort Bast, a place where the kitties could have their freedom but also have some security in case other dogs came wandering through. I prayed to Bast to keep an eye out and keep our cluster safe from harm.
Bocephalus As time went on, the cluster changed again and again. There were a bunch of cats that sort of looked like Frey on the next street over. At one point, a momma cat started bringing over a litter of Frey look-a-likes, mostly black and white, but all long haired. Most of them stayed in the back of the yard and wouldn't come close to us. But one little boy (fluffy, black and white) decided he wanted to stay with us. To me, there was something unique about him so I thought he needed a name that no one else had. Bocephalus came to mind. It just seemed to fit. "Bo" became a large cat and even though he was neutered he started becoming bossy with the others. But one evening, I was on the back deck with my friend "BK," and heard a cat jumping over the side gate, nails scratching the wood. Then I heard the sound again. I thought it was strange so I took a look and discovered that Bocephalus had gotten one of his large paws wedged between two of the fence slats and was stuck. BK helped me get him off the fence when I pried the slats apart. Bo's rear left leg was hanging badly. I took him to the emergency vet but they didn't have a specialist who could help and told me to take him to my vet as soon as possible. They bandaged him up and we went home. As soon as my vet opened again, we drove him there. She said it was too far gone to save his leg so he had it amputated. Now we had two tripods. At home, I was with Bo when he came out of his anesthesia. I was petting him to let him know he would be ok and he started purring loudly and he became extremely affectionate towards me. Bocephalus learned how to get around just fine and his attitude towards the others became less aggressive. Bo started coming to bed with us and would purr next to my head for a while each night. He became such a sweet boy that he allowed me to kiss his belly! I never had a cat that would allow me to do that. At most, cats generally don't like their belly to even be touched, although a few will allow a little petting.
Pumpkin The last cat who came to visit us on their own and stayed was Pumpkin. Pumpkin was the first calico I ever had. She was very orange and round, thus her name. Pumpkin loved to get under the covers with me at bedtime! She would wait in the hallway for me and then as soon as I got in bed, she would jump up and join me. I lifted the sheets for her and she would dive under. This earned her the nickname of Spelunk-a-punk! "Punkie" had a skin allergy that made her nose and ears raw. I spent years working with the vet to figure out what her specific problem was. We tested her for a fungal infection but that came back negative. Allergy tests showed she was allergic to dust and other things, so we tried giving her shots. Then the vet suggested she had a food allergy and we put her on a hydrolyzed protein diet. None of these things worked. The weird thing was that during the winter, it would totally clear up but come back again when the weather turned hot. Finally, I found images on Google that looked exactly like her issue. It was an allergy to mosquitos. There wasn't much we could do for that - even keeping her inside wouldn't have helped because our house isn't hermetically sealed. So we just tried to keep her lesions powdered with neo-predef and gave her a steroid shot when it got bad during the summers.
Bringing Baby home Bryan Park is located very near my home. In the winter when no one goes outside very much, it sometimes feels like my own personal estate. My history with Bryan Park goes back my entire life. I visited often from a very young age with my parents. I remember when the entire park used to be open to vehicles and long lines of cars and motorcycles would parade through it each weekend, especially when the azalea garden was in bloom. My dad used to take me and my twin sister there to hop on the rocks below the dam at Young's Pond. Later in life, I would walk Boris and Elizabeth there with JB. When I finally decided to buy my house, one of its biggest selling points was its proximity to the park. In all my years visiting Bryan Park, I had never once seen a cat there. So you can imagine my surprise when one winter day, RC and I were walking over the dam and heard a little meow from the rocks below. There was a lovely little tuxedo kitty on the shore, at the base of the dam, so we climbed down the hill to say hi. I sat on the rock and she instantly climbed onto my lap. We didn't see anyone around that might call her theirs and we weren't sure what to do. But when we climbed back up, she followed us. We thought she would probably just stay behind if we walked quickly enough, but she kept up and wouldn't stop following us. We knocked on a few doors of houses on the street across from the park, but no one recognized her so we resigned ourselves to the realization that the cat distribution system had struck again! I was concerned about what to do when we approached Lakeside Ave. I didn't want her to get hurt crossing four lanes of traffic while following us. So I picked her up and held her tightly as I sprinted across the road. She didn't struggle, but as soon as we were on the other side, she jumped down and continued following us. We were only a couple of blocks off Lakeside and she easily kept up with us. As we passed the house where the Frey descendants lived, she jumped into a tree, but we encouraged her to come down and she followed us the remaining way home. At home, she came inside and we worked on getting her adjusted to the other cats. Everything went ok until Bump decided she didn't like her. Bump charged at her in the upstairs loft and Baby jumped down the entire flight of stairs in one leap. After that, Baby decided that the place she felt most comfortable was the outside.
Bringing up Baby Every day, I would go outside and connect with her. Beginning in the morning, I'd bring out her food and water which she enjoyed eating under the car. If she wasn't waiting for me in the driveway, I would stroll around the neighborhood and call her. Baby had a few places she liked to frequent, especially the alley across the street and in the mulberry tree next to our house. She always came running and would follow me home for breakfast. After eating, she'd sit down with me and snuggle for a while and I could get a few pets in. Then she'd leave for a while and we'd do this over again about six times each day. Even though she preferred the outside, she allowed me to pick her up. If we were walking home and a car started coming, she would let me carry her for a while. When she needed to go to the vet for her shots I could easily get her into a carrier. When the weather turned excessively cold, I would bring her inside overnight and keep her isolated from Bump and later on Pumpkin. Neither of those ladies liked her at all, but she didn't have any problem with any of the boys.
Baby was the most acrobatic cat I ever knew. She would walk down the handrail of the front porch and leap effortlessly to the fence post several feet away where she would do a tight rope act all the way to the street. To get into her mulberry tree, she'd do a leap from a sitting position to the top of our privacy fence and then scurry up a large hanging vine like Tarzan. But even with all her balancing skills, one day I called her for a visit and she showed up looking confused. I went to pet her and discovered that her entire body was wet from the chest down with something that smelled like oil heating fuel. I don't know if she fell into an open container or what happened. I can't imagine that she would have allowed anyone else to pick her up who might have dropped her in it. Either way, I took her inside and gave her a bath right away and then took her to the emergency vet to make sure she wasn't poisoned and they could get her totally clean. Thankfully, she recovered nicely.
Meeting Zero and Juan In 2003, I moved my studio to a new arts facility in the Manchester District of Richmond, just on the other side of the 14th Street (Mayo) Bridge. I got one of the first studios that were available in the facility. Near the front door at Zero East Fourth Street, there was a small office for the site administrator, "JK." One day I came in and saw a cat in JK's office. She told me that she thought the center needed a cat and had adopted Zero (male tabby with a thick mottled grey brown, like an abyssinian, and white nose, chest and paws). Zero quickly adjusted to roaming the halls and visiting the artists in their studios. Many artists had sofas and spaces for him to rest during his visits. One of the studio artists, "HT," had a large space on the backside of the center. She cut out a cat door so Zero could get out of the way if anyone brought in a dog or if the halls were too busy. HT became Zero's de facto caregiver when JK moved on from her position. Then one day I arrived and discovered another little kitty had joined Zero. HT had adopted Juan or "One" (orange tabby with white chest, nose and paws). While Zero didn't seem to be overjoyed about Juan at first, he eventually got used to him being around. Juan followed him absolutely everywhere! Unfortunately, Zero had been declawed prior to his arrival at Plant Zero. It caused him to walk with a slight sway in his back that wasn't natural. It broke my heart that he had to endure that. Juan or the other hand, did have his claws, which he put to an interesting use. Whenever I'd see him, he'd come up to me and use my boots as a scratching post! I'd never seen this kind of behavior before from a cat (but it wouldn't be the last time). Some years later, HT decided to move out and work from a studio at her home. She already had other cats and wanted to rehome Zero and Juan somewhere they could be together. After thinking about it for a while, I told her I could take them and they came home with me to Fort Bast.
Boyz in the hood "1&0," or "the Boyz" were understandably afraid to go outside at first. As far as I knew, neither of them had ever been outside before — for sure as long as they had been at Plant Zero. They hid under a dresser in our bedroom together for about a day, then they slowly started to explore the house. After a few weeks, we were sitting on our back deck with the door open and they appeared at the threshold. They both sniffed the air and looked up at the sky, so very far above their heads. A couple of times, a vehicle would drive down the road and startle them back towards the interior of the house. But soon, Juan took a step down onto the deck and Zero was right behind him. Their exploration got wider and wider, from the deck itself to the back yard, and then around to the front of the house and beyond. It made me so happy to know that they were finally experiencing freedom!
Zero quickly began to take on the role of neighborhood prothonotary or sheriff. He would go out and do loops around the house, going into the alley behind us and then back up the yard next door to come around to our backyard again. It made him so happy to be able to get away from Juan every now and then. Little Juan enjoyed getting to know his other siblings. He got along well with Bocephalus but liked teasing his sister, Baby. At first, whenever Juan chased her, RC would get annoyed with her and try to stop him. I encouraged him to go easy on him, figuring that the less we interjected, the less he'd feel the need to go after her. And eventually, it worked out fine. Even with all the new friends and activities they had, Juan still wanted to be with Zero whenever possible. Zero was his best friend and surrogate litter mate. They slept together in the same bed and cleaned each other. It was truly a beautiful thing to see how much two cats could love each other. I know that they were soulmates.
Endings No matter how much time we have with a cat, it's almost always the case that they will precede us in death. Most of my cats have lived a typical lifespan of about 15 years or so. For those whose quality of life eroded significantly in their old age, I was thankful to be able to end their suffering through humane euthanasia. I remember them all with love and respect and think about them all the time. But some of their deaths were traumatic for me and I still grieve them to this day. Especially difficult for me were the deaths of Bocephalus and Baby. Bocephalus had beautiful long hair. Unfortunately, he hated being brushed or combed. So every year he had to get a lion cut to remove the tangles and mats. He was even worse with the clippers so he had to be sedated for his hair visits. After more than a decade of this, I thought maybe there could be a way that I could give him a mild sedative and do a little grooming at home instead of putting him through that ordeal every year. My vet prescribed an ointment to be applied on the inside of his ear. So while he was sitting on me one evening, I gave him a dose of the ointment. He seemed ok and sat on me for a while longer before I asked him to get down because my legs were falling asleep. He laid down nearby and looked completely normal. But in a short time, he suddenly half stood and started convulsing. Then almost immediately, he fell back to the floor with his tongue hanging out. I picked up his limp body and thought desperately that he could be revived. But the emergency room vet couldn't do anything for him. I think he died instantly from a bad heart (he had been diagnosed with a heart murmur years earlier). But I still wonder if he had a bad reaction to the sedative ointment and I was responsible for his early passing.
Other than the heating oil episode, Baby had always been very healthy. It was amazing to watch how fast she could run. But as she entered her senior years we could see she was starting to slow down a little bit. There had recently been another tuxedo kitty that we would see her hanging around with and we noticed she would be up the road sometimes with that cat and sometimes she would follow it into a drainage pipe across the street. One day, she had shown up as usual a couple of times, but we had a late afternoon deluge. When the rain slowed down, I went out looking for her again. For the first time ever, I couldn't find her. We looked everywhere and called her name for a couple of days. We even put up flyers on the telephone poles in our neighborhood. Finally on the third day, as we were looking again, RC looked in a drainage ditch a block away and saw her there. He called me over to verify it was her. I could tell for sure it was her by the little black spot she had on her lower lip. It was heart wrenching, but I thank Bast for letting us find her. Not knowing would have been worse.
At this point, we only had Juan and Zero and Pumpkin. I could tell that something was wrong with Juan and the vet said there was a mass in his abdomen. She did an exploratory to see what it was and found a large mass entangled around his digestive tract. She said it was inoperable. I wasn't expecting it to be so sudden, but I felt the best thing to do was to let him pass on at that time instead of reviving him. Zero missed Juan, but he did ok without him for a while. I don't know how old he was because he was an adult when he came to Plant Zero, but he was getting up there and was slowing down a lot. One day, I saw he had laid down under the front steps. It seemed like his time was coming. It was a pretty cold day so I carried him inside and laid him on his bed. I sat with him for a little while and was with him when he passed away.
Lucifer Only Pumpkin remained and we had her alone for a year or so before I got the notion that she might like some company. I knew she didn't like other females, but I thought if someone had a young male kitty that needed a home, it might work out ok. Soon enough, one of RC's sisters asked us if we needed a cat. Her friend, "SD," had adopted a four month old kitten called Sunny (orange tabby) from a litter found in an auto garage in Mechanicsville. SD had a female cat named Shadow (white) that she thought needed a companion. But Shadow was absolutely terrorized by Sunny. She would hide in a small space and not come out. Plus, Shadow's eyes started constantly running. The vet had told her that the stress of living with Sunny was causing this. I was pretty sure that Pumpkin wasn't going to have that kind of reaction to a male cat, and we hadn't had a kitten in forever, so we agreed to go see him. When we got to SD's home, she showed us Shadow hiding in a corner. Then she called Sunny and he came strolling up the hallway. I sat down on the floor and used some of his toys to get his attention. Sure enough, he came over and played with me. He seemed to like me pretty well, and he was cute as a button! We scooped him up in our carrier and took him home with us. Sure enough, Pumpkin did just fine with him and actually seemed to like him at times. But we soon discovered that little Sunny was kind of a prickly little thing. Even though I didn't encourage him to play rough, he would grab onto my arm and kick me with his rear legs like he was trying to disembowel a rabbit. He never used his claws, just the pads of his feet. But he didn't like to be petted. If I tried to pet him or pick him up, he would scratch. It quickly became apparent that Sunny just wasn't a name that seemed appropriate for him. So we decided to call him Lucifer, Luci for short. Would I prefer that Luci liked to be petted and purred like Bocephalus? Of course! But I've always just tried to love them all no matter what they were like. And so Lucifer joined Pumpkin in the cluster. They were together for several years, but eventually Punkie got old. One hot day, she was laying outside and I could tell she was getting ready to pass on. I went upstairs for a little while. Then RC called up to me to come down stairs because Pumpkin had passed. She had come inside and was laying near our bedroom in the hallway. Lucifer was alone in the cluster for about a year. I started to feel like he missed having another cat around, so I began to feel open to bringing in a new cat. I looked at a few adoption sites online and was drawn to a photo of a kitty named Summer (dilute calico) at Richmond Animal Care and Control. She had a paw reaching out to the camera and the sweetest little eyes. But I got it in my head that it's usually easier to bring in a kitten when you have an adult cat, because of "Kitten Rules." That's my belief that because kittens haven't been put in their place yet, they are typically fearless and their lack of fear makes older cats hesitant to attack them. So I thought we should adopt a kitten or preferably two.
Kiki On August 9, 2024, we went to RACC and little Summer instantly got my attention over the kittens available. She demanded that I pet her and wanted to sit on me. And she was so small, I thought she was still only part grown. But they said the vet thought she was about seven due to the condition of her teeth. I asked if they thought she would be ok with another cat and they told me that she was fearless. They used her to test out new dogs' behaviors around a cat! We were told she had come out of a hoarding situation and had a chronic upper respiratory condition. She had already received a round of antibiotics to treat it but it still persisted. Even with all this, I was determined that she needed to come home with us, so we adopted her and brought her home right then. It wasn't until we got her home and out of the carrier that we could see just how unusual she was. She had a weird, deliberate gait and her head tilted slightly to the side. One of her ears was hard at the base. And then her respiratory symptoms started up. It's hard to describe how troubling it feels to have a cat with breathing issues. We wanted to help her and tried everything we could think of. The folks at RACC thought we could put her in the bathroom while running a shower and that the steam might help. We tried that only one time because it totally stressed her out.
The first night, we had her in our bedroom so she could adjust to our home. Summer couldn't settle down. She kept climbing all over us and crying. I decided to take her out to the studio with me so RC could get some sleep. I laid down a pad and a pillow for me with a cat bed next to it. She was still active, but seemed a little calmer and would spend some time in the cat bed and then some time on the pillow above my head. The next day, we moved her back to the house and laying on the pillow above my head became her thing at bedtime. I could reach above my head and feel her there purring in her sleep and it gave me great comfort. Shortly after she arrived at our house, I had started to get the idea that Summer wasn't the best fit for a name for her. For some reason, the name Kiki just came to me. I would say it to her and she would come to me. So I started calling her that instead. I wanted to introduce Kiki to the outside world and brought her with me in the back yard. She surprised me by wandering off deliberately like she was looking for something and found a hole in the back fence that she slipped through. At first I thought she had gone under our shed, but soon realized she wasn't there, so I ran around to the alley and started calling her, "Kiki-Keee! Kiki-Keee!" My neighbor behind us was in his garage and peaked his head out when he heard me calling. He asked if I was looking for a cat and I said yes! He said she was in his yard and asked if Kiki was her name because that is what he had been calling her. I knew then that this was definitely the right name for her. Because of her unusual condition, I was able to grab her fairly easily and took her back inside.
Kiki's health Kiki's upper respiratory issues were a constant issue. We took her to the vet and tried another dose of antibiotics (pink), then another round with a different antibiotic (purple), and later after she had been diagnosed with mycoplasma, we tried another (white). The last one seemed to help for a week or two, but even though the mycoplasma had been cleared from her system, her respiratory issues came back. She would be fine for a while, but then she'd lose her energy and you could tell her little nose was clogged up. The vet said we could use drops in her nose to help relieve the inflammation (actually an off label use of an anti-nausea medicine). She had the tiniest little nostrils but we figured out how to treat her with them. The process we used was to lay two towels flat on the table and set her in the middle. Then holding her gently down, I'd wrap the top towel around her (making sure to get her front feet inside), then take the second towel around her from the opposite direction. In her kitty burrito, she was pretty well contained and we could keep her in place for her treatments. RC would hold her and I would administer the medications. We squirted antibiotics in her mouth, flushed and cleaned her ears, turned her over so we could put drops in her nose — sometimes we had to do all these treatments at the same time — and she had up to three treatments a day. Later on we added a saline spray on top of the drops. For almost any cat, just trying to get them wrapped up would have been traumatic. And after administering even one medication, my cats in the past would angrily run away and hide. But Kiki was different. We would put her on the bed and let her out of the towels and she would immediately want to eat. She would let us pet her and didn't seem angry at all that we had man handled her. She was such a forgiving little soul. Quite by chance, I found a video of a cat that seemed to have a similar look and symptoms on YouTube named Grub. Grub had an extremely rare disorder called mucopolysaccharidosis or MPS. Her symptoms were not as severe, but she had the same walk, the same eyes, the small size, the tiny little nasal passages, and the same extremely sweet nature. I don't know if Kiki had this condition or not, but it was eerily similar.
We realized that she couldn't jump very high, no more than two feet at most. She had to use a kitty ramp to get into the bed. After her first disappearance, I had blocked up all the little holes in the fencing around Fort Bast, so I figured there was no way she could leave on her own. Even still, I watched her whenever she was outside. This was such a different experience from all my previous cats. With all her health issues and daily treatments, I was concerned that she shouldn't start exploring the world on her own until we got her better. But we wanted her to have some freedom and started working with her to learn how to use the kitty door. It took longer for her to get it than other cats, but finally one day, she started coming and going through it on her own. I was so happy for her!
The Ballad of Kiki and Lucifer In the early morning hours of November 15, 2024, I woke up feeling strange. I couldn't feel my right leg. It wasn't a numb feeling. It was like it just wasn't there. I thought that maybe if I tried to stand up, the feeling would return. So I scooted my body around to the edge of the bed but when I tried to stand up, I collapsed onto the floor. RC was awake in bed and heard me fall. He asked if I was OK and I tried to respond, but my speech was garbled. I realized that this was a symptom of a stroke and started trying to say that, but the best I could do was make a sound more like a bark than speech. Sitting on the floor for a few minutes, I was finally able to make sounds that were similar to the words "stroke" and "hospital" and pointed to my clothes so I could get dressed with his help. The worst of the symptoms started to pass fairly quickly and RC helped me stand up and he got me to the car. We went to the emergency room for testing and they took me back for evaluation right away.
Anyone who has ever been to the ER knows that even after you get seen, the tests and the results can take some time. I was starting to be able to talk again, but it was very deliberate. Also my leg came back to me but there was still some weakness. After a few hours, RC asked if I would be ok on my own for a little while so he could go home and get a little more sleep which I was fine with. I was there for what felt like forever. I had been expecting RC back in a few hours, but it seemed to be going longer than expected. I called him and he sounded funny, but said he'd be back in a little while, so I waited for his return. Finally he came back and I asked how the cats were. He said he had some bad news to tell me. Kiki had been sleeping soundly, so he had opened the kitty door for Luci to go out. When he woke up, he couldn't find Kiki anywhere. He had searched the house, the yard and the neighborhood several times already, calling for her the whole time. He didn't want to say anything when I called because he didn't want to worry me if he could find her. But no luck. He felt horrible about it like it was his fault. I told him that we had decided to let her use the cat door and that we had been sure that she couldn't jump over the fence, so it wasn't his fault at all. It could have happened at any time. Obviously, she found some other way of getting out of the yard that we hadn't anticipated.
Meanwhile, I'm stuck at the hospital. At first they thought I had suffered a TIA, but testing showed I'd had a stroke. They wanted to admit me over the weekend to run more tests. I was moved into a room and tried to be calm but RC's searches for Kiki continued to be fruitless. By the next day, I was pacing in my room and doing laps around the hallway, totally anxious about Kiki. They still wanted to keep me but I agreed to get any other testing they wanted done at a later date and got the heck out of there. As soon as I got home, I posted Kiki as missing on the Home Again and Paws Boost sites and started looking for her with RC. But then we detected a problem with Lucifer.
He was swelling up from a puncture wound. I've been through this a few times with cats and know that it's best to get it cleaned up and have them receive an antibiotic shot, so we took him to the Urgent Care Vet on Ellwood. The last time he had this happen was on a holiday and we had to take him to the Emergency Vet on Cary Street. Because nothing else was open due to the holiday and the low level of emergency for his situation, we got bumped over and over again. We ended up waiting for eight hours to see a doctor and get him attended to. I totally understand this was because of triage decisions and don't blame them at all for it. But we found that with Urgent Care, we were actually able to schedule an appointment and he was taken care of right away. We were very impressed with their facility. Looking back, I wonder if Luci's wound may have been associated with Kiki's disappearance, but we'll never know. As Lucifer recovered from his injury, we spent the next week searching for Kiki. I made flyers and distributed them to all the nearby veterinary offices and animal shelters. Then, we put them up on all the telephone poles in our neighborhood and fanned out to the Bryan Park and Lakeside neighborhoods. We kept searching, calling her name several times each day. I made small copies of the flyer and put them in the mailbox of every house in my neighborhood. I saw someone had seen a calico in the Lakeside neighborhood, so I put them in those mailboxes too. A week went by and I was despondent. We were beginning to feel like she was gone for good.
Good news Then on Saturday, November 23, I got a phone call. They said they were calling from Urgent Care Vet and asked if I was Dana Frostick. At first, I thought they were calling to check up on Lucifer's progress again. They had already checked in on him a few days prior to make sure he was recovering. But then they said, "we have Kiki." I couldn't believe it! I asked if they were sure and they said they had scanned her chip and got my number. I told them we would be there as soon as possible. RC was out shopping, so I called him to come home so we could go get her. We rushed over there and were reunited with her. They said a couple had brought her in because she had shown up and was exhibiting respiratory symptoms. They had another cat and were concerned it might catch something from her, so they brought her into the Urgent Care to get a check up where they first scanned for a chip. We left a note for the folks who found her and asked Urgent Care to let them know how grateful we were. I left my phone number in case they wanted to contact us. The next day, I got a text from them. It turns out they were neighbors who lived on the next block over. They had found her and didn't see the flyer we left in their mailbox until after they got back from the Urgent Care.
I was so relieved to have Kiki back, but now that I knew she didn't know how to get home I was worried that she would do it again. With all her problems and treatments still ongoing, I felt like I needed to find a way to keep her from wandering off again. While I considered my options, I made sure to accompany her any time she was outside. She could do short bursts of speed, but she couldn't run like other cats. So I was following her around and she was following Lucifer when he decided to jump over the front yard fence. She was a few feet behind him and started climbing up the fence slat. I grabbed her right at the top of the fence. So that was how she had gotten out, she didn't jump or get through a hole, she climbed over. Now I knew she could do it again.
Keeping track I decided to order a cat-sized tracking device she could wear on a collar. While I still watched her outside, this allowed me to have a few minutes of peace knowing that I could find her if she slipped under the deck or went under the studio or shed. But I knew I needed more. I started looking into cat-proof fencing products. I finally settled on the Purr-fect Fence, a high strength mesh fence which has a flexible arm at the top that drops a cat down if it gets close to the top. RC and I installed it in sections: from the house to the back of the studio, from the front of the studio to the shed, from the shed to the tall side fence. Then along the tall side fence, we added the top part with the flexible arms to keep her from climbing over there. We also closed off below the studio with lathing so she couldn't climb under there. Fort Bast was now totally secure and I could finally rest a little easier knowing Kiki was safe, but that she could still get outside and enjoy the yard which she loved so much.
We installed two gates so we could get in and out of the yard and into the shed and the little alley way between the studio and our other side fence. The gate in the back was particularly important as I had to have a way to let Lucifer in and out of the yard. I learned early with Lucifer that he wanted to be able to come and go as needed. When he didn't get his way, he was prone to biting and scratching me. So we developed a "system" to handle his needs while simultaneously keeping Kiki safe in the yard. I got up in the morning and fed them both their morning meat then I'd go outside to make sure the gates were all shut. Next, I'd open up the kitchen so they could go outside and I allowed Luci out the back gate for his morning rounds. Then I had my coffee outside with Kiki. She would sit on my lap as long as I held still. I petted her head and told her how much I loved her. We'd sit there together until Lucifer came back around to the gate so I could let him in for a snack. I would let him in and out of the gate or the front door throughout the day as often as I could. When he was inside with Kiki, they would often play together. Sometimes they would tussle and other times, they would sit quietly together. At times, Luci would sit just on the outside of the fence and Kiki would sit with him on the inside. If I had to come inside or leave the house for a while, I would put her tracker on. Eventually, I developed a trust that it was working so we could leave her in the yard at home while we both went out to eat or visit folks.
The new rule at Fort Bast was Eyes On Kiki. Throughout the day, RC and I asked each other, "Where's Kiki?" If we didn't see her immediately, we'd look for her in all the places she might be. If we couldn't find her I'd check the tracking app to make sure she was still around and then we could locate her — usually underneath the deck. When it got dark outside, I'd bring Kiki inside for the day and close and lock the kitchen door. Then I'd open up the back and side gates as well as the kitty door so Lucifer could get inside for food, water, and a bed to nap in while we enjoyed our streaming upstairs. Kiki would come up stairs with us or just nap downstairs depending on her mood. At bed time, I'd check on Lucifer and after he was sleeping in his kitchen bed, I'd shut the cat door and open up the kitchen again so both he and Kiki could have the house together. In the morning, it would start all over again. It was quite a feat of kitty wrangling but it eased my mind to know they were both getting what I felt they needed.
The Year of Kiki Following my stroke in late 2024, I started making plans to lessen my responsibilities at Artspace where I had been an officer for many years. I was able to find someone to take on my role as Treasurer by June, 2025 which gave me lots of time to spend with Kiki. When she felt well, she would chase a feather toy. I never saw her try to hunt a living thing, but she loved to capture leaves that had fallen and she'd bring them to us crying for attention. She continued getting her nasal drops and spray on a regular basis, but by the end of the year, we could tell she was starting to struggle. We noticed that her breathing seemed to be more difficult and she started losing her appetite. I took her to see the vet and he listened to her breathing and said her lungs sounded clear. He said he couldn't really tell much without an x-ray, but I thought if her lungs were clear, then maybe she was ok so we passed on that.
The next day in the morning on Jan 21, 2026, I thought she seemed a little better and the day progressed as usual. But that night as we were streaming upstairs, I noticed she was struggling a little to get up the stairs to be with us. I picked her up and brought her to her bed next to us. I noticed she seemed to be uncomfortable and was acting a little strangely. Then she got up and she wobbled a little more than usual past me a few feet where she suddenly collapsed on the floor. I called the Urgent Care Vet and they were still open for another hour or so, so we took her there immediately. They took her back right away while we waited for the vet to give us an update. I wasn't ready for his prognosis. He said they had given her something to ease her breathing but that she was in serious respiratory distress. He said we had two options. The Urgent Care was closing too soon for them to do any additional testing there, but we could take her to the emergency vet for further tests. The other option was humane euthanasia. It was the hardest decision I have ever had to make. I wasn't ready to lose her but I didn't feel like we should put her through any more suffering. Her little life had been so hard, with all the treatments she had endured and going in and out of feeling bad all the time. So we decided we had to let her go. They brought her to us in the same private room where we had been reunited with her barely more than a year ago after she disappeared. I held her and told her how much we loved her and that we would always keep her in our memories. I petted her head while they administered the drug and she quickly passed on from our lives. We brought her home and laid her to rest close to Pumpkin's resting spot in a place we now call the "calico garden." Since then, I spend mornings having my coffee next to her grave. I still close the gates and keep Lucifer within the yard at night because I worry about coyote sightings in our area. But during the daytime, they are open and he can come and go as he pleases. Sometimes he sits with me in the calico garden and even rests on top of the sculpture we put on top of her grave. At times, I think he misses her. I've started to think about maybe getting another cat to be a pal for Lucifer, but I know that matching cats is really a crap shoot. We could bring someone in that doesn't get along well with him. I am placing the future of my cluster into Bast's paws and know she will provide when the time is right. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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