Happyyyy 2024! I’ve never experienced New Years fireworks so vibrant. Just from our house, there was a moment where it was full 360 fireworks. Really beautiful and spectacular stuff. I’m excited for 2024 for a lot of reasons, so I hope everything goes the way I’m imagining.
I wanted to post today because it’s Three Kings Day. I’m not sure which countries celebrate it, but this is certainly one of them. I would celebrate it even back in the US, but people usually didn’t know what I was talking about or why I was putting grass in a shoebox. I got exciting things like a cordless vacuum cleaner and matcha. Unironically very cool gifts. I love vacuuming and matcha after all.
But putting aside the festivities of the day, I wanted to make a formal introduction post regarding our street’s stray cats. It’s long overdue!! I meant to make it much earlier but, frankly, getting pictures of everyone was pretty difficult.
Aliases: Hopscotch, Buttercup, Butterstuffs, Scotch Tape, Bullyscotch (my mom calls him this when she’s mad at him)
Naturally, I have to start with my dearly beloved Butterscotch. The first time I heard him during a storm, I actually called him ‘Howl’ because of…well, the howling. During the storm, I went to find this mysterious cat with a flashlight, but couldn’t. The next day, he came to my window and started howling again, and this time I caught him. From then on, he’d visit every day to whine and beg for food. My brother pointed out it was a bit rude to call him Howl and suggested Butterscotch instead (we’d just finished playing Undertale together). And thus, the food naming convention for the cats was born! This was back in August, and Butterscotch has remained a near-daily visitor.
Butterscotch is by far the friendliest of the cats and also the most vocal. He will tolerate being carried around like a baby, enjoys being pet on the head, and loves being fed. He uses his paw like a spoon to get food from the nooks and crannies of various cans. But he’s also constantly getting into fights, presumably over territory disputes. Most recently, he hurt his paw rather badly. I captured him to take him to the vet, but the vet was…closed. It seems his paw is finally starting to heal a little, but he does not enjoy when I try and rinse out his wound with water.
He takes good care of the kittens, which makes me wonder if they are his. They look nothing like him, but you never know. He lets his fellow stray cats eat his food and often gets it stolen. He has yet to realize that when he starts howling at me, they realize he is being fed, and will therefore have food to steal. But it is his ritual and how he chooses to announce himself. Sometimes, I hear him howling before he even gets to the driveway. Although he was a bit of a loner when we first met, he has since amassed a following among the cats of the neighborhood and can often be seen leading them all over the place and getting into petty squabbles with the other males.
His cheeks are also very, very fat, which makes him look cute and funny and mildly disproportionate. Truly, he is the best and sweetest stray cat in the world.
Butterscotch’s girlfriend!!! At least, I’m convinced the two of them have a thing going on. She’s extremely skittish, moreso than most of the other cats, but she can often be seen rubbing up on Butterscotch and licking him. The two are together very often. Despite her extreme aversion to people, she confronted me when I kidnapped her beloved to take him to the vet. He was meowing in protest from inside our house, and she came to our door to meow/argue for his release. Even when I opened the door, she stood her ground. I was very impressed. She even stayed in our driveway for the whole duration of Butterscotch’s car ride and immediately came to sniff him when he was released from the cat carrier.
We’ve suspected in the past that perhaps she is the kitten’s mother, but it’s so hard to tell. She seems to take care of them most frequently, but we haven’t seen them drinking milk from her. She often cuddles up with them and naps on the driveway. Pepper stays very far out of drama. Whenever Butterscotch gets into a fight and she’s nearby (he ousted a cat for making moves on her!), she just walks off until it’s over. I like Pepper a lot. I think she keeps Butterscotch humble and shames him into cleaning himself up. One of the only reservations I have about potentially adopting Butterscotch is the fact it would mean separating him from his beloved Pepper and their sort-of children.
Sesame was the first cat to randomly run into our house. I was so shocked when he just casually strode through the door that all I could do was stare at him. Once he saw me, he panicked and ran away. He actually did this again recently. He was in the doorway, and when I saw him, he got so panicked that he ran further into the house until he was hiding underneath one of the beds. Thank goodness Beloved Indoor Cat wasn’t around. I don’t think she’d appreciate it! Sesame is afraid of people, in case it wasn’t clear by now. But he isn’t as afraid as some of the other members of El Corillo. One of my first interactions with Sesame was very notable because I met him when he was still fairly young and small. And he ate a snake whole. Yes, he ate an entire snake like a noodle.
He gets along with Butterscotch surprisingly well. I think Sesame was his first real friend, to be honest. They used to hang out together so much we wondered if they were siblings. I have a working theory that Butterscotch becoming the de facto leader of El Corillo started because of his relationship with Sesame. Sesame was already close to the other members of the group, but they weren’t really solidified as a posse until the kittens were born.
Ah, Nutmeg. My mother doesn’t like Nutmeg due to her sassy attitude, but it’s why I like her. She is often the one to steal Butterscotch’s food first. He lets her do it, but he always looks a little bit bewildered that this tiny kitten feels so assured headbutting him out of the way. She’ll even put her paw on his head and shove it away to get to his food, lmao. I think El Corillo spoils her because they are so fond of her. She is often getting into hijinks and playing with rocks. She also spends a lot of time pouncing on bugs. She startles around people, but she doesn’t mind being pet when she’s being fed. In fact, she refuses to move when she’s eating. She’s a lot more outgoing than her brother, Licorice, who is often the target of her bullying.
She is very fond of Butterscotch, which is funny to me because I really don’t think he’s the father. She also tends to copy him. For example, she has taken his lead when it comes to whining for food. She also will flop over when he does, follows him around, and often seeks his affection. For better or for worse, Butterscotch doesn’t mind this and has taken her under his wing.
Licorice is extremely funny to me. I think he’s adorable. Please note that every one of these pictures was taken on a separate day, he just does the fluffball + stare combo frequently. He actually is soaking wet in the last picture. I took it yesterday after it rained. He did not let me towel him off. He’s significantly more afraid of people than his sister. I love how striking his eyes are compared to his coat, and he’s the fluffiest cat here by far. His fluffy fur actually reminds me of Beloved Indoor Cat, and it answers the question of if fluffy cats exist in tropical climates (my cat wasn’t adapting well to the humidity). Anyways, Licorice is very shy, but he will let you pet him if you catch him while he’s eating or very relaxed. Despite Licorice’s shyness around people, he’s very social with other cats. He likes to play a lot with the gate, but he has a bad habit of falling over and into the bushes. The other cats tend to be shocked every time this happens.
Caramel is probably the most averse to people. It’s why she’s so difficult to photograph! To be honest, I’m not sure what her role within El Corillo is. I think she’s friends with Pepper, but she doesn’t always get along with Butterscotch. In my own fanfiction narrative about El Corillo, I imagine she’s telling Pepper to dump him because he doesn’t hunt enough which makes him a loser. She bats at him sometimes and he hisses back at her, but the two of them are able to coexist in relative peace. I’ve often wondered if she’s the mother (rather than Pepper) because she’s the only other calico aside from Nutmeg. She also takes care of the kittens rather often, but Licorice often gets annoyed at the grooming. Nutmeg doesn’t seem to mind too much. She’s also on her own a lot. It makes me wonder if she’s lonely, but maybe she just has a strong independent streak. She does her own thang.
The newest member who isn’t even really a member yet. She (he?) seems to be attempting to integrate, but is getting hazed for it. This cat used to walk along a separate adjacent street, but has recently started coming on our street. She’s bullied Caramel before, who ran into our yard to avoid her, and she’s gotten into a few squabbles with Sesame and Butterscotch, but I think things have gotten a little more peaceful recently. She’s been spotted hanging out around Licorice with zero drama, which is good. We had a hard time picking a name for this one. My brother wanted to name her Dairy or Flour. My mother suggested Leche. I thought Crema was a cute name, and everyone agreed. I am very fond of her anime heterochromia. Her left eye is yellow and her right is blue. A very pretty cat, and it seems someone is feeding her/taking care of her. Whether she will truly be accepted in El Corillo is still to be determined.
Okay, he’s technically not part of El Corillo, hence the lack of a proper name, but he is a primary antagonist in our cats’ lives. He seems to be “in charge” of a street adjacent to ours. Butterscotch and Bullycat used to argue quite a lot about this street, and I suspect Bullycat is the one who beats up Butterscotch on a semi-regular basis. Regardless, El Corillo has started to hang out on this street, so perhaps Bullycat has conceded. I sometimes wonder if it’s fair for me to call Bullycat Bullycat–after all, he’s just defending his territory, the exact same as Butterscotch would do–but he bullies MY shining star Butterscotch, which makes him my enemy! He is rather cute, though. I think someone feeds him because he’s much bigger than all the other stray cats. It also is curious to me that he looks like a color swapped Butterscotch. In my El Corillo fanfiction, he and Butterscotch are brothers who are at war now.
Just some group pictures of the cats that I couldn’t really fit into any specific cat’s gallery. As you can see, they are a very tightnit group! The kittens stick together a lot, which is probably predictable. In the second to last image, you can see Licorice teaching his terrible “fall off the ledge” game to Nutmeg.