Anna and Mike Cordelli
Norwalk, CT, USA
Home Page
This page is dedicated to the memory of S K, who died in February of 1999, a very happy and peaceful death.
Thousands of visitors to our pages, and the most requested items were always more pictures and a page for the cat.
Standing at the edge of the garden
Born sometime in the summer of 1985 I acquired SK in December of 1985. A family was camping in North Carolina and this very cute little black and white ball of fur was a stray, they picked her up and brought her to Waterbury, Connecticut.
Hey Bozos, What's for Dinner?
They were going to take the cute kitten into their home and make her their pet. The cat, which had been wild up to that time, had other plans, which meant attacking anything that moved in their house. It seems silly to think something this small could cause so much trouble, but unless you have been with a wild cat you could never understand.
The last straw happened in her first day of her new home when she attacked their baby. Within an hour she was brought to the vet and they asked she be put to sleep. The vet couldn't do that, and knowing my mother would take the cat in they called her to see if she wanted the kitten. You have to understand, as a kitten she was absolutely beautiful.
Mistaking a Magna Duster for a giant red fluffy mouse
A couple of hours later this little kitten had gone after the other three cats in the house and wasn't all that friendly to my mother. On December 15, she called to see if I would be interested in a cat with a "unique personality".
I brought the cat home and let her loose in the apartment. It was a day before I saw her again, and another couple of days before she was seen for more then five or ten seconds at a time. After that she started living in the potted plants, climbing them and waiting for some imagined prey to pounce on. She looked like a hunter in a safari, so I named her Saffari Kitty (I know it's not spelled that way, but that is her name), we just call her SK for short.
To say she has a unique personality would be an understatement. She had a mind of her own, but at the same time became very loyal to me. Whenever she wanted something she would let you know, not with a silly meow like a normal cat, but by doing a lassie imitation, convincing you to follow her into the kitchen to show you an empty dish when she was hungry for example.
Keeping watch over her patch of catnip as it starts to grow (really)
In the 13 years I've had her she never grew out of being a kitten. Her personality has never changed, and with strangers or vets or other animals she turns into a wild animal again. Indeed, two vets have asked that I not bring her back after the first visit when she was young, but we found an excellent vet who is able to understand her and work around the attacks.
Email me if you need an excellent vet in the Stamford, CT area.
resting on the velour blanket at the foot of the bed
She never is let outside loose, but does go out on a leash so she doesn't get into trouble. Even on a leash, she will go after anything that moves, no matter how big or small it is. Her only fear is helium balloons (I don't understand it either), and she's gone after all kinds of small animals, and a couple of dogs trying to be friends with the eight pound cat.
If you have an animal like this you have to be able to understand them. You can not change the personality of a house cat, so you have to be able to work with it. A wild cat, and she will always be more wild then tame, will want to play very rough, often scratching and biting, but you have to realize she's only playing. You will probably be bleeding, but she is still only playing. When she is mad you have to understand that too, and not push your luck. In other words, the cat always wins.
sitting in a bowl waiting for dinner
On the other hand, she is very loyal and affectionate towards her owners. She has the ability to be extremely sweet. Unfortunately most people never get to see that side of her. She's extremely intelligent, very funny at times, and one of the better pets I've ever had.
She's been lucky health wise until recently, in the 13 years there was only one incident of some kidney trouble that required attention besides her regular shots and spaying. An excellent example of regular visits to the vet, this particular problem was easier to treat since we had data from when she was healthy.
gonna get really pissed if he touches my head again
In February she started not being as active as she usually is. We thought she had slipped from the top of a door (one of her favorite places to hang out is the top of the door frames, one quick hop from the floor), so off to the vet she went. Blood work showed some pretty disturbing results, and further testing showed what was probably a pretty advanced case of cancer in her lymphatic system. Since that time she's been on steroids and chemo pills, but other then the blood tests there have been no other symptoms at all. The inactivity went away a week or so after the first sign of it, so it was unrelated, but lucky to show this new problem
Her white blood cell count, while extremely low, has not gone down any further since treatment was started. She hates getting pills shoved down her throat, but manages to take them.
Look at me I'm taller then you are (Anna gets really pissed when I'm up here)
Her favorite toys - two items. The first is an 8 year old play mouse she has torn the eyes, nose, head, feet, and tail off of, we have stitched it together so many times it's more a ball of thread then anything else. The second one is the little plastic pull tabs from a milk or juice bottle. Either one will provide her with hours of activity when she feels like playing by herself. The magna duster pictured on this page is another favorite, but she never plays with that by herself, you have to tease her with it then she will kill it.
and being a very sweet kitty
In September, her blood work had much improved, being outside of the normal range in only one of the 35 different tests she had done. By the way, the amount of e-mail I've received about the cat is amazing, thanks for taking the time to write.
As the fall of 98 and the winter of 99 came she did much better at times, and at times much worse. At first the better times would last five or six weeks, followed by a bad time of five or six days. Bad for her meant she was very tired, at no time did she appear to be in pain or stop purring whenever we were near her. In February, it just became too much for her, and she quietly passed away curled up in a little ball sleeping. After 13 and one half years she will be missed.