Progress

I went to Neighborhood Cats' TNR workshop this weekend. I and about 20 other people gave up 4 hours of our Saturday to learn about trapping, neutering, and maintaining a feral cat colony. It was TOTALLY AWESOME. Seriously, though, I learned a lot, and felt some reassurance that there were other young, well-groomed, seemingly-sane people who wanted to dedicate their time to doing this.
Today I went out to start establishing a regular feeding time for the kitties. I scared off one of the kittens who was hanging out in the mystery cat-structure, but not before I took a very blurry shot of him:


He ran off, but mommy came out after I put down my can of cat food. She ate for a while and let me to get really really close to her, even while she ate:


I walked around the backyard a bit while she ate (check out the huge mutant plants all over the backyard!) and to my surprise she left her food and started following me around. (I'd had evidence to prove she was friendly--not only did she sit at my windowsills, but she actually entered the apartment of the guy across the hall.)
She looked like a kitty who wanted to be pet, so I pet her.

AND THEN SHE BIT OFF THE INDEX FINGER OF MY RIGHT HAND.

Just kidding, of course. Still, I really went against my better judgement. My mother raised me better than to touch strange animals. Actually, she was a really good sport with me constantly bringing home parasite-laden injured pigeons as a child--but I digress.
She seemed happy and eager for attention and continued following me around when I tried to leave. It made me feel really terrible that someone threw out this sweet little kitty to get knocked up and have to fend for herself and her babies in freakin' new york city of all places. Ugh.
I'm such a softie, next thing you know Mack's going to be sharing his food AND his space with this girlie.