Bored Panda spoke with Anna about how she built a cat tank for two cats Topsy and Turvy. "As any cat owner knows, with owning cats we tend to hang on to boxes for a while. Topsy in particular is very insistent on being able to examine any packages we bring in and testing out how good they are for sitting in after being opened," she told us.
"We’ve started keeping various boxes in the different rooms of our apartment for them since they’re preferred over their actual cat beds. I’d seen the 'cat tank' meme online several times on social media. One evening, after finishing a role of paper towels (and finally having a potential gun for the cannon) I thought, 'why not?!' It took me about two hours one evening to build. Some of that was looking up different images for tanks, so whatever I ended up with was recognizable. Some of that was also finding enough package tape to use."
Anna revealed that after her success with building the tank, she's now turning her attention towards a new project: crafting a cat-Dalek. "The Dalek is taking a lot longer, I’ve spent about three hours so far and only managed the angled base section. I estimate it will take me another 6 to 8 hours including painting to finish."
She and her husband adopted Topsy and Turvy from a foster rescue group in October 2016. "We think they’re about five years old now, and their birthday is sometime in July. They’re litter mates, brother and sister. They are definitely spoiled, both by ourselves and my mother. They get their own Christmas presents every year. Before the coronavirus, Topsy would sit on our front door mat every afternoon waiting for me to come home from work. That meant it was dinner time! He’s also the one to wake me up in the morning if I hit the snooze button too many times on the alarm. Breakfast cannot be delayed," Anna went into detail about how wholesome life with the brother-sister cat duo is like.
"Turvy is our squishy love-bug. She is keen on grooming both my husband and I; we obviously don’t do very good jobs staying clean as humans. She also has mild feline asthma/allergies and has become quite adept at hiding when she detects us getting out her medicine," Anna told Bored Panda. She revealed that when she originally started the Instagram page, it was hers, but then she realized that most of what she posted were pictures of her cats. So she converted it to their page and became their social media meownager because she has "opposable thumbs and they don't."
Anna also told us what life during the lockdown is like in Illinois. "With the ability to work remotely from home, it’s not been as huge a shift as it has for other people we know. Thankfully, we’ve also both managed to stay employed. I have family in the medical profession in the UK, so we’re well aware of the necessity of social distancing and reducing the potential to spread the coronavirus."
Topsy and Turvy's owner said that lots of things like social interactions, going to the movies or even to the local parks are out of the question. She also hasn't been able to visit her parents. "I was supposed to go out to see my parents, my mum had several surgeries last year so this would’ve been the time to go see her now she’d recovered some. Obviously that’s on hold, so just lots of talking over Skype or email."