Question of the Day, Wednesday March 23rd

I'm going to take today's question as CoolCat is still grieving the loss of King Milky. My thoughts are with him and his family.

I'm going with a bit of an off-the-wall and sentimental question today. The loss of Milky is a tough one for me. While Cool Cat hasn't been posting here as much as he used to, he was one of the first people to reach on and befriend me here on the site. So many people come and go here on TCS, but CoolCat and Milky hold a special place in my heart. :heart2:

I joined the site almost eleven years ago now. It was my first forum experience and didn't know what to expect. I found everyone to be so friendly and welcoming and I was terrified of the Mods, and now I am a mean Mod. :lol3: I remember @jcat PMing me about copyright issues and was mortified. :lol3: I started posting way to much in the Lounge, posting in all the threads, playing the games, etc. TCS became my second home. :nod:

This question may be tough for some of the newer members as you haven't been here very long, but today's question is -


Who first befriended you and made you feel welcome here on the site?

My first day I received a lovely PM from dawnofsierra (Stephanie) who was a mentor at the time. She really helped me out a lot and showed me the ropes. CoolCat was always welcoming to everyone. huggles (Danielle) and I bonded over our mutual dislike of gnomes. :lol3: I could go on and on.

Oh that is such a hard question to answer.

When I joined, over a year ago, I found so many welcoming people here, I did lurk around a bit before officially joining. 

I have been involved in a couple of other cat forums and a couple of cooking forums, but this is one of the best. The kindest, most sincere, caring people are on this forum..

As you said, I am still terrified of the moderators. When I shoot my mouth off, and say something out of  frustration,  I do get a PM from someone.. I feel so bad about doing something in haste. I inevitably regret my thoughts as soon as I write them down....

But I have found friendship here...

There are so many people I have thought of as friends. It would be unfair to single out people, off the top of my head... yet, I continue to make more friends here as the days go by.

I will say that @Columbine  was the first person I reached out to. Since then, there have been so many...

My inbox has many messages both to and from members...I should restate that at member/friends...

This is an international forum. I have friends around the entire world! I love it.

I am probably on here too much!! It is one of the first places I go to, after reading my mail~~ and the one place where I feel completely at ease. 

I look forward to all threads here. I have found a home. 

Thank you all...I know I have not mentioned my friends, but you all know who you are. I do not want to forget anyone.   

Everyone here has been very kind to me. I can't express well enough how much I appreciate it.

Margd was first to reach out. Also a special thank you to betsygee, snugglecat, haleyds, Zed Xyzed, Angels mommy and Mamanyt1953.

Gosh, I don't remember. Everyone, most especially the regulars, were incredibly warm and helpful to me.  

I had to go back and look at my private messages to see who was the first that reached out to me privately.  It's someone who has not posted here in a long while but I really enjoyed getting to know her -  Flint McCullough, a Maine Coon breeder in Texas.  We had several lovely back and forth emails and she was very instrumental in helping me adopt our second cat.  We were originally going to adopt a purebred Ragdoll, and had many questions. In the end, once we met the cat she was very unsocialized due to probable trauma and we didn't feel she would fit into our household.  Flint became a liason of sorts for me and getting in touch with the breeder of the Ragdoll in order to get her returned for rehabilitation. 

The short time I was a moderator-light ( ) was fantastic and I really enjoyed my interactions with all of them/you.  I sometimes think about doing it again but alas, my free time is fairly precious lately so I'm better off being a member and spewing advice when I can 

There are others since that I've had some wonderful interactions with.  I love being here, it really is one of the nicest forums I've ever encountered. 

The first person I really connected with was shadowsrescue , and she's now one of my closest friends :heart3: (in fact, I think all my closest friends are now here on TCS )

My first day I got a message from fhicat , which I'm ashamed to say I ignored :anon: (not understanding the way the site worked back then - I just went straight to posting in Strays and Ferals, desperate for help with trapping a cat with only a cat carrier on hand).

I've made many friends here since I joined (a little over a year ago now), and I'm honoured to now be an Advisor - hopefully giving back the same help, support and friendliness that I received when I joined :heart4:

Columbine said:

The first person I really connected with was @ShadowsRescue, and she's now one of my closest friends

(in fact, I think all my closest friends are now here on TCS

)

My first day I got a message from @FhiCat, which I'm ashamed to say I ignored

(not understanding the way the site worked back then - I just went straight to posting in Strays and Ferals, desperate for help with trapping a cat with only a cat carrier on hand).

I've made many friends here since I joined (a little over a year ago now), and I'm honoured to now be an Advisor - hopefully giving back the same help, support and friendliness that I received when I joined

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Awwww thank you @Columbine I am just honored to have met you and our friendship is very special!

The first person who really helped me here was @Ondine   I read so many of her posts on caring for feral cats and thought that she was one person who truly understood the ins and outs of caring for ferals.  She made me feel very welcome.  I made lots of mistakes along the way and just like AbbysMom, I got the Pm too telling me of copyright issues after posting a video.   I was so embarrassed and thought for sure I would be banned or have a strike against me! 

I have learned so much on here and met some very amazing people along the way.  Loving and caring for cats is a wonderful way to bond. 

ShadowsRescue said:

 
<snip>...  Loving and caring for cats is a wonderful way to bond. 

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The first person who contacted me and wasn't a MOD or Mentor was @sarthur2.  I was hanging out in  the Pregnant cats forum.  Finding myself on without any advisors and people needing help I began repeating what she and @StefanZ were posting.  It was mostly feeding orphans at that time.  I have no actual experience with pregnant cats and feeding tiny kittens but people needed answers.  Both gave me guidance and taught me a few things.  I still like to hang out at PC&K but currently there are many experienced posters giving advice.  I am relieved I can go back to lurking and rocking all the kitten drama!

I am starting to visit other areas and finally figured out some of the games.  @Margd you crack me up!  All those science answers and questions.  Forget Google,I now have a scrabble dictionary next to my laptop.

Well,grrr.  I'm having problems answering this.  I started in mentioning all the people who had been so kind to me in my first months but when I got to mickNsnicks2mom,  I was no longer able to add even a period to mark the end of the sentence.   So I guess mickNsnicks2mom is the name to end all names!  

Looking back at my PMs, I see I was warmly welcomed by @GemsGem  .   What followed were several gentle scoldings by MODS for my numerous gaffes.           After that, I received very warm and friendly PMs from @GrizzlySapien  (where are you, anyway?  I miss you!)  @Columbine  @Stewball  and  @mickNsnicks2mom  

Hmm...I'm going on 11 years here myself!  I'm having a hard time remembering who befriended me first.  I've always been one of those people that skirts on the outside of everything.  Most people like me well enough but it usually takes a while before I find my own little circle of friends.

I took a peek at my PMs (apparently I don't delete those too often) and I found some from TheImp and LuckyGirl; who I have met several times in real life now since we only live a few hours apart.  I talk to her regularly via facebook.  Other names that come to mind are MissMew, BabyHarley, HalfPint  . 

AbbysMom said:

now I am a mean Mod. 

 I remember @jcat  PMing me about copyright issues and was mortified. 

 I

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I remember when you PMed me and removed my siggy because it was too tall.    You meanie. 

I definitely remember the first to post me when I first joined this site, it was back in 2012, December 23, and I was heartbroken about losing my Chrissy. It was jcat, and I clung to the post like a lifeline, i  vowed right then that I would comfort every person that came on this Crossing the Bridge site, it meant SO much to me to have my pain acknowledged. Angels mommy, and nurseangel answered too, and nurse angel was the first to PM me. There were a few others who gave me words of comfort and I appreciated it more then they will ever know. Stewball, StefanZ, Winchester, and ShadowsRescue seem like family now, I admire their experience so much. I know I'm not mentioning half of the people here that mean so much to me, so if you don't see your name, I hope you all know I think highly of each and everyone of you on this site. A big THANK YOU to Anne for having the site in the first place! As for the mods, I too have had my share of scoldings, but I take it as a learning experience and they are only doing their job, so that this site remains such a GREAT one!

My first real friend was MServant. We wrote a story together without knowing anything about each other. She has become very special to me, her over there, me over here.
There are plenty others and you know who you are.
MickNsnicks2mom is also very special to me.
But I love talking to everybody except the mods. They terrify me.

Columbine said:

My first day I got a message from fhicat , which I'm ashamed to say I ignored :anon: (not understanding the way the site worked back then - I just went straight to posting in Strays and Ferals, desperate for help with trapping a cat with only a cat carrier on hand).

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Everyone ignores FhiCat. :shame: But that's okay, I ignored Draco when I first joined too. I was too intimidated by the sudden niceness. Forums aren't usually this nice. I thought they were going to kidnap me and sell my kidneys. The cycle of ignoring must continue!

My earliest friends were @cat nap and angels mommy . And @Mani when I found out we were culturally similar.

Like everyone else, I've had my own share of scoldings from mods. I think I've been scolded at least once by every mod on the Mod List, actually. :lol3:

Aww - I'm sorry fhicat - I was just a clueless newbie back then :anon:

I hope we're friends now

Wow, it's been so long now, I will actually have to go back in my PM's & take a look!

 As far as in the forums, there have been SO many.  A few years ago @LDG  (Laurie) Really helped me a lot! From the one time Angel got a parasite from something he ate outside, (way back when he still went out) He went through a round of antibiotics, & 2 rounds of probiotics & nothing helped! He had diarrhea for a whole month!  Finally LDG offered to send me something to try, & it was the only thing that worked!  She also helped me when Angel was going through his cystitis the first time. I was such a newbie to cats & really learned a lot from her & so many others here!  

When I first came here, I was someone looking for a quick answer as to why my cat was sick. Actually, I was hoping she'd make it till the next day because she was having trouble peeing. It was the middle of the night Sunday. Then I didn't really post again till the next time she got sick. Then I think the next time I posted was when I got the kittens, and I was so lost because I'd not had kittens in 13 years. What a handful they were - still are!

Then Lucky got sick, I had posted about it and @Ruth pointed me in the direction of Tanya's site. I was so lost and was so grateful for that. Just a lot of circumstances that were not good then, including my vet being on emergency leave right after he was diagnosed. I'd had cats with kidney disease before but it was years ago, and the internet was a baby so didn't know all the crap we do now.

Anyway, after Lucky died, so many people helped me through that. I posted in the RB forum because I was not sure what else to do that day. I was not sure if I should because I wasn't really what you call a "regular" here. But people were so nice and helpful. So many folks. I remember @Zed Xyzed also stood out back then. He helped me so much, and I remember he had PM'd me at one point.

Those were just the first two people that stood out. There have been SO many since then that stand out in my mind. In my grief, I found comfort in helping other people that were going through the same thing I had, or even just similar things. And then, I think on Thanksgiving, I discovered the Cat Lounge. I'd never really ventured into it before, but got to know a whole new group of folks there.

i really like that there are Mentors here at TCS. my Mentor was @sivyaleah! it was so nice to be welcomed to this community. i remember that the first thing i did after joining was to start in on reading all the rules and other info in the 'stickies' -- i like to get all that kind of stuff done and off of my mind.

i believe the first person to befriend me was @Angels mommy! i'd have to say that everyone here at TCS community made me feel welcome.

@Stewball    I have to laugh at being classed as friend and also being a scary mod'.     Thank you my friend,  I was just thinking about that story thread the other night.  That was fun.   Another friend I met here around that time was @Santa Fe  but she hasn't been on the site for quite a while.  She, along with many others here , has given me a lot of encouragement to follow some of my creative interests over the past few years.  This site is an incredibly warm and supportive place full of lovely people.  I don't think I could list everyone who has reached out to me, become good friends which I never imagined was possible when I joined here as my first experience of a web forum.   @Draco  was the first to welcome me and I very much appreciated that, and I remember katachtig and mani giving me a lot of support and help too.  I know there were more (I needed a lot of help  ) but again too many to list.   When I first joined I was looking for information and advice for Mouse's herpes and am endebted to @stephanietx  for being there in the Health forum when I needed her.  

I remember being afraid of the moderators and the feeling of panic when I saw a PM from one, but they were usually nice, supportive messages rather than scolding so I guess I'm lucky.  It is a bit daunting being one of those scary people now, and not nice to think I am now one of the terrifying ones.      

Many more friends here who I will not list, but most were met over 'interesting' and unusal threads somewhere in the depths of the site  (probably not befitting of a mod

.    ).   

Stewball said:

My first real friend was MServant. We wrote a story together without knowing anything about each other. She has become very special to me, her over there, me over here.
There are plenty others and you know who you are.
MickNsnicks2mom is also very special to me.
But I love talking to everybody except the mods. They terrify me.

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That last line made me laugh    

Happy Purim!

I admit, when I first joined, I ignored almost everyone and just asked the questions I needed to.

I didn't expect the wonderful array of people to keep me coming back. Too many names to list, but there's quite a few of you that left an impression on me.

I may not "connect" with everyone here or actively engage in conversations, I am more of a lurker and a reader than a chatterbox.. but just know, I appreciate everyone's input here on the site.. in nutrition, behavior, health, everywhere. 

I love you guys!