Sunday Serenity #65

Hanging With the Fur Babies

Sour Sweetie

Sweetie pouts for at least a full day after Ed's folks leave town. They've gone to the coast for the weekend and Ed was helping me get pictures of all the fur-babies for my planned Sunday Serenity post. I wanted Sweetie to join in the fun but all she would do is sit and stare at the door. I think I understand how my parents must have felt when I would act just that way when they were trying to get a family-togetherness thing going and even when they could keep my body there they couldn't keep my spirit there.

Meanwhile...

Is Any Buddy Home?

A little over a week ago, Merlin started acting very unlike himself every time we hook his leash up to the front porch rail, which was usually after sundown. He would go down to the bottom and sit or prowl to either side of the steps and sing, yowl, moan. He has never been a very vocal cat and even when he speaks up he is usually hard to hear. But he was making himself heard this past week or so.

Kitty Kisses

This went on for three or four evenings before we discovered the 'problem'. There was a stray kitten who'd made himself at home under the steps. They must have been playing to the right and left of the steps out of reach of the porch light for at least a couple of evenings for by the time she showed herself in the light, chasing his leash up the steps, they were already fast friends.

I's Gotz U In My Sightz

Knowing those are regular sized bricks and that stake is less than three inches tall, gives you an idea of her size. Teeny-tiny. Picking her up is like lifting a fur pouch of balsa wood. But that's partly due to her being little more than a skeleton in a fur coat. Poor baby. One of the first times I saw her clear she had come up on the porch while I was reading, long after Merlin and Ed had gone in to bed. I heard a rustling noise coming from the corner where Sweetie's dish sits atop the lidded tub of her kibbles. My father-in-law often leaves a partial cellophane bag of a moister and more flavorful treat that he adds to the dry kibble waiting in the bowl. The kitten had punctured a hole in it just big enough to extract one tiny pellet at a time with her claw. This may explain why she settled under the porch. She could count on that pouch being there two out of every three days as my FIL doled it out one third at at time.

Who'z Gotz Who Babe?

One of the kitten's favorite games is to chase and tangle with Merlin's leash. Here she had caught him so off guard she spun him around and tugged him toward her. But he's instantly in his ox posture tugging back. And a second later he lunges for her.

She scampers...

I'z Ignoring U Now.

Flowers are suddenly soooo much more interesting. They also smell soooo much sweeter than this importunate critter whose front door is a garbage can.

Time Out

Take a lesson from a kitten. When its time to rest, rest in the same way you play--all out!

Now that's serenity.

Watzat?

When noise and flash intrude on your serene moments, give it the evil eye.

She was startled by the whir and flash of the camera as I took the previous picture and I snapped another, capturing that moment of her startle just before she sprang up and off.

The Boarder

My FIL put the dishes down for her Friday morning. He had found her in Sweetie's dish a couple of morning's earlier and taken pity, dropping a few pellets and kibbles on the floor for her. He began calling her The Boarder. I don't know if he's intending that for a name but he says it with affection and that gave me hope he wouldn't chase her off or call the pound. Ed and I have discussed names for her as a fun game--he likes Morticia because of those white hairs in her ears, I like Dizzy because she runs tight circles so fast she trips herself--but we agreed that it shouldn't be up to us for whether she stays or goes would be at the discretion of Ed's parents. Ed overheard them playing the naming game the other evening. Hope is a springboard for joy.

Maybe we were presumptuous, but we picked up kitten food and the feather toy for her this afternoon.

She feels like something magical, no miraculous, to me. I'd been yearning for another kitten in my life tho I don't much care for the thought of being confined in a small room with it for twelve to sixteen hours per day even if it were possible to bring another such imposition into my in-law's home.