Wow. It’s been a long time. Life has been busy and I haven’t had time for it. I almost said I haven’t ‘made’ time for it, which is technically true, but implies that I was otherwise lying around eating bon bons or something, which has not been the case.
This morning, I’m up early and trying to write. However, my dad is in the doorway of my office trying to get the attention of my new kitten, Lucy. Not distracting at all. Nope. I will soldier on.
The kitten appeared on the sidewalk in front of my gym on October 11th. There is a feral cat colony around there, but she was friendly and crying for my attention, unlike any of the other cats I had encountered in the area. I engaged with her briefly, but reminded myself that I just lost a cat and I wasn’t in the market for a new one.
We had Red, our 18 year old, euthanized only weeks earlier. She was skin and bones and her face was all messed up from what turned out to be cancer. Anyhow, we were ok with being down to just the 2 cats inside. Goat was still happily outside, though more and more interested in what we were doing inside.
I worked out, with the kitten still in the back of my mind. When I left, I didn’t immediately see her and there was some relief, but then she shot out of the bushes and started squeaking at me. My resolve crumbled. I hopped in the car to go grab the cat carrier and called the vet to make sure I could get her in that day. When I got home I told Em about the kitten and he was immediately on board. His decision making and impulse control is as bad as mine when it comes to animals. We sped back to the gym.
When we arrived, a women I knew was walking to her car with MY cat! Turns out, my Amazing Trainer Ralph saw the kitten and called her because she is a crazy cat lady. He didn’t know I was coming back. I stopped my car in the middle of the road and asked her what she was doing with the kitten. She was planning to take it home. Haggling ensued. The fact that I had a cat carrier and vet appointment won the day and I took the kitten.
She was relatively healthy, with the exception of a bad case of hookworms. We set her up in my office for quarantine and she was there until we confirmed she was clear, about three weeks later. We still isolate her at night, but she’s got free run of the house during the day. Charles is interested in her. Casey hates her guts. Luckily, the hatred is not violent in nature, just vocal. I had forgotten what a pain in the ass kittens are, but she’s a sweetheart. My next step is to try to transition Goat inside. He’s young and would be good for Lucy.
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It’s been days since I originally wrote the post above. I wanted to wait until I had a pic of the kitten to add and that proved more difficult and time consuming than expected. In that time, Lucy had her first overnight out of her room and there were no injuries or noticeable damage. It’s safe to say that she’s fully integrated.
I tried to get Goat inside, especially since there was a tropical storm, but that was not successful. He will come inside a little but gets spooked and runs back out. I’m hoping that we will get some cool weather soon so I can put up the baby gate and spend some time with the door open to encourage him. Despite being November, it’s still hot AF. This will take a while, but I’m up for the challenge.
therightingprompt 