MY BIRTHDAY SURPRISE

My husband has a calico cat he rescued. Her name is Codi.

She used to travel in the truck with him. She helped him drive.

Early on the morning of my birthday, I saw a calico cat drinking from our fountain…which Codi often does. But when I went inside the house, Codi was sleeping in hubby’s chair.



Hmmmm………….



I took another look and lo and behold, there indeed was another calico..but it was a tiny kitten. How on earth did I think that little thing could have possibly been Codi? My only explanation is that I’d not yet had a sufficiency of caffeine.

Obviously, we managed to catch the poor thing. She didn’t put up much of a fight. Possibly she was just totally stressed by who knows how many hungry days and cold nights she has been through.

She was filthy! After giving her some food and water and getting her warmed up, we decided we simply had to give her a bath. Ordinarily we would have put that off for a day or two, but she was really dirty. I mean really REALLY dirty!

We expected she’d have a typical kitty-cat type hissy fit over her soaking and scrubbing. But she didn’t. She just went limp…like a rag doll…or a rag cat. Whether it was relief or abject fear or extreme weakness, I don’t know, but it made the job a lot easier.

We rubbed her down with towels warmed in the dryer and dried her massively matted, long hair with the blow dryer. We had to cut some hair off completely. She looks like such a rag-muffin….like someone with a permanent bad hair day!

Actually, this kitten looks just like this old quilt, don't you think?  My grandmother gave it to me when my boys were just babies.  It was worn out then.  She said it would make a good picnic quilt.  It did.  I still  use it all the time.  It's raggedy. It's all tattered and torn.  But it still warms my body and my soul. 

Yep, kitty cat looks just like that!

When we were done with her bath, I wrapped her up in the flannel shirt I’d been wearing and held her in my lap. She just sat there, like a feline burrito…or a tightly swaddled human baby. So far, that’s the reaction she has each time she is wrapped up in something. She doesn’t try to get away. Heck, she doesn’t even try to move. She just….plops….and stops.  And plays peek-a-boo.

If you unwrap her, however, she makes a beeline to the most inaccessible hiding spot she can find. The morning after we got her, I thought she had accidentally got back outside. We couldn’t find her anywhere. Having been through lost-in-the-house kitten incidents before, I kept thinking of just one more place we might look. Finally, I noticed something. There is a 2” space under the bottom drawer of a cabinet we use as a base for my computer desk/workspace. On top of it, rests a very large table top and a fairly large bookshelf and a printer and my computer and monitor and……get the picture? It would take all day long to move all that stuff.

Hubby had to lay on his back, under the computer desk (very tight fit) and use a mirror and flashlight to see what he could see.

There she was! She had crawled into that tiny space…which of course has not been cleaned since it was installed.

The kitten now needs another bath.

But I think I'll take some more pictures first.

Please, don't use the flash!

THANK YOU.  I AM GRATEFUL!

I really did NOT want another cat. Cat hair drives me nuts. Litter boxes are NOT my favorite thing.  But, by gollies, this little girl hopped right into this temporary one the first time she needed to go!  Yes.  I did.  I really did take a picture of this.  Sick?  Yes.  Definitely!

Apparently, Codi didn’t want another cat either.

She is Not AMUSED!!!!

 Even as the interloper became a little more energetic and tried to get acquainted, all she got in return for her friendliness was a hateful hiss and a stinging swat from HER MAJESTY!

"Who are you and what are you doing in my house?"

"This is a disgusting development!"

"I need to think this over."

"I just can't take any more."

"I'm just so blue!"

Poor Codi Cat!

We will try, half-heartedly, to see if the kitten actually belongs to someone. However, there’s been no one in the neighborhood looking for a lost kitten and this one has obviously been ‘lost’ for more than a day or two. So……….

It kinda, sorta, possibly, probably, looks like I got a kitten for my birthday, doesn’t it?

In all absolute total and complete honesty, I cannot yet say that I am GRATEFUL for this particular birthday ‘gift.’

But, I can say, I’m GRATEFUL that after we'd thought she'd gotten away,
 we found the little.....

I actually have a certain word in mind.
However, I'm trying to stick by my committment to not use that kind of language on here.
Sigh.