Cat Lady

A three month old kitten followed me home yesterday. He was so hungry that he kept crying and climbing up my legs as I walked. I already have two cats at home and although my heart was melting with this little cutie, I knew I couldn’t keep him. My plan was to give him a little food and send him on his way. There are plenty of stray cats in the neighborhood and he was probably one of them. I pulled out my cell phone and called my daughter but she didn’t answer. By the time I took the keys out and began to open the front door, he was standing with his front paws against it meowing. I yelled my daughter’s name but you know how teenagers are, they never hear their parents calling. I opened the door and he zoomed in while I tried in vain to push him back outside. My concern was that my adult cats would lash at him. My daughter dashed over (guess she did hear after all – the kitten’s cries – that is) and immediately started to coo at the kitten, whipped him up into her arms and disappeared into the house. Oh boy, here we go again. You see for some reason, cats are attracted to us. I first started out with two kittens: Loki & Nicole. Later, I found Jade (she was about 3 weeks old) in my backyard making bird sounds while stuck up a tree. To this day she makes those bird-like sounds – almost like the way pigeons coo. Shortly thereafter a ginger tabby followed my daughter home. She fell in love instantly, named him Angel and that made four cats. There was no way, I could handle a fourth cat so her father came to the rescue and adopted him. Down to three cats now, but still it gets hairy with that many cats so my friend adopted Nicole leaving only Loki and Jade. Two cats, that’s better and easier to handle – still too many hair balls but what can you do? So as you see, I couldn’t build up the count of cats again. The kitten had to go. But he’s so friendly and loves people. Clearly he’s not a feral cat and had lived with people because he never stopped purring. When you held him he relaxed into you and purred even more loudly. He’s playful and curious and constantly wants to be picked up just like an infant. Aww…! So, in a moment of weakness I said “Come to mommy Jake” and that’s when my daughter said: “Oh no, you’re not doing that again. That’s exactly what you did with Jade.” She took the cat from me and put an alert on Facebook. She sent pictures & videos of Jake (I mean the kitten that I shouldn’t give a name to so that I don’t get attached) to her friends and found a home for him. One of her friends offered to take him and my daughter assures me that he will do a good job of it. As I write this, she’s delivering cute little Jake to his new family. Jake has been purring the whole way in the soft carrier (I don’t use the hard plastic ones). He’s so adorable and I will miss him!