One of my husband’s great nephews, his wife, and small child are taking a vacation for a week. None of my business, normally.
However, they have a small inside-outside kitten, and they were planning on leaving her outside during this trip. No, nobody was going to feed or water her or look after her in any way.
So my husband, who occasionally has a soft heart, brought home a tiny grey kitten, who is somewhere between 3 and 6 months of age. She’s tiny, and a bit dirty, and a bit stinky…but she’s adorable. She’s grey all over with a sheen of silver-blue, with yellow-green eyes, and mauve paw pads. She seems to be free of fleas (the nephew DID care enough to take her to a grooming place and get her bathed every month). She’s extremely affectionate, but I’m afraid that living life on the mean streets has made her pretty fierce. The adult cats are all outraged and disgusted by her, and she’s hissing at them. But she spent most of last evening snuggled up on either Bill or me, basking in the attention. The first thing we did was show her the dry kibble, the water, and the litter box. The second thing we did was open up two cans of Gooshy Food, which we use as a treat…or to distract the adult cats from the kitten. The kitten made short work of her half a can, and then crunched some kibble, and then came back in the living room for pettings.
I don’t know if we’re going to keep her or not. On the one hand, this IS Bill’s great-great nephew’s kitten, supposedly. On the other hand, if they aren’t going to bother to make arrangements to look after her, she’s likely to end up dead in a year or two. And we already have three adult cats, who, as I mentioned, are absolutely horrified at the thought of sharing our affections with this baby.
She snuggles. She presses her cheek against my face when I hold her. I know she’s doing it to mark me, but my heart just melts when she does this. And she tried to convince Bill that she needs to be held while she naps. Her face looks like an adult cat’s face, with a very sharp chin and a long nose. Perhaps she has a bit of wedgie head Siamese in her…she certainly talks enough.
She’s going to break my heart, I just know it.