Honey, I'm Home ~~

The snow is still on the ground and so are my patio table umbrellas, ugh. It's been a crazy few days, I tell you. First, the weather said snow, snow, snow, and then 2 days later they said it would miss us. Listen, I love snow and use it to give myself excuses to do nothing, but this year is different. In Oct. this skinny, forlorn cat showed up in my backyard. Being the bleeding heart for animals I am, I called to him and he came running. Hungry! I fed him, and fed him, and wondered just how much a cat could put away -- he'd now eaten 2 big cans of Little Friskies -- and so gave him dried food, too, and that was gobbled up in no time flat. Then he climbed into my lap and fell asleep. The next day, he was still there and so I started posting flyers and making calls and still feeding him. The next day, the owners were found and I was thrilled! He was such a sweetheart of a cat that I was sure he had a home that missed him. Well, he had a home all right but it was right on the highway and as they began telling me how much they'd missed him, they also said, without missing a breath, "But you can have him if you want him." WHAT?? Who says that about their pet?? I was positive I was hearing things and so we bundled him up in my carrier and they took him home. The next day he was back in my yard. I called them and they said they thought it was because their other 2 cats beat the living daylights out of him every day. Omg, no wonder he ran away. So here's this sweet cat in my yard again and they said they were coming (again) to get him. I was not feeling good about it at all, but they didn't show up. A week went by and guilt set in that I was sort of kidnapping this cat and so I bundled him up and took him to his house. I drove home and there he was -- he'd beat me to my own home and was waiting in the driveway. I wrote a letter to the 'owners' and said what happened and this time there was no mistake, they said, "Good. He seems to be happier there". No emotion. I said I was keeping him. It seems that other cat of theirs, the ringleader of bullies, is named Ammo (God, who names their pet a violent name like that), and so they'd named 'my' cat Chamo which stood for camouflage since he'd try to hide from the bullie. It took me 2 days of calling him by a new name, only 2, and he got it. His name is now Happy. Now Happy is not fond of other cats but I understand why. I still have my Sam & Lucy inside and they are now going on 13 and 14. Happy is 2.5. Sam doesn't like other cats and so this is not exactly a match made in Heaven. I'm not giving up but this co-mingling is going to take a long, long and patient time. In the meantime, he can't come inside and in fact doesn't want to because he knows they're there. It's ok. I spent $250 on a double insulated (rated at R20), heated cat house with extra heating pads, squooshy bedding, a rewired back porch to make sure it's always heated, an entrance where nothing can get to him, and he loves it. He also loves the 2 litter boxes so his toes don't get cold in the yard/snow, the abundance of toys that he plays with all the time, breakfast, lunch, and dinner with snacks no less, AND my winter fur coat in one of the chairs in case he wants to lounge (and he does). He's got it made. But back to the beginning of this post -- after all this he has and can't possibly get cold, I still worry because we got a ton of snow for 2 straight days. So much that I forgot to take down the patio table umbrellas and it broke the metal poles in half and almost shattered one of the glass tables. And Happy? Well, he sauntered down the steps, looped his tail in play, and ran all over the backyard in the snow; leaping, skidding, running, and having a ball as he ran back to the porch, through the boxwoods and the snow plummeted onto his head. He didn't care. I swear he laughed.

Later, JennyD XOXOXO