Thursday's Thoughts

Today is Thursday, and I am supposed to have profound thoughts to share today, but between being sick and the allergy meds I'm taking, my thoughts are on the level of "See Spot run." So I'm going to share pictures of my kitties.

BB is our oldest cat - he's a curmudgeon. He's diabetic and we are the only people who see him because he is afraid of everyone else. We found him in Round Rock, TX.

Nala is our New Mexico kitty; she wandered into my Mom's and she stole Johnny's heart the first time he met her. She's a Maine Coon Cat and is huge. She and BB both weigh 17 pounds, but with all of Nala's fur, she looks bigger. She is very vocal and can be playful.

Newman is our middle child. At 7 years old, he is technically a senior, but he thinks he is a kitten. We found him at our apartment in Plano; we think he'd been abandoned by people who had moved out. He just walked up to me one day and followed my to the door. He has abandonment issues and when we leave or go to bed, he will carry a toy around in his mouth and cry. He is our puppy-cat; he used to play fetch (and bring the ball back), he is a lap kitty and unlike other cats, he wags his tail when he's happy.

PJ is our girly girl. She is the only cat we didn't get as a stray/rescue. She was a souvenir from a trip to Hot Springs, Arkansas. We were shopping for postcards and found a store that had cat items and had to go in. She was 8 weeks old and soooooo cute. She reached out of the cage and tried to grab Johnny's glasses. That sealed the deal. She is a tuxedo kitty and we said that she was a white kitty who was trying to dress like our black boys (Newman and BB), but the costume didn't fit, so we named her Petit Jean after a local legend about a woman who dressed as a cabin boy to come exploring in America.

Here's where it gets interesting, Tiger is the next kitty we got, but not the next in age. After Boo Boo died (liver cancer), we were going to *not* get another cat, and keep the cat count down to 4. But then Johnny's mom called...there was a kitten (about 4 months old) that was found at the hospital where she worked and needed a home. I'd planned on giving this kitty to friends who'd just lost their older cat. But when I picked him up and he started purring in my ear, I was hooked. He's still the baby of the house.

The aforementioned friends asked us to go to a rescue shelter with them to pick out their new cats. I knew this would be a mistake, but we went anyway. Sure enough, there were 2 black kittens (about 4 months old) that were afraid of everything and everyone. Black, scaredy kitties have a special place in our hearts, but we were good and didn't take them home with us. I, however, did go to the website and check on them daily. About 6 weeks later, I got a call from Johnny - he'd been listening to PNR and there was a piece about people taking care of those that can't take care of themselves and decided that we could handle 2 more cats. So I drove to Operation Kindness and picked up Jupiter and Neptune, without going into the kitty room - I didn't want to see any others!!! They hid under the bed for weeks. Neptune was the first one to venture out when we were in the room and after another week or so, he would let us pet him. He is so loving and happy to see us. Jupiter took several more weeks before he would show himself; he still had his collar on so we could hear the jingle, jingle under the bed. He will now let us pet him most of the time, but that is all. We still can't pick him up - it's been 2 and a half years. Be he does look so happy when he does let us pet him.

Neptune and Jupiter

Then I started volunteering for New Beginnings Cat Rescue and we decided to foster - yes, you guessed it - a scaredy black kitty. While in the cage at PetSmart, he would pull the bed on top of himself so you couldn't see him. Who is going to adopt him when they don't even know he's there? So we thought that we could foster him and maybe Tiger and our Planetary Brothers would help socialize him. That lasted for a week and then he was ours. Since he is smaller than Neptune and Jupiter, we named him Pluto. Needless to say, we don't foster any more.

So as the TV show said, "8 is Enough"!