Dedicated to Jan & Mike,
from all the kittens
that have passed through their lives.

April, 2010

I'm Not Nearly As Think As You Confused I Am!

"Cassandra? What should I do about the kitties?"

Oh, great, I groaned inwardly. What have Pye and Foot done now? I braced myself. "I don't know, Mother, what did they do?"

She looked baffled. "Why, nothing, dear. That is why I asked."

I bit back a sigh. "Okay. If they aren't doing anything… why do we need to do something about them?"

"It's just so terribly cold today."

True enough; spring had been like Robin Williams' comment, "weather by Sybil"—days of gloom and rain and an occasional snow flurry, followed by a gorgeous day breaking 60 degrees. The past couple of weeks had been pleasant, but today was a throwback to winter: just past noon, and if we broke 45 I'd be shocked. "And they have built-in fur coats," I laughed.

"But their mother is gone and they look so cold," she fretted.

I stopped chopping the celery for the pot roast. "Mother," I said carefully, "what kitties are you talking about?"

"The ones in the back yard," she said, in the tone of 'what other kitties could I be talking about, dunderhead?'

I pushed the chopping board away from the edge of the counter and tucked her free hand through my elbow. "Show me?"

They were huddled together for warmth, hidden inside the retaining wall of Mother's magnolia. Someone—probably feline (I'd like to think that the humans in residence would have said something) had made a nest of an old field jumpsuit of Ducky's (when too frayed to pass at work, they were stripped of insignias and Ducky took them home to use as coveralls for working on the car or the house), but I counted seven noses peeping out from the folds, mewing piteously. I grabbed my always at hand cell phone from my pocket and dialed the store. "Val? You said you have a friend who does animal rescue? Uh… what's her number?"

Moments later I was speaking with a charming young woman named Jan; within minutes we were old friends. She gave me all sorts of hints and instructions; the kittens were—barely—old enough to eat from a dish (good; I was not looking forward to bottle-feeding through the night) but don't use milk, get KMR. Check for fleas; here's a safe treatment for that young. Keep them contained (she had a bathtub she used as a kitten playpen; heating pads and blankets to keep them warm). Warm, warm, warm. Keep them WARM; with our slow-to-heat barracks of a house, the kitchen would be good until we had a warm, closed-off room. She was down with the seasonal galloping-never-get-overs but figured she could pick them up in three days, could I handle it that long?

I hesitated only as long as someone with a frequently senile, 102-year-old mother-in-law and an into everything, precocious one-and-a-half-year-old toddler would hesitate, said, "Of course I can handle it" as quickly as only a kitten besotted cat nut would say and looked around for a way to get the kittens into the house.

Reinforcements—in the form of Evelyn, Lily and Charlie—had just arrived. With Ducky supervising (I relied on his medical background to say if it was okay to bring them in the house and to follow Jan's list), he and I carefully collected the kittens in Allie's wagon and took them in the house while Lily headed to Petsmart and Ev and Charlie rode herd on Mother and Allie. While we were working, Ducky broke the news that mama-cat would not be coming home; by the markings on a couple of kittens, he was pretty sure she was the cat he had seen by the side of the road on the way home from work last night. Animal control had been removing the body as he passed by.

"Beautiful animal, the attendant said she had clearly been someone's pet until recently—probably evicted when they discovered she was pregnant." His scowl said it all.

"Well… from what Jannie said, maybe that means they won't have –uh, problems," I said, remembering 'intestinal parasites' and going euuuu in my head.

"I just wish we had found them before they became orphans." Ducky is a soft touch; we would have had a third cat and been hitting up our friends to adopt the babies.

We settled on the spare bathroom upstairs as the kitty dorm, even though it would mean helping Mother up and down the stairs to keep an eye on "her" kittens. Ducky tasked Mother with digging out her extra electric blanket from the dresser (that would keep her occupied for a while) and set about turning the bathroom into a kitten-safe place. Charlie helped Mother in the bedroom, while Ev played with Allie in the living room. I hit on a genius idea for keeping the babies corralled and warm in the kitchen—Ducky's feed the troops-sized turkey roaster was perfect; walls too high to climb over (I hoped), big enough to fit the whole family with room enough to move—but close enough that they could share body heat. I put the oven on to low preheat and set the roaster on the open door. Within minutes, the "I'm cold! I'm scared! I'm hungry!" mewling became "I'm warmer! I'm curious! I'm effing STARVING!" I promised them Auntie Lily was on the way back with goodies, Uncle Ducky was fixing up a lovely place for them and I really needed to get back to work on dinner, but I'd be happy to talk with them while I worked.

We had a lovely conversation. "Okay, the roast was already browned and in the crock pot, I've added the mushrooms and carrots, now I've added the celery. Since we have so many people for dinner, we're doing the potatoes separately. But I don't have to do those until later, so…" I dragged over a stool and sat near the stove, taking inventory of the family. "Okay, you keep disappearing in the crowd. You're Houdini," I told a pale beige baby with dark tips. Someone had Siamese in the background, I think. "You—" I collected a fluffy tuxedo from where he was climbing over his littermates to get to the top of the pan. "Are clearly a troublemaker, trying to take over the world. I dub thee Genghis Khan."

He opened his tiny mouth to protest the manhandling, showing even tinier teeth. "Kha-a-a-an!" he objected in a minute shriek.

"No Star Trek movies for you, dude, you already out-act Shatner." I put him back in the pan. One all-black kitten was sitting straight up in the far corner, disdaining the warmth and camaraderie of his siblings. "Aren't you cold?" I asked (even though the air was quite toasty). He gave me a contemptuous look and turned back to his perusal of the roaster wall. "Well. With a pose like that, we're calling you Pharoah."

"Kha-a-a-an!" wailed his brother.

"Don't worry, room for more than one ruler." I reached over and grabbed a celery top and tickled his nose. He obligingly swatted at it, and the sibling who got hit glared at him. "Oops. Sorry." The piercing blue eyes didn't waver. "Hmm. Ducky probably wouldn't want you named after him… let's call you Bones. Y'all got a Southern accent in there?"

"Ma-a-ah!"

"Close enough."

"Who are you talking…"

I glanced up. Mother stood in the doorway, watching me. I waved the celery top. "Just giving them names."

"Donald!"

"Mother, what—"

She spun in the doorway, almost losing her cane (and her balance). "Donald! Donald!"

Ducky came pounding down the stairs faster than I have ever seen (or heard). "What? Mother, what's—"

I knew she wasn't hurt, so I had stayed by the pile of kittens when she yodeled. Mother grabbed his shirtfront, making him yelp in surprise. "Don't let her bake the kittens!" she pleaded tearfully.

It took a few minutes to clear up that I had been tickling the kitten with the celery, not seasoning him, that the roasting pan was not permanent—"And Aunt Sandy would no more make kittens for dinner than she would bake four-and-twenty blackbirds in a pie," Charlie concluded. "Now. Uncle Ducky has finished readying the bathroom and shall take the blanket up whilst I help you upstairs."

"What next?" I sighed. "Will she think I'm Mrs. Lovett?" I was joking. I think.

"Probably not," Ev said cheerily. Allie parked on her hip, she peered into the roasting pan. "But you could name that one Sweeny Todd. He kinda looks like Johnny Depp."

"Agreed. But I think I'll name him Jack Sparrow, if it's all the same to you."

The one silvery-gray striped kitten, the biggest of the bunch, smacked his tabby neighbor on the head. Ev and I immediately chimed: "Gibbs! And DiNozzo!"

(The silver kitten turned out to be the only girl of the litter. We renamed her Ziva.)

Holy Guacamole! I see oodles of visitors (oh, and the place is such a mess...). Stop and stay a while. Chat a bit. Let me steal your life and turn it into a drabble. Uh, that is... would you like a macaroon? Sugar in your tea? Milk or lemon?