Anyhow, Monday morning, my mother was taking our labrador-mix dog, Sam, out for a walk. She usually goes up Island boulevard (boul. de l'�le for those of you that want to be nitpicky about official street named; it was "Island" for ten years after we moved to Pincourt in 1981, so I still call it that), across Fifth Avenue (the Pincourt one, not the Manhattan one! Much less glamorous...), up past the Salon de Quilles bowling alley, and to a little bit of road right next to Highway 20 which will service the commercial development between Island and Cardinal Leger boulevards, whenever they decide to build it. Right now, it goes west from Island into the woods about 100 meters, and then there are a few cement blocks preventing you from driving any further. If you're a skater in Pincourt, you'll know exactly which little bit of street I'm talking about. ;-) Also, it's where cops like to hide in their cruisers to pick up speeders along the 20. Well, apparently, Sam started going wild. There were several bags of cat food and a litter box in the little strip of trees between the road and the highway, and then the dog zeroed in on something squeaking in a bunch of dead branches lying on the other side of the road, and... it was a little kitten. A grey-striped tabby. My mother couldn't just leave it there, but she couldn't take it and Sam home at the same time, so, she got the plastic grocery bag she was going to use for Sam's poop if he had "performed", and put the kitten in it and left it somewhere safe, took Sam home, then got the plastic carrier we use for our big fat cat Ember and she drove back to the spot and took the kitten home. Since we have two big dogs, Sam and Luke, our Golden Retriever/Husky Mix, and one big cat who isn't too fond of other cats, Ember, she needed to keep this kitten well-separated, and, really, the only room in the house where that is possible is in the downstairs bathroom, which is only accesible from a door in the back of the laundry room, so there are two doors in between the poor young kitten, which my mother thinks is about 6 weeks old, and our bloodthirsty pets of doom. She put the carrier and the litter box and bowls of food and water and milk and a few toys in the bathroom, which will be the kitten's temporary home for the next week or so. And it's, for all practical purposes (at least when my siblings aren't home) *my* bathroom, so I have to put the kitten in the carrier and leave it on the washing machine in the laundry room when I need to shower or pee. I can describe the cat for you, like all kittens, she enjoys clawing and biting toes and fingers, but it isn't that bad. I got used to it from Ember, and I think this kitten still thinks of fingers as her mother's teats. And she can crawl all over me. She likes clawing up my leg to get to my lap, but she hasn't figured out that curling is the best position for laps yet, so she sprawls herself out on my knees, usually on her back, clawing at any appendages which might get near. Also, sometimes, she climbs up further right on to my shoulders, which is somewhat like a massage and somewhat painful at the same time, and it's not a stable place for her to be. She crawls between my shoulders rubbing against the back of my head. Yes, exactly like Luna did to Usagi at the end of the first chapter of Naoko Takeuchi's original Sailor Moon manga. Ember did the same thing the first day we had her in 1996, but I think it's just something they do to get themselves or their owner comfortable with them being around. One time, I thought I smelled something bad on the back of my WindRiver hooded sweater... I don't know if it's spit or pee, but I had to change.
It is nice having a kitten which isn't mean like our other cat (well, Ember's not going to read this, is she?), but we can't keep her. My mother mentioned the kitten to both my brother Nick, in Toronto, and my sister, Alison, in Ottawa, and they both want her. But Nick is going to England next February for a week or two and then, perhaps, to South America for a longer period of time next summer, so it wouldn't really be fair for the kitten to move in with him. Alison, on the other hand, already has one kitten and has lots of kitten equipment, like one of those carpeted climbing things with several ledges and a hollow inside, so, obviously, we're probably going to give the kitten to her.
It's a nice story overall, but what sort of bastard leaves a defenceless young kitten on a road right next to a busy highway? I guess the food was there so he feels less guilty about it.
posted by Steve Brandon @ 9:07 AM
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