Gratitude

I'm grateful today. We've been able to catch another feral female and her four kittens, and today she came home from spaying with mammary glands intact. Four babies are in my writing room, suckling as I write this. They get to grow a little older before growing up, and they'll be a lot more pampered than a lot of little ones left in the wild to fend for themselves.

Michael and I are old hands at this procedure, having trapped, neutered, and released dozens of cats in the past decade. It's a bit of a mission for us. If I'm truly grateful for anything, it's being married to another cat lover with a kind heart, who'll spend the time and money to handle these sorts of issues. It's not an easy job and and it's not cheap, and certainly nobody thanks us for the effort. But, it's the right thing to do, and so we do it. Most of the time the cats like us well enough to stay for dinner, and on occasion, they'll even take the Felidores for walks... or rides.

And they say you can't tame a feral cat.

Catastrophes

I've always thought Catastrophes would be a great name for a little gift shop dealing in feline-focused merchandise. What cat lover can't relate to their tendencies to get into a bit of trouble? That curiosity. It's probably why I relate to cats more than dogs. No amount of loyalty is going to keep me from poking my nose into something that interests me, no way. I'm just as nosey as these little fellas. Well, okay, I may be a little more cautious about where I poke my head. Just a little.