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"We don't need a kitten!"
Jim and I spoke almost in unison.
"Besides," I added reasonably, "We're old. A kitten might outlive us!"
Son Howard stopped by on his way home from a carpentry project, not an unusual happening on a Friday evening. He was barely through the door when he launched into his discovery a few minutes earlier of an abandoned kitten. According to the disinterested remark by the proprietor of the convenience store at the corner of the main road, the kitten had been around for about a week, evidently dropped off by someone who didn't want it.
Our family is notoriously soft-hearted when it comes to needy dogs and cats.
Decidedly not feral, the kitten had run to Howard when he stepped out of his truck.
"Skin and bones! Dirty! Pitiful! How could anybody decent do that?"
A rhetorical query, of course.
Howard bought a tin of cat food, opened it and set it with the kitten in the shade, watched as the tiny creature gobbled the fishy-smelling pate.
After reiterating the tale of woe, Howard headed home, still muttering about the kind of people who could abandon a kitten to starve or be run over on the highway.
I tried to return to the article I was reading online.
My thoughts instead dwelt on the homeless kitten and I felt a growing sense of guilt, even as I mentally reviewed the reasons why adopting another pet wasn't timely.
I don't suppose I was surprised when 10 minutes later Howard returned.
He had phoned home, he informed us, and been told that he couldn't leave a kitten to starve in the parking lot!
'You need to ride down with me to pick it up.'
I clambered into the truck with a feeling of resignation.
Que sera, sera.
Wheeling to a stop at the side of the store, Howard jumped out leaving the truck door open.
I sat, unmoving, watching, the three dogs in the back seat breathing heavily over my shoulder.
The kitten ran, spindly-legged, to Howard; he scooped her up, reached across the console and dropped the tiny thing into my lap.
"I suppose Dad would be upset if you decide to keep it. I wouldn't want that."
The kitten, amber eyes huge in her bony face, crawled up my shirt, began a wheezy purr.
Jim turned from his desk when we barged through the door, the kitten clutched to my front.
I crossed wordlessly to the desk, held her out.
He took her from me carefully, murmuring to her, sounds of shocked sympathy.
"She'll need to stay on the screened porch, away from the big cats, until she's been to the vet," I announced.
Leaving the kitten with Jim, giving Howard a thumbs up, I went off to collect a clean litter pan, a bowl of kibble, another one of fresh water.
We took turns visiting the kitten during the evening, watching her eat and drink until her sunken belly swelled.
Howard and Dawn rolled in the next afternoon bearing kitten supplies: a package of Purina's Pro Kitten Chow, 12 tins of wet food specially formulated for kittens.
The kitten, 'Thimble' was given a bath, tenderly wrapped in a towel and dried.
We marveled that she showed no signs of fear or wild struggle.
I wondered aloud if she could have been traveling with owners in a camper or motorhome, inadvertently lost when they might have stopped at the store for gas or supplies.
It would explain her easy way with humans.
We'll never know the back story.
Her condition, so thin and grubby suggested she had been on her own for too long.
Those first days, Thimble seemed all wide eyes, big ears, a purr that throbbed from her slight body.
I made two of the porch rockers cozy with fleece throws. Thimble often preferred the bare wooden rocker.
She had her first appointment at the vet clinic four days later. It was an expensive visit!
Ear mite treatment, de-wormer, topical application of a substance meant to banish fleas and nits.
Feline leukemia vaccination; a course of meds for respiratory issues.
Clean, eating well, Thimble moved into the house with the other cats.
She followed me everywhere, rummaged in the basket of music sheets, scaled my desk, flinging items onto the floor. She took to stalking the big cats, prancing sideways, smacking with a tiny paw.
Predictably, the established residents were indignant!
We make beds.
Draped on the back of the lodgepole rocking chair.
This is a favorite place to nap, allowing for monitoring of the front door.
Newspaper saved for winter fire starting, is great for shredding.
A small vase of late-blooming flowers on the dining table invites being over turned creating a flood, preferably in the hours just past midnight.
Humans are a useful perch.
Growing is hard work, frequent naps are needed, preferably in the daytime.
Lights out is the signal for a rampage.
Rosie, accustomed to curling up next to me for the night, is assaulted, leaps caterwalling from the bed, pursued by Thimble. Small items, a twig from the kindling basket, a pen on the desk, even a pod of okra tweaked from a bowl on the kitchen counter--anything that can be rolled, poked, skittered about is welcomed as a nocturnal plaything.
After an hour of this one of us inevitably thumps out of bed, turns on lights, corners Thimble and escorts her to the screened porch. When we walk into the main room in the morning, there she is, paws tapping the window, pink mouth opening and shutting in beseeching meows.
On her better behaved evenings Thimble clears my bed of other cats, deposits herself on the book I'm reading. I'm a light sleeper at best and often wake to find that Thimble has cozied herself onto the pillow above my head, paws gently rearranging my braided hair. At such times she purrs charmingly, subsides again into slumber, snoring lightly.
Thimble is the naughtiest kitten we can recall ever having.
As she grows her body type is that of a Siamese, long, sinuous, tight-furred.
Her imagination, intelligence and interest are unbounded.
She is constantly underfoot--hurtling down the staircase when I'm picking my way down with a basket of laundry.
If I open the piano to practice, she crashes onto the keyboard. She is fascinated by the sewing machine, by my various sewing tools.
We returned from church last week to find that Thimble had pulled a large tray of thread spools from the big open cupboard in my downstairs sewing area. Spools of all sizes rolled about, some unreeling yards of tangled thread. With 'help' from Thimble and Rosie I collected the spools and dumped them into a lidded plastic box. Today, following a trail of thread from the staircase, around the counter, behind the ironing board, I ran yet another spool to earth behind a covered bin which stores quilt backing fabric.
Thimble now weighs 5 pounds.
She had her booster vaccination in September, after the blood test for feline leukemia read negative.
She is booked in for spaying on November 6.
Did we need a Kitten?
Did we need a boisterous, rambunctious, rummaging kitten?
Did we need a kitten who clamors to be picked up, to be held and stroked?
Perhaps we didn't, but Thimble needed us.
I tell her its a good thing we love her!
Perhaps--in the midst of life's perplexities and looming uncertainties--perhaps, we needed a kitten!
Helping Jim with the screened porch renovation.
Off limits today as the screen and railings have come down.
