Torrential Tuesday

Picture this:  Its 3 am., and you are awoken by a newly rescued kitten - Elvis (formerly Puddles) biting your toe, so you do your best to kick your leg under the cover in one fell swoop and the cat goes flying across the room - well, thats kidding, but thats what you WANT to do.  So the cat goes flying off the bed.  You try to go back to sleep, but now everyone is waking, the other cats are starting to play, walk on top of you to get you up to feed them, the dog starts whining because he needs to do his business.  Its 3:10 and you SO do not want to get up.  But you do for the sake of the dog, who has bladder cancer, and you feel bad about making him 'hold it', and even if you don't get up, he will have his usual accident if he isn't wearing the diaper he is now wearing at night.  So you get up really quick, and get back into bed really quick hoping to grab that last forty minutes of sleep before the 4 am. alarm goes off, but you lay there with the cats still hovering over you.  You fall back asleep until 4 am. and begrudgingly get out of bed, not quite ready to start a new day, and not happy about what awaits you as you hear the raindrops falling on the skylight.

You then spend the next half hour letting puppy back out for his business, and feeding the cats - the ones that are still getting a treat of wet food in the morning - Vanessa, because she is a new rescue and her kittens are gone, Cinnamon, who is skin and bone and he so loves his wet food, Elvis, because he is a kitten, Boris, because he has FIV and has a voracious appetite, and you feel bad for him, and then there are the porch kitties, the ones that come in out of the rain, that are homeless in my own neighborhood!  But they always have food and shelter on my porch when they need it.  They only show up at night, and in the morning for a treat of wet food.

I then prepare for my usual morning route, from 5:11 am (when I get out of my chair after watching a little news and sipping a pumpkin spiced coffee trying to wake up) to 6:20 or so when I pull back up at the house.  During that time frame I will have fed and placed water down for at least 30 cats that I can see, petted at least 15 of their heads, held around 3 of those while telling them I will 'have a home for them soon' knowing full well that its most likely not really true.  I will have trudged to their shelters, some farther back in muddy lots than others.  This morning it was pouring so its usually involving being out in the worst of weather.  Meanwhile the cats you petted are wet because their tiny brains don't allow them to know to get out of the rain.

This is what a day in the life of Janine consists of.  Sounds wonderful, eh?  Wanna join me?  :)  Even if you did, I would still be begging each and every person to help me take one lonely desperate baby that I am able to pet off the street, either by adoption or foster, or even place in a barn situation.  If you could see what I see..... 

Just a side note on Puddles aka Elvis.  He is now named that because I love Elvis, and Puddles has a distinct 'sideburn' on one side of his head.  SO CUTE.   I will find another kitty that deserves the name Puddles.

"What I am looking for is a blessing that is not in disguise."