Connor

Its Friday, and its the last day to work until Monday.  Woo hoo.  Always nice to have a break, eh?  Never a break for me though.  Its always cats cats cats.  And to be honest, I am pretty burnt out.  With all the troubles I've had recently, I could use a break.  I told my ortho doc yesterday, if I could just spend a week in the hospital.  I wouldn't have to move a muscle.  And that is all I want.  For one week.  To be totally taken care of, and not have to move.  I need a break.  I have so much on my plate this weekend.  I wanted to spoil myself.  Pedicure, get my hair looking good.  Time?  I have none.  I keep saying 'next weekend' but my weekends are planned now, with cat stuff, a week ahead of time.  I know this is what I got myself into, I know.  I shouldn't complain.  But I do, and I am.  

Sorry.  Its my blog and I'll do what I want.  :)  ha ha.  And I still look like a panda.  



My eyes are still black and blue.



To update on the kitty I 'caught' yesterday for neutering at the clinic.  Turns out he was already neutered.  When I checked him, his goods were still there.  He must not have had much lopped off when it was done.  I get embarrassed when that happens.  Plus, it still costs me the same amount of money.  they have to put him under, but he does get updated on shots, eartipped, flea treated, etc.  He is friendly.  I've been feeding him all winter.  I felt terrible letting him back out, but we don't have enough adult fosters.  Everyone wants the kittens.  Pretty sad.

And now, another wonderful story by our friend Joel.  This time, its Connor's time.  I hope you enjoy.

A Guardian Angel Chapter 5 - Connors Story

  

…Some who wander are not lost, yet others who are lost are sometimes found …

  

Connor crouched behind a swaybacked garage attached to a dirty house on the short length of 3rd Avenue waiting for the human’s call. His all jet-black fur made him seem like just another shadow in the dark, until he moved his head or swiveled his ear cups, pulling in faint sound from the surrounding night. He was hungry, and despite the ever increasing pain from under his tongue he still looked forward to hearing that funny squelching noise the human made when she was putting out food and water for the local colony. Connor was a typical feral male, and ranged over territory several blocks wide. His hearing was better than most cats - which made it close to godlike to a human. He could detect the subtle vibrations of the humans call from over 500 yards away, even on days when the fitful winter winds blew hard and cold out of the west.

Luckily today the wind was calm, but he could smell snow on the way. He hated snow - it made everything too quiet. You could not easily hear the subtle rustle of a mouse through the dead winter leaves when they were buried in soft snow. And when it got deep it made walking on his short legs very difficult. So he waited while the fat grey clouds overhead rolled past, gathering their load of snow as they trundled along.

Sometime around 4:30 a.m. he heard the tell-tale precursor to the human’s arrival, the rumbly throb of the motor from the human’s car. It grew closer and louder as it approached his position, then rolled past him with a bright glare of white headlights and red taillights as it cruised down Pennsylvania on the way to second street. Connor bounded out from behind the garage and loped with an easy gait down Pennsylvania after it, wondering if he would see one of his favorite colony females, the little calico Chewy. He'd had a crush on her since he'd met her last year, and was desperately hoping she would go into heat this year so he could woo her. He had no idea why she hadn't so far, and like most females not in heat she pretty much ignored most other males, but he was determined to catch her when she did.

Now as he sauntered up to the seedy empty lot that occupied the corner of Penn and 2^nd  Avenue, he could see the human female clambering out of her old car loaded down with bags of food and a big container of water. He spotted several other members of the local colony slinking out from the shelters arranged along the faded wooden fence at the back line of the lot and peeking out from behind the piles of refuse and tree stumps piled here and there. He did not however see any signs of Chewy. He hoped she hadn't gotten run over by a car or trapped somewhere. (he had no idea that Chewy had gotten trapped in the old church on Central Ave but had escaped and then been subsequently rescued by Janine) The human began making those funny noises that he so loved as she walked back to the small shelter set up at the back of the lot and he angled his approach to intercept her.

As he drew closer, he could see her laying out a new piece of human clothing on the ground to replace the one the rats had destroyed yesterday. It was now just a shredded rug- stiff with frozen water. He wished the human would do something about the rats - they were too big for most cats to kill and they constantly harassed the local colony and stole their food. The intense bright light the human wore around her neck spotlighted the back of the shelter and reflected garishly green and yellow in the eyes of the usual morning crowd at this location - two dirty looking red tabbies named Red and Rogue, a calico that might be related to Chewy named Spotty, and a pretty muted tortie female named Paisley. He stopped a few feet behind the humans booted feet and watched hungrily as she pulled the empty food plates out from under the shelter roof, opened her huge bag of cat food (where did humans get so damn much of the stuff ?) and poured it out in a small mound on the plate. The two red tabbies were slowly creeping around her into the shelters confines as they waited for her to finish and stand up, while the calico and the tortie sat on their haunches and begged the human to hurry up with plaintive meows.

At last the human poured out a bowl full of warm water and stepped back from the food. Connor darted forward with a grimace, anticipating the pain in his mouth when he took that first mouthful, but too hungry to stop himself. Over the past few weeks something had been going wrong around and under his tongue - it seemed swollen and sensitive - and he drooled excessively while eating. He had hoped that lapping up a few mouthfuls of snow would help, but it had done nothing except make his teeth ache fiercely for a few minutes. By now the promised snow had started to fall heavily, so he did not notice or hear anything to reveal the fact that the human had not retreated back to her car as she had other mornings, but was slowly advancing closer behind him, a large plastic box with a metal grilled door in one hand. He was busy scooping up small mouthfuls of food in between the dipping heads of the other three cats and trying to chew as gingerly as his sore tongue would allow when he felt something grab him by the scruff of the neck and lift him quickly off the ground. Before he could even think how to react he was thrust inside the humans trap as he felt the metal door swing shut behind him against the base of his tail.  He spun around to face her, his mouth open and lips pulled back in an angry hiss at the thought of being placed in this plastic box against his will. His mouth was oozing dripping saliva, and it just made him angrier that the human was seeing him like this instead of his normal healthy state. That made him hiss again, but the human did not seem intimidated or frightened. And she showed no sign of letting him back out - instead the world outside the cage he was in went dark and muffled as the human covered his enclosure with a cloth. He felt himself being carried out to the street, then his cage was set down on something dull and soft. The air around him was warm and moist, with a heavy scent of many cats all mixed together in a heady swirl.

He must be in the human’s car! What was she going to do with him? She had always been nice to him and the other cats in the neighborhood, so he was fairly confident she did not intend to harm him, but still it was very frightening to be enclosed in this tiny cube under the cloth cover. He saw the human as just a dim shadow backlit from the streetlights as she closed the back door of the car with him inside it. His ears swiveled as he followed her around the side of the car, then another door opening and closing behind him at the front of the car. The human made some of those squelching noises he was used to hearing - but now they did not seem so inviting. There was a slight jerk and a soft thump from under his feet, and the cars rumbling motor picked up its pace a little and he was moving. He forgot his fear for a moment and marveled at how he could be moving with all four of his feet sitting still inside the carrier. He meowed outload to ask the human where they were going and what did she intend to do with him but all he got was more of those squelching noises. He crouched down on his belly as the car rolled and bumped along, waiting to see what would happen next.

To be continued …

Have a great day folks!

"Let your smile

change the

world

but don't let the

world change

your smile."