Just before Christmas

Despite what you may think from reading my last few posts, we are not completely cat-challenged now. For one thing, we still have Maggie with us.

Maggie does just a few things, but she does them very well: eats, sleeps and meows loudly whenever she feels she isn't loved enough or wants to be spoiled some more. Fortunately for her, my wife is always willing to oblige.

In recent weeks--by some odd coincidence, it seems to start about the time Frisky died--she has been sleeping next to my wife's pillow each night. It's a queen-size bed, and the pillows are "full" size, so there is room. During the day, she sleeps a lot on the glider rocker in the living room. She's about 15 years old, so she isn't that active. But she is doing OK.

Then there are the resident cats in our neighborhood. The feral cats. You don't see them very often. But, especially, in winter, you can see they have been around ...
[IMG]http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b289/drdog/Catprints-Frontwalk-1-08.jpg[/IMG]

On many winter days, you see a fresh set of prints leading around the back of the house ...
[IMG]http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b289/drdog/Catprints-Backhouse-1-08.jpg[/IMG]

Our front porch is missing one of the vertical wooden slats between steps, and there is reason to believe the cats sometimes go there (under the front porch) for shelter from wet or wintry weather. That's my guess. Here are what the front steps looked like one morning last week. I think it speaks for itself ...
[IMG]http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b289/drdog/Catprints-frontsteps-2-08.jpg[/IMG]

As for us ... a week ago on Saturday, we visited the local animal shelter and looked over some of the residents. One week later (yesterday), we returned and looked at them again.

The cats were divided over two rooms, and we decided to select two cats from each room (finalists), learn more about them, take them into a play room at the shelter ... and then do some serious thinking.

One of the cats (the only male in the final four) was eliminated quickly--he has a brother, and the shelter wants them both to go to the same home. Understandable. Another one was a grey longhair named Anastasia. She had a couple things going for her--she had been spayed and front-declawed. Anastasia has lots of fur. Lots of it. And she is even a bigger cat than Maggie! When she rolled over (being playful), her fur immediately picked up whatever dirt there was on the floor. It quickly became apparent that grooming Anastasia would be a frequent, lengthy task. The third cat was named Daphne, a brown and white cat, a female. She was nice. About four years old.

But the fourth cat won our hearts. Her shelter name is "Sparkle," and she's a gray and white female with a black nose, about one year old. Very affectionate. She purred right away when we picked her up. She walked back and forth between us, rubbing against us. When I picked her up, she snuggled against my chest and purred.

The search was over. We looked at one more cat after that (Anastasia), but we both agreed Sparkle is the one we wanted to take home.

But we couldn't. The shelter won't release cats until after they have been spayed. Disappointing but understandable. That will be done this week. And, late this week, Sparkle will be coming home with us.

I didn't take my camera along to the shelter Saturday ... but I have a picture anyway. Sparkle was one of the cats featured in the shelter's newspaper ad two weeks ago. And here it is ...
[IMG]http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b289/drdog/SparkleAd-2-08.jpg[/IMG]

Say hello to our new kitty. We both are so excited! We may both be in our late 50s, but we feel like little kids just before Christmas ... just can't wait until the big day!