Miss Kitty

This is our kitty. Her name is "Kitty." She was actually a birthday gift to our youngest son, and he had all kinds of creative ideas for her name, like Checkers or Chess or Sylvester. But, as he earnestly explained in his little 7-year-old way, none of them worked right when he tried to call her. After much practice to make sure, "Here, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty" was obviously superior, so that's what he named her. Of course, she's always made me think of Miss Kitty on Gun Smoke!

Kitty is beautiful, aloof, dignified, and quirky. She is loving, but hates to be petted with anyone's hand, or picked up. She doesn't scratch or fuss, she just sort of shrinks and freezes. However, she has a major thing about feet! She loves to be petted with feet. She greets people by coming close and flopping over on their shoes. She used to wake our son up by nibbling on his toes.

Kitty has never been much of a hunter, although several of her children were. But she's too obvious and impatient. One day a whole lot of birds were having a wild party in the Brazilian Pepper trees, eating the berries and getting quite tipsy and careless. Kitty got very excited and rushed over, jumping up, trying to knock them out of the tree! We knew they had nothing to fear from her. Besides, she's the pickiest eater imaginable, so I don't suppose she'd of known what to do with them if she had caught one.

Kitty has her uses for all of us. She likes to share tuna for lunch with me, or sleep spread across my feet in the evenings. She and my hubby have a funny relationship. He's sort of the disciplinarian, but whenever he tells her to do or not do something, she sasses him something awful! He acts indifferent to her, but I caught him warming her milk up every morning in the microwave, which gave him away as the softie he is. But she loves our son devotedly. She follows him around like a puppy. Or she did, before he got all grown up and moved out. For awhile she would look everywhere for him, calling; she'd come beseech me earnestly, then ask to be let out, and prowl around outside looking some more.

Kitty is old now, and she's beginning to look like the skin horse in The Velveteen Rabbit, with all her fur loved off. She spends a lot of time sleeping, and I imagine, dreaming of her boy when he was little, in the good old days.