When love walks down your lane

As most of you may know, we are animal lovers in the Nawrot house. While we will be forever grieving over our Labrador Meggie who is now in doggy heaven, we are home to four cats and the sweetest guinea pig that God ever made.

We must send out signals that only those creatures in the animal kingdom can sense, as it seems wayward dogs and cats, and the occasional duck or egret, wander down our lane, looking for refuge. We provide it, and then they move on, usually when we aren't looking.


When we arrived home around 1:00am from Poland in early July, we noticed a big bushy tail disappear into the bushes as we drove down our lane. My guess was it was a raccoon. They like to hang around and get their share of the cat food. Instead, it was this frightened, skinny little cat, probably about 6 months old. We fed it, of course, and it decided it wanted to stay. I think it figured it had won the kitty lottery. So off he went, christened "Ziggy", to the vet to have his shots and his male particulars removed. He has since become an integral part of our ever-growing family, and delighting us with his kitten-ness and sweet nature. What's another mouth to feed, when you get so much in return?

Bad Cat

I know this is supposed to be a blog about books I read, but we had an incident in the Nawrot house this morning that I had to share with you. To the left is one of our four cats, Annie. She is my daughter's cat, and overall is an OK cat, except that she is a wire-chewer. I can't stress to you how much money we have spent replacing or fixing various wires that were the object of this cat's aggression/obsession/affection.

This morning I was on the computer (big shock) and I heard a commotion in the living room, under the Christmas tree. (You see what is coming, right?) I saw fur thrashing about and thought perhaps the cats were fighting for the napping spot under the tree. But about a second later, my blood ran cold because I saw Annie was under there by herself, and she was rolling and twitching, ornaments and wrapping paper were flying everywhere, tree shaking, cat pee spraying in every direction. Our dear kitty had decided to knaw a wire to the lights, and had promptly electrified herself. I am laughing now because she walked away, fairly indignant at having lost her faculties. However, I have to admit it freaked me out a bit.

As an aside, this is the same cat that fell into the pool this past summer. Luckily, my husband was grilling at the time and heard the splash and was able to coax her to swim to the steps. I'd say she is a couple lives short of a full set at this point.