Seems I have been saying goodbye to too many of pets this last year. The 5 kittens I attempted to rescue last summer weren't exactly beloved pets. But it was sad to see each one pass. Then there was Butter. My treasured blind kitty that also was my little shadow, disrupting whenever he could manage whenever I was sewing, or even cooking, before we lost our home. And then we had to say goodbye to Duke, the Boxer. He wasn't my personal pet, and I would never go so far as to say I loved him like my own cats. But saying goodbye to him before we left was sad. I have to confess I miss that ugly ol' dog at times. Never would have thought that! And my most recent loss would be Miss Bit. She and Nighty, my gorgeous black cat were outside due to rental agreements, some had to go out. Miss Bit was the only girl of the bunch, and one we rescued the summer before life fell apart the rest of the way. She was the only thing that helped me get through one of the toughest times of my life. She was pretty much my angel kitty. She was a beautiful little grey kitty, and loved me as much as I loved her. I missed her inside, and now I miss her outside. Perhaps she might come back, but after this many days, I am pretty convinced she is gone. But where did she go? She disappeared pretty much the same way she appeared. Maybe someone else took her in, maybe she got hit by a car. I'll never know, but I wish she'd come back from wherever she went to.
The happy part of this post which has turned out to be far more depressing than I had intended it to be. My lead in to the happy point of this blog turned into a sad monologue. The night we caught the new little guy was the last night I saw Miss Bit. She helped us catch him, in fact, the bright little thing that she was. We have some stray cats that hang around - we call them the Fluffkin clan, due to their long fluffy fur. One of them looks like a Butter doppelganger, save the skinnier figure and more petite face. From a distance though s/he looks just like him. One of them that we have called Sapphire due to her bright blue eyes had a baby. A tiny little white kitten - a boy - with some orange tabby on his tail and ears. Keeping an eye on him, we noticed he would cry and cry, circling his mother, and she just ignored him. The conclusion was she must not be feeding him. We caught him one night, and as suspected, he was far too skinny for a kitten of his age, especially an only kitten.
Now, some people might skin me alive for this insisting in a holier-than-thou cloud of ignorance of this particular situation that he should be with his mother, and her only. This is true, on most occasions, but I wasn't going to let him starve to death. Which would have happened. I am no newbie to kitten growth, having raised more than one young orphan successfully. We gave him some milk that night, and he would have eaten the dropper he was so hungry.
Fast forward to one week later, and he appears to be perfectly healthy. He's eating well, using the litter box, and has become a very sweet and very tame little fellow. We have named him Nefertem, Neffers for short. (He confirmed via meows that he liked it.) Nefertem is a less well known Egyptian God of healing and perfumes. He is the son of Bast, so it seemed fitting. It seems like he is a salve for Butter, and now also for Miss Bit.
Here he is sitting in my fur covered lap (black and white fur, baaaad combination.) He's got cat food on his face.
