An unexpected guest

When I picked up Beth from her friend's house yesterday I told her there was a surprise waiting in the house.

"Did you finish the chairs?""Yes, but it's not that."
"Is it cookies? With chocolate?""Yes, but it's not that either."
I think she asked about baklava too.
"You won't ever expect this in our house. So you can stop guessing."
"Is it electronic? Is it a Wii?!?""No, we aren't getting a Wii, and no it's not electronic, although it sounds like it has a motor."

She gave up.

Everyone seems to be either a cat person or a dog person. I'm a dog person.

I like dogs, preferrably of the larger varieties. Cats kind of scare me. They look at you as if they are up to something, or that they know something I don't know. Something sinister that I don't even want to know.

I scare cats out of the garden all the time, but they look back at me as if to say "Are you so naive that you don't know I'll just come back as soon as you go back into the house?" One spring they kept sleeping in my Snow in Summer plants and I kept a super soaker by our bedroom window to shoot them out when the wailing began at night. I also poked shishkabob skewers into the soil in the plants to make them a little less comfy.

It doesn't really matter whether I'm a cat or dog person because I'm allergic to both. We're not getting either a dog or a cat. Although the kids know that, it doesn't stop them for asking for a pet.

But this isn't a dog or a cat. It's a kitten. Kittens are different. They are sweet, soft, innocent, cuddly. I found one in the raspberry bushes yesterday that really looked like it needed food, warmth and fellowship. If it was still there when the girls came home from school, and IF it voluntarily came into the house we would help the little thing out a bit.



"Please??" It asked. With eyes like that, I think the kitten knew the answer to that question. "I"m so cute I'm irresistable," it thought.


"Can we keep her? Please?" she asked.

She's going to say no, she thought. Laura prepared herself for refusal because her mom is mean. And her mom is allergic to this cutey. The kitten didn't know these things about me.

But seriously, do I look mean? Is hatred shown on my face? Nope. The kitten stayed in the house, was fed and cuddled and watched over. He did spend the night outside because Alice was rubbing her eyes (and now I am too) and I thought I'd give it one more chance to find his mother.

This morning he was waiting by the door and came right back in.

He looks as if he's made himself at home, but he leaves tonight to go to a friend's house. Maybe we can continue a long distance relationship of some sort.