Nonnie, Drago, Sam, and Blossom Adopt Gracie

There are two good reasons why I haven't been writing much lately. Two good obsessions. Well, one is definitely good and the other is almost certainly good. Cats (specifically our new kitten, Gracy, but also her relatives and friends), and my brother Drago's and my Roku devise. Yes, product placement.

The night before becoming a witch in cats' eyes, (I'll explain) we adopted the runt of the backyard litter. There's a blog about them a couple of weeks back, with a slideshow and a Randy Newman tune-doing that one was hi-tech for me and I was, as the English say, chuffed. I didn't choose the smallest kitten just because she was an underdog, (I know) but also because Drago wanted a girl this time (less likely to mark territories, we hope) and she was funny and friendly as hell. I knew this because I'd spent a lot of time with the kittens already. A lot of time. In my Zoetrope office, (an online workshop for all kinds of creative endeavors) my topic for the week we took Gracy unto our bosoms was "witches," and on June 20, I wrote this:


    Turns out, I feel something of a witch myself today. I'm in the business of capturing the remaining kittens and their mother. I already have the two small adorables in my cat carrier, (they'd just eaten the breakfast I'd put out when I put them in there. They are so used to me they didn't even struggle when I picked them up, traitor that I am!) and I have this malevolent looking cage set up carefully in front of the carrier, to lure the mother. The kittens are supposed to be mewling for her piteously so that Mamacat will creep into the cage, trying to get them out, but so far the kittens are just curled up napping. They are not afraid of the carrier, you see, because I've had it out there where I put the food since they were tiny (ier). I wanted them to have a place to go in the rain. Drago said that wasn't a big deal for outside cats; they could always find dry spots when they wanted them.


Marcia is a dedicated cat lady who is hooked up with vets who neuter stray cats. She is a kind person who works hard to help all the strays in her neighborhood and now is helping me. (Well, not me. I was once something of a stray, but I've been tame for some time now.)  She says I will feel better when all this is over. The cage belongs to one of her covens. (Kidding!) She already has Petey, the biggest, friendliest kitten of the litter, and is socializing him, which is Very Important (nod to A.A.Milne, who was a Huge Influence on my development as Writer.)


I'm doing this for several good reasons: 1) the kittens will get used to more people (not just me) and become easily adoptable  2) Marcia will whisk Mamacat away and get her fixed, thus helping to keep down the wild cat population in our neighborhood, 3) Blossom, our dog, will have her backyard again, 4) birds, 5) fleas.


Drago, Blossom, Sam, our grown-up cat, (who embodies the best of our late brother Ric, his first owner;there are blogs and poems about him back there in these confessions) and I have adopted Gracy, who's black and white and has a ladylike goatee. She seems to feel like she's landed in heaven. Loves us all, but especially me. I know this.


But I still feel like a witch. Will this cat-trapping day never end?

 Gracie likes everything I write

Most of the pictures I take of Gracy look like this

Gracy out of focus, Blossom and Sam in

Well, it did end, of course. The kittens in the carrier went to the Cat Lady, and the next day Mamacat (trapping her was horrible and she and I both hated it as much as I thought we would) got neutered and then was brought back to our backyard. She's still wildish, but eats the food I put out for her and someday will let me pet her. I know this, too. I haven't told Drago about the three other cats who are also showing up for lunch.

So…this was all about cats, wasn't it? I would go on to my second obsession, the Roku, but who likes long blogs? And I want to play with Gracy. I'm in a very good mood, by the way. The Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act today and weren't we worried for awhile about that?