This is the obligatory cat entry. Not that I mind talking about her.We are down to one cat now. The black and white furry lump asleep on the couch is Freckles.

She's the best cat, about 16 now. We meet her every need, and there are no other animals to compete with. She knows what a good deal she has, so she has no reason to complain or act out. She spends most of her time sleeping. Many days we come home at night to find her in exactly the same place as she was when we left. But she's very glad to see us, and immediately becomes a pest demanding that we pick her up and carry her around for a while. After dinner, as soon as she can, she grabs a lap and sleeps some more. And, later, she follows us to bed and sleeps between us, demanding her full third of the bed.

She used to be a good mouser, but now she's become pretty deaf so she's pretty useless at that anymore; as we found out when we discovered that we had a mouse, which actually turned out to be 15 mice. Being deaf has it's advantage though. One day I was vacuuming up cat hair and she was just lying there sleeping and I realized that she couldn't hear the vacuum anymore so I decided to try vacuuming her. She looked a little surprised, but she let me.

We are very attached to her and are going to be really devastated when she dies, and that is an imminent possibility with 16 year old cat. I want to get a kitten so that we will not be catless, but I also don't want to stress her out unnecessarily.

So, in the meantime, I decided to volunteer at a local cat shelter so that I could have another cat outlet and maybe find out if it would be a good place to adopt a cat when the time comes. When I researched shelters I found the Tree House Shelter here near me.

As it happens they are having a benefit this Thursday evening, Dec 11, 2003, which includes a silent auction, and a raffle and so on. I donated a cat pin and a cat ornament which I made, like the one on the right, and a couple of other similar items as well. So if you are in Chicago and a cat lover, go there and participate in their event.

 

Freckles will like that.