Friday afternoon, May 9, 2008 – We’ve been looking for new family room furniture since remodeling over the last year. We’ve been thinking that since our youngest kitty, Frisco, is now 2 y.o. and doesn’t use the furniture as a scratching post (hardly) anymore, that we could finally 000000000000000000000000000000(sorry, kitty on keyboard!) get some new. Anyhoo, we had finally decided on some, but before we bought we wanted to check out one more store!….We were going to another part of town bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb (oops, sorry) to look, and we missed the exit, so we were coming back around, under the freeway. I-45 at this point is 13 lanes across; I went by there yesterday, so I counted them. When we were in the left-hand turn lane to go under, I spotted a TINY black and white BABY kitten running along the concrete that is under the freeway, and I screamed, “Murray, there’s a baby kitty, oh no, oh no oh no!!!!!! What can we do?!?!?!?” So instead of going straight on the street once we turned left, we cut across to turn left again and had to stop at a light. While we were stopped, I jumped out of the car, ran in front of our car, the light turned green, so I stopped another car by holding out my hand while I ran in front of it, and ran across the U-turn lane, no traffic there thank goodness. All the while I was keeping my eye on the kitten, who by this time was all the way under the freeway, still safe on the side of the street. The reason I stress the size of the freeway is that it is VERY NOISY under there with all the friday afternoon traffic, etc. Of course, once the kitten saw me, it panicked and started back the other way. I knew that I had to keep it from running out into the street at this point, so I kind of had to use a herding technique. I never thought I’d be herding kittens, but here I was herding a kitten! I was steadily talking to the kitten, trying to calm it down, but it was very scared. It kept running and I finally had to start chasing it, while still keeping it next to the concrete wall. By the way, I had on platform flip-flops, so it wasn’t that easy to run, and by now I was running pretty fast, because I didn’t want to be the reason this tiny kitten ran into traffic and got…..well, you get the picture. I can’t even imagine what the people in the cars were thinking seeing a crazed looking woman running along muttering, “kitty, sweet bebe kitty, its ok, bebe, don’t run….slow down, slow down, OH, NO WAIT, WAIT!!!!!!” (Maybe that’s not such an unusual sight in that location, I don’t know) The kitten had turned the corner and was running back the way it had come where we had first spotted it, closing fast on the end of a low wall which then became the corner of two very tall walls that went all the way up to the freeway above. I was thinking that if I could corner it then I could catch it. OK, now was the time I started thinking about how I could catch it without becoming, well I don’t know what I would become, but I knew it would hurt! Well, the wild little kitty, looking more wild every second, STARTED CLIMBING THE CONCRETE CORNER WALL!!!!! Which was good for catching, except it was already higher up than I could reach! What to do, what to do????? Stand under a wild little kitty, and wait for it to fall on me? Hmmm…..then the kitten fell! Oh OH OH NO! It was ok, and started to climb again, by now I was close enough to reach it, so I just grabbed it by the scruff of the neck like momma kitty does and grabbed the paws together facing away from me, and vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv(kitten wants attention!) got control of it. It was so tiny, and so dirty, AND ANGRY, VERY ANGRY!! Good capture, so far. We calmly walked back under the freeway, now I was noticing all of the trash, broken glass, a couple of people looking at me, I started walking a little faster, beginning to wonder where Murray had gone…….When I finally came out on the other side, I saw that he had parked at a convenience store across the street from where I had jumped out of the car. I got his attention, and started yelling to him to “FIND A BOX!” He looked at me and I knew he couldn’t hear me, “FIND A BOX!” pointing to the store. “A LOCK?” “NO! A BOX!” “A WHAT?” “NO, A BOX, A BOX.” Of course, by now the light was red and there was no traffic, but I continued to yell at him until I realized I could safely cross the street. He had the back of the suburban open and was trying to hand me a big blanket we keep back there, so I could wrap up this tiny kitten. It was too big, kitty would’ve been lost in it…..but we would’ve been save from the pointy ends and teeth……..hmm, oh wait, I found a wash cloth back there that was the right size for the kitten and wrapped it up.
I went into the convenience store and asked for a box, showed all the people in the store the kitten, who all looked at me like I was holding a gun, instead of a tiny kitten. I don’t know why I thought I needed a box, but it seemed logical at the time. The guy behind the register handed me a box, and I took my prized box and kitten out of the store and back to the car, where Murray was waiting for me with another box. Neither box had a lid, so they were practically useless for anything at the time. Murray threw his back into the dumpster where he had found it, much to the delight of the other guy at the dumpster who I think was jealous that we had two boxes and he had none.
We put the box in the back of the suburban with the big blanket, got in the car and went on to the furniture store. We HAD come all this way after all! As soon as we walked into the store, kitty wrapped up in the washcloth, hissing all along, we both realized we couldn’t focus on furniture, so we left the store. A lady in the store asked me what it was and I said, “It’s a little kitten,” and she said, “I know, but what is it?” So I told her we had just rescued it from under the freeway, and I hadn’t thought to look yet, I figured I’d wait until it calmed down some. She told me she was a vet tech, let her take a look, so I let her look and she pronounced, “It’s a female!” Murray groaned, “Oh no, another female!” We have two daughters, one female dog, and four female cats already, and then of course, there’s me. I assured him, I had no intention of keeping her, we’ll find her a home. “What if you can’t find her a home?” “I’ll take her to a no-kill shelter.” “What if we just take her to the park like I did that possum that time? Somebody will take her home.” “Oh no, we won’t do that, she’d get run over, then all of this will be for nothing.”
When we got back to the car, I decided I needed to wrap the kitten up a little better, so she would be more comfortable. She decided this would be her chance to escape! She bit me on both hands and scratched me up a little. Murray is sitting there, “She’s going to bite you! She’s going to bite you! She’s biting you!!! You better keep her still, she’s scratching you, you’re gonna get cat scratch fever; you know I had cat scratch fever once and it’s very painful!!!!!!” Thanks, dear.
We finally got her home and Murray got the kitty carrier out of the attic and Sydney got her some water in a bowl and a little food. When I gingerly placed her into the carrier, she backed up so far that her butt was up the side and her front paws were on the floor. She looked kind of funny like that. About the time for Annie’s bus to come, I had stopped bleeding enough that I decided to reach in the carrier and get her out and go show her off to the neighbors. This time she only hissssssssed, spat and growled, but didn’t bite or scratch. I even carried her without her little washcloth this time. I was still determined to pawn her off on one of the neighbors, but when Annie saw the kitten, we decided to watch her a for a while to see if she would calm down some, and to make sure she was OK. She did have a scraped spot under her nose, probably from climbing up that wall, but it looks better now.
We went back and forth all weekend…..kitty -vs- new furniture………new furniture -vs – kitty……Annie and I went and bought the furniture yesterday.
Here it is Monday morning, the kitten is helping me write her story, purring and giving me face bonks, Frisco is on the desk behind me, Bitty (the dog) is still trying to make friends with at least ONE of the kitties, Rizzeaux is horking up a hairball on the new carpet and I’m not sure what Kali and Tigger are doing.
Looks like we now have 5 female kitties, 1 female doggy and 2 female teenagers.
After Izzy had been with us for a couple of weeks, I decided she had calmed down enough for her first trip so see the vet. She did fine, got her shots, checked out clean for worms and had everyone in the vet’s office charmed by the time we left. The vet said she was about 2 months old at that time. So, she was indeed just 6 weeks old when we found her! Her little sharp claws have firmly found their way into our hearts, she and Frisco have become big playmates and she follows Frisco around and does everything that she does. Her new hero! Bitty still hasn’t convinced either kitty that she only wants to be friends though!
