If we had not gone to my sister’s wedding, then our cat Rajah
and our dog Zay would not have been fed in the backyard.
If we had not gone to my sister’s wedding, then our cat Rajah and our dog Zay would not have been fed in the backyard. And if Rajah had not been fed in the backyard, then his food would not have drawn her attention. And if Zay still had good eyesight, he would have chased her away.
But we went, they were, it did, he has not, and he did not. Therefore, when we got home from the weekend wedding, we found that a mamma cat and three kittens had taken up residence in our backyard.
One kitten would have been delightful. Anne has been wanting a kitten; I have been telling her to wait until kitten season. Kitten season and zucchini season have much in common.
My husband saw them first, when he rose pre-dawn to shower and shave and go to work to make our living. “There are kittens in the backyard,” he told me in tones of dread.
I saw them at a later, decent hour. The mamma cat is white with tabby ears, tail, and blotches. She has arresting sea green eyes, and would look lean and elegant were she not emaciated. She is far too young to be supporting a family. Protective of her kittens and suspicious of my intent, she hissed at me.
The kittens are what Anne and T. S. Eliot and I call jellicles.
Jellicle Cats are black and white,
Jellicle Cats are rather small.
Jellicle Cats are merry and bright
And pleasant to hear when they caterwaul.
Jellicle Cats have cheerful faces,
Jellicle Cats have bright black eyes;
They like to practice their airs and graces
And wait for the Jellicle Moon to rise.
– except that the eyes of these kittens are various shades of green, and they do not caterwaul very much.
All of the felines had vanished by the time Anne got up, into the shrubbery or up in the tree house, so Anne did not discover them until the afternoon. She promptly began to tame them with salami and love. The kittens were eating out of her hand within an hour, mamma by the end of the day.
I figure that mamma must be a stray, not feral, because she proved to be as starved for affection as she was for food. For the first three days, she would hiss reflexively at me, then come and wind herself around my ankles. Now she reserves her hisses and spittle for Rajah and Zay, who are terrified of her.
Her coat is remarkably soft and good, considering that it covers skin and bone. She has been fattening up; when she first arrived, Anne could encircle her neck with her thumb and forefinger; now her neck circumference has increased by a half-inch. Even so, at St. Francis yesterday, when we got her shots, she tipped the scale at a scant five pounds.
Each kitten weighed in the neighborhood of 1.75 pounds, which the vet tech told us indicates that they are about seven weeks old. They use the litter box. They sleep in Anne’s Breyer’s stable, the plastic horses having been temporarily evicted. They climb trees and run, chase leaves and jump and wrestle, purr, and sleep in a black and white heap.
Anne has named and renamed them all, naturally. Currently, Mamma is called Jarza, or Jarza the Demon when she chases 13-pound Rajah or 25-pound Zay. The most aggressive kitten is Ajax son of Telemon. The quiet, contemplative one is Damos. The sweetest one, and the only girl kitten, is Mishu. Anne agonizes over which one to keep; I fret that we will end up with five cats.
Therefore: free to good home: white and tabby female cat, about 1 year old; jellicle kittens, about seven weeks old. Have had shots. Spays scheduled. Call 842-6421. Serious callers only, please.
Jellicle Cats develop slowly.
Jellicle Cats are not too big.
Jellicle Cats are roly-poly,
They know how to dance a gavotte and a jig.
Until the Jellicle Moon appears
They make their toilette and take their repose:
Jellicles wash behind their ears,
Jellicles dry between their toes.
