Phil was walking down the hall talking to himself. I was a little curious until he reached me and asked, “Guess what I found on the front porch?” He then reached into his coat and pulled out a little Siamese kitten. He continued to soothe the kitten.
Sighing, I replied, “I didn’t think we were going to adopt any more pets.”
I took the kitten from him and fell in love, but I knew we had to find the owner, if possible. We asked all our neighbors, and no one claimed the kitten. By that time, Phil had put the kitten in the laundry room with food, water and a litter box. The kitten immediately used the litter box. This was a good sign in that it may already have been trained.
The next day we took the new kitten to the veterinarian and found out she was healthy but had a cold and an infected eye. So we spent money getting the cat on the way to being healthy.
Breanna named the new pet “Mocha.”
We own another cat, Preston Kat, who is several years old and a beautiful black and white long hair bobtail. He hissed at the new kitten for a couple of days.
One morning, much to my surprise, I found the two cats on the den sofa, where Preston Kat was giving Mocha a bath. I asked myself, “Did I ever believe a male cat would have maternal instincts?” Sure enough, Preston Kat began at the kitten’s face and cleaned its entire body. That was another positive, because they were going to get along!
Then my grandchildren came over. The kitten did not bring out its claws, even though an 18-month-old girl had sat down beside her and was pulling her fur. Another positive – Mocha was not going to scratch the children!
When I told some of my friends that we had adopted a Siamese kitten, I was told to give it away because Siamese can be mean. I answered, “I’m keeping an eye out for that, and so far, it’s a precious little kitten.”
Then Mocha started to show she may be sweet, but, just like a child, she had some mischievous traits. I got up the other morning to find that she had turned over one of my plants and dirt was all over the floor. I didn’t feel bad about this incident, even though I wondered what I was going to do to keep the animal out of my inside plants!
On another morning, I woke to find toilet tissue that Mocha had taken off the roll, pulled apart and scattered all over the den, kitchen and hall! Oh my, another mess. I didn’t get upset about this either, since I knew she was just doing her thing and growing bigger and bigger every day. I did wonder if she was a teenage cat at that point.
One Monday morning, I went into my laundry room that contained the cat’s food, water and litter box along with a toilet, mop sink, wa-sher and dryer. I flushed the toilet just as I saw a white washcloth go down the drain! I knew we had plunger but could not find it.
When Phil arrived home, I asked him if he would bring his shop vacuum into the house. He looked at me with that look that asked, “What crazy idea is she guilty of now?”
I explained that Mocha somehow had caused a washcloth on a hand towel rack behind the toilet to fall into the toilet and that it was not completely flushing and stopped up. I asked Phil if he could please try taking the shop vacuum and see if he could vacuum the washcloth out of the toilet drain. It immediately came out, and Phil had an amused look on his face.
“You are a smart lady,” he said. “I can’t think anyone else would have thought about using a shop-vac. Maybe you should call some plumbing companies, because you thought of using a device developed to be used for something completely different than it was designed to do.”
Why don’t you just admit that I’m a genius,” I replied.
“I sometimes wonder where you get your ideas,” he remarked.
“I get them from the same place I find my articles,” I said. “There’s a place in my brain about the size of a golf ball that collects and somehow remembers things I can never think of until my fingers start typing.”
“You have a muse,” he replied. (Definition: Muse an unknown personified force who is the source of inspiration for a creative artist.)
That is true to a point, because once I hit the send button to the editor, I often cannot not tell you what I wrote about. I’ve also heard that writers and artists (of which I am also) are a bit quirky. Most of the time I live in my own little world and somehow manage to stumble through it.
Whatever the reason behind my writing, I can only claim that it is my blessing in life! The column and reaching out to hundreds of people a week is the most positive career I could ever experience! So thanks to all of you who compliment me with kind words, because you keep me smiling!
Keep smiling, Rosie Please e-mail at rosie.preston@yahoo.com. and visit my Facebook page and let me know your opinion of any of the articles I write.