A Few Screws Loose

I must admit that on September 8th, I accidentally hit one of the resident kittens.  She is not from Felix's lineage, the original cat that arrived in the fall of 2011 and is the only remaining cat at our place.  In light of the life span of our kittens, it shouldn't be surprising that Dulce, who showed up with her brother Kevin in August from out of the blue, would land under my tires.  I panicked, of course.  I saw her flop to the edge of the garden, and then I pulled the car back around, ran inside, and called Tom to apologize.  It was my first day of RE classes, an eleven hour day for me, and I was beside myself.

It doesn't help that the day before on our way to church, I confessed to Tom about killing all these spiders at the hall when I set up for our classes, plus the flies that found a garbage can full of food left at the hall, and the crazy birds that sit in the road and fly up into my grill driving to work.  I told him it reminded me of that rhyme about an old lady who swallowed a spider - she swallowed a spider to catch it - and a bird to catch that.  I cracked a poorly timed joke that the cats better watch out because the cat was swallowed next to catch the bird.  Yes - poor timing to crack a joke like that 24 hours before hitting Dulce.

The cat lived.  Tom couldn't find any protruding bones when he got home, and Kevin was protecting her.  She gets around just fine now, putting weight on it sometimes and other times going "tripod".  Tom thinks she'll be okay - as was mentioned above, her life expectancy isn't that great anyway with hungry owls and hawks in the neighborhood, or whatever else it is that gets our kittens.  And just when I think things are going to be okay, I have to wonder now if she isn't brain-damaged, too.  The mud porch is gone, which was a place of great shade and protection.  The kittens found a break in the skirt of the trailer and are now hanging out under it.  For some reason Dulce has no problem getting in, but forgets how to get back out.  She scratches and whines under the steps at the front door for help to get out, so Tom or I have to walk down to the break in the skirting and meow for her, so she can get out.  Ridiculous!