What am I? Nuts? Look what I brought home yesterday. We've got two full grown ones already.

Here is what happened. Yesterday, during a recess, Michelle (our bailiff) took me to her office in the courthouse and showed me her MySpace page with pictures of three kittens that she HAS to find good homes for, and soon! She already has a (spayed) queen-bee with the run of the house. Or did have, anyway. Now she's relegated to a bedroom to keep peace in this upset household. No one is really very happy.

I've been following the progress of these newborn kittens since Michelle found them (eyes still un-open) with the mama cat on May 4th, in her lawn mower shed. Michelle thought the mother cat would follow when she took the kittens inside the house, but no. Michelle showed me the pillowcase that she and her husband used to snag the mother cat, and described in detail the way the cat hissed and clawed her way through the sheet, and scratched at anything that moved. To prove her point, Michelle showed me the long skinny scabs and scratches.

All I could think when I saw the pictures was, oooo, how cute. Puppies and kitten are always cute, though. I mean, have you ever seen an ugly puppy or kitten? She even pointed out that she had placed an ad in the newspaper.

For several weeks now I've been thinking about kittens, how we haven't had a tiny kitten in our house in years and years. Some people down the road from us have evidently been bestowed with some recently because I see two or three bounding about, as only kittens can do, on their front porch. Usually I drive by real slow so I can watch them for just a few seconds. Then from time to time I think about how Winston is always looking for someone to play with him (he's 4 yrs. old) and how our old cat, Bullet, just could care less. He'd rather have the house and his people to himself. Truth be told, he doesn't work and play well with others.

This was my rational. We're gone so much of the day. Sometimes we're gone for entire weekends. Winston is lonely. A kitten might put new life in Winston, give him a play friend, so to speak. So, I tentatively text messaged Dwain and told him that I had found an ittybitty kitten, what would he think if I brought it home. His response surprised me, because I expected a big fat NO WAY. Instead he answered back, "Can you bribe me?"

The thing was, I didn't have a pet carrier for transportation purposes. Michelle said, I have one you could borrow. Okay, if Dwain's positive response wasn't enough, here was another positive response. Okay, this kitten thing, it seems, was just meant to be.

Winston and kitten met for the first time last evening. No hissing. No growling (well, maybe a teeny tiny one from kitten) but eventually they touched noses. Winston even licked his fur. What a sweetheart! Winston, I mean. Well, okay, both.

Bullet has his nose out of joint. Go figure. He's an old man so we have to give him some leeway. I hope he will learn to at least tolerate her.

And that's another thing, I keep forgetting that the kitten is a her not a him. All we have are boy pets, so this is going to take some adjusting on my part. But we had a relatively good night, which means I actually got to sleep most of the night without being disturbed by distressed mewing or hissing or growling or sounds of a murder being committed. Dwain could sleep through anything, basically. So his good night's sleep doesn't count.

Next. We've got to name her. Hummmmm