Some Goals For 2012

I'm so excited about 2012. I have a feeling it is going to bring good things! I'm also relishing the chance to start over fresh and cross more things off my To Do list than I did in 2011. So here are some of my goals for the year:

• Go outside more - Brand new camping equipment? Check. The Great Outdoors? Check. What am I waiting for?
• Get a less stressful, higher paying job
• Get rid of my muffin top and get more exercise in general - What can I say? I like carbs and sugar and cheese and I'd rather be eating them than working them off
• Finish my scrapbooks
• Pare down my hobbies - anyone need any unused/slightly used knitting, crocheting, and beading supplies?
• Start drawing again
• Blog more

I can't wait to get started and see what this year brings! Happy New Year to you all!

Babies Are Still on the Brain

As you can see I haven't continued with my "What if?" list. It seems constantly talking about every little thing that could possibly go wrong was bringing me down and contributing to my depressed mood a few months ago. I am all for being prepared for the worst case scenarios but at the same time I don't want to dwell on them.

And while the subject of babies has not graced this blog in a while, the topic is never far from my mind. Not a day goes by when I don't think about my plans and the mountains I must climb before I can put them in motion.

Also, I seem to be in a mourning-the-dream phase again. These feelings come and go but with a friend getting engaged a couple days ago, reading a book with a seriously crush-worthy character, and the holidays just around the corner, the dream of finding a boyfriend has been worse than ever lately. Almost bad enough to make me want to get back on dating websites...not that I have time right now.

The Story Continues

I wanted the previous post to be all about Miss Priss since it was a tribute to her, but there is another part to the story. The part of Ghost Kitty.
No, I'm not talking about Miss Priss come back from the grave, this cat is very much alive.

"He" showed up a few days after Miss Priss. (I say "he" because we're only guessing on the gender)

A tiny kitten stealing her leftovers. Sometimes she didn't care, sometimes she would chase him. When scared he would slip under our freight door, left partially open in the summertime, and hide in the store's basement. Sometimes we would catch a flash of white when we went to the basement and we knew he was down there. But his using the floor as a litterbox put an end to us keeping the freight door open.
Still, he kept coming back for leftovers, scavenging what he could and never letting anyone get too close.
J told me one time that he tried to follow the kitten as it ran to the neighboring building but by the time J got around the freight ramp the cat had disappeared.
A few days later the little kitten was again on the other side of the freight ramp. I happened to be leaving work and J was outside with me. J kept the kitten's attention on him while I crept slowly around the ramp. But before I could get to the other side the kitten noticed me and took off running. This time, though, I was close enough to see him go up the stairs of the building next door. So J and I followed him up the stairs to the roof area where the two buildings are joined, but we could see no sign of him. We looked in every possible hiding spot while keeping an eye on the stairs which were the only means of egress. No luck, it was as though he had disappeared entirely. Thus earning him the nickname of Ghost Kitty.
But when we exited the roof and were back on ground level there was his little kitten face peeking at us from the top of the stairs. Somehow, somewhere he was hiding on the roof.
The next time we were presented with a chance to follow him we did, even Miss Priss came searching with us this time and delighted in checking out the roof. And this time J solved the mystery. You see, there's a thin branch of tree that extends near to the roof from the front of our building. After scouring the entire roof J was sure that Ghost Kitty had climbed into the tree so we exited the roof and went around the front of the building and there was the tiny kitten huddled high up in the tree watching us warily.

I didn't see much of Ghost Kitty after that but J assured me he was still around, though wary as ever. And when Miss Priss died and there were no longer cat food cans outside to scavenge I thought we had seen the last of him, until one day in early November J saw him on the back porch looking for food. J put a can out and the next day it was licked clean, so he put another can out. It too was emptied. Pretty soon Ghost Kitty started to show up for regular evening feedings. And not long after J cut a hole in a large cardboard box, filled it with padding, put some reinforcement on the outside and set it up under the porch just in case Ghost Kitty needed it. And we think he uses it sometimes to get out of the cold and while he's waiting for food.

Now, with his regular feedings he has grown from a kitten to a full-grown cat, though he's not more than a year old. He even meows at us now when he's hungry in short high-pitched bursts all stringed together. But he is not tame. He runs away whenever we go to put the food out. No one can get closer than six feet before he runs away, though we are all very calm around him and don't make any sudden moves in his direction. Still he remains wary and unsure, almost feral. He is nowhere close to being the store kitty that Miss Priss was, but I find myself looking forward to closing time even more now so I can peek at him from behind the window.

And I wouldn't be surprised if "he" showed up one day with kittens in tow.

I wish I could get better pictures of him, but these were taken through a window with the porch light as the only source of light. Plus my camera is old and gets very grainy when I have to zoom.

The markings on his side kind
of look like a cartoon cat!



By the food dish



Ready to run at a
moment's notice



A Tribute

Note: This is long, and I'm writing it because I want to get the memories down before they fade away. Feel free to skip.
Edit: J has been previously known as PBJ

 For the best little store kitty we were never supposed to have...

July 19th, 2011: She appeared in the parking lot out of nowhere, shying away from my headlights she made a quick dash down the freight ramp. I was taking J back to our workplace so he could finish a few things after our night out to watch Har.ry P0tter 7.2. I parked in the lot and J went to find her. Almost immediately she came to his call and he brought her into my car.

Petite, sweet, and black with yellow eyes she was almost a carbon copy of my own cat, except for the small white patch she sported on her chest. It was love at first sight.

She purred, and loved on us, and reveled in our attentions. But the best part (for her) was when J went into work and brought out a can of cat food (it had been in transit to his own cats). When she heard the sound of it being opened she leaped out of the open door of my car and made a beeline for the porch. Clearly she recognized the sound.

By the time I arrived at work the next morning she had already acquired her own box lined with a fleece blanket. Plus a water dish and more food, all courtesy of J. Something tells me it was love at first sight for him too.

Late July through August: We figured she belonged to someone in one of the nearby apartments or condos. We thought that was where she went when she wasn't hanging around outside work. But we fed her anyway since she kept coming back. Eventually we asked around at some of the condos and apartments but no one claimed her. We stuck an ad in the Lost and Found section of the newspaper. Still no one claimed her. We put a collar on her with a paper tag that said she was being fed by us. She ripped the tag off.

Eventually we stopped looking for an owner and figured she was ours. Everyone at work liked her and the boss didn't mind her being around. So what if the lease expressly forbid having pets on the premise? She was outside most of the time anyway sleeping in her box or hiding in the shrubs jungle . And it wasn't like the landlords came around that often.

Thus she became a mostly permanent fixture, always near to hand except during her mid-morning and afternoon strolls. Customers even started expecting her.

One customer (who already had more than the unlicensed limit of cats) offered to take her. But she was ours, J's and mine and the store's. We couldn't let her go. The thought of her going home with one of our coworkers was hard enough, but going with someone who only came around occasionally? Unthinkable. Besides, this customer had already given J one of her cats because she had too many.

Those warm August evenings were the best. I remember sitting out on the bench above her box after work and she would crawl into my lap, curl up and purr. I would enjoy the sunshine and shade and read my book. She would have stayed for hours on my lap but I always had to get home for dinner. One time she even curled up half on my lap and half on J's and we all enjoyed the summer evening together.

September: With the cold and the busy season coming and always the threat of discovery by the landlords we had to explore our options for a permanent home.The boss couldn't take her. She has a mean old cat who would have picked on her. J couldn't take her, he was already at the city's limit on pets (even without his neighbor's cat who sneaks in the cat door). K couldn't take her, she lived in a no-pet apartment. S was moving out of town.

I wanted to bring her home with me. I wanted her so much I felt guilty, like I was betraying my own sweet, loving, beautiful, wonderful old kitty with the thought of bringing another cat into her territory. But oh how I wanted her. I begged my mother to let me bring her home, feeling like the ten year old I was when I begged my mother to let me get the sweet kitty I still have today. No dice. My mother was convinced another cat would mark it's territory right on her carpets. It was clear I needed to redouble my efforts toward saving up for my own place.

Finally R thought she might be able to take her, after she and her husband returned from a trip in October, and so long as their dog was okay with a cat in the house. Problem (mostly) solved.

By the end of September the kitty (we had taken to calling her Miss Priss despite the fact she was most definitely not a priss) was coming inside more frequently. J made her another blanket-covered bed in a back room. It was so nice to go back there when things were stressful out front and pet her. She would purr and make everything better.

I can't help but smile when I remember she used to use the fake tree with the realistic bark as her own personal scratching post. She tore open a bag of catnip and then a bag of oregano when the catnip was gone. She jumped on the counters and sought out the most out-of-the-way corners to explore. She conned customers into letting her in and out. But always she remained sweet and inclined to like everybody. Never biting or scratching or even trying to. And her meows were nearly silent. She was the perfect store kitty.

During her strolls outside she visited some of the neighboring businesses. Once she even spent the night with one of our customers who lives nearby when she found her meowing outside our door after the store was closed. Because of this we decided it was time she permanently wore the bright pink collar we had bought for her and we wrote "I'm fed at (name of store)" and our phone number on it, not messing with paper tags this time.

October: She would have landed in kitty jail (the animal shelter) if it hadn't been for that collar. She was picked up by one of the parking lot attendants while she was outside. And we were warned: next time she would be considered "cat at large" and go to the animal shelter, collar or no collar. Still we couldn't keep her inside at all times as she would sneak out with customers. Plus she enjoyed her sojourns into the wild. And we weren't supposed to have pets inside anyways. Besides, R would be coming back on the 21st and Miss Priss would be off to her new home.

October 14th, 2011: We got the call around 5:00.  A cat with our phone number on her collar had been hit by a car. The man who hit her was devastated but he called and then brought her body down to us. I tried, unsuccessfully, to hold back tears until closing time at 6:00. J put her in her box on her favorite fleece blanket. She looked so peaceful, like she was only sleeping. We petted her and said our goodbyes and together we held each other and cried over the loss of our sweet friend. The next day J buried her in the little patch of grass behind the store. I've never seen J cry so hard. I'm crying now just thinking about that day.

We'll never know how she came to be in our store parking lot so late on a warm summer night or why no one came forward to claim her, despite her very agreeable personality. But I do know J and I will always be thankful for the few short months we got to spend with her. The few short months we got the chance to have a store kitty.

We love you and miss you Miss Priss.

How I Spent October

I think I got on my computer a total of two times in October. Every other second of free time I had was spent turning this:

into this:

with the help of my kitty of course

So I've spent the beginning of November doing everything else I put off in October and now I'm back and catching up on all the blogs I've missed and giving my sewing machine a much needed rest.