Expanding family – Eli the cat
A few weekends ago we went to a wedding reception for Sarah’s cousin. The reception was in Rhode Island and was a nice party with dancing and a live band. Madeline was getting a bit restless hanging out in her high chair during the meal so I took her for a walk outside the hotel. On driving into the hotel we had noticed the odd feature that it was surrounded on all sides by highway and had a parking lot full of RV homes. So I figured the right adventure to go on would be to figure out the story behind the RV homes. On the way to the RV homes we passed an old rusted excavator. Madeline is a big fan of the excavator because it is featured in the Roger Priddy Baby Things that Go book. We’ve had many conversations about the parts of an excavator mainly the back bucket, front shovel, cab, and the wheels. As we approached the excavator we saw some hotel workers wandering close to the woods. At first I thought they were out on a smoking break but when we got closer we could see that they were offering some cold cuts like a ritual offering in front of a lamp post that had fallen near the excavator. I asked them what they were doing and they said that they were hoping to catch the kittens living inside of the lamppost to take them to an animal shelter. Since Madeline was in her stroller I drove her up as close as possible to the lamp and we both looked inside to see if we could get a look at the baby cats. From the inside I could see the eyes of a black and white one that was interested in coming out into the open and it looked like a couple of others were cowering, more timidly, behind him. We watched for a while but given that I didn’t want Madeline to wander into the patch of poison ivy behind the kittens I kept her in her stroller. As she once again got restless I continued around the corner with her.
On the other side of hotel I figured out the reason behind the RV homes. The hotel was playing host to a Springer Spaniel conference. RVs full of spaniels getting their ears blow-dried in wrappings filled rows of parking spaces. We checked out a couple of puppy pens filled the young representatives of the breed but were disturbed by the loud sounds and smells of the many generators supplying needed power for the blow drying activities.
Upon completing our circle we returned to the hotel to reach the rotunda room where the reception was still in full swing. We told Nick the story of the kittens and the dog show and he warned us not to tell Christina since she would be likely to take the kittens home. But he told Christina for us and before we left for home after the reception we had taken two more trips to see the kittens. As we left Sarah hunted the parking lot for a barrette that Madeline had lost while Nick and Christina rounded-up three of the kittens into a box to take home to Massachusetts.
After caring for the three kittens for a few weeks they were working on plans to distribute them to loving homes. Since we knew the tuxedo kitten from our encounter at the lamppost we knew that he was the least shy of the bunch. Christina and Nick dropped him off for a few nights to see how life would be with him and Annabelle. I figured that Annabelle would be happy to have a little friend to play with to keep her occupied but Annabelle’s reaction was not so positive. She mainly hissed and growled at us and him and got into a state of feral animal-ness that was quite frightening. My thought was that if left alone with the kitten she would shred him and send back the pieces in the morning. So we tried for two days to try to manage a peace process where the kitten was to sleep in Madeline’s room with the door closed and avoid encounters with Annabelle. Unfortunately this was impossible. Madeline can open doors and likes going between rooms. Eli, the little kitten, was too curious to stay in her room if the door was open a crack. The results were some nasty scratches on Madeline who would try to pat Annabelle or pick-up Eli while Annabelle was in her feisty evil mood.
We returned Eli after a could of days of war and I figured we weren’t going to be able to make these cats live together but Sarah decided she could handle the war of the cats and he was back 48 hours after leaving to get his shots. Since his return Annabelle has stopped growling and hissing and may be on the road to accepting him as a new play mate. Madeline is not learning fast enough how not to handle him. We are having a great time playing with the new kitten though.
