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Friday, December 30, 2011

What in the world was it?

I've always been a cat lover but I had made a decision. I had seen a beautiful cat in a commercial. I would never get another cat until I found one that looked like that. Knowing nothing about tabby cats I didn't realize that gorgeous cat was a classic tabby.

A few months later my then-husband, Alan, called from work. The wife of his boss had several really young kittens. Some woman had brought them to her and asked her if she could find homes. Paula said she could only make a few phone calls. The woman gave Paula her address and phone number and said "I have to run to the grocery store. It will give you time to make calls. I'll be back."

She never came back, and the address and phone didn't exist. Alan talked me into just looking because Paula, who is a known sucker for taking in animals, was begging. Actually her husband was the one begging, but that's another story.

I came, I looked, I said "no, I prefer male cats. They have more spunk." Paula hesitated and said, "There is one more." Trying to be nice, I followed her to a cardboard box. I bent over and looked….there in that box was exactly the cat I had been looking for. "I want him." She said she had been calling him Oscar.

Straight to the vet, who estimated the kitten was not over 6 weeks old. The next morning we had Oscar on the front deck while we were having morning coffee. All of a sudden I noticed how much hair he had in his ears. A few minutes later I remarked on the length of the kitten's tail, it was longer than his body and really really fluffy. Then I saw them…."Good grief, look at the size of that cat's feet. If he grows into those feet, we're gonna be in trouble."

The vet, a Maine Coon cat owner himself, confirmed it. "He's at least a Maine Coon mix." Oscar, nicknamed Punky, ended up being a beautiful, 30 pound, green-eyed clown who kept us laughing for almost 6 wonderful years.