Kharma

My unlove for the four-legged furry creatures of the world has come back to bite me in the you-know-what.

Today I was chatting away with my dad on the phone. I went downstairs to grab some fettucine noodles from my food storage and got distracted walking around my basement and talking on the phone. I walked up to one of our window wells and peered out.

A couple years ago we bought window well covers that are a clear plastic to keep out the water and the riff-raff. Last summer I noticed huge weeds growing down there but let them do their thing since I didn't want to remove the window well cover and climb down in there to pull them out. I get the heebie jeebies just thinking about that.

Anywho, as I peered out the window I noticed the lovely array of dead weeds piled up in the window well and then, seriously, I about had a heart attack- two eyes were staring back at me. Upon closer (but not too close, mind you) inspection, I realized it was two cat eyes. Cripes. A cat? If I know anything about cats, I know they are freaky and jumpy. You look at them the wrong way and they start ping ponging around. But this cat, it just looked at me and didn't move. I sat there and studied it for half a second before I realized... oh yeah, I wouldn't move either if I was nursing babies!!! Are you freaking kidding me? Of all the...

And so as you can only imagine, I had to end my phone call before I fell over dead. I picked my jaw up off the floor and booked it upstairs. Creepy cat in my window well... So at this point I had no idea how many babies were there. It was hard to tell exactly what was going on between all those lovely weeds. I for sure noticed one but it was hard to tell where mama cat and baby cat(s) ended or began. I mean really, if I had realized those weeds were going to become a haven for a preggers cat, you better believe I would have put Dave (yes, Dave) to work removing those weeds. I will have to keep that in mind when this little situation is relocated.

After calling Dave and a friend of mine to vent some of my cat-finding adrenaline, I grabbed Taylor and headed back downstairs with my camera. Yes, I brought Taylor for moral support because I was not going down there alone. This cat and her mystery kitties had me totally freaked out. I know, I'm a pansy. But really, it's a completely different thing to hear about kitties in the window well then to actually find them.

Here is the first picture I got. The mom is the dark thing and the white thing is the baby.



When Dave got home we dragged him down there to check out our new find. I asked him how many he thought were there and he thought there was only one baby. Hmm. I handed him the camera, left him to take some pictures, and I went upstairs. A few seconds later Taylor comes bolting upstairs and I hear Dave saying to the kids, "Get back. Get back." Grrrreeeeaaatt.... So I guess Mister Pillar of Bravery decided to open the window to get a closer picture. He said the mama cat didn't move until he brought the camera up to his face then she jumped straight up, hitting her head on the window well cover, then straight up again, and again until she finally got out. Ouch. That was enough to sufficiently freak out the mama cat and she just stood outside the window well for the rest of the evening guarding, as it turns out, her one baby kitty. I'm wondering if there were more at one point. Yikes. I don't know what she is doing right now but I imagine she climbed back in once she thought it was safe. I'm not about to go down there and check.

Dave captured this picture of the mama cat after he scared the bajeebies out of her...

The white fluff in there is the kitten without the mommy cat in there.

The next door neighbor girl, who is seven and knows everything, came over to see our little zoo in the basement. She was letting the kids know that "the mama cat is not our cat Max because he is only five and that's not old enough to have babies." Right honey. Maybe that thought process is why we have the pet population we have today- you just keep on thinking that right along with the rest of the world. Her mom came over a few minutes later to check out our new pet and fell in love with the little kitten-through-the-window. Her last words before leaving my house, "I'm going to work on my husband".

It looks like operaton kitten adoption may already be in progress. Fantastic. I am more than happy to transplant this little cat family to one of their window wells, thank you very much.