Caroline the Black Cat

I’m back!  Kids, my job, the garden, and some exciting social justice work has kept me busy all summer… but I continue to miss this space. Maybe this time I’ll keep up here.

First things first: let’s go back to early June. This pretty kitty showed up in our yard. We assumed she belonged to a neighbor, but day after day she seemed pretty determined to make our home her home. She hung out by our door, meowed on our windowsill, and even followed us on our loop trail through the woods.

After going through all the steps of looking for her owners – the humane society, the local vet, our neighborhood list serve – our animal control officer gave us the go ahead to take her in. So four weeks and a big old “taking in a stray cat” vet bill later, little black cat became ours. The girls named her Caroline and we let her inside.

This is Alfred, our old man cat. He has been with us for a long time. Despite his autoimmune disease (Pemphigus Foliaceus – I’m pretty sure the vet pulled that straight out of Harry Potter) and his daily puking, he’s hanging in there, as handsome and regal as always. We love him dearly, but he’s a wimp and always has been.

We kind of hoped that Alfred would on some level be happy to welcome in this sleek, new, shiny black beauty into his life… I mean, what sickly, old man cat wouldn’t? But he cowered and she attacked. Viciously attacked. As in, hiss-screech-jump-on-his-back-and-scratch attack. This went on for a few weeks until we decided it wasn’t fair to Alfred to let Caroline torture him. So she moved back outside. She gets the porch and garden, he gets the house. Both get lots of attention from the kids.

When Alfred moves on to his next life, Caroline can move back in.  But for now, she is our outdoor cat.