Newest Cool Kid

Baby cats don’t eat deep fried fish.

Our local diner has a Wednesday lunch special that we like to go and enjoy.

Roast beef hot-shot is the special.

In case you don’t know what that is, it is 2 slices of white bread, like Wonder bread, smothered with shredded roast beef in a delectable brown gravy, real mashed potatoes also covered with a delectable brown gravy and your choice of corn, green beans or coleslaw.

The diner is adjacent to a truck stop which is what makes the diner so interesting. Truckers from all over the United States stop at the diner and always have a fun story or two to share.

Well on this one particular Wednesday, we pulled in and saw a tiny kitten roaming about the parking lot. It would walk up to any human it saw and meow. When it walked up to us, hubby said “No.”, “No more cats.”, “We can’t have any more cats.”.

Now he thought that was the end of it, but when we walked into the diner, the owner, who knows we have cats pleaded with us to take the kitten.

Hubby repeated his litany of “No’s”.

Two ladies purchased a fishtail sandwich to feed to the kitten, but we knew baby cats don’t eat deep fried fish.

We hoped they would take the kitten with them.

We ate our hot-shots and attempted to leave but the kitten approached us again.

Hubby went to the truck stop and purchased cat food, the pâté kind was all they had but the kitten loved it.

While the pâté was being purchased, the kitten hopped onto my lap. It was very small, covered in grease on its underside and scared.

We left to run our errands, and as we were leaving I said “We can’t leave that kitten in this parking lot.”.

Hubby said “If it is still there when we are finished with our errands, we’ll take it home.”.

Hubby was just going to do a drive-by, but I insisted on getting out. The kitten ran out from under a car and I picked it up and wrapped it in a towel.

We used Dawn to clean the grease off of her.

The pictures don’t relay her size, but she’s very small.

At the veterinarian’s office we learned that she has a “squirrel coat”, that a female orange cat is quite rare, that she weighed three and a half pounds and was approximately 14 weeks at the time. The vet also guessed, because of the grease on her fur, that she had hitched a ride on one of the trucks and that she could be from anywhere in the United States.

Bastet is the Egyptian goddess of the home, domesticity, women's secrets, cats, fertility, and childbirth.

I thought she was an orange tuxedo cat, but she is more than likely a mix with Abyssinian dominating. The Abyssinian originates in Africa and was the cat of choice for famous Egyptians like Cleopatra.

How’s that for fun?

I didn’t know what a “squirrel coat” was either.

She’s full speed ahead, all day, every day. Until she crashes.

I can’t remember the last time I had that much energy!

She’s wearing me out!

We let her sit on the porch in a “catio”, she’s too small to roam about the farm yet.

Have you ever seen a kitten climb the curtains from the floor to the ceiling? I hadn’t either.

She finds any small spot she can and hides in it. Fortunately, she comes when she’s called.

She sleeps at night in a large cage with a litter box because we’re still not sure what the other cats will do.

She is fed breakfast, lunch and dinner, like any baby.

Hubby says we’re too old for this.

She’s learning how to walk with a harness. Did you know they make kitten harnesses?

The other cats, well at first they weren’t sure what to do. One allows her to play with his tail, one just sits and stares at her, one runs away, one growls. I constantly watch the growly curmudgeony one with her. Her charms seem to be working on him, she’s persistent - he’ll eventually warm up to her.

So now we have another “Cool Kid” to take on the road.