An Iowa Garden

Well, regular readers will recall our recent loss of Snickers; in my humble opinion, the best cat that there ever was. This left us with our old cat, Toaster, who's pretty blind, deaf, and arthritic, who mostly hobbles about muttering to herself, but still is our beloved old pet, fond of the occasional bit of rotisserie chicken, and likes to lay in the middle of the driveway in the early morning, warming her ancient bones in the sun. Sadie our other cat, is Snickers' sister, and seemed pretty lost by herself, and kept trying to hang with old Toaster, which was not a match made in heaven, so we decided a couple of little pals for Sadie would be the ticket, and I paid a visit to the animal shelter to look at kitties. The visit was depressing and bizarre; the shelter was overcrowded, under-staffed, probably under-funded. In the short time I was there, three animals were brought in as "strays", that obviously belonged to the people bringing them in, who were dumping them. Most of the people walking in there looked like they were probably brewing meth. in their bathtubs, and most seemed to favor full body tattoos, and a variety of piercing hardware. I knew on the spot that I could never work at an animal shelter, because my first day on the job, I would undoubtedly at some point, leap over the counter and try to strangle somebody. I really realized how bad things were there, when I had my sister drop off a check for a $150 donation a couple of days later, and she told me the director started crying. Anyway, after waffling back and forth, I decided to take two little sisters, who were obviously bonded, and should stay together. One of them had infected eyes, so I knew she'd never get taken otherwise (what's two more trips to the vet). We named them P.J. (she has dark tabby fur on the back of white legs, so when she runs, it looks like her pajamas are falling off), and Punkin' (shown above). We eagerly anticipated Sadie's joy at finding these two new playmates in the living room. She walked in, took one look at them, hissed, stalked outside, and disappeared for 24 hours. Things have not improved much since then. Sigh... you know, we could have just gotten a dog.