I've always had a thing for animals. Growing up, we usually had a pet or five and they brought me great joy when I was needin' a buddy. Sorry about that bunny me and Bubba starved to death back in the day. Critters in cages are not the natural state of things that Big Ernie intended. I remember crouching in the ditch as a little thing watching my beagle, Nosey, get run over by a drunk farmer tearin' down the road in his truck. Wonder if he ever knew he hit her? He sure didn't stop.

As farm children, my brothers and I adopted whatever animal needed a home at the time. They always got named because, well....all God's children need to be called by their own name. A crow named Joe led later to a dog named Joe who got run over by Daddy's tractor with BabyGirl riding shotgun. Kittens crawled up in the dryer exhaust to keep warm down at MeMaw's house when Lauren was a toddler. We had cats out the wazoo for years after Screamer came into our home. Dang 'ho...she loved to prowl for a tom and spit those babies out ten at a time. I passed the neighbor du jour one day kitty hunting with a RIFLE in the ditches. Some people's kids.

This particular day I was at the salon place where my friend cuts my hair cheap because she knows I'm a poor girl with not much money for indulgences of the beautiful kind. As she did the usual wet cut and we chatted about life and kids, she asked me if I wanted a puppy. "What kind?" I asked. Seems that a a big old Momma choco-lab had wandered up to her house with four puppies in tow. There were two chocolate, one black and one wild spotted lookin' thing that did.not.fit the picture. Our blue heeler, Pepper, had disappeared the year before after tying up with a couple of racoons that tore his face off. Most likely he got septic and crawled off to die somewhere. The remaining canine, Starvin' Marvin, had breast cancer and died shortly after the brown pup came to live with us. We went out to Ronda's house that afternoon to see the pups. Faith was laying squarely on Big Momma's face looking all precious and stuff. Me and the girl fell head over heels for her right then and there. The puppies were about nine weeks old and Faith was the last one to get taken home. The mystery of the spotted one was solved months later when Ronda learned that it was just a hanger-on that Big Momma took to the breast with the rest of 'em. It turned out to be an Australian heeler on the road with a pack of labs running away to better homes. Miss Ronda sure does love critters..kind of like myself. So does her daughter Hannah and her husband Greg.

The neighbor who owned Big Momma had a crackhead brother who had stolen the dogs for drug money. Somehow that faithful little caravan found their way across the fields and ditches to a place where somebody cared about them being cared for. Weeks after the puppies went their separate ways, the guy came to Ronda's house to claim Big Momma. She let her go, even as BM lay content. There was much angst and suffering until, a few days later, Big Momma returned to the happy place on Ronda's kitchen floor. Crackhead gave up chasing her after that. I reckon he was too skinny and messed up to care.

This brings me full circle back to why I have kittens in the closet. As I was walking from the hospital out to the car one day, a co-worker snagged me with two kittens that somebody had dumped in the parking lot. I was going to take both of them, but somebody claimed the black and white and I headed home with the dilute calico who came to be known as Princess Cali. She's a beautiful gray striped thing who poses quite well for the camera and speaks her *meow* clearly. I've never seen BabyDaddy but Lauren sez he lives in the barn and looks like Bernie on steroids. *snort* Two months later, she gave birth in my closet floor. Three yellow and one gray stripe. She's a good little mother, the Princess. We had to cut cords on a couple of them but she did the rest of the work with us as Lamaze coaches. Lauren woke me up early yesterday to let me know that we were in labor :) My camera is broken so there's no pictures. Soon as SugarDaddy shows up I'm gonna ask him to buy me one for my 51st birthday.