Whiskies

I'm tired of looking at that Penguin Twitter giveaway post, but the plotting of Who Buries the Dead is giving me fits and I can't focus enough to write anything coherent, so... Here's Whiskies!

Whiskies is one of a litter born three years ago to a pregnant stray rescued by my daughter. The mama cat evidently decided she was too malnourished to support all of her kittens and was going to let one die. The chosen sacrifice was Whiskies. By the time my daughter (sitting beside the laboring cat in the backseat of a car barreling down the I 10) realized what was happening and tore open the membranes, Whiskies was suffering from oxygen deprivation. In other words, this is one retarded cat. Sweet, but dumb, dumb, dumb.



Now, you might think, how smart does a cat need to be? Well, he needs to know that it is not sufficient to stick his head over the poop box. His failure to grasp this concept has earned him a place on our screened-in porch with another cat suffering from "improper elimination issues" (as our vet calls it).

And yes, I know he's obese; unfortunately, also affected by the lack of oxygen was the part of the brain that should tell Whiskies to stop eating. And since his fellow improper-elimination-issue screened-in porch resident is a geriatric female, we really can't restrict his food. So he just keeps getting fatter.

I've come to the conclusion every cat should have access to a screened-in porch; they love watching the bugs and birds, and smelling all those lovely smells, and the birds and lizards love being safe from pounces (not that Whiskies could catch anything even if he wanted to). Their life is not hard; Steve and I both try to spend time out there with them every day; they have heated cat houses and cooling pads and bamboo shades, and if the weather gets really nasty, they come inside...all of which is probably more than you ever wanted to know.



So if my daughter is the one who rescued the cats, how is it that I ended up with the retarded one? Isn't that what mothers are for?