And a little cat shall lead them....

Fluffy Sheba, the household resident Rescued Persian, has registered a complaint that Marigold, the Rescued Burmese was pictured here, see a few days back, in a primo position, too, followed swiftly by CK Duncan, at leisure with Handsome Son. CK is a rescued longhaired cat who claims to be black but is in fact chocolate colored in the sunlight, hence Chocolate Kitty Duncan, aka CK Duncan, aka Duncan Donuts, a mean reference to his girth.

Anyway, both of them pushed in and got their pictures up so Fluffy Sheba inserted several teeth into my ankle in a gentle request that she, too, get her fifteen minutes of fame. So here she is, looking exactly as cheerful as she usually does. She gives the impression of a queen who somehow got placed in a plebeian household.

While we're at it, a little paean of praise to the best guard dog I ever had, Buff, the 30 lb mixed terrier known to local kids at that time as Liz's orange Scottie. Nobody got near me unless I said it was okay, a big plus to a woman living alone and walking her dog in the local park at night after work.

He came to me the day a previous dearly loved dog had to be euthanized, and I just agreed to meet him, not to take him home, no, never, there would never be another dog like my collie/terrier mix Kerry. when I used to brag about her at work one of my colleagues says, ah, she combines the best of both breeds: she herds rats!

Anyway, I went to meet Buff who then had another wimpy name, not right for a self respecting big dog like him, and when I opened the friend's apartment door, Buff ran and put a toy right on my foot. So in less than ten minutes he was in the car on the way home with me. And the lousy little politician never ever again agreed to play at all, in the next 15 years I had him. I'd throw a ball, and he'd look at me like, get yer own ball, I'm not your servant!

And there have been many other pets, none of them invited in, but they moved in anyway and some of them -- the parakeets -- had families in my apartment. Harriet and Opal, the parakeets who I swore I'd been keeping apart, had three families on the top of the refrigerator, beautiful multicolored babies all of whom found nice homes. One of their kids still survives. Beeper lives happily on the top of the current refrigerator in the current home, and feuds with Marigold.

Lunch today with a dear friend who works to rescue animals in her limited spare time and sadly noted that the current housing crisis has caused many pets to be abandoned. Which leads me to my next thought: if there's room at your house for just one of these animals, any shelter or rescue group would love to direct you!