MY CAT KIKI CAUGHT A BIRD!

I shouldn't be happy, I know it. The bird certainly isn't, if the poor thing survived at all. But I actually feel elated that my 16 or 17 year old cat, Kiki, caught a bird! It was a real bird, not a featherless one that fell out of its nest. This one had brown feathers and was almost adult-sized. A sparrow. I was working in my office when I heard a loud yowl from Ms. Kiki. I turned and saw her by the doorway. She had on her bratty expression, and I thought maybe she was asking for food again, or complaining about her food. It took me a split second to see the little sparrow scurrying away from her and hiding near a pile of books. I picked up Ms. Kiki and locked her up in the bathroom; she wasn't happy about that.

I opened the sliding doors wide so the bird could see the sunshine, the outdoors; usually, they fly out that way. Not this dummy. It remained huddled near the books. I poked it with a ruler and it flew the opposite way. And hid. This went on several times, until I had to move furniture away, and using a paper towel I gingerly picked it up and brought it to our thick bougainvillea bush that houses half the bird population in Santa Monica. The bird probably came from that bush in the first place. The bird didn't fight me when I picked it up. It looked dazed. I didn't see any blood. It's feathers were damp, probably from the gumming of my old cat. I placed the bird on a branch and told it to hide. It hopped away from me, vanishing into the bougainvillea, and I left it there. I waited a while before I released Ms. Kiki from the bathroom. Boy was she pissed! She yowled, louder this time, and sprinted out of my office, to show me her disgust.

I know she was showing off when she had brought the bird into my office. I know it took a lot of effort for the cat to have caught that bird. Kiki almost died in April! She had a serious allergy attack and she started ripping out her fur and lost so much weight. After treating her with antihistamine, Immugen, and using the Elizabethan collar on her, she got better. Not completely well, but better. Some days are better than others. Some days she looks like death warmed over; other days she looks almost normal.

But even during her good days, she looks ghastly. Her black fur has turned three-toned:a reddish-brown where she'd licked excessively, a lighter black, and a deeper black where the new growth has sprung up. To make matters worse in April I'd cut off some of her long fur when she had been yanking her fur out; every day is a bad hair day for her: she has long fur, short fur, and a black fuzz.

But she's alive!

And she's just proven she can still catch a bird!


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The Answer to yesterday's Jack Pot question is: Back row, 6th from the left.
And here's tonight's Jack Pot Question: Where's the Revolutionary Poet in this picture? And what's her name? And what are these four women doing in bed with Eddie Quirino in that enormous four-poster bed in Vigan? (click on the picture to enlarge)