The Snake showed me my picture and write up on this thing, so I thought I'd add something, but I'll have to do it fast. The "big boy" who saved my life, but also smushed my foot is home and most of us stay out when strangers are here. He isn't a stranger, but now we mostly only see him a couple of times a year and he always brings over big, loud, smelly, (to me) friends who fill up the feeder's little house.

I think of her as "the feeder" because that is what she's always done for me, but she also rubs me, and plays with me, until I bite her. (I don't know why I do it; it's just fun.) And she calls me home at night to safety or lets me stay out, if I want. She would be perfect, except for those two dogs that sleep with her and letting the big boy bring his friends over when he visits. You'd think he was more important than us, but I know that to her we're equally important.

But three of us are very jumpy cats. We don't like to be around any people, but her, although me and the Snake will come in if it's just the big boy. Little Brother won't come in if anyone but the feeder is here. Squeaker Marie, who has no imagination, will come in no matter who is here. I don't know that she notices people much. I heard the feeder say once that people just thought she had one cat, because they only ever saw Squeaker, but that's not true. Sometimes I run through a room on my way out.

Anyway, the feeder forgot one of my more important injuries. When we moved into this place there was a really skinny yellow tom hanging around. Of course, the feeder fed him, because that's what she does. He really wanted to come in the house and sometimes he did, once our cat door was up. Me and The Snake and Little Brother would just glare at him, but for some reason his presence moved Squeaker to enraged indignation and she would attack him as soon as she became aware of him. She's rather slow on the uptake so sometimes he made it as far as the kitchen before she noticed him. He couldn't get out fast enough, but she'd follow him, screaming and swatting. Once he had to fight back just to get out the door and one claw tore the skin right at the base of Squeaker's tail. We didn't know this right away. She didn't say anything or act any different, but the feeder saw a lump on her back and explored it. The feeder immediately knew it was an abcess and rushed her to the vet. Well, Squeaker came home with her ass shaved and a gaping wound, (left open, I heard the feeder say, to be allowed to drain), but the worst of it was that twice a day, for a week after that, the feeder would grab her and force a vile liquid into her mouth. Now everyone will tell you I have no time for Squeaker and we have given each other a few good shots over the years, but I was appalled by this. OK, it wasn't so much sympathy for Squeaker, but I was hiding a wound of my own.

I made great attempts not to act differently, for obvious reasons, but the feeder spotted the little lump on my flank, yes, the same hip that was dislocated once, and rushed me to the vet. She told him that I must have an abcess like Squeaker and it needed to be lanced and drained. While she was diagnosing me he was shaving my flank. (At least it wasn't my ass.) When he saw the wound he said, yes, we could do that, or I can put her to sleep and cut away this necrotic tissue. I thought the feeder would die when she saw my exposed wound. I had a hole that went all the way down to the muscle. She said she could see my muscle move down in the hole. She almost fainted. Around the edges of the hole was a lot of brown, dead tissue apparently. I guess I was sicker than I thought. Anyway, I ended up staying at the vet's overnight for surgery and having stitches to close everything up, once the dead stuff was was cut away. AND, I also got the vile tasting and smelling and feeling liquid stuck down my throat for a week.

So, if I was that sick, it must have been another life, so now I have only five left, so I should be careful, and maybe I will be, a little. I have heard the feeder discussing my wound. She says it couldn't have been from a fight like Squeaker's because it didn't get like an abcess, once she saw it, and abcesses, while they may kill a cat if left untreated, don't kill tissue and make a necrotic ring around the wound. She guessed that it was from some sort of poisonous bite, like maybe a spider, but she doesn't know, and I'll never tell.

I love the feeder and I love that she loves me. She loves me enough to let me be myself and not try to change my nature, and she trusts me to come and go, although sometimes, if I'm gone too long, I can tell by her voice she is worried when she calls. Mostly I chase the dogs out of their dog bed, (they're always in her bed anyway) and sleep there, if I choose to sleep inside, but on cold nights, especially if there is rain falling, I remember lonely times and I sleep on the pillow, right by the feeder's head.

Anyway, that's us. We all live together in relative peace, all bound here by the love and care of the feeder, who would feed every animal in the world, if she could, but she can't. She can only feed the ones who come to her door.

Little Thinger

P.S. If you see a hungry animal today, and most are, even if they've just eaten, do me a favor and give it something to eat, and tell it that it's for the feeder.