Effin' The Cat...

This is my sister's cat..."Patty."

I like to call her "Effin." As in "Tell that effin" cat to quit clawing me to death. I swear it is a miniature Black Panther. When my sister moved into her farm house a stray cat took up with them. They didn't know if it was a male or female because they couldn't get close enough to even touch it. I told her she should just call it 'Pat' that could be either for a male or a female. The name stuck and the cat became another member of their family. It was a sweet cat, solid black with just a tip of white on it's nose.

I am not a big cat person but ole Pat was a good cat by my standards. At first it wouldn't even come in the house (another reason it was a good cat by my standards) but would creep up on the back porch to eat the food my sister left . Eventually the cat would come closer and closer but would sleep somewhere outside of their house and would reappear each morning or when they would come home after work.

One day the cat didn't come up to the porch to eat or come running that night when they returned from work. They looked for the cat but couldn't find it anywhere. My sister was all upset but I told her the cat had survived for as long as it had...even before they had moved in and started to feed it something other than the field mice it had most probably been living off of. My brother in law had seen a dead cat in the road on his way home and was worried that it was Pat.

That night they sat on their big country porch talking and heard a mewing out in the front yard. My brother in law took a flashlight out to search, hoping to find to find Pat. He came back from the edge of their front yard with the tiniest kitten you have ever seen...solid black with one single white whisker.

I just KNOW that 'Pat' was a 'Patty' and my brother in law had brought home her baby. Pat never came back and the new kitten was named Patty (it was so young that they could check the sex.) and moved on into her new digs at the farm house. It was the skinniest kitten I have ever seen, not even five inches long. They had to keep it separated from their two male boxers so that the kitten had a chance to live!

It turned out to be Angela Davis in disguise. The meanest female black panther you could ever encounter. She would spring at you in a moment's notice...claw you up and down and then scamper hurriedly to another room for no apparent reason . If she was lazing out in the sun and her tail was waving back and forth, she would pounce on her own tail in the most vicious way you could imagine. Just like the rest of our pets (mine and my sister's) she is an idiot...but one that we love (I'm still not sure why.)

Moving a few months down the road, one of my sister's boxers got terminally ill and after a brief fight had to be put down.

She came home from the vet to bury his body out in a field and came back inside to clean up where the boy had lived out his last few days...not moving much but not being able to go outside to relieve himself. She was so worried about her other male boxer missing his buddy and worried about keeping the hell cat out of the room when she finally flung up her hands and said "screw it."

The little panther crept over the baby gate they had to keep the dogs from the kitten and she prowled around the other boxer.

You wouldn't believe it.

Best friends were made that day out of former enemies. The cat pounces on Boss (the remaining Boxer) only to skitter way til she can attack him again. They played all day together and are now the best of friends.

It may sound stupid unless you are an animal lover like us...God takes away and he gives back.

My sister lost her beloved Bear (her Boxer) but her other Boxer found a new friend and playmate in that "Effin' Cat."

They play with each other all day and keep each other company.

"Make new friends but keep the old...one is silver and the other one's BLACK!!"

My sister brought home a tiny cat bed for Patty to sleep in that she picked up at the Bric a Brac sale at her church for $2.00. She brought it home and Patty immediately said "YES" and pounced on it like she pounces on everything else. And just like a cat, she then stuck her nose in the air and said "No...Not for me." and swung her butt from side to side as she strutted away.

My sister said then her 100lb. Boxer came into the room and seemed to say "WHOO HOO, look what they bought me " and squeezed himself into the cat bed and seems to be as happy as a lark.

God gives...God takes.

Sometimes it is hard to tell where the blessings lay (small pun intended.)

Patty prefers a suitcase...Boss is loving his cat bed.

Go Figure!