Clever Magazine, Vol 7, #2 " Bringing Home the Kittens " (www.clevermag.com)

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Bringing Home the Kittens

by Martin Green

On Tuesday, July 6, my wife Beverly and I went to the Placer SPCA and adopted two stray kittens, both male. One was black with a white patch on his chest.His SPCA name was Cinder. The other was black and white. His SPCA name was Andre. Our beloved cat Mickey had passed away shortly after Thanksgiving last year. We’d had our grieving period and thought it was time to fill the void that Mickey had left.

When you get two kittens, you know that they’ll spend a lot of time scuffling. Cinder was already neutered so we were able to bring him home from the SPCA with us. Andre had to go to the vet’s to be neutered so we didn’t get him home until that Friday. As soon as we introduced him to Cinder they sprang at each other, grappled and rolled around on the floor. We watched them apprehensively, afraid they might be fighting to the death but they emerged from their scuffle unharmed. We went to bed that first night hoping for the best. When we opened our bedroom door the next morning we found them sleeping together on top of their scratching post. So they were compatible. A big sigh of relief.

We couldn’t just accept the SPCA names, so in a week or so Cinder became Cinderbun. Beverly looked up baby names and found out Shandy meant mischievous boy so Andre became Shandyman (or Shandybun or Shandydandy). The two kittens soon displayed different personalities. Cinder is quicker, jumps higher, loves people, snuggles into laps and purrs like a jet plane. Shandy is more persistent when he wants something (like your lunch) and loves to bathe, mostly Cinder, but anyone else if he gets the chance, also purrs loudly and sits on laps but doesn’t snuggle in as much.

Both kittens are insatiably curious and both can move at the speed of light. You see one of them sitting on a chair in the breakfast nook, go to open the bedroom door and in an instant a kitten has darted in. You check around carefully, no kittens in sight, open a closet door and two kittens are in there, exploring your clothes. You open the refrigerator door and two kittens are sniffing to see what’s stored in there. Beverly has to be careful whenever she opens the dishwasher or else she might be washing a kitten as well. They like to get under our bed and then, if you walk by, you’ll feel a paw on your foot. They can also get into any space, as behind our television set. They’re also both very interested in the television, watching the picture and putting their paws on the screen.

And they are also very interested in my computer. In fact, Cinderbun right now keeps jumping up on my keyboard, causing me to retype this as he keeps hitting the number 3. And yesterday, when Shandyman was watching me type, he kept trying to get the curser as it moved across the screen.

We had quite a few kitten toys on hand but the things they most like to play with are a long cord, plastic milk container tops, any other kind of bottle cap, any kind of string, including shoe laces, paper bags and a little woolen ball. It’s a good thing they like that piece of cord because when, as kittens do, they suddenly disappear, they can be lured from their hiding place, usually under the bed, by dragging the cord along the floor.

Above all, Cinder and Shandy are incredibly cute. When they finally exhaust themselves and cuddle up on our laps, whatever mischief they’ve gotten into is forgiven. We find that during the day we keep asking one another, “Where are they?” and “What are they doing?” Our house is no longer empty but is full of life, two kitten lives.