New friend at the Lair

Got a text message from my weekender neighbors S&L yesterday afternoon. “We’ll be there at 8 pm.” Their little car having no 4X4 capability, it was up to me to meet them since nobody not intimately familiar with the landscape should be asked to visit the Lair after dark. So the handoff resembled a scene from a bad WWII movie, a clandestine rendezvous at a crossing of the wash complete with “here I am” headlight flashes. Yeah, I’m a sucker for the classics.

Did I say the kitten appeared scrawny and terrified? More like scrawny and fears nothing. L handed her to me wrapped in a baby blanket and she snuggled right into my arms without a sound or a struggle. She made the usual complaints as we bounced through the wash to the Lair, but started to purr as soon as I switched off the engine. I brought her inside and introduced her to the boys. Ghost, typically, took one look and turned his back. I had been afraid Little Bear might get a little boisterous, but I underestimated him. He was gentle: Indeed, he was positively grave. He touched noses with the little thing – which is currently about the size of his muzzle – then crouched down to watch.

Within a few minutes she was batting at the moths on the screen next to the reading chair, and shortly thereafter declared jihad to the death with my left little finger. It was going well.

Then Click arrived.

Click climbed into my chair. The kitten was sheltered on the computer chair, under the desk’s kneehole. Click was not at all sure this was a good thing for me to allow running free in the Lair. She didn’t offer to perform an immediate execution, but was fluffed up and rigid as a rock while the kitten clawed the air an inch from her nose. “I’m the baby! Gotta love me!” I made the mistake of petting Click’s shoulders, at which precise instant she levitated a foot off my lap and teleported out of the Lair hissing. Ah, well.

I figured it might be best if the kitten spent the night in the loft with me. I was worried about this, of course, since the loft offers so many opportunities for such a little thing to fall to her death. But there are other dangers below, such as the cat door, Ghost, and Click. So I moved her gear upstairs and carried her up with me.

She wanted food, water and her litterbox, and then she wanted to PLAY! WANTED TO PLAY! I gave her fifteen or twenty minutes to burn off some nerves while I read a book, but when I turned off the light and lay down she settled right next to me and gave no trouble all night long.

Most new kittens in my experience are frightened their first night. Not EBC, she moved right in. Apparently as far as she’s concerned, it’s for others to adjust to her and not the other way ’round.