Friday, February 9, 2007

OSCAR--King of Tidewater




OSCAR




Being the cat people we are, over the past 40 years of marriage we have housed (cats don't have owners) numerous cats. Some of them for short periods of time, other for years, but Oscar is the King of Tidewater (the name of our house). We have had him longer than any other kitty. Those before him were, Tittle, Mandy (she presented us with five kittens), Smokey (one of the kittens), Minnie Mouse the House Mouse (she belonged to the neighbors and they moved off and took her with them--it broke our hearts), Buster (he's the one I prayed for and he "magically" appeared coming up the driveway one day), Twinkie (really lived next door), Boo (Twinkie's brother), Eric Rudolph (we couldn't catch him), Molly (she brought us Sweet Pea and Oscar), Emmie Sweet Pea and finally Oscar Snuggles.

Oscar and Sweet Pea were Molly's kittens born somewhere out in the wild. We adopted Molly, but knew she had kittens. We looked for them a week, going from door to door in the neighborhood around us, leaving our business cards to call us if they found two little kittens and walking every inch of our yard and our next door neighbor's yard. I finally prayed and asked the Lord to move on Molly's heart to bring her kittens to us. GUESS WHAT? She did. She brought both of them into the kitchen and dropped them on our kitchen rug. Sweet Pea arrived first, on Sunday evening, Oscar arrived the next morning. They were raised in the bottom of the linen closet in our back hallway.

We had Molly almost a year, but Hubby found her on the right-of-way at the road, she must have been hit. It was awful. Molly was a sweet, gentle kitty.

We had Sweet Pea 11 years, but Hubby found her down by the sidewalk in the backyard. Apparently, dogs killed her, because she was old and fat and couldn't run. This crushed both of us. She was one of our two babies. Do you ever get over losing something that has put such deep foot prints into your heart? No, but the pain is easier.

Oscar, King of Tidewater will be 13 years old in August 2007. He is certainly King, he has a routine and keeps us on it well. Only lately, he wants to go out in the late evening, causing us to get up during the night to see if he's back on the porch wanting in. We don't want to leave him out all night, because it is too cold, especially for an old gent like him. He has favorite places to sleep, mostly our bed, but he will take his place in the basket on the bay window in the kitchen. He especially likes the basket in early spring when the sun rotates back around from the south and shines in that window in the mornings. He will actually follow the sun from the rug, to the basket during the morning hours. He wants people food to eat, but we try to keep him on real cat food. We learned a hard lesson with Buster, all he wanted was people tuna, and as a result died with kidney disease from all that tuna. Oscar gets those little toasted bits of dry food at any time, as we keep several bowl out for him, but his favorite canned cat food is the disgusting chopped sardines. Yuk! I hold my breath when I open that stuff. HE LOVES IT! He has us trained well. I suppose that's another reason his paw prints are so deeply imprinted on our hearts. King Oscar, we do love you.