Mother Cat Walking With Her Kittens And Hitting Them To Go Inside | White Cat Protecting Her Kittens

White Kittens Get a Bath

A Tiny Snowbell

I loved this book as a child and read and re-read it many times.

The only part I didn't like was the ending, when the cat turned out to be just an ordinary cat. So I fixed that in the BryonySeries.

Some excerpts:

“Me-ow,” wailed the white cat at the back door. She pressed her little, pink nose against the glass, pleading to the house’s occupants for entrance.

Brian dropped his spoon into the cereal bowl, sloshing milk over the sides. He turned wheedling eyes on his mother, who refused to budge.

“For the hundredth time, no! We are not keeping that cat.”

“But Mom, it’s freezing outside. Now that Scooter’s gone….” Brian’s voice broke. “I mean, what if Scooter was cold and hungry and no one let him in?”

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Nothing was there, except for Snowbell contentedly purring at her feet. Melissa touched her chin and her neck. They were whole, untouched, sound.

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John still sat there, intently watching her, the same way Snowbell watched mice. Then she remembered what Snowbell did to mice.

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Snowbell’s possessions were packed and waiting at the front door. Julie pushed Snowbell at Brian with such force he almost dropped her. Then she shoved Snowbell’s supply box onto the front porch. “Don’t ever ask me to watch your creepy cat again!” 

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           Some trinket boxes were oval, but all had either fairy or animal-shaped knobs. One cat resembled Snowbell, for its fur was white; its staring eyes were blue; and its head cocked to one side. 

Julie hugged Melissa, but she still looked grave. “I didn’t overreact. Snowbell is definitely weird.”

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“Brian,” she said, “does Snowbell ever stare at you, for no reason, I mean?”

“Of course, she does. She’s a cat.”

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“Snowbell’s torticollis stumps me,” the veterinarian said. “Her tests are normal, no infections or tumors. The only other possible cause is a past head trauma. Bring her back if you notice other symptoms, but otherwise, don’t worry. She seems to have adjusted to it.”

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Angry scratches crisscrossed her left arm, from her shoulder to back of her hand. Snowbell jumped off her bed. Darned cat!  

When I was very young, younger than five, I had a white plush/stuffed toy mother cat and three kittens that sat near the pillows on my unmade bed. 

And then one day, they were gone.

My mother had thrown them away. She said the doctor told her to do it.

I didn't understand them it was because of my asthma, although that would not be officially diagnosed for at least another decade.

Now the other day, this arrived for me in the mail, a "just because" gift from Rebekah.

She is handmade and a perfect Snowbell, don't you think?

You may also enjoy this short story.

"Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat Drowned in a Tub of Goldfishes" by Thomas Gray

Here is another vintage cat poem that is fun to read. Last week I posted this one.

The illustration is by Beatrix Potter from her story "Peter Rabbit," which went into the public domain a few years ago. It is one of my favorite Potter illustrations.

And if you haven't read all of the works of Beatrix Potter ("The Tale of Mr. Tod," "The Tale of Two Bad Mice," and so on), you're missing a real treat.

"Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat Drowned in a Tub of Goldfishes" by Thomas Gray

 

Where China’s gayest art had dyed

The azure flowers that blow;

Demurest of the tabby kind,

The pensive Selima, reclined,

Gazed on the lake below.

 

Her conscious tail her joy declared;

The fair round face, the snowy beard,

The velvet of her paws,

Her coat, that with the tortoise vies,

Her ears of jet, and emerald eyes,

She saw; and purred applause.

 

Still had she gazed; but ’midst the tide

Two angel forms were seen to glide,

The genii of the stream;

Their scaly armour’s Tyrian hue

Through richest purple to the view

Betrayed a golden gleam.

 

The hapless nymph with wonder saw;

A whisker first and then a claw,

With many an ardent wish,

She stretched in vain to reach the prize.

What female heart can gold despise?

What cat’s averse to fish?

 

Presumptuous maid! with looks intent

Again she stretch’d, again she bent,

Nor knew the gulf between.

(Malignant Fate sat by, and smiled)

The slippery verge her feet beguiled,

She tumbled headlong in.

Eight times emerging from the flood

She mewed to every watery god,

Some speedy aid to send.

No dolphin came, no Nereid stirred;

Nor cruel Tom, nor Susan heard;

A Favourite has no friend!

 

From hence, ye beauties, undeceived,

Know, one false step is ne’er retrieved,

And be with caution bold.

Not all that tempts your wandering eyes

And heedless hearts, is lawful prize;

Nor all that glisters, gold.

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Forget the COVID Gloom: Here Are Pictures of my Cats

At one point and not on purpose, we had six cats living with us at our house in Channahon.

I've always loved cats. But because of my asthma, doctors told my parents "no pets," not even stuffed animals.

I was quite little, probably not even five, when my stuffed white cat and three little stuffed kittens disappeared off my bed. My mother, adhering to the order, had thrown them away without telling me.

But then I developed chronic hives as an adult. With the amount of medicine I now take to suppress histamine, I can live with cats. I do have to change my shirt and wash my hands if I pet one. But that's just good hygiene anyway.

As a kid, I also loved stories with super natural premises, like this one this one by Helen Rushmore. But I was disappointed that the supernatural part in that book wasn't real.

So I incorporated that idea into my BryonySeries - and at the request of my publicist, I wrote this short story.

So with that introduction, meet my six.

Frances is our original cat. She was an (approximately) nine-month-old stray that had roamed Channahon for a few weeks (so the villagers told me) when she appeared at our back door one afternoon in late October.

I was in the attic on the phone interviewing someone for a Herald-News story when Rebekah burst in, telling me Daniel was feeding tuna to a cat.

It got cold that night, so we let her in, red jingle bell collar and all. Our terrier mix Scooter wasn't happy, but Frances, having lived by the canal, was nonplussed. She looked at him like, "Oh, does he stay?"

We asked around, and no one claimed her, so we spayed and kept someone's kitten. I don't know if she got separated from someone or if she was abandoned, but whoever you are, please know we love her, and she's had a great life.

This is our second stray - Midnight - who is reading a book by J.L. Callison to my crocheted mouse, Bertrand.

My oldest son had stumbled upon an abandoned litter; Midnight was one of them. He found a home for all of the kittens but her, saying she was too skittish to place. We kept saying, "no." He kept saying, "yes" and talked us into it.

That was 2006 or 2007.

She is still skittish - whether from bad early experiences or her personality, we don't know. But she was sick and full (and I mean FULL) of tapeworms and ear mites when we got her, so we didn't expect her to live.

But live she did, becoming our most affectionate and cuddly cat. You can pet her for a very long time and wind up in more fur than is on her.

The only bad part about all the tapeworms is that the veterinarian would not spay her until she was free of all segments, which took a long time.

So on the coldest night of the year (18 degrees below zero), our unpsayed Midnight ran out of the house at 1:30 in the morning as we were leaving for the Herald-News distribution center to deliver newspapers.

We could not find her but once we came back to Channahon to deliver, we kept zigzagging off our route to run around our yard in the dark, yelling "Midnight! Midnight!"

Yeah.

At 4:30 a.m., Midnight slunk out from beneath our front deck with three other cats, and she wasn't cold at all.

Soon, we noticed Midnight was putting on weight. You guessed it!

But my husband Ron wouldn't hear of us giving up the kittens. In fact, he named them Faith, Hope, and Charity. Here they are.

Faith is a calico who thinks my desk chair is hers, but she does let me perch on it to work. She was the most adventurous of the litter (the one who climbed over the old VCR tapes to discover the world before she'd even opened her eyes), and she is the most skittish of them all - as in skittish PLUS.

She has kitty Asperger's (if there's such a thing) because she freaks out at any disruption in her routine. 

She likes the same food at the same times three times a day in the same bowl laid out in the same place on the same spot on the carpet.

She wants to be petted the same way at the same time of the day everyday. This is no lie

She never used to be petted, but we trained her to accept them. She's still squirmy, but she likes pets.

It goes like this: pet some, writhe away and then come back for more. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

Side note: This is Midnight's brother - Faith's uncle. He was one of the cats in that abandoned litter. He is living on a farm in Elwood. I have never met him, and this was taken was an old cell phone back in the day.

It's interesting to see the family resemblance.

This is Hope, our torti. Like all torties, she is independent and with a torti attitude.

She was the most athletic pf all the cats and could scale trees and roofs with amazing speed and agility, even sliding down tree trunks as if they were firemen poles.

She is now living with a lovely family in Morris. She became separate from us during the whole "losing our home fiasco," and we thought she was gone forever after three months past.

Apparently, she had found herself a new home, just strolled right through the door as if she owned the place. The homeowner had just lost a cat and was delighted - until he discovered she was chipped and belonged to us.

Because we had lost the house in Channahon (long story) and were living in a rental situation, we couldn't keep another cat.

So Jim kept her temporarily. But that was in 2014 and there is no way we would remove her now (unless he told us to come and get her).

We keep in touch, and we may visit her anytime. But we have not seen her since COVID, and we miss her.

We wished we had better photos of Faith and Hope's brother Charity. He had a Mufasa look, and was sweet, affectionate curious, and mischievous.

He was the first to discover the invisible fence didn't stretch as high as the north garage and easily leaped over to the neighbor's garage and into freedom.

He had a wire fetish and chewed through anything that looked like a cord in our house. If you set your headphones on the table to tie your shoes, they'd be in two pieces when you stood up.

If you walked away from the laptop to drain the macaroni, you'd come back to the charger cord bit in half.

One day on deadline, my internet went down. Before I could message my oldest son, my son came charging up the ladder steps, yelling a variety of strong and colorful words I won't repeat here.

He marched straight to my window, looked up, and shouted more unmentionables.

Apparently Charity had chewed through the ethernet cable - and lived to tell about it. Smart cat: he hid from my son.

And yet this same cat, as a kitten, climbed up a tall tree in our yard and couldn't figure how to get down. After mewing very frightened mews for over an hour, we did what all the children's storybooks said to do: we called the Channahon Fire Department.

A truck and crew came out, parked the truck, and looked up the tree at our kitten. One fireman said he had no idea how to get him down and that the ladder wouldn't reach that far.

"He'll figure it out," he told me.

And then they left.

But Charity didn't figure it out. About thirty minutes later, my youngest son climbed up to get him.

Charity died in 2013 from an intestinal blockage, most likely from something this curious cat should not have eaten.

We like to say he used up his nine lives.

This is Alex, the sweetest of the bunch and really not ours.

He was a four-paw declaw and the sweetest, gentlest, most affectionate cat you'd ever want to meet.

He belonged to my oldest and came to live with us when my son and his family did, too.

Unfortunately, my other cats didn't accept him, so he marked his territory - EVERYWHERE!

We could not bring that into a rental situation, so when we lost the house, the Will County Humane Society rehomed him for us (oh, how he cried!) Ironically, he went to one of our veterinarian's clients.

We lost track of him after that. I hope that Alex, like Frances, is having a happy, wonderful life.

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BryonySeries Throwback Thursday: White Cat Meowing

Wednesday, March 30, 2016

White cat meowing

BryonySeries Throwback Thursday: White Cat Meowing

Wednesday, March 30, 2016

White cat meowing

White cat meowing

BryonySeries Throwback Thursday: Snowbell

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Snowbell

One of my favorite childhood novels--the title escapes me--was about a girl who raised a white Persian stray that her siblings called a "ghost cat."

The story opens when the girl--I think her name was Gloria--stands outside a house rumored to be haunted and waits for the ghost of Miss Nancy Rose. This was a woman who was accidentally shot dead while carrying a bunch of lilacs and running outside to meet her lover. I don't even remember who shot her, but her ghost was supposed to appear around dusk.

Anyway, Gloria is half-hoping, half-not hoping to meet this ghost, either to prove or dispel the legend. Of course, no ghost appears, but as Gloria turns to leave, this white Persian cat emerges from the lilac bushes. In stunned disbelief, Gloria takes the cat home, wondering if it's a real cat of the ghost of Miss Nancy Rose.

This was the inspiration behind Brian's cat, Snowbell. The cat's exact role in Bryony is nearly as mysterious as her sudden appearance at the Marchellis' back door. To the people who have previewed Bryony, Snowbell has represented different things and all of them are different from my intention for the cat.

As I've moved through the editing process, I've considered strengthening my point of view regarding Snowbell, then discarded the idea. Hearing everyone else's take makes Snowbell a satisfying, shadowing character. I like her that way.

Denise M. Baran-Unland