Credits: Cattitude by Luv Ewe Designs, additional cat elements from Pet Shop: My Cat by Kathy Winters Designs
Journaling:
Kaline –
It was very late and getting chilly on that fateful September night. We were going to my house after a group of us had been in Toledo helping David rescue some of the things and clean up water his basement flooded. He was beat and visibly stressed and I suggested that we just go back to my house and get away from the mess.
We stopped to get gas at a truck stop in Monroe, Michigan. I’d gone into the store and when I came out he was listening to an SUV parked by the front. I walked up to where he was and he said, “Can you hear the cat? It was a loud cat voice under the hood of the car.
We went in to find the owner of the SUV who told us they didn’t have a cat and have no idea where the sound came from. When we went back to see if we still hear the loud meows and check around the car, as I looked at a wheel well and out popped the tiniest kitten I’d ever seen, with the biggest voice ever! The kitten attracted a crowd David picked it up and another girl held it and then I held it. It was so tiny and so cute. David looked at me and asked, “You want to take it, don’t you?” I looked up at him and nodded. I’d always wanted an orange striped cat to name after my childhood hero baseball player, The Tigers’ Al Kaline. It was meant to be!
The next day we took our tiny bundle to the vet where it was confirmed we had a title girl who was about 4-6 weeks old, weaned early, feral born and after her first shots and worn treatment, we were also given a flea treatment and instructed to get kitten shampoo to bathe her. She weighed 16 ounces at the vet and probably half that after the giant fleas fled in the bath!
The 16 ounce 5 week old kitten that was born in the wild and found at a truck stop is now a 13-pound 8 year old cat that seems to believe she was born in a house and Mommy and Daddy have been there every minute of her life.
