Roxanne...

She finally sat still long enough for me to take her picture. This is Roxanne...Roxie for short...aka "little grey kitty"....aka Gus' baby. Back in November, we were sitting at breakfast one day and we heard a kitten crying. We searched outside and couldn't find any sign of a cat or kitten. We heard this sound several more times and were still unable to find the source.

A few weeks later, I was coming home from a run and saw a squirrel in the street in front of our house, eating some trash. As I got closer, I realized it was a kitten. A little grey kitty. We have coyotes in our neighborhood and we sure this little kitten wouldn't survive much longer. We didn't think that little kitty would belong to someone, because who would let a kitten out to fend for herself like that? We didn't really discuss it, we kind of just knew what had to be done. We put some food out for her, but she wouldn't let us get close, so we rented a trap and caught her.

Our plan was to put her in our spare bedroom for a few days until we could get her to the vet and have her fixed. She would also get all her shots. Until then, we didn't want her to interact with Gus or Daisy. When we carried the cage into the house, Roxie hissed and cried. I kept telling her that she just hit the cat jackpot and if she let us, we would love her more than she could ever imagine.

We would go into the spare room a few times each day to visit with her. She stayed under the bed and would hiss at us. We put food, water and litter box in with her and she enjoyed them all!

We had an appt for her to go to the vet. That morning we went in to catch her and put her in the cat carrier. She was not having any of that. At one point, she actually ran up on the wall sideways. Trevor and I looked at each other and said, "I guess we'll give it a little more time"

We were then hit with a snow storm and knew we weren't going anywhere with the little grey kitty. One day, mostly by accident, Gus got into the spare room and was eating the kitten food. Immediately, we heard Roxie start to purr - from under the bed - she then came out and rubbed up against Gus. It was true love. From that point forward, whenever we were in the room, Roxie would only come out from under the bed if Gus was there. Eventually, we could pet her, if she was touching Gus. I think she though that he was petting her. We joked that she would see him and say "MAMA". After all these years, Gus had a baby.

That was 5 months ago. Roxie has been to the vet and is all fixed and up to date on her shots. She is now a full fledged part of our family. She lives upstairs with Gus and Daisy. She sleeps right up against us at night - right there with the two other cats. She does have an undesireable habit of smacking me in the face at 4 am when she wants me to pet her. We are working on that!

She still loves Gus. Where ever Gus goes, Roxie follows. If he is sitting on the counter, she wants on the counter. If he is on the bed, she is on the bed. If he is in the window, she is in the window. Its the craziest thing. Gus doesn't pay much attention to her, except when he wants to play. And man...do they play. They run from one end of the house to the other. It is music to my ears.

Daisy doesn't want anything to do with the little grey kitty. Sometimes she'll play with her, but not very often. She is alwasy telling Gus to control his baby.

The sad part is that Gus is 11, Roxie isn't even 1. Gus and I have a deal that he'll live at least until my 40th birthday - so he has 5 more years AT LEAST. I sometimes wonder why Roxie loves Gus so much...then I realize that I also love Gus that much - so I totally understand. I'd follow him everywhere too if I could.