For the past few days as this part of Texas has been engulfed in the most ridiculously cold weather we've had since last winter, Mickey has been spending most of his time in the garage. He's not much liking it, but he's warm and he's safe--- I have cat beds and cat tents in the garage for Mickey, and my husband bought him a new heater (no sharp edges, no hot wires) to keep him toasty warm when the weather turns stupid.
If Mickey's inside-the-house behavior hadn't gone down-hill in his older years, he'd still be an inside cat, which is how he started out his little kitty life with us. We've had him since he was less than two months old and less than three pounds in weight. Teeniest, tiniest little black kitten we'd ever seen, found by my husband and our dog Gracie as they walked in the park one morning back in Clear Lake. My husband found that tiny kitten just weeks after we had both promised one another that we would not have any more cats.
"Well, this one is different," said my husband... "Gracie found him in the tall grass near the bayou... it's Gracie's kitten... we have to keep him."
Far be it from me to refuse a teeny-tiny kitten, especially an all-black, which I know are the last to be chosen at the animal shelters. Being that Gracie found the kitten just two weeks before we were leaving for California's DisneyLand, we named the kitten Mickey Kitty. (We nearly named him Mickey Mouse, but felt that just wouldn't do.) So Mickey joined our family, and our pet-sitter at the time added that three-pound ball of fluff to his list of responsibilities at our house during our time away. The pet-sitter loved Mickey, as he did all our other pets.... but Mickey was special because he was so darn tiny and so darn cute.
He's always been smaller than the average male cat, and he's still as cute as can be... but he's relegated to the outdoors on nice days, and to the garage at night and on not-so-nice days. Before you start thinking that the garage is too enclosed for a cat.... he can also go through a little trap door which gets him to the fenced-in chicken coop, so he has sun and fresh air and a fine view of the property whenever he wants. (We no longer have chickens, so the chicken coop is now a screened-in porch for the cats.)
This morning when I went into the garage to feed Mickey his breakfast of warmed-up Fancy Feast, I nearly stepped on the little gift that Mickey left for me just inside the garage door. Usually, the first thing I see when I go into the garage in the morning is a stuffed green felt mouse that has been Mickey's favorite toy since his first Christmas with us. But this morning, the green mouse wasn't in its usual spot by the door.... in its place was a real mouse--- a dead one. Not exactly a little tiny mouse, either....... if this mouse had been a member of a family of four, it would have been the papa mouse. I'm surprised that Mickey was able to even catch it, much less kill it. Usually, he plays with the mice he catches, letting them go when he gets tired of the game. Judging by the size of that mouse, I think Mickey caught the mouse eating out of the cat food dish and Mickey showed him no mercy in dispatching him to that big Mouse Hole in The Sky.
So my first chore of the morning was to scoop up the dead mouse with the broom and the dustpan, and toss him into the trash. Oh, how far I've come since moving out here to the country. In my Clear Lake days, I would have run screaming into the house to get my husband to remove the mouse... and if he wasn't at home, I would have gone knocking on all the doors of my neighbors to see whose husband was home to take care of a dead mouse.
Oh well.... I guess even a city girl can learn to look a dead mouse in the eye.
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