Grateful Month - Day 3

I am so grateful for my sweet kitty, Zoomer.  She came to my parents house tragically and I have loved her ever since.  It was April 1996 (I wrote about it in my journal back then) and she was dropped off at the side of the road in front of our neighbor's house across the street.  Though we didn't know why the car stopped until the little gray thing came into our yard.  Our golden retriever, Abby, immediately chased her up the tree.  She was just a little kitten and scared to death.  But that didn't stop her from "Zoom"ing up that tree!!!!

Fast forward a few years (I would love on her when I went home from college) when I could finally have a pet where I lived.  I repeated every time I saw her "pack your bags, you're moving to the big city!", because I knew someday she would be my kitty.

We thought she needed a best friend while we were gone during the day, and had TiVo for a while, but alas, she is not happy sharing her space or her people.  TiVo needed to be an outside kitty and apartment living wasn't for him so he moved to the farm at Traig & Tyson's mom's.  And she gets along great with the two black labs in her life...and by that I mean she hisses at them, they stop dead in their tracks and go the other way.  It's amazing that something so small can make two 90 lb dogs very scured.  And at the same time!

Zoomer is almost 16 years old and the most loving cat I have ever been around.  She is so affectionate and I even taught her to "give loves" on command.  She especially loves lazy weekend days when I'm home all day.  She is pretty high maintenance, needing medicine and fed twice a day (when I'm used to her free feeding and leaving her alone for long weekends) so that has been interesting with all of the travel that Travis & I do...but she has a great Aunt and Uncle that will come take care of her.  And the medicine is working so it's worth it!

My two favorite stories of recent:

It was one of those lazy weekends and it was about 2pm.  I said, "Hey Zoom, want to go downstairs with me and eat lunch?"  She meowed in response, like always, and followed me downstairs.  That part is normal, but as I was fixing my sandwich, I could hear her eating HER food.  She totally understood me!

I was in my office and I could hear her racing up and down the hallway.  She is still very active, and loves to play with my hair bands.  She packs them around like they are her mice and tosses them around so she has something to chase.  She came into the office, and I said, "Where's your toy?  Go get it."  And I'll be damned if she didn't leave the office, and come back a few moments later with one of my hair bands.  She set it down and then sat next to it very proud of herself.  I swear that cat speaks English.

I leave you with the most recent photo of her.  It's also my favorite because this is what "give loves" looks like.

Many thanks for the second longest relationship in my life, by choice.  Meow.