Lily

Lily is one of my indoor / outdoor cats. She is a little hyper and a little strange, but then again who isn't? I got Lily about five years ago while I was working the overnight shift in a residential home as a home health aid. On one particularly cold and snowy night about Christmas time I came into work as usual to see a tiny, grey kitten huddled and shivering on the porch. I asked the staff person that worked the shift before mine about her and she said the kitten had been getting up in the engines of people's cars to try and find a warm spot. This alarmed me because I knew it was only a matter of time before that would get this tiny kitten seriously hurt or killed.

I have a soft spot for animals, I always have, as a child my mother almost quit letting me walk home from school because I was always bringing home stray or injured animals. I could never turn away from a sick or skinny animal in need of care. So naturally I couldn't sit inside of a warm house while this little kitten sat huddled against the cold wind outside in the snow. I brought her inside and cut up a hot dog into tiny pieces for her, which she wolfed down like she had not had anything to eat in awhile. Then she climbed onto the back of the sofa as I sat there doing my nightly paperwork and curled up in my hair that was over the sofa cushion.

The next morning I talked to the neighbors. No one knew who she might belong too or where she came from but several was not happy about her presence in the neighborhood; apparently she had been eating out of their trash cans. So of course I brought her home and made her part of the family. I named her Lily for no other reason than she is a pretty cat and it is a pretty name. When I got her home I noticed she has the prettiest green eyes, and she is also slightly cross-eyed. As Lily grew I also noticed other peculiarities about her, such as she is afraid of shadows and pulls on her claws. I don't know why she pulls and chews on her own claws when she grooms herself, it is the strangest thing. I have taken her to the vet and they can find nothing wrong with her. It is like she thinks her claws are stickers stuck in her feet and she needs to pull them out. She never does any damage to them, but still it is a rather strange thing to see, a cat intently pulling on their own claws.

Lily is also the world's worst mouser, it isn't that she can't catch them because she is quite good at that but she brings them alive into the house when she can sneak one in and plays with them until she gets bored or they get away, leaving it up to me or the other cat to get rid of a now frantic and quite alive mouse running around the house. My husband thinks she is a little "challenged", but I just think she is eccentric and interesting.