Gray, Green and Orange

 Meet Kiki, a little gray striped cat that came from my office workplace.  There was a fire there, and I took her home with me, even though at first I wasn't going to take her home, because she had recently had kittens.  I was going to feed her for a week as she was very skinny and maybe we would have figured out where her kittens were by that point and been able to do something for all of them. It came down to it, I picked her up and put her in my car, thinking I'd bring her back when they gave the all-clear, but that didn't happen, and at least I know in taking her with me she wasn't in the building or wandering hurt if she had been injured trying to find her babies.  She's looked for them in a few boxes here, we think, or just very curious.  She is spending most of her time standing next to me or sleeping on the towels.

She is maybe a year and a half old, very talkative but so far is very leery of all of our other animals and holed up in our bathroom.  She had an hour or so of me driving her around the day I took her home - and then she saw Charlotte, and freaked out and bit me.  That finger is healing up, but it was a bit of a nasty bite and I felt dumb for 1.) grabbing a cat when everyone else was more worried about the fire* and 2.) showing her to my dog first thing getting out of the car after she had traumatic ride and without her kittens etc etc.  So, the bite wasn't her fault.  I should have been smarter and went in the house and found a little cage or carrier - because she really did let me handle her a lot and walk with her under my arm all the way across the building even though she was worried - she didn't bite me until she saw the dog and I wasn't going to let her get away from it. (*honestly, I was worried about the fire, too - but full grown adults have legs and sense and we were all getting ourselves out of there it looked like - the cat needed someone to take care of her)

So there is the gray, and then after I've been home from the postal route and we did a small amount of necessary shopping - I've been harvesting greens in the garden and cutting up carrots for meals for the next week.  It won't be until tomorrow, Monday, that I'll find out too much.  I have some leave from the post office as well, and can pick up a few hours here and there with routes that need to be covered - and I've been trying hard to keep our budget better the past few months so that we would have emergency savings - I thought for the little car which was still at the mechanic and now I'm afraid to even ask - but I guess for this 'what is happening' time we are going to have - whether I get a new job or still have some things I can do for this one with data and records or don't know...  I have to talk to someone tomorrow about that.

mixed greens, lettuces, kale, dandelions, sorrel, beet greens - it will all be chopped up fine and put into a freezer bag and tossed into rice dishes and soups as needed.  The carrots are prepared three ways - ribboned, chopped up bits (that couldn't be ribboned) and then some of both cooked down and put in a jar with rosemary and other herbs for use over the next two days.  That way, the rest of the fresh bag of carrots can get used up but I still have the frozen carrot to fall back on after it's gone - and sometimes it has taken me so long to use the bag up I wish I had frozen some at the start.

The little cat had an extensive 'conversation' with me about why was I doing things with carrots when she knows I could be doing something with a food that cats like - why don't I do that?  We've also had to talk about countertops and the stove - and her main question is 'why?'  She was probably raised as a kitten in a house - because she understands a lot, is very friendly and talkative - but she was thrown out as a stray at some point, perhaps when she got pregnant, and that is how she ended up near our work coming in the building and asking for food.  I told Mark she speaks 'calico', much like Minion's daughter Callie did, even Salamander and Willowpede spoke 'calico' very loudly and responding back to you when you talk to them.  Minion speaks some of it and was meowing a little and blurting at Kiki when she came closer to her this morning, she sniffed her head and a tiny sniff at her belly (where she had been nursing kittens and still has milk) and then they both hissed at each other and separated back into other rooms.  Loki and Lyffan don't say much at all - hardly a squeak usually unless the goat steps on them or they really need to say something (and Loki is usually a high pitched flat tone when he does that universally means 'I need something' but doesn't say what - we have to guess) but he made a full throated growl at Kiki when he realized this morning that she was not his sister Lyffan, and smelled different.  Yesterday, I think he barely noticed.  We've mentioned before he might be near-sighted *ha* and I told Esme first time I saw this cat it looked like Lyffan but 'not square, with a tail' - they are both small gray things.

A lot of this is busywork in a way, but useful as well.  Doing laundry, preparing vegetables, cleaning some things, taking care of this cat (and my finger) etc.  Oh, and it's also Mother's Day.  I had bought a box of tea last week for myself and called it Mother's Day - and Mark and I got a flat of cinnamon rolls for Irene when we bought the milk and meat etc.

Now it's wait until tomorrow and call and find out what to do next.