2/22/2010 The Story of Beatrice

Beatrice came into our lives on April 18th, 2006. She was part of a litter that one of our outside kitties, Not had. (I'll have to explain that name in another blog post) I planned to tame this litter and try to give them away to good homes. On that Tuesday something killed all of the kittens and the mama, Not, as far as I knew. Not showed back up about six months later. All that was left was a little baby that didn't look like the others. The others were all white with gray tips and stripes but this baby was white with gray tabby areas. She was a terrified little three week old kitten. I emailed Ami a picture of her and put her in a box with a sock I filled with rice and warmed up in the microwave.

From Photo 365

We decided to name her a "people name" but didn't know what at first. We settled on Beatrice after Bea Arthur. She took to a litter box (I cut the back off of a cereal box and put a plastic liner in it) at three weeks old like it was something she'd been missing all of her life.

Black Kitty didn't like her at first. She would put her paw on top of Beatrice's head and hiss to let us know that she didn't like her but her mothering instincts kicked in and they became good friends with Black Kitty teaching her bad habits.

She grew up to be a beautiful cat with mental problems. She's still scarred by the early kittenhood trauma. She's odd about affection and only gives it when she wants to. She has places she deems safe and will be loving there. My office chair is one of those places. I think it's because that's one of the places that I fed her ba-bas (bottles).

She's terrified of thunderstorms and this morning when it was thundering she beat on the door and it sounded like a person beating on it. She was meowing the most mournful cry, like she was giving up on life. I let her out and she darted to the living room and hid under the red couch until it was over.

I took this of her today while she was sitting in the window, "watching outside".

From Photo 365