Our Fur Covered Skeleton

I thought I had hardened my heart to the local stray cats. We already took in a mother and kitten who are now happily installed in the garden and looking much healthier than when they arrived.

This morning the kids and I collected the baby from nursery and a stray kitten attached herself to us. She is a scruff of a kitten, only a few weeks old and looks like a fur covered skeleton. She has hungry eyes and a desperate cry. My son picked her up, carried her home and gave her some cat food.

My husband took one look at the scrawny bundle and said, ‘No way, two is enough already’. So now we have a meowing cat, expectant of more love and food, hanging about outside the house and crying whenever she hears someone close by. We are worried that our other two cats will fight with her, as cats are territorial and our original two must know that they really fell on their feet when they found us.

In Israel cats are the equivalent of mice in other countries; there are so many hanging around the public litter bins and each year more and more arrive on the scene. They are a nuisance really and spread disease. Many people I know adopted beautiful, tiny kittens. We seem to have picked out cats that are a little less attractive and have an air of desperation about them. They look pitiful and in need of a little love and attention.

So the battle in our house today is whether to keep the new kitten. She is just so small and helpless. Perhaps we can encourage the mother cat to adopt her although I guess it is more likely she will see her as a threat.

Tonight I installed the kitten into the shed. I gave her a box to sleep in, some water and some food. I hope she stays in there. Most nights we hear cat fights outside and this one, all bones and as light as a feather, would surely not survive.

All I know is that now there is a consequence for taking this cat home and alongside that, a feeling of responsibility.

Sharona B
www.judaicamosaica.com

Incommunicado

It was not a good start to the day. My husband’s cell phone inadvertently ended up down the toilet. He fished it out and dried it off. We then pried it open and considered how we could salvage the phone, which had all his personal and business contact numbers on, many of which were not saved anywhere else.

On a whim I went to the computer and typed in, ‘how to save a wet cell phone’ on a search engine. To my surprise there was a ‘how to’ article based around action to take following a cell phone falling into a toilet. I guess it must be a common incident!

I am forever bemused by the range of material available over the net; even seemingly obscure incidents seem to have a related article with someone offering the benefit of their own experience.

We appear to have adopted a cat. Well actually we have adopted a cat and her kitten. The mother is a thin, tabby cat, who does not look very old herself. I took pity on this young mum and her scrawny, ginger kitten, who is only a few weeks old.

It was to the internet I turned when I was wondering about feeding and caring for our newest family members. I had no cat food and started to feed her scraps from the fridge. I wanted to make sure I didn’t feed her anything that would disagree with her. Sure enough there was a selection of cat care websites with all sorts of advice.

So the World Wide Web has provided us with some useful information this week. The cats are well fed and happy and the phone… well the SIM card, battery and data card are fine but the phone and all the contact numbers stored on it seem to have died a sudden death.

I am going to make sure I record all the data stored in my phone. No end of internet advice will recover the business contacts, friends and family my husband had stored on his phone. I think we have learned a valuable lesson. I am not sure if the lesson is to keep a better record of all our data… or to leave the phone outside when visiting the toilet!

Sharona B

www.judaicamosaica.com