The Best Omyn Ever

Picture it: the beginning of June 2002.  My boyfriend and I had come to yet another halt in our pathetic relationship.  This one particularly painful because we weren't speaking really and merely sending emails through cyberspace.  I was becoming fed up with loneliness.  And for the first time in my life, I realized, I was ready for a cat.  That's right!  I had never wanted my own cat because of the amount of care it would require... but I was finally ready!  One problem... my roommate, Joy, was not much of a cat fan.  Ahhhh but she would be... just let me at her! So I began in on her... two long days of driving my roommate crazy with cut-out pictures of kittens pasted up on the walls and mirrors with word-bubbles addressing Joy; a make-shift food and water dish on the kitchen floor that I had a kitten cut-out sitting in front of.  When Joy was on the phone I would pretend to feed the paper cat and I cooed insesantly.  Finally, on day two, Joy yelled at me, "OK OK!!  Leave me alone and I'll think about it!"  SCORE!  I left for work knowing that I'd have a kitten by the weekend. That night, while at work paroozing my email... I misread an email from said-boyfriend and freaked out eventually leading to my leaving from work early.  Instead of going home, I went to confront boyfriend, and end my relationship for good.  Of course, where does one go to break up but the nearest A&W so I could have a brown cow to cry into.  Instead of being inside however, with other brown-cow sippers, we chose to sit outside with our cows at a Subway picnic table. As soon as I opened my mouth to begin the official break up procedure these two sagging-crotched teenagers sidled up to our table.  One held out his hands holding something black, and said, "Do either of you want her?  We just found her behind that building back there and we can't take care of her."  I glanced down into his hands and saw this: Eyes wide (mine... and her's too), I said in disbelief, "You have got to be kidding me!  I want her!"  And the teen handed me the littlest kitten I had ever seen.  My kitten.  My kitten!!  I had asked G*d for a kitten, and he litterly walked up to me, pants sagging down to his ankles (who'd've known?!) and handed me-- who was to become-- the love of my life!  Of course, I used this as a sign that we needed to stay together... at least for a few more horrible months.  And of course I named her Omyn.

This little girl was found mewing at the top of the staircase outside our apartment door one cold morning in Dallas, Georgia (yes, there's a Dallas, GA).  You can't tell from her pictures because she's hiding it very well, but her neck was a G-d-awful mess.  We didn't know what was wrong with it... had she been bitten by something, was it blood, was it raw skin??  One thing was for sure, someone had dumped her and most likely no one would take a kitty in that looked like she did.  She needed medical attention.

Turns out it was nothing more than a skin irritation that she had scratched completely raw.  Our next obstacle was to figure out if this little girl was pregnant already.  Her tummy looked oblong, and was definitely distended.  We had her worms taken care of, so we knew it wasn't that.  We really thought she was preggers... until she went into heat!!  OH MY G-D!!  This was our first experience with kitten heat.  Lord-have-mercy-on-all-of-our-souls was it obnoxious!  This cute little sweet thing became the world's biggest hoar!!   Unfortunately for her, the already stationed cat-residents were none-to-interested in her advances... in fact they were quite perturbed with them as they could not relate (if you know what I mean,  ).  So once we got through that, which was NOT easy, we had her spayed.  And wouldn't you know it??  Her allergy vanished with her hormones!  Turns out she was just fat.  (She still had-- and HAS-- that distended, oblong belly, but boy do I LOVE IT!)

My last day at work.  Starting the next week I'm moving to another job.  And this is the day that I'm introduced to this beauty who is to become our fifth feline... sigh. 

Here's a kitty that wandered from who-knows-where into a remote residential treatment facility for young men who have gotten themselves into trouble.  I immediately notice that she is way too friendly with the boys.  She is rubbing against the their legs and cooing up at them for attention or food or whatever they have to give her.  The problem that I know only too well, is that these teenage boys (ages 12-18) are unpredictable.  They are emotional infants despite their nearing-manhood bodies.  I knew that given the wrong mood and the desire to hurt something, this little girl would be toast... or worse, a sexual playtoy. 

I know I can't leave her there.  And I know that no one else at work will take her.  I'm bribed by my soon-to-be ex-supervisor to take her home, and she'd pay for the initial vet appointment.  Fine.  

We try half-heartedly to find her a home because, well, we fall in love easily.  Welcome home, Nuebie! 

My first sighting of this little person was coming home from work.  I had just pulled the motorcycle up our steep drive when an unfamiliar black momma cat shot out of a bush and streaked past me by crossing in front of my bike.  Soon after there was a second streak past the front tire, but this time it was black and white and very tiny.   "Oh no!"  I groaned.  Not a kitten!  This was a real live kitten.  Couldn't have been more than 8 weeks old.  We already have five cats... we did not need a sixth, and who can NOT fall in love with a kitten?!  I called to my husband to come out and look.  Luckily the kitten and his mother had gone somewhere invisible.  Whew!

Our next sighting came maybe a week later.

So I was upstairs doing something when I hear my husband say to his friend on the phone, "Uhhh Andrew, I gotta go.  There's a kitten head that just popped up over the top stair and it doesn't belong to any of ours."  Somehow this little guy had gotten into our garage and from our garage had come into our house.  He timidly poked his head over the top stair to look around and when he saw us, he FREAKED OUT!  Running all over the house trying to find his way out, and when I finally caught him, he sank those tiniest of fangs into my hand.  

Welp, now it's quarentine time for ten days, and wouldn't you know it, within the ten days we were head over heals in love.  Welcome kidden number six, мальчик (That's Russian for boy pronounced "Malchik")!