Marilyn became our friend through a chance trip to Petsmart to do our
weekly kitty shopping. We had just (reluctantly) relinquished our
fosterling Brian to his mama Cynthia, who had been away for three months
to prepare for her wedding to a nice fella from the UK, and had come
back for just a couple days to say good-bye to me and Louie and get
Brian on the plane. (Brian, Cynthia and new daddy Iain landed safely and
are very happy.) Stosh, who had a good rough-and-tumble playmate in
Brian, missed his presence; and, as he had his quiet moments too, Roxie
missed him as well. Louie and I agreed at once, time for a third baby.

When we were getting our kitty chow a few weeks later, we passed by the
Tenth Chance display with several large cages full of eager kitties, and
one kitten decided she liked me: as we passed, she ran to the front,
swiped out a fat little paw, and dug into my sleeve. The fates had
spoken, I was the chosen of Brandy. And there was Marilyn, the
foster-mama of little Brandy, laughing at the sight. "How's her activity
level?" I asked. "Oh, she's very hyper," Marilyn told me, "she runs
around a lot and always wrestles with the dog." "Thank GOD!" I sighed,
and asked to put in the adoption papers then and there. A little over a
week later, after she'd been spayed, we took our chubby, seven-month old
baby home, where the little hoolikitten proceeded to turn everything
upside down.

That'll be two years ago in another month, and Louie and I had often
wondered if our Itty Bitty Kitty Committee (yeah right, all fifteen
pounds of her) actually remembers "Auntie Marilyn," as we call her.
Marilyn wondered too, until last week.

We had a big bag of stuff to give for the Tenth Chance yard sale, and
Marilyn called to make sure someone would be there when she came to pick
it up. Louie was home. They spent a few moments outside talking, and
then (so Louie said) they could hear Brandy running to the open,
thankfully screened window. She's not exactly light on her paws. She got
in the window, meowed, and when Marilyn put her finger up to the screen
Brandy purred and rubbed up on it. She was talking to her baby and
delighted to see Brandy remembered her, when Stosh came to see what was
going on. He butted in to sniff about a bit, and had this
cop-on-the-beat air about him: "What seems to be going on here?" Brandy
turned around and said, "Beat it, Bro; I'm talking to Auntie Marilyn,"
and she shoved Stosh away with a paw right up on his nose, so she could
get back up on the window sill. I ran into Marilyn today, and it was all
she could talk about. But when she asked me how that tiny little kitten
she remembered got to be so BIG, I had no answer!

Blessed be,
Baha