"E" is for Eli...

We succombed a few months ago to getting a new cat. Our old cat, Sophie, (who was a psycho, but we loved her) died a few years ago. Ever since then, I've missed having a little cat sit on my lap in the evenings. I volunteer one day a week at a local animal shelter in the cat room, so I see a lot of cats come through. While I like all of them, most never get to me enough to want to take them home. However, one cat, a young orange tabby, had been quite sick for awhile and was scheduled to be euthinized. He was such a sweetie, that I just couldn't stand the thought, so after a lot of discussion, my husband caved in and we brought him home. Him being "Eli". Well, he recovered quite quickly once he was out of the shelter. [NOTE: Animals--cats especially--do not do well in shelter situations. They get sick easily due to the stress of being there and do not recover, often getting sick over and over again until they are put down. Please consider rescuing one of these animals. They will repay you with loads of love in the future.]

Eli has been a lot of fun, but we did forget what it's like having a young cat around. He's kept us on our toes. His favorite way to get our attention was to creep up to the six-foot silk ficus tree in our bedroom at 3:00a.m. and pull it over on top of us--not a good way to wake up in the early hours! We have since tied it to the wall with fishing line, and that seems to have done the trick. Eli is now going outside in our backyard under some supervision. We had planned on him being an inside cat, but he is definately happier roaming the garden. (And he does look lovely sitting outside under a tree...) He'll make a lovely garden ornament!!