A Soft Bed to Lie on

First it appears I need to change Angels name. A wise person has said that perhaps it is not a good idea to name a cat like this "angel", she might become one. Which was not the entire reason I decided to change her name, but partly. I really like the name Madeline, or "Maddy" for short. It really suits her and she was the youngest one rescued. She is Maddy.

As I've watched Maddy move about her cage, I really have to wonder if she has ever actually slept in a soft bed before. She continually ended up in the litterbox, which, if you think about it, must smell like home. Even when I took the top off the litterbox, she would sit in it. As I went about my daily routine of scooping litterboxes, I thought to myself, "is this really so hard?" Most people I know have at least 20 cats in their programs if you include the pets, kittens and alters. They seem to in most cases single handedly scoop daily, sometimes twice a day! I have a feral boy called Charlie who I get to pet once or twice a month. When I do, I will gently cut off the little matts of furr that gather on his hind end. I just can't imagine someone who loves cats, letting these little balls of fur, grow to the size of a baseball.

I finally went down to Costco yesterday and brought home a variety of boxes. If you've been to Costco you know they have great kitty boxes that used to be baked bean boxes or the like. I set up a box in the cat run and put in some bedding. Grissom quickly claimed it. Since Grissom had hogged the cool box, I put a bed next to it, hoping it would look like a good hiding place to Maddy.

We had another petting session in the bathroom before I went to bed last night. This time I brought out some babyfood and a plastic spoon. The spoon was brutalized but in the end, she ate the entire jar. Glad I did not use my fingers on this first try. She still needs to be picked up with a towel if I want to avoid being rabbit kicked and she is very wiggly and flashes her teeth from time to time. I put her in a pillow case and turned her on her back to rub her tummy. I think she enjoyed it, but I'm sure would never admit it. Apparently torties must have their secrets.

Jump to this morning and guess who was sitting on a soft bed - yup! Grissom was still hogging the cool box, but little Maddy was lying on the soft bed next to the box. It gave me a warm feeling just thinking about how it must have felt to her. Before I left for work, she had moved up onto the shelf and was watching the world go by - baby steps!