Infidelity

I'm feeling consumed with guilt.

Awkward about my feelings.

I've always been very much a one-anything woman. It seems to be the one
aspect of life I'm focussed in. It's not that I can't be caring of other
people, other things, other situations, it's just that when my emotions are
really involved, it's a single focal point.

There's been a kind of quandary for the last number of years anyway, but
I've found ways of compartmentalising it, and maybe justifying it. Somehow
making it okay, and not hurtful to the parties involved. (Or so I tell
myself.)

But these last few months have been really tricky.

Way back in the beginning of May, Coco arrived. Stray cat. Kind of neat
stray cat. Great big extra thumbs, like she's wearing black oven mitts. I
call her Lobster Paws sometimes.
Turned out she'd wandered here from a nearby farm, where she'd recently
been adopted from an animal shelter as a barn cat. The lady was all excited
that we might give her a chance at being a housecat again. (Coco is a four
years + cat, who apparently has been constantly returned to the animal
shelter as a "bad" cat with inappropriate bathroom habits, though I've now
heard that's one of the *code* phrases used when people just don't want to
keep an animal.)
She was neutered and had her shots, and we'd had her around for several
weeks before we found Mary, who'd given her her most recent home.

So we decided to give it a try.

*NOT* that we needed a cat! We already have three. In fact we already have
one more than we'd planned on having. When the kittens were born about 8
years ago, (of an abandoned mom), we arranged for a home for the mother,
decided we'd keep a kitten each, and proceeded to find homes for the other
two kittens. The last kitten was slow to find someone, and by then we were
getting fond of him. So when his new people brought him back a day later
because the husband didn't want to inconvenience his dog while introducing
the kitten, we were secretly happy.

And Bear turned out to be a pretty happy-go-lucky kind of cat, who didn't
mind being shared, and while infinitely loving, didn't seem to need the same
single person devotion the other two wanted.

But, so I already have a bit of guilt about Bear.

Then along comes Coco into our lives, and damned if she doesn't turn out to
be one of the sweetest, most charming and amusing cats it's been my luck to
know!
It's a little bit like someone (aliens?) were watching us and our cats, and
secretly recording all the things about our cats that most amused and
charmed us. Then they programmed it all into this little alien cat with
thumbs. And they planted her here to conquer us.

And she really is appealing. And seems to care for us.
I still can't see why no-one along her path seemed to feel she was worth
trying to keep. She seems one of the better-behaved cats I've met in life.
(Except for being just a teeny bit bossy, and terrorising our other cats.
"what big hands you have!" "all the better to smack you with....")

She has a little muttery voice, and wanders about to check on us, making a
little rolly mrrrr sound. And her purr is HUGE! It's almost scary how loud
her purr is. And I love her big hands. I've been trying to take some
pictures of her, but black cats are really hard to photograph. And what
pictures I have taken are trapped on a different computer. Maybe at the end
of the month, when my old computer comes home again, I'll manage to post
pics once more.

But I guess I'm just doomed now to spend all my days trying to not look
like I'm playing favourites. That I don't love any cat more than another. Or
that I love them for different reasons, and there's no competition involved.

And I wonder how winter with four cats is going to be. This house already
seems small in winter! (And they're making that nasty 'S'-word prediction
for the Dundalk highlands in the next day or so. Sigh....)

Wish me luck.

v