Christmas cat
Meet Mimosa! She’s my new kitten, a day-after-Christmas gift from the Sanguina-Martinez family. The name also comes courtesy of their children. She’s a little out of focus in this picture, which is only fair because she’s so small that the world is still a little out of focus to her.
I suppose we’ve always been more dog people in my immediate family, but I’d been planning for a while to get a cat here in Paraguay. For one thing, a cat is better able to fend for itself after you’ve completed your term of service. For another thing, no amount of familial dog preference can trump my overall anti-rat tendencies.
At present, Mimosa is substantially smaller than the rodents I hope she’ll soon be dispatching. She’s not onto solid foods yet. From the looks of things, she opened her eyes no more than a day before I got her. She also hasn’t quite figured out her forward gear yet. She can put it in reverse pretty well and crawl ahead a bit, but walking as most cats know it still escapes her.
She seems to be managing well enough of a diet of whole milk, bread crumbs, and raw egg, though. I don’t imagine she’ll stay small for long.
The Guaraní word of the day, naturally enough, is mbaracaja, which means cat. It’s easily confused with mburucuja, meaning passion fruit. During training, one of my classmates delightedly informed his host family that he’d eaten a lot of cat while on a field trip. But that was months ago and we don’t tease him about it anymore. Much.
January 1st, 2008 at 12:50 pm
Very Cute! Don’t worry I won’t tell Uno you are cheating on her. Dan’s fam is leaving CO today after a brief visit. Next week one of his cousins is coming. So we remain pretty busy in these parts. HAPPY NEW YEAR! wishing you all good things.
January 5th, 2008 at 10:10 pm
Mimo’s all head! Can’t wait to see regular pictorial updates. I have just returned from a week in Florida with Ash. Her mom bought a cabin in PSJ. It was GREAT to see the old haunts though the nostalgia hit pretty hard.
love,
jj
January 6th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
Hey Stranger. Sorry it’s been so long since I wrote. I’ve been busy with the holidays and kids, of course. Being a Grammy is lots of work what with all that shopping and cuddling that has to be done!! You sound great and I LOVE your kitty. We have two now also - twin girls - so sweet! You’ll enjoy her, not to speak of the rat-chasing benefits. One thing though; contrary to popular thought, cats can’t digest milk products, they’re lactose-intolerant. Who woulda thought, huh? But it’s true so she might do better on just the egg and bread. She’s such a tiny little thing. We adopted one about as small last year and sent her home with Molly and Morgan. She’s a big ‘un now and full of herself - rules their roost. She comes back to visit from time to time and rules our roost, too. Oh yeah, and when they had her neutered, the vet told them she’s really a boy! Molly insists a pink collar changes all that though so they’ve continued treating her like a girl - a spoiled girl. Her name is Mousey Von Kittikens, nickname ‘kitten.’ I hope that you’ve received my package by now. Your mom gave me mailing details and I got most of the stuff off your list on amazon. Let me know if it’s come and how long it took so I’ll be able to send another more timely one later. Planting bulbs today. It’s the first day above freezing in a week. The wind chill has been below 0 at night so I’ve been sticking around here a lot. Getting my hair cut in a piecey-spiky style tomorrow. Woo-Hoo. Love you. I’ll write again sooner next time.
October 8th, 2008 at 6:51 pm
[…] for the bad news. First I was a single woman putting her cat on the Internet. Then it was another cat. Then it was two cats and crochet projects. And now - have […]