Monthly Archives: August 2021

Aug8

A Cross Stitch, New Kitties, and Two Smoking Needles

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I am now the proud owner of two new cats ~ well, kittens, really ~ they’re three months old, and litter mates. I’m going to name them Charlotte (which means “freedom”) and Margaret (which means “pearl”). I love naming my pets somewhat improbable names, and Charlotte and Margaret were the most improbable but beautiful names I could think of. Plus they have great meanings, and names with good meanings are important to me.

I adopted them from a PetsMart near me, and they are both a bit shy around strange people and places. So I’m keeping them in the bathroom, as that’s the smallest room in my apartment, and hopefully there will be less in there to frighten them. I’ve put a bowl of food and another of water in with them, and a litter box should they feel safe enough to venture out of the carrier long enough to use it if the need arises. .

Aren’t they beautiful? Charlotte is a lynx-point Siamese (Siamese-tabby mix) with blue eyes, and Margaret is a grey and white tabby with greenish-brown eyes that seem to change colors depending on the light she’s in. Charlotte is more shy than Margaret. They’re huddled up together in the back of the carrier at present, and Charlotte is squished behind Margaret. Anytime I glance in on them, Margaret looks up at me and hisses as if to show me how brave she is. It’s very sweet.

I’ve been working very hard on my cross stitch, and making great progress on it. The frustrating thing is, twice in the last three days I’ve lost a needle. I’m really excited and glad about the progress, but I can’t be losing needles right when I bring home two new cats! Needles and cats definitely don’t go together. So I’ve been frantically praying that God would show me where they are, or just plain bring them back to me before either Charlotte or Margaret has a chance to come in contact with them.

My most recent WIP.

Aug2

Charlotte’s Toys

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Even though Charlotte still won’t let me near her, she is quite active in my apartment. Debbie, the woman from whom I adopted her, gave me a bag of food and a couple of plastic sandwich bags full of toys so Charlotte would have something to play with should she so desire.

Charlotte’s Toys

Charlotte seems to love these toys, because every time I come out of my bedroom when I wake up in the morning, I find them scattered all over the floor in completely different places from where I placed them the night before. And she seems to play with them ALL the TIME because even five minutes after the last time I saw them they’ve been further scattered and in different positions than they were previously. The only rule seems to be that she doesn’t do any of it in my presence.

The fact that she refuses to play in my presence brings up another, slightly sticky subject. She still won’t come near me, and runs from me if I walk anywhere even remotely close to her. I did manage to get her to sleep in the same room with me last night by virtue of closing the door to my bedroom immediately after coming in so she wouldn’t have a chance to escape. But I wasn’t sure if she was actually in the room, because it was dark, and I couldn’t see anything.

And, as it turned, out she was in the room, as I found out this morning when she woke me up because she wanted to get out, but couldn’t because the door was closed. It was the first time she’d made a sound since I got her, so I was delighted that she woke me up so I could hear her voice. She has a tiny, high-pitched, squeaky cry, but she’s still pretty little, being only three months old.

So when she started meowing I got up to open the door. When I stood up, she leapt into the air in terror and flew into the far corner of the room with her tail all floofed out. It was quite a sight. She’s such a pretty little thing with her blue eyes, but the terror she was obviously feeling kind of obliterated everything else.

Charlotte In Her Carrier Right After I Got Her Home

Isn’t she beautiful? I think she’s perfectly lovely! I just hope and pray that she’ll get used to me so she’s no longer terrified of me. I love her so much already!

The godly care for their animals, but the wicked are always cruel. ~ Proverbs 12:10, NLT.

So that’s the latest in the continuing saga of Charlotte!

Aug1

No Shame Allowed

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Every once in awhile something happens for which, unaccountably, I feel so much shame that I can’t talk about it with anyone. I was able to talk with McT and one friend about it, but it’s taken me several days to convince myself that I need to blog about it.

In a previous post (A Cross Stitch, New Kitties, and Two Smoking Needles), I talked about becoming the proud parent of two new kittens. Well, on Wednesday, the 28th, five days after bringing them home, Margaret died.

She died! What am I to do? She died!

I felt such devastation that I was overwhelmed and at a loss for words, for action, for anything and everything. All I could do was cry out to God, “My God! Why? What happened?”

About twenty minutes before it happened, she had allowed me to pick her up and pet her. This was surprising to me, as she hadn’t let me come close to her at all before that. Then all of a sudden she let me hold her and pet her. I cuddled her for about fifteen minutes, then she got down and disappeared, and I continued to watch TV. Then I got up and tried to find her.

I didn’t have to look very far, because she was on the floor around the corner from the couch where I was sitting, and when I looked at her I could see that she wasn’t breathing, plus her mouth was wide open. When I touched her she was cold and stiff.

Shock coursed through my body. What did I do wrong? I left fresh food and water out for her ~ for both of them ~ at all times, and I made sure that the litter box was clean. Plus I changed the water every day. Surely I couldn’t have done something wrong, but maybe I did.

Did I kill her? I was terrified that I had done something to cause her death, but I couldn’t think of anything that I might have done. I had decided earlier in the day that I was going to take her to the vet the next day, because she needed to be seen, and because she had been acting like she wasn’t feeling well. But then she died before I got the chance.

I emailed the woman from whom I had adopted them, and told her that Margaret had died. She replied that she didn’t think I was responsible, that Margaret must have had some kind of undiagnosed heart condition. She said she would pay for a necropsy to find out the cause of death, but after doing some online research, we both decided that was way too expensive. I felt like I could accept her idea of an undiagnosed heart problem, so we both let it go at that.

So now I’m left with the confusion and desolation I feel because of her death, and the hole in my heart that’s there, even though I only had her for five days. And as I said at the beginning, unaccountably, I feel a huge amount of shame. I don’t know why, but I do. Somehow, even if her demise wasn’t caused by me, it must have been my fault. There must have been some way in which I was responsible. It’s not logical, I know, but there it is.

I wonder if at least part of it doesn’t go back to Harry blaming me for stuff that I couldn’t have been responsible for when I was little, and for the cult rituals doing the same thing. There was one particular ritual that they did when I was about two where I had to answer questions, and if I got the wrong answer, a man was slowly lowered into a bonfire and burned alive.

The problem was, the questions were unanswerable. There were no right answers, though there was no way I could know that, especially at age two. So I had to answer these unanswerable questions, get the wrong answers because there weren’t any right ones, and listen to the screams of agony of the guy as he was lowered into the bonfire. And the whole thing was all my fault ~ or so they told me.

Talk about the essence of torture, both for the guy being burned alive, and for little two-year-old me!

But I’m no longer living in that reality. I’ve been set free from that life, thank God. And interestingly, I named the other kitten Charlotte, and she, thankfully, is alive and well, even though she still won’t let me near her. I discovered in the process of deciding on Charlotte’s name, that “Charlotte” means “freedom”. Maybe that’s why God motivated me to name her that, I don’t know. All I know is that before I brought them home, the name Charlotte was the only name I could think of.

“And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” ~ John 8:32, NLT.

And this is the truth that will set you free,

If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by confessing with your mouth that you are saved. ~ Romans 10:9-10, NLT.

As the Scriptures tell us, “Anyone who trusts in him will never be disgraced.” ~ [Isaiah 28:16, Greek Version], Romans 10:11, NLT.

So, regardless of how I feel, I must go on what Scripture says. If God’s Word says I am FREE, then I AM FREE. That means NO SHAME ALLOWED!! I did not cause Margaret’s death, and I did not cause that man to be burned alive!!

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. ~ Galatians 5:1, NIV.