Have Mercy

They wanted to call her Midnight. For a black kitten, that's not special enough. She is too lovely for such a name.

Instead, we call her Mercy. It is only by the Lord's mercy that she is here. The lady who found her and gave her the unimaginative name was turning on the street where she worked and saw something under a truck that was turning off that street. It was a tiny, shivering, black kitten, and she couldn't just leave it in the middle of the street.

Flea infested, eye infected, and beautiful. Very shy and skittish and no wonder, her feral mama taught her fear of people and she had a truck drive right over her and manage somehow not get squashed.

She isn't quite sure what to do with herself in a house, although she understood the litter box right away, as they all seem to when they are big enough. She climbs under things and then cries, and wants to play but not be cornered or held down. Toys seems to startle or scare her right now. Working with her, from weaning (she's already almost there) to dosing the nasty infected eyes to taming down her feral tendencies and turning her into a house cat is a joy, because she is one more not on the street.

Even the fact that i had to drive through awful traffic to the next town to pick her up was worth it, since she is finally purring when we pet her.

This is what mercy sometimes looks like, a black kitten whose tabby markings only show up in strong sunlight, found under a moving vehicle.


Today is

Bloomsday (Joyce's Ulysses)

Day of Third-Hand Reports and Shaky Evidence -- Fairy Calendar

Festival of Het-Hurt as Sirius -- Ancient Egyptian Calendar

Festival of Ludi Piscatari -- Ancient Roman Calendar

International Day of the African Child -- Organisation of African Unity

Kiamichi Owa Chito Festival of the Forest -- Beaver's Bend State Park, Broken Bow, OK, US (Native American heritage festival, through the 18th)

Kuopio Dance Festival -- Kuopio, Finland (through the 22nd)

Martyrdom Day of Guru Arjan -- Sikh

National Fudge Day

National Morticians Day

National Nursing Assistants Day

Night of the Teardrop, Feast of the Waters of the Nile -- Ancient Egyptian Calendar, celebrating Isis and her sorrows

Recess at Work Day -- because the need for a break doesn't end just because you aren't a school kid any more

Sam Steele Days -- Cranbrook, BC, Canada (through the 19th)

St. Benno's Day

St. John-Francis Regis' Day (patron of illegitimate children, lace makers, marriage, social workers)

Sussex Day -- Sussex Day, England

Youth Day -- South Africa


Birthdays Today:

Diana DeGarmo, 1987
Phil Mickelson, 1970
Joan Van Ark, 1943
Joyce Carol Oates, 1938
Erich Segal, 1937
Stan Laurel, 1890
Geronimo, 1829


Today in History:

The Zoroastrian Religious Calendar begins with the ascension of Yasdegerd III of Persia, the start of the Persian Era, 632
Battle of Stoke Field, the final engagement of the Wars of the Roses, 1487
British troops take Cape Breton Island, which is now part of Nova Scotia, Canada, 1745
The French surrender Fort Beauséjour to the British, leading to the expulsion of the Acadians, 1755
Abraham Lincoln delivers his House Divided speech in Springfield, Illinois, 1858
The Victoria Hall theatre panic in Sunderland, England kills 183 children, 1883
John Abbott becomes Canada's third prime minister, 1891
The Ford Motor Company is incorporated, 1903
The storming of the cockpit of the Miss Macao passenger seaplane, operated by a subsidiary of the Cathay Pacific Airways, marks the first aircraft hijacking of a commercial plane, 1948
Rudolf Nureyev defects at Le Bourget airport in Paris, 1961
Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova becomes the first woman in space, 1963
The largest single-site hydro-electric power project in Canada starts at Churchill Falls, Labrador, 1972
Soweto uprising: a non-violent march by 15,000 students in Soweto, South Africa turns into days of rioting when police open fire on the crowd and kill 566 children, 1976
Israel complies with UN Security Council Resolution 425 after 22 years of its issuance, which calls on Israel to completely withdraw from Lebanon, 2000