Sunday afternoon attendance at Bedside Baptist was interrupted by the buzzing of my silenced phone.  Yes, i keep it on at all times, i never know when one of the kids will call with an emergency, as it does happen.


It was Blair, so i answered.

"Hi, mimi, it's Blair," she said, and i simply said yes, and waited for the inevitable.

"Someone brought in one kitten, and i have 11 and just can't take any more."  Really, she can't, she gets no help and has health problems.  She also has at least a dozen adult fosters, too.

"You have 3 from us, could you take this one more?" she practically pleaded.  "I am really overwhelmed."

It's true, she is.  No, i didn't bother to tell her that i already had 21, since about half are weaned.

"I'll be by after the adoption event, so around 6:30."

After telling her that would be great, i hung up and went and fed my brood, and started some roux for gravy to go with the roast and fixings in the crock pot.

Right at 6:30, the Hazelnut barked her "somebody's at the door, come quick" bark, and in came Blair with a kitten just the size of our tiniest group of 5.  It is gray and white, but darker than the gray and white that's already in that group, so no trouble telling them apart.  It's the tabbies we keep mixing up, but that's another story.

She asked to see the 3 from her group that we already have, and i pulled out Penguin, Enigma, and Curlicue Q. Crooktail, who literally was born with half a tail, and it has a crook at the end.  All 3 are tabbies.

After admiring them, she looked at me and asked, "How many kittens do you have altogether?"

When i admitted that this one made 22, she looked sideways at me, and i quickly showed her that the bigger ones are weaned or close to it.  She was still shaking her head as she left, though thanking me for taking in yet one more.

Blair had also told me right before she left that yesterday, she had to turn down a lady who had a mother and kittens she needed to find a home for.   She said she had to tell the woman no, then she went in the bathroom and cried.  It's a hard business, rescue work.  Sometimes we just don't have the space, and the homes are just not always there.


This tiny one, though, we have room for.

                                                  Hello, Corey, and welcome to Kittyville.

 
 
Today is

Armed Forces Day -- Georgia

Birthday of the King / Konungens födelsedag -- Sweden (HM King Carl XVI Gustav; an official flag day)

Camarón Day -- French Foreign Legion

Consumer Protection Day -- Thailand

Dia de Rincon -- Rincon, Bonaire

El Dia del Nino -- Mexico (Children's Day)

Fairy Queen's Birthday -- Fairy Calendar

Lazarus Saturday -- Orthodox Christian

May Eve -- eve of the first day of summer in many traditions, including
Beltane/Samhain Eve -- Pagan traditions
Carodejnice -- Czech Republic; Slovakia
Maitag Vorabend -- Switzerland
Mange les Morts -- Haiti (festival of the dead)
Salus -- Portugal; Spain (festival of the dead)
Valborgsmässoafton -- Sweden
Walpurgis Night -- Ancient Celtic/Nordic Calendars

National Honesty Day (including Honest Abe Awards -- Abies -- and dishonorable mentions for those who have been particularly publicly egregious; to nominate someone for an Abie or a dishonorable mention, contact M. Hirsh Goldberg, mhgoldberg@comcast.net)

National Oatmeal Cookie Day

Queen's Day / Koninginnedag -- Kingdom of the Netherlands (Aruba, Curacao, Netherlands, and Sint Maartin); Bonaire; Saba; St. Eustatius

Raisin Day -- what would oatmeal be without them?

St. Adjutor's Day (Patron of swimmers, yatchsmen; against drowning)

St. James the Great's Day -- Orthodox Christian

Teacher's Day -- Paraguay

Workers' Memorial Day -- Gibraltar (obs.)



Anniversaries Today:

Louisiana becomes the 18th US state, 1812


Birthdays Today:

Kirsten Dunst, 1982
Jeff Timmons, 1973
Carolyn Dawn Johnson, 1971
Michael Waltrip, 1963
Isiah Thomas, 1961
Stuart Mathis, 1960
Stephen Harper, 1959
Carl XVI Gustav, King of Sweden, 1946
Jill Clayburgh, 1944
Burt Young, 1940
Willie Nelson, 1933
Cloris Leachman, 1926
Queen Juliana of the Netherlands, 1909
Eve Arden, 1908


Today in History:

Supernova SN 1006, the brightest supernova in recorded history, appears in the constellation Lupus, 1006
Orbital calculations suggest that on this day, Pluto moved inside Neptune's orbit until July 23, 1503, 1483
Columbus is given a royal commission to equip his fleet, 1492
On the balcony of Federal Hall on Wall Street in New York City, George Washington takes the oath of office to become the first elected President of the United States, 1789
The United States purchases the Louisiana Territory from France, 1803
Nicaragua declares independence from the Central American Federation, 1838
Casey Jones dies in a train wreck in Vaughn, Mississippi, while trying to
make up time on the Cannonball Express, 1900
Honolulu, Hawaii becomes an independent city, 1907
Peru becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires copyright treaty, 1920
Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford become the first celebrities to leave their footprints in concrete at Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood, 1927
The animated cartoon short Porky's Hare Hunt debuts in movie theaters, introducing Happy Rabbit (a prototype of Bugs Bunny, 1938
In Bogotá, Colombia, the Organization of American States is established, 1948
The Bristol Bus Boycott is held in Bristol to protest the Bristol Omnibus Company's refusal to employ Black or Asian bus crews, drawing national attention to racial discrimination in the United Kingdom, 1963
Communist forces gain control of Saigon and the Vietnam War formally ends, 1975
Accession of Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, 1980
CERN announces World Wide Web protocols will be free, 1993
Cambodia joins the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, 1999
Two skeletal remains found near Ekaterinburg, Russia are confirmed by Russian scientists to be the remains of Alexei Nikolaevich, Tsarevich of Russia and one of his sisters, 2008
Chrysler automobile company files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, 2009
Hailed as the largest World's Fair in history, Expo 2010 opens in Shanghai, China, 2010