Monday, January 17, 2011

Pomp and (belated) circumstance

We now return to KITT-FM, where it's all kittens, all the time. And now, broadcasting live from our studios in Purrbank, Cat-ifornia - heeeere's your hostess, Mother Catresa!

Hi folks!

Much to some people's chagrin, I have a weakness for arriving, or doing things, fashionably late -- starting with my very entry into this world. I was supposed to be born right on Christmas, or within a day or two, in 1972. (That would be a bummer). Alas, my parents had to wait until next year for their tax deduction: I arrived two and a half weeks late, on Jan. 10.

Yes, last Monday, I turned 38 - and, I already was tardy with Mother Catresa's annual graduation narrative of kitty graduates, which I usually write on or just before New Year's Eve. So, anticlimactic though it may be, here it goes.

Mother Catresa, chancellor of the University of Catsylvania at Pittsburgh, is pleased to award her Scratchelor of Science degree to five felines in the Class of 2010 - along with one honorary degree for a dear classmate that was lost. My graduates: mother cat Tiger (a cabbie), and three babies: Sonny (orange tabby), Sherman (black) and Buf-Puf (buff tabby and white.) All four have found great homes. My honorary student - Chaz Bono, the male tortie kitten that I loved and lost to FIP - gets a posthumous award for fighting so very hard, and bringing so much joy into my life in the short few months he had with me. For more details about Chaz, please read a few posts down for that memorial.

Mother Catresa's graduating class this year is smaller in quantity than in previous years, when she usually went through several litters in one season. However, working now with a rescue group instead of a shelter, adoptions might be slower - and, in a bad economy, everyone's adoptions probably were slower last year. But, the quality of a litter, and a life saved, does not degrade from a lack of quantity.

I look forward to saving more lives in 2011. I'm dreaming of a furry year, and can't wait until the Kitten Fairy comes in the spring!

Until next time, I remain,

Mother Catresa
Patron Saint of Homeless Felines
(and the "smitten kitten")