Spoiler: this is sad, but don't worry, the kitten is ok and so is my adult cat. I started writing this post when I was feeling ecstatic over adopting a new kitten. I'll leave what I wrote unedited and then there will be more under the heading THE REST OF THE STORY

Storm the kitten. Also called Stormy, Stormy Kitty, Kitten of Mass Destruction, Entbane, Breaker of Trees. Yes, as soon as he was named, he lived up to his name by breaking a tree. A little one. The mimosa tree seedling I wrote about on this blog, sadly. My second chance seedling. All the mimosa tree seedlings are gone now. I spoke with the gnome and the tree about it and plan to give away seeds when they are ready this winter.

Someone on the Sin City Witches group chat posted giving away kittens. At first Happy said a particular one in a photo was him and he had returned to live with me again, but then a little while later he said he had actually decided to stay with Freya, and would not come back to earth after all. I told him I was glad he told me that's not really him, because when I looked again someone had adopted that one already. It would be heartbreaking to think Happy had come back to earth to be with me for another lifetime and someone else got him.

A couple of weeks later my housemate and I decided to see if there were any kittens left. There were 2 left, a male and a female. At first we were going to adopt the female and name her Amethyst. But when we went to go meet the kittens, the female cried and struggled to get out of my arms and back to her original human. The male snuggled into me and purred and gazed into my eyes. So of course we got the male.

It took us a while to name him because we kept coming up with names to see if he would respond to them. I said his fur was as soft as a cloud. He responded a little. He has a white mark on his forehead and I asked if he wanted to be called Lightning. He responded a little. We kept going until we got to a name he fully responded to, which was Storm. Naming him called a rain storm and it rained the next day, which is unusual in late October here.

I've thought once in a while of naming a pet after a god. Several people I know in my local area have named cats and dogs after gods. Storm is not directly named after a god but he is named in honor of Thor. Thor appreciated it and brought rain to my garden.

I made a Xitter post (pronounced Shitter) about the kitten:

"This morning I was recording my timeline choices on Fragrantica & the kitten walked on the keyboard. Stormy Kitten thinks I should check out 414FCDG. Good choice, kitten. Probably smells fresh and green, like the outside. Kitten wants to be outside. Kitten is not allowed outside."

I wrote a poem, for the first time since the "neurological event" in 2021, without the assistance of either absinthe or lion's mane mushroom. Just me, and my brain. And my heart, full of love.

Black as night

With clouds of white,

Soft as wind,

The kitten comes in.

The kitten slept on my lap while I also had the keyboard in my lap. The only other kitty who had ever done that was Beni-Wan Cat-Obi, and it was so nice to have that again. 

THE REST OF THE STORY

Most of the time Storm kitten was sweet and playful and loving. He followed us from room to room and wanted to be on us. He would cry if he was left alone. He had the typical problems. He would try to escape out the door. I didn't want him to be outside because he was tiny and there was a raven in the neighborhood. The kitten did not understand why the adult cat was allowed outside and the kitten was not, and my adult cat did not understand why there was a kitten.

Sweetheart tried to warn me against the kitten. He hissed. I didn't listen. I thought I could help them become friends. Sweetheart, my good kitty, my gift from Freya, who was everything I could ever need in a cat, started only coming inside to eat. He stopped rolling over for us. He came home with bite marks. He had become insecure in his territory and tried to take some from another animal, which he had not done since he was fixed. He started marking in the house, which he had also not done since he was fixed. There was a cold windy blustery night and I wanted Sweetheart to come inside but he stayed out on the porch. He went out and got into more fights and came home with more bite marks, over and over, getting into fights almost every day. The presence of the kitten ruined Sweetheart's life. Still I thought I could get them to be friends. I used treats and toys and praise and petting to get them to tolerate each others' presence. I thought it was just typical cat behavior and they would get used to each other.

One day the kitten decided my eyes were prey. He didn't go after them in a playful way the way he did when he grabbed a hand with his claws. He would sneak up behind me on a chair or on the windowsill behind the couch, or attack me in my sleep, and strike hard like he was crushing the skull of a rat. He got me in the left eye and it hurt all day and I had trouble focusing on the computer screen. But I thought I could train him not to do that. I would jump up when he got on the back of the chair or behind me or came too close to my face.

I still wanted to keep him and try to train the bad away. I posted on Facebook: I hope whoever pulls my Amazon order gets a chuckle out of "1 kitten collar and 5 boxes of Bandaids." He was a tuxedo cat so I ordered him a little bow tie.

Sweetheart kept getting into fights. I prayed to Freya to keep him safe. I found a paper image on the front walkway with a woman riding a cat on it, as a sign. At first I thought it was just the label off of something I or Marnie had bought at a Sin City Witches event but neither of us had bought anything like that there. It was a sign from Freya that Sweetheart would be OK.

The kitten got bigger and stronger. For one day, I thought everything was going to work out. The cats appeared to be friends. The collar arrived and I planned to put it on him the next day. That night he got me in the right eye. He was bigger and stronger this time and he seriously hurt me. He struck with a strike that would break the neck of a snake. It took me a week to be able to write this post because that's how long it took to be able to focus on a computer screen without causing too much pain.

I put him in Marnie's room for the night. He didn't attack Marnie, only me. I contacted the people we got him from and they agreed to take him back. It would have to be on the weekend though so I had to survive with the kitten for a few more days.

The next morning I was crying because I still loved the kitten. I was too depressed to do my elaborate routine of praise and treats for the cat and kitten and their friend behaviors evaporated in under 10 seconds. They were never friends, they were only behaving that way to please me. As soon as I stopped giving constant rewards they stopped acting like friends.

I prayed to Freya. She understood. I prayed to Thor, because I had named the kitten in his honor. He released me from any obligations to maintain the kitten that had been generated by naming him Storm, except Thor wanted me to finish my blog post. I am doing that now.

I prayed to Odin, because my childhood dream was to have a lot of cats but my childhood nightmare was to go blind. Odin assured me that I am already half sighted enough and don't need to actually lose an eye.

I had a neighbor drive me to an emergency eye doctor visit. The eye dr. said the only scratch damage was to the lid, the eyeball itself was just swollen, and to alternate ice packs on it.

I got back distance vision first and was able to go do some things in town after a couple of days. For the first time since the pandemic started I went to the actual mall and went into actual stores with my nose hanging out. I walked the whole mall and Smelled All The Things. I hit 5 perfume stores in all, not buying anything, just collecting sample sprays in my little book of Thoughts and scribbling a few quick notes. I went through the notebook later when my reading vision started to recover.

I'm actually glad it took a few days before we could bring the kitten back to his original family because in that time I went from, "oh the sweet kitten, I'll never pet his soft fur again" to "it's only a couple more days and then I'll be safe and I'll have my life back."

Sweetheart kept sleeping outside and I joined him. Whenever I wanted a daytime nap I went out on the lounge chair on the porch. I had Marnie keep the kitten in her suite at night. I'm a morning person and she's a night person so that worked out well for us.

I was worried that Sweetheart would decide to turn back into a street cat and stay outside permanently. I wanted him to be inside where it was warm and dry and safe.

I prayed to Freya and Thor. I even communicated with Tyr a little bit, because I think emotionally I was feeling some of the same feelings he must have felt when he had to put his foster son Fenris Wolf out of the house because he had gotten dangerous. It was not the same and Fenris is not an actual Earth wolf so although his mythology references the way humans turned wolves into dogs, and sometimes wolves turn on us when we try to domesticate them, it was not really the same at all, but we still communed on a different wavelength than before.

People joke about domestic cats not really being domesticated but it's actually true, cats are not domesticated the way dogs are. Little cats just usually can't hurt us much because of their size. The kitten found a loophole. 

I drove the kitten back to his home. Marnie came too. I told the kitten he was no longer named Storm. He was going back to his original home and his original family and his original name. He was going to be Oreo again and I hoped he would become a sweet kitty again when he had a sweet name. In the meantime he was just "the kitten" again until he got home. He was going home to his mom cat and his adult cat friends and his original humans. We handed over his favorite scratchy box with the unopened bowtie collar in it, and a bag of his favorite toys.

When I got home, I de-kittenated. I washed out the cat carrier with a hose. There was still a toy inside which got wet so I left it outside to dry. I took a shower and washed my hair and changed the sheets. I wasn't even finished changing the sheets before Sweetheart jumped up on the bed. I ran all my bedding through the air fluff cycle on the dryer with a previously unscented dryer sheet sprayed with Covered in Roses. I cleaned the floor. I washed the towels. I vacuumed the front room and sprayed all the furniture with Covered in Roses and ran all the blankets and pillows through the air fluff with the perfumed dryer sheet. I washed the windowsill of the front window and my sewing table and changed the cover on the ironing board and sprayed my office chair with my chosen de-kittenating perfume. 

The next few days, Sweetheart could not get enough of curling up in bed with me. He rolled over in his sleep and stretched out in comfort. He stayed inside when it got cold and windy outside. He stopped marking in the house. He stopped going out and getting into fights. He found the cat toy I had left outside and brought it in and jumped up on my sewing table and dropped it in front of me. I told him he was a good kitty.

Eventually he got back to a more normal level of snuggling but I'm so glad I was able to make time for him whenever he wanted those first couple of days. I want to be with my Sweetheart just as much as he wants to curl up with me. I'm so glad he's coming inside where it's safe. 

On Sunday it will have been exactly one week since we gave the kitten back.

On Saturday I'll be presenting a short talk on runic orthography at Pagan Pride Day. I really don't feel like it but this is my job, I'm a priestess and author and I have to show up and do the thing. The past 2 PPDs I have not been mobile enough to walk around much, and this year I'm hoping to be able to go look at the booths. My housemate will be reading tarot, and I'll see a lot of my friends. I'm sure I'll get into it once I'm there. And I'm also sure I'll be glad to pet Sweetheart when I come home.

image: Storm the kitten, photo by Erin Lale