Little Flannery

Last Monday I longed for a relaxing fall break to catch up on school work, my social life and rest to prepare myself for second quarter.

That didn't happen.

Fall break was just one stressful day after another as I made edits to the newspaper (though it isn't close to perfection), graded, graded and graded some more, reunited with friends who I haven't seen in a year and fell in love. Yes, you read correctly. I fell in love this weekend with a tiny, abandoned kitten named Flannery.

Flannery and I graded papers outside on Sunday afternoon.

I had just arrived at a surprise party for my brother-in-law at my dad's farm when my little sister walked up to me with a shaking ball of black and white fluff that was meowing like a broken record. All night, my sister and I checked on the kitten, who ran shakily to anything that moved in the barn and continued to cry helplessly.

After a few hours (it was hard to hold out for so long), I broke down and wrapped the kitten in towels, put her in a box and brought her inside the heated area of the barn. After much persuasion, I convinced my parents to let me take the kitten home for the weekend to nurse her back to health (she had been meowing loudly like that for two days my dad said -- and with no trace of a mother cat returning for her).

Saturday and Sunday passed with feedings every four hours, lots of petting and snuggling and an introduction to my parents' dog, Oscar -- a yappy Yorkie with an attitude problem.

Needless to say I'm exhausted and have grown so attached to Flannery -- named after the novelist Flannery O'Connor whose stories are dark and depressing just like this little kitten's -- that I refuse to let her go back to the farm (my dramatic mind imagines larger Tom cats beating her up). She's become accustom to sleeping on a cozy, dog bed with a heating pad and blankets. High maintenance.

The trouble is, I can't keep her either. Believe me, if I still had a place of my own in Lincoln (this is my last week), I would keep her in a heartbeat. Luckily, it will be a few weeks until she's big enough to jump on things, which is when I was told she has to go. (When Sergio, the cat I had a few years ago, would get mad, he'd stare at you and swat at something he knew you didn't want all over the carpet e.g. juice, pizza, glassware, etc.)

So if anyone has a nice, loving home for a kitten, please let me know. I doubt she'll be as vindictive as Sergio :)

She's getting very rambunctious and loves to
climb on my Asics.