Not feeling well. / When I first found those kittens that day, I thought that there was only one -- the black one. And I didn't think much of this kitten, actually, I thought very little of this tiny black kitten. I figured that the mother cat would come and get the kitten, or someone else, and so the kitten would be gone and I would never be concerned with it again. But no one was coming, so I decided to come and get the kitten. So I got ready, and went over there to get the kitten, but only when I came then, I heard another, the grey one. I don't know if they were cold, but they were both soaking wet. I FIGURED THAT I WAS SAVING THEM, but I did not know if I was going to be keeping them at that point. But after awhile, I knew that I wanted to keep them. From almost the beginning, I favored the black one, partly because she was very much like Puddypie, black with white on the face. She had a very cute face; black with a white chin. But I also liked the idea of having a grey cat. It was the coming of Puddypie into my life that taught me that color is not that important {With cats.} These kittens were three firsts for me: 1, The first time that I have ever had a female cat. 2, The first time that I have ever had two cats that were the same age (--from the same litter). 3, The first time that I have ever had three cats at the same time. And I did not mind any of this; I thought it was neat to have a little Puddypie and a grey cat; and I did not mind having females, or having 3 cats. And the kittens were so little that I figured that they needed each other to be each other's companion. When I got them, the kittens were little enough that they could not eat, I needed to hand feed them with an eye dropper. Actually, four firsts: 4, the first time that I had a cat that was so little that I had to hand feed it. A woman at the veterinarian told me that they were "3 to 4 weeks old" (when I got them). In the beginning, they were both quite skinny, and they were both about the same size, but the grey one's head was noticeably larger, so I figured that the grey one was going to grow up to be the larger cat. And they were both covered with fleas. But I noticed early on that there was an important difference between the two: The grey one was not a happy camper. She would not let me hold her in my hands without squirming around to get out and to get turned over. While the black kitten I could hold her upside down in my hands and she had no problem with it. And once in awhile when I had her like that, I would play "patty cake, patty cake" with her paws. She was totally lovable, she had a good attitude, and her wonderful body was very soft and her fur was thin and soft. She was very cute; like a little Puddypie. But her fur was not as black as Puddypie's fur, but she had a white chin, Puddypie's chin is black. And I think her eyes were much prettier than Puddypie's, but I don't remember what color they were. But the grey kitten's fur is rough and thick, and a bit difficult to comb through, but the color is a pretty frosty medium grey. And all grey, with no other color. And the whiskers were very different between the two kittens: The black's was a brite white, but the grey's are so dark and thin that they can hardly be seen As I said, the grey one didn't seem to be as happy as the black. She would be much more serious about getting fed the milk, she would whine and whine when I would be feeding the black , and when I was feeding the grey, the black would only let out a tiny high pitched sound kind of like a car horn every few seconds, while the grey was constantly whining. And in the beginning, the grey was very much a biter. Sometimes she would bite my body all over, from frustration I think, or something bothering her. One night she bit me all over and bit my willy--twice! And the grey one had a trick: She would let out a very loud and very sudden spat, and most of the time she would suddenly lunge forward at the same time. She would do this for no apparent reason, as if something invisible had bit her. Only the first few days did I heat up the milk, then, I think it was when I had some milk out in a bowl for Puddypie that was cold and the black kitten came and licked it up, or something like that, it was when I stopped heating it and fed it to
them cold. And they liked it okay cold, with no problem, or I would have continued to heat it. And I started putting a tiny plastic container of milk inside the cage for them. And very early on, about 3 days after getting them, I started to put a bit of Puddypie's canned food, the "Trader Joe's", in the cage. The black kitten liked it, and would eat some of it, but the grey kitten paid no attention to it. The grey only wanted the milk, but I was annoyed when she kept climbing into Puddypie's cereal bowl and then tipping it off the box, so it would spill. At that early point, she knew that she liked it and wanted to eat it, but she could not, but she kept trying to eat it. She couldn't bite it into small enough









pieces. But the black kitten wasn't relaxed all the time; early on, when waiting to be feed, she would climb up my pant sleeve, usually the left. It would be somewhat annoying, and once, she climbed all the way up to my shirt and started clawing my belly. It was then that it ceased to be amusing and so I started to put a stop to that. And their talents were different; the black kitten was a good climber, and she was the explorer, the grey would attempt to follow her but couldn't at first. It was the black kitten that somehow found a way to climb up and through and around and then up on top of the carpet above their cage to be up there and to get some sunshine. They could not look out any windows. Sometime later the grey kitten followed her up there and so learned from the black. But the grey was good at two things' jumping and running. The grey could do both better than the black. Early on, the grey would suddenly fixate on my face if I looked at her and then she would take a sudden flying leap toward my face! She rarely does that any more. The grey really loved that milk from the eye dropper. Once or twice she started to swallow the eye dropper! They both became good suckers. Some of the time, when I was feeding the grey, her ears would wiggle with a swivel motion, it was very amusing. The same thing would happen with the black, but only once in awhile. In the beginning, from the first night that I got them, they listened to my voice. Then whenever I uttered a sound with my voice, they would go wild over it, like I was their mother calling them for food. After some amount of days, they settled down and then after that they paid no attention to my voice. I would feed them, and then they would disappear: After getting enough milk, they would go and find a place to curl up and go to sleep. Most of the time it would be down on the floor under the cage in the middle room in one of the nooks so they would be totally safe from being stepped on while they slept. If it was during the day, I would need to be careful that they did not disappear so that I could not reach them because I wanted to put them in the cage for the "day" while I was gone. I also put them in the cage when I would go to bed so that they would not be all over and climbing around the place when I slept. They would play furiously, mostly with each other, for awhile, then they would get sleepy. And then they would find a place and curl up and go to sleep. When they would play, it would be mostly play fighting. But the grey one, being the "slow" one, made a sound as if the black was biting her, as if she wanted the black to stop. It was a tiny sound, three times in a row. I've never heard a cat make a sound like that. The black would never make that sound. But they would play, and the grey would be making that sound, as if she wanted the black to stop, but then when the black would stop, the grey would go for some more, as if she was a glutton for punishment. The grey would be on the bottom most of the time, upside down, in the defensive position. From almost the beginning, the black kitten seemed to be more aware and more capable, generally better developed than the grey. (Puddypie a makes 
buzzing noise and I've never heard that from a cat either.) The black was more aware, as if older. She could do more, think better and was more at ease. And she was more careful. The grey was "slow", one night she got her head caught in the refrigerator door, but did not seem to be hurt. And she nearly got stepped on by me because she was very careless. And one day, after I had put my shoes on, I was walking through the middle room of the trailer, walking toward the rear, and she ran as they usually do, and she got under me and then in front of my shoe, and my shoe flung her a ways in front of me and she hit something. Then she laid there a bit, then she got up and shook her head as if she was dazed. But she seemed to be okay. And I was glad that she seemed to be okay. And I was thinking: "Maybe that will teach her to stay out of my way." And I was thinking; "surely, they will soon learn to be careful and to stay out of my way." The black was more careful than the grey, and I was thinking; suppose I did step on one of them, it would be the grey one because she's more careless. And I didn't like the grey one as much as the black. The black was much more loveable. I grew to love them both, but I loved the black more than the grey. But I began to get worried about the
grey; after around 2 weeks, the black kitten was noticeably bigger than the grey. And she was eating the canned food and the grey was not. And she could eat about twice as much as the grey. When the grey could take only 4 or 5 droppers of milk, the black could take 10. I was going to take them into the veterinarian to have them both checked out, and to get an age estimation, but I could not afford the $33. The black was a lot more loveable than the grey, but I did have one problem with her: She got into the habit of urinating around my bed area. But I got after her about it several times and then she did not do it any more. At first, I thought that one was male, and the other female. And I was









going have this checked out at the veterinarian, but after several weeks, it became apparent that they were both females. I had never had any cats this young, and was surprised to find that when they were getting only the milk, their urine had no odor, their poop had no odor, and their mouths had had no odor. It was as if they had new pristine mouths that have not gotten messed up with anything yet. As I said, the grey was a lot rougher than the black, and some of the time, when she would be running, she would make a slight growling sound with her voice. I have never had a cat do that, the black never did that. I did notice one odd thing with the black, it became much more apparent when she got older; she had a very wide space between the eyes. And her chin was very different from Puddypie's chin. Puddypie has a strange bulge on his chin, the black kitten did not, she had a normal chin. Another strange thing about the black kitten, and something that I did not see until after about 3 weeks: There were "new" groups of whiskers coming out of her cheeks, a fairly large clump of maybe 6 or 7 on the left, and a smaller group on the right. It was as if some or her whiskers had been yanked out, and only then they were starting to grow out again, or a group of new whiskers were growing out. I've never seen that on a cat. A few days after I got them, I found a small box inside  my trailer and I put it inside the cage and put part of the old towel inside the small white box and part of the towel outside and over the top of the box, so that they could go in and get cozy and warm. And I was surprised that they took to it and used it time and time again exactly as I had intended. At first I only closed the hatch on the cage. Then after a week or two, one of them (probably the grey, she's the determined one) learned how to get out of the cage. So then after that I started latching the hatch so that they could not get out. I was surprised to see that they would go into the box as if it was their home. I would put them in the cage and it wouldn't be long when they would go into the box and snuggle up together. Then at about two weeks, I began to let them stay out when I went to bed. Some of the time, they would be laying next to me when I was asleep. And I started calling them "The Monkeys", because that's exactly the way that they were behaving! They were crazy some of the time. They would be nice and gentle some of the time and then they would go wild and crazy. From the beginning, they both liked the warm air from the bottom of the refrigerator. After they were no longer paying attention to my voice as I have said, if or when Puddypie would make a sound with his voice, the kittens would then be paying attention to him as if he was their mother. {After I've typed this, it }a It wasn't long until I started to comb them. I got a lot of flea junk out from off of their skin. And I was surprised that my "flea" comb works; I could actually comb out fleas. And after I had gotten out most of the fleas, I was surprised that the kittens were very clean. Much cleaner than Puddypie. I cannot pet Puddypie without getting my hands messy. .......................................................................................
{IN OTHER WORDS, SWANKIE DIED. It was a Friday, and I was in a hurry to get to the library, I was rushing toward the rear of my trailer taking long steps. At this point, both cats were good runners, they were both running up behind me and when I stopped at the middle door, (Swankie was a very good runner by now) Swankie had run up below my foot as it was coming down and stopped. My foot stepped on her chest area, probably crushing her ribs. I tried to take the weight off her body but put it on her head instead, maybe breaking her neck, she made a small sound. So that was the end of my dearest precious, she was in a bad way, she could not move around. I rushed her to a vet, walked in with her, waiting for them to help, and I think it was after that that a woman walked in with a large dog. And the dog kept barking - loudly, it was bothering me, and every time the dog would bark, Swankie wound jerk. I did nothing about it, I VERY MUCH REGRET THAT NOW, MY POOR LITTLE SWANKIE WAS DYING, IT WAS HURTING MY EARS, I KNEW SWANKIE DID NOT LIKE IT, AND THE
STUPID WOMAN DIDN'T HAVE SENSE ENOUGH TO SHUT HER DOG UP! THEY (THE VET) WAS DOING NOTHING TO HELP ME, PRECIOUS TIME WAS PASSING BY, AND I WANTED TO GET AWAY FROM THE BARKING, SO I WENT OUT AND WENT TO ANOTHER NEARBY VET. THEY TOOK HER, DID SOMETHING, BEHIND CLOSED DOORS. THEN CAME OUT AND TOLD ME THAT THERE REALLY WASN'T ANYTHING TO BE DONE TO SAVE HER. DON'T KNOW IF THAT WAS TRUE, BUT I HAD NO MONEY FOR ANYTHING MAJOR ANYWAY. SO I TOOK HER HOME AGAIN, WHERE SHE DIED. FOR MANY YEARS, I HAD MISTAKENLY BELIEVED, THAT IF I ACCIDENTALLY STEPPED ON A CAT, THAT IT WOULDN'T BE HURT MUCH. I LEARNED IN THE WORST POSABLE WAY, THAT I WAS WRONG. IT









WAS A TERRIBLE THING FOR ME, I HAD KILLED MY OWN CAT, AND THE ONE I LOVED THE MOST. I COULD BLAIME HER, FOR BEING CARELESS, BUT SHE WAS ONLY A LITTLE KITTEN, I WAS THE SUPPOSEDLY FAR SMARTER HUMAN, IT WAS MY JOB TO TAKE CARE OF HER. I THOUGHT I WAS SAVING THOSE KITTENS, BY TAKING THEM, BUT I FAILED TO SAVE MY PRECIOUS SWANKIE. AT THIS POINT, I HAD HAD THE KITTENS FOR ONLY 27 DAYS, AND HAD NOT YET GIVIN THEM NAMES, SO I DON'T THINK THAT SWANKIE HAD EVER HEARD HER OWN NAME. IT WAS VERY BAD, BUT WHAT MAKES IT WORSE, IS THAT DAMN WOMAN AND HER DOG, AND THE FACT THAT I DID NOTHING ABOUT IT. IF SWANKIE HAD TO DIE, SHE SHOULD NOT HAVE ALSO BEEN SHOCKED AND TERRIFIED BY A DOG AS SHE WAS HELPLESS AND DYING. I THINK THAT ANYONE  WHO WANTS TO OWN A DOG SHOULD BE REQUIRED TO PASS A TEST IN ORDER TO GET A LICENSE -- LIKE WITH CARS, TO BE ALOUD TO OWN A DOG. THERE'S TOO MANY STUPID DOG OWNERS IN THE WORLD!!! The only good that came from it, is now with Swankie gone, I paid much more attention to Zila...}