Where in the World is Rebecca Today?

My mom texted Tim last night to have him tell me she was taking my beloved kitty, Will, to the vet. They thought he had a urine infection possibly.

From what I know, his bladder was swollen so badly it caused him to have a heart attack right on the vet’s table. Mom was with him.

I got Will in January 2004. I just decided that I really wanted to have a cat of my own, and so we went off to the humane society in Lancaster, PA. They had two kittens in their kitten room. One was a white girl kitten who was skittish and hid from me in the play room, and the other was Will. He craweled all over me and perched on my shoulder, and I just knew he was the right kitten for me. The vet estimated he was only about 4 or 5 weeks old, so that puts his birthday somewhere around the end of November 2003/beginning of December. I always said that January 3 was his birthday .

Will originally got his name from Will of Will & Grace….and he would actually watch Will & Grace with me and anytime someone said “Will”, he would look up. He also gained nicknames, like William Shakespeare (espcially after I heard the Arrogant Worms Song “William Shakespeare’s in my Cat”), and even Prince William on occasion.

He was a special kitty. I still remember when he was a kitten and I couldn’t find him anywhere in my apartment…..and then I opened the fridge. He had managed to climb into the fridge while I had been preparing my dinner!

He was a curious and friendly cat. Will expected everyone who walked through the door to greet him and rub his tummy. If you didn’t, he would make sure to rub up against your legs and bother you until you did. He worked better than a doorbell for alerting us to people! He needed to know what you were doing, watching, reading, or eating…he even drank green tea on a few occasions — but no other “people food”. He never begged for food from the table, he just wanted to see what you were eating.

He knew when I was upset and would come and lay down next to me as if to say “it’ll be alright”. When I missed Tim and would be crying, Will was there. If Mom and I were on video chat with each other and Will heard my voice, he came over to “see” me and would try to lick the webcam.

I was looking forward to the day when we could finally move Will over to the UK so he could join us here. I’m going to miss him a lot….that crazy little furball meant the world to me.

Rest in Peace, my brave kitty.

Will
3 Jan 2004 – 13 May 2011

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I seem to have a knack for attracting wildlife into our house.

Remember the frog in the house when I was a visitor? Back in August, we had another frog in the entry way. That one I accidentally shut the front door on! But don’t worry, he was okay. I just opened the door, and he hopped away.

Then, there are the slugs. I think we’ve had 3 or 4 slugs wander in through the crack under the front door this Autumn. Again, no harm done. Just scoop them up into a bin and toss them back outside.

But recently, I had two different wildlife visitors….

It was towards the end of September, and we started closing some of the windows. I was headed up the stairs with a load full of clean clothing when I saw something red flapping in the guest room. Our guest room is right at the top of the steps, and you can see out of the guest room window as you get closer to the top, so I just thought I saw a bird fly too close to the window. I put the laundry in our bedroom and went to go back downstairs, when I saw the flap again. On further inspection, it turned out to be a butterfly!

Getting the butterfly out was pretty easy, I just reached around it and opened the window and watched it fly away.

Our most recent visitor….well, it took a little bit of effort.

A few days ago I heard flapping coming from inside the wall. I told Tim, and he said that sometimes a bird will put it’s nest in the chimney or fly down and not to worry about it, because it would get itself out eventually.

We have an Esse stove (currently not in use). It’s a solid-fuel stove from the 1950s and I know I’ll have more to say about it after I start using it, but it has it’s own chimney and a little flue box on the top of the stove. Yesterday, I swore I saw a wing in there, but when Tim looked, he didn’t see anything.

This morning, the flapping became worse and I heard a metallic sound. I’m not sure how to describe it, only that I thought the neighbour was out cleaning his gutters because it sort of sounded like a ladder. Again, we ignored it….until I walked into the kitchen to make Lunch.

What did I see?

Yes, that’s a bird, and he’s inside my stove. My stove looks a little like this:
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only it’s not blue and has the boxy thing all the way over on the right. Inside that boxy thing? Was where the bird was!

Fortunately, Tim was able to open it up and catch the bird to release it outside, and we watched it fly up to the top of our apple tree.

[*Stove photo from Kernow Coal Fires]

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Since I promised I would blog about this…

My friend Lynne had some lamb visitors at her house a few weeks ago. Her daughter’s husband raises lambs, and these were lambs that were rejected by the mother. Since they were all visiting Lynne this weekend, the lambs had to come along, too. Mom and I got to feed them their dinner!

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[This entry refers to an event from March 2009. As requested, I will be going back and blogging events from January - April.]

Tim’s cat, Prudence, likes to be outside when there are people around. She also likes to walk around on the garden rail tracks:

Watch out for the that train!

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