Welcome to The Quilting Cats Diaries
for Aug 2007

August 4, 2007
In Memorial: Flutterby

Last night I found her near where I store the lawn mower. She was quite still—all huddled up.

This is one time I don't have a picture because I thought I had plenty of time to catch her on the
patio eating with the rest of the group.

From the first time I saw her, I thought she was
a real beauty.

A tabby with lots of white. She had a stripe of white on her face that extended to her belly. Her ears and top of her head was brown tabby that extended over her back and tail. She didn't have mittens, she had go-go boots* that extended all the way up her legs.

She had four of the whitest legs! A real Puss in Boots! She was tiny compared to her litter-mates and delicate looking.

She didn't walk—she bounced! She got her name because she reminded me of a butterfly. It was as if her feet didn't touch the ground when she moved around. She always carried her tail up and just had a happy demeanor. Just flitting through life!

She was eleven weeks old and one day. I only knew her for about eight
of those weeks, when mom finally brought them out from under the shed. She was the bravest one of the litter.

She would let me talk to her and although she scampered off whenever she thought I was too close, she was beginning to recognize her name.

I don't how she got hurt or how long she was injured. I gathered her up and brought her inside to make her comfortable because I could tell she was beyond help when I found her. All I could do was make her comfortable in her last moments.

She was my favorite of all the stray kittens born this year and she never knew how much I cared for her. I only got to pet her for the first time last night when I was comforting her. She will be missed because she was a little bright spot—whether she knew it or not.

So, you never know when you see a stray kitten or cat (so you think), that someone might be caring for it and even though they can't form a physical bond, there is one none the less.

* For those of you who didn't grow up in the 60s: go-go boots
were snow white boots that got their name from a dance craze
called the "Go-Go". They were knee-high boots with a medium
heel and sometimes the "Go-Go" dancers wore them thigh-
high because the fad was part of the mini-skirt and the accent
was on the short skirt and tall boots added to it.

August was a sad month

Not only did we loose Flutter, but a week later her mother disappeared. I have no idea what happened to her, I searched everywhere and never found a sign of what happened to her. I miss her. She was little Tuxedo cat. All black with white markings. Last winter, while she was still a kitten, she could be found playing on top of the old hot tub. I had covered it with a blue tarp and she found that as it shredded there were lots of "strings" to play with. She left behind three tabby marked kittens, Tiny Tim or just Timmy, Jake and Black Jack (so named because he has the Tuxedo markings but is tabby under all the dark hair).

Even though there are plenty of strays, I miss her.