The Whiskered Boy

Day 36: It was a long way to Tipperary. After losing a new kitten during a routine surgery in January 2009, I was devastated. Although I didn't feel I was ready, friends who had seen the change in me wrought by playful, loving little Harry Dickens insisted, "You have to get a kitten now, Crow. Listen to us." Skunk, my older kitty, also seemed to be in mourning. Oh, she'd spat and hissed at Harry enough times to establish that she was queen of the domain, but I'd also caught the two of them curled up together. For her sake and for what my friends assured me was mine, I went kitten-hunting less than a month from Harry's untimely death.

My first attempts took me to various pet stores. Kittens were not to be had, only fully grown cats. The humane society told me I'd come in the wrong season. No kittens. I expanded my search to the next county, to newspapers and bulletin boards. No kittens. I kept saying to myself, "It used to be you'd find kids with boxes of kittens out in front of every grocery store. What's going on here?"

A friend was in town from Chicago, staying at his second home on Whidbey Island. I went up to visit him and discovered that my other friends had contrived a plan: I was not to go home without a kitten if there was one to be had in all of Western Washington.

Well, to cut the story short by a full day's hunting, we eventually found my sweet little Boy at a cat rescue facility in Kirkland. Tip for short, his full name is Tipperary...because as the lyrics to the song tell, it was "a long way to Tipperary...a long, long way to go."