As I feared, Princess was (or got) pregnant (I’m not an expert on the cat gestation periods). I noticed how she was ballooning up in March and had to adjust her gait while straddling the fence separating the yards. Then one day, Princess was thinner yet continued to drop by to mooch. Obviously she gave birth but we just left it at that.
Today there was a downpour. Somara and I were caught in it shopping for supplies at Costco. Upon coming home, Princess appeared at the front door, doing her usual “I’m cute, please feed me!” routine. While I retrieved a handful of food I heard the offspring mixed in with nearby birds. “They’re pretty loud,” was my reaction…until I saw a kitten in the bushes. This would explain why Princess often springs out of “the jungle” known as the back yard.
Somara braved the rosebush and brambles to retrieve the four kittens while I was setting up nicer, warmer accommodations. They’re a mess. All are covered with burrs, some dirt and crawling with fleas. We’re due for an immediate trip to Petsmart to inoculate Molly, Miette, Nemo and Kuroneko. On the other hand, they’re darlings. I can’t tell how old they are but they’re still in the blue-eyed stage. The white one is the only male, unless I’m dead wrong on determining their genders.
I’ll try not to get too attached. I think they do deserve “working” names. Their future owners are free to change them. We did the same with Kuroneko.
The only reason we changed Kuroneko’s name was the shelter named her Juicy. It wouldn’t have been a horrible name, except that she felt the need to live up to it; and living up to kuroneko is a lot less messy than “juicy” (luckily, we figured out what was creating the “juicy” condition pretty quickly).