Acorn - Chapter 1:The Early Months

I figured since I talk about my cats so much, I should tell you a little more about them. This is our adorable cat Acorn shortly after we adopted her from the Toledo Humane Society on Setptember 24, 2002. She was just 8 weeks old at the time and teeny tiny. I was 30 years old and overjoyed with finally having my first pet (well, there was Bubbles, the rambunctious goldfish, but he didn't care to be petted, so he doesn't count and then there was the little balloon animal turtle that I nurtured through several tricky months before he lost all of his air, and my personal favorite was the picture of the tiny baby monkey that I clipped from a newspaper and petted every night and then thought that he was actually coming alive because his black fur was coming off on my fingers, but then found out it was just the newsprint rubbing off...but I digress).

So, I had a kitten of my own and was amazed that she was all mine and then she sneezed...and sneezed again and then got sick. So, we went to the vet and he explained that she had an Upper Respiratory Infection which is very common in cats from a shelter and that she will have it all her life and it will be brought on by things such as stress, etc, and it is really just like a cold, HOWEVER, because she was so young and tiny, there was a chance that she would die. Not a good thing for a new pet owner such as myself to hear. Possibly the only thing worse than being a 30 year old that was just told that your first pet might die before you have her a week, is being the husband of a 30 year old that was just told her first pet might die before you have her a week. Daniel handled it well and we made her a bed on a heating pad and convinced her to drink broth and cleaned up after her (she can't hold her broth!) and we prayed, and I cried a little and Acorn got better.

And just so you don't think that I was the only one smitten with Acorn, Daniel spent a day in the garage constructing what we affectionately refer to as the "cat dojo" for little Miss Acorn. It went through 3 re-structurings after the first model wouldn't fit through the door, and the second model was insanely large, and the model that we still have today was still large for kitten, but perfect in the long run. Stay tuned for Chapter 2.