Suddenly, a Visitor

So we had the house open last night, trying to cool it off (the last three days have been BRUTAL), and Pocky started spazzing and barking and running backwards.
I tried to calm her, which really didn't work, so I went out onto the front porch to see what she was losing her mind and nerve about, and I saw...

a kitten.
a tiny little fluffball, about 8 weeks old, trying desperately to cram itself back through our fence and escape into the night.
So of course I ran over and grabbed its back end.
I screamed "help!" and TTK came running...he opens the gate, and grabs the well-equipped front half. And promptly screamed, and bled.

But, he had distracted it long enough that I could scruff it, and disable those formidable needles...still bleeding, ttk got the scruff from me and pulled the kitten the rest of the way through the fence (there was NO way this little demon was going backwards).
This whole time, Pocky had decided it was safe enough by now to come onto the front porch and was barking madly behind us...

So now I have a struggling ball of black-tufted white fur in my hands, and I can feel her (his?) bony little body under all that fluff: so thin!

I carried her into the critter room, grabbing a can of cat food on the way, TTK bleeding along behind me.

"If you've got things under control, I'd like to tend my hand." He gestured, disappearing into the bathroom.

I popped open the can and little demon instantly buried his/her face into the dish...

I decided to solve the mystery and parted fur until I saw...no parts! A girl! Maybe. (It's been a while since I sexed a kitten.)
She never once looked up from the dish--I could feel her sides bulging out as she ate.

Long, soft white dirty fur, with black ears and black blotches on her butt and tail.
Just the mere fact I was able to catch hersays that she wasn't born to a feral mother, and the fact that she's bone thin says she's been away (without?) a home for a while.
It's possible she was dumped here, or perhaps she came from the college students renting the house 2 doors down.
TTK set up a cat carrier with towels for her, in the tub (where else? Everything goes in that tub) and disappeared--out onto the cool porch, I figured. I was a bit occupied, so seeing that he wasn't going to bleed to death was enough for me.

After she ate, I pet her for a while (such a purr!) and picked burrs out of her fur, telling myself the whole time, that we would clean her up, find her owners, and if she had none get her shots, spay her, and adopt her out to someone.
We could NOT keep another cat, I kept telling myself firmly.

Finally, I tucked her into the cat carrier and went out onto the porch.
I guess I had been "kittening" for a while, because when I got outside, TTK held up his Anniversary present...

Scrolling across the screen, in a slow march. was a long message (most of which I've forgotten already): There was something about "SHE HAS TASTED OUR BLOOD" and "I'VE BEEN THINKING OF THE NAMES OF DEMONS..." But the final line got me: "I GUESS THIS IS CAT NUMBER SIX..."
!
It wasn't until we were in bed, about to sleep, that I asked him "Were you serious about keeping her?"
He said, eyes closed, "Ask me tomorrow."
Then a few minutes later he said, "Ginsu."

Great. She now has a name.
The next morning I said, "hmm...eight hundred dollar dog, or free dirty kitten. Guess which one I like more..."
TTK looked at me, a very serious expression on his face, "If we gave Pocky to Momma, and she didn't want to give us Fancy, how would you feel about that?"

My response? "Well, I would be fine. I don't really like having this many dogs--we can't go anywhere without an ordeal."
His response was, "It was worth a try--now we know how much work is involved in more than one dog. And we didn't realize how GOOD Willow was, how well-trained and behaved, until we got these other dogs."
Me--*nod*
He went on, "And I think while Willow has had fun with Fancy here, she is a bit overwhelmed and misses being alone."
So that's that.
Pocky shat all over the house last night, I forgot to mention.
Lovely.
Diarrhea.
Which isn't surprising, because she eats EVERYTHING.
She eats her own shit!

We set her up in a crate last night after she shat up the house, and she settle right in like she was used to it...so the woman we bought her from lied: she wasn't a house dog, she was crated.
Sigh.

BTW, diarrhea is a really damn hard word to spell--I can never remember what letter to double, or where the H goes...I finally came up with a way to remember it: Dia is easy, but then I thought of the bird, a Rhea...that way, I know that RHEA stays together, so the only place to put a double letter is the R. Heh.

Yes, I know about spell-checkers. I like to do it right myself and not have to rely on an outside tool.
So bleah.
And now, I go shower so we can get out of this hotter-than-fuck house and buy an air conditioner.
(I can't believe he finally talked me into it. Well, he and htis 98 degree heat wave, that is...)