{"id":546,"date":"2009-08-22T20:24:48","date_gmt":"2009-08-23T03:24:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/?p=546"},"modified":"2025-11-07T10:31:37","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T17:31:37","slug":"childhood-pets-part-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/?p=546","title":{"rendered":"Childhood Pets… part two"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I was growing up we had one of the coolest cats in the neighborhood.\u00a0 He was a white and tan long hair’d un-fixed male and he was “the” stud on our block.\u00a0\u00a0 My mother caught him hanging around our house mostly starved one day.\u00a0 His fur was so knotted he could barely walk.\u00a0 She caught this wild cat and clipped him and bathed him.\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

As an adult when I remember this story I’d look at her aghast.\u00a0 You caught, clipped and washed a WILD cat?!\u00a0 Were you on valium!\u00a0 “I had sturdy gloves,” she replies.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

The point being she also fed him and he completely adopted us.\u00a0 We called him Cinnamon and he fit right into the family.\u00a0 Although he never boinked Ezzy more than twice because only twice did she ever throw a calico and combine her coloring with his and you got calico.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Cinnamon was mostly an outside cat who just loved being petted.\u00a0 Especially his belly rubbed.\u00a0 Like a dog he loved it sooo much, he’d lie there and let you rub his belly.\u00a0 And if he was sleeping he’d pretty much let you do whatever to him.\u00a0 To get him to “play” I used to tickle his toes and smack at his paws until he’d crack and eye and try to take a swipe at me.\u00a0 After all, I was just another annoying kitten.\u00a0 But it was fun to test my reflexes on him and he never used his claws.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Cinnamon would disappear for weeks sometimes and then appear, clipped and fat with a little blue bow in his fur and we would harass him for hours while he tried to get the bow off.\u00a0 We often wondered who he “sponged” food from on his rounds.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And he fought his territory well.\u00a0 I know I heard it ALL the time!<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Twice he came home with big gaping dog bits out of his fur.\u00a0 I mean BIG.\u00a0 So big that my mother who was getting her RN degree contemplated trying to sew him up.\u00a0 You could see the thin layer of skin holding his insides in… the bite was that deep.\u00a0 But she delayed and delayed and he licked and rested and before we knew it he was healing it fine on his own.\u00a0 He did that twice.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

He was never fixed, never got shots, never had his claws clipped and never got a bath after that first one.\u00a0 And we would all have looked at you like you were crazy if you suggested we “brush” the cat.\u00a0 Like he’d let you!\u00a0 He also never saw the vet, you know… ’cause of the money thing.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Lord only knows how old he was when we got him back when I was around 6 but when I came home from college one summer\u00a0I noticed while he lay sleeping in the sun, the flies were swarming around him.\u00a0 Sure enough a trip to the vet showed his kidneys had failed and he was gently put down.\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

But boy he had a great run as a cat.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I was growing up we had one of the coolest cats in the neighborhood.\u00a0 He was a white and tan long hair’d un-fixed male and he was “the” stud on our block.\u00a0\u00a0 My mother caught him hanging around our … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-just-ramblings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=546"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":588,"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546\/revisions\/588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}