Hey, Kitty Kitty...

My friend (from Qasi*d) and I both used to live in Abu Riyadh’s building. A while ago, Abu Riyadh’s granddaughter brought a kitten to live in his house. It wasn’t a street cat but it was born to a house cat. It was such a wee little playful thing, and I used to play with it when we visited Abu Riyadh. His wife didn’t like the cat so the granddaughter told me I could take it. Ecstatically I took her in. Those few days with the kitty were great as we were never allowed to have pets (well, furry pets) in my parent’s house. I called her Princess or Rania, depending on my mood. I also used to address her in Arabic (she’s a Jordanian cat, duh!) and say, “Shu biddik, bissa?” (what do you want, kitty?). She used to reply by jumping on my shoulders and head and licking my fingers :)

However, Siraj’s cat allergies made it difficult to keep her because he was always sidestepping it and pushing it away if it tried to come close. So I gave it to my neighbor from the States.

She kept the cat until it grew into quite a big one (6 months), and started to get a little antsy in the house. She became like a really spoiled teen who was desperate to get out and be with her “friends” the alley cats (ahem, the boy alley cats).

This got to the point where whenever my friend would open the window the cat would be jumping at it, desperate to get out. Now obviously my friend did not want any alliances with street cats to lead to her cat getting diseases or fleas from the alley cats. So its understandable why she didn’t let her out. At the same time she didn’t want to have her “fixed” because that sometimes leads to other issues with the cats like moodiness and whatnot (early cat menopause?).

Well, the inevitable was bound to happen. Unseen by her owner, the cat escaped one day only to be found by my friend’s brother when he was coming home an hour or so later. But it was too late--the deed was done. He chased off her “friend”, a white alley cat, and brought her in. She’s now a much happier--and much heavier--cat, with a massive pregnant belly.

My friend’s husband wasn’t too happy about the episode. In fact, story has it that he stuck his head out the window at the Romeo on the street and yelled at him: “You just wanna use my baby and then leave her! Who do you think brings her food every day, huh? Huh?”

We still laugh over the episode, and have classed it in our list of life’s strange yet-true talk-show type themes: “Tune in next week for...Kids having kids! Where is society coming to, folks?”
So anyway, now my young friend is a soon-to-be grandma! Isn’t that exciting??