Walls in France: A new family member

Kathleen's 11th birthday was yesterday and on Friday afternoon, she received an early birthday present and according to her “the best present ever”...a kitten! Bucky and I had been talking about getting a kitten for Kathleen and decided that it would be nice to give her one for her birthday. Bucky posted “wanted” ads at the boulangerie and the press, but had no luck. I searched the classifieds on the internet, but found only expensive, pure bred kittens for sale. On Friday, Tutu, Bucky and I checked out an animal refuge in Les Baux, but only found mature cats and lots and lots of dogs. In a last ditch effort, I went online via my iphone to search the classifieds again and found a new ad for kittens. I called immediately and the man who answered said that he had one kitten left. He said she was female, eight weeks old and had already gotten her shots and microchip. He was located in Arles so I got the address and we dashed off to Arles. En route, we talked about “the possibility” of coming home with a kitten, but we all really knew that we wouldn't be able to resist! Of course, it was love at first sight and we knew that she was just waiting for Kathleen!

On our way home with the precious little bundle of fur, we came up with a plan…we decided that we would have to keep the kitten hidden from Kathleen until Lucie came home. We wanted Lucie to be in on the surprise and we only had about an hour to kill. We sequestered the kitten (comfortably) in the garage and made lots of noise to muffle the meowing. Luckily, Kathleen wanted to watch a movie up in Lucie’s room, so that kept her busy. Meanwhile, Tutu, Bucky and I watched the minutes tick by on the clock waiting for Lucie. The second she got home, I told her the news and whisked her into the garage to meet our new family member. She picked her up, we called for Kathleen to come down and boy was she surprised!

Kathleen named her a very Provencal name, Fanny, which is perfect! She is sweet and feisty, has lots of energy and jumps and jumps and jumps! Kathleen dotes on her of course, (actually, we all do!) and Fanny loves her right back. We are all so excited about Fanny and so glad that she is part of our family!