The foster kitty, Ellie today.

Her foster mom, Jen, also fostered Artie.  Here is her back story as close I can remember.

Jen saw her posted on FB in late spring in a S. Kentucky shelter (about 6-7 hours away from here.) She was in pretty bad shape, missing hair along her spine, open sores on her back and pretty shut down.

People were commenting: "Oh, shucks, I'm 2 hours away or I'd get her...."  Now 2 hours for us is not that big of a drive but obviously for some folks it was too far.

 (And to think I went to Florida to get my German Pinscher. Interesting.)

Her face haunted Jen and she decided to help. With the help of some local folks who do transport, Butterscotch (Or Butterball or Butter-something), as she was known, was transported from KY to Akron, Ohio. Jen renamed her Eliana which is Hebrew for "God called me."

Jen got her back in shape but her Resident Bengal female was not willing to share Mom. There were some duke-it-ups.  Jen posted on FB and asked around if someone could foster or adopt her as she loves attention and truly is a very sweet cat.

I decided, ah, what the heck, we can close off our basement which is also Marty's hang-out.  We'll take her. If it really sucks, we can always give her back to Jen.  She'll do right by her of course.

She sounds sweet and since Rufus, our black kitty, whom the Spousal Unit picked out, by the way,  is a total Momma's boy maybe this cat can be the SU's buddy.

Jen brought her over Tuesday (Nov. 12th).  She settled in immediately, ate right away, used her box etc. That evening, she schmoozed up to the SU.

Here's where it gets kind of weird for those who know all about our years of Step-Cat Drama.

Ellie isn't in my basement for two hours when I get a phone call from the step-kid with a true cat disaster. It almost always IS a disaster for a wide variety of reasons.  Not the least of which is "Waiting until things have gotten so crappy..."

For those of you new-to-the-drama folks, we harbored her 2 cats for FIVE years, they left with her, came back, left, came back plus one and finally left.  The coming-back times were NOT good: expensive, stressful, etc. I spent much of that time angry, resentful and bitter because I was the care-giver and I didn't want to do that, quite frankly.  We are not a boarding kennel.

Long, long story.

The spousal unit and I decided earlier this year: "If they ever come back, that's it.  They are ours and they won't be leaving." But we really felt that their parent needed to pony up and take care of her critters. Cigarettes vs. Cat Food?  Really?  It's fascinating what people's priorities are.

When Ellie arrived for fostering, she created the perfect excuse for us NOT taking back the step-cats.  "Oh, we can't take in your extremely sick cats with fleas because we have an older foster and she comes first."

Now I know that sounds incredibly selfish, cynical and sad.  I feel bad,  I really do. I feel terrible that one of the Step-Cat's, little Dink, went to the Rainbow Bridge early Wednesday morning.  I vacillated about whether or not we could put the other two cats in the attic.  How much of this is pity for the cats or enabling?

No matter how this shakes down with Ellie; whether she's a foster or a family member, I think she might have been a most timely gift.  Her presence helped me to say, "No."

October 2017.  Alas, we had to put our darling girl down and send her to the Rainbow Bridge.  Her body just gave out.  Broke our hearts.