JULY 30, 1999

Tyger's Diary for July 30, 1999
Grrrrrreetings everyone! Welcome to yet another edition of my ramblings about my cats. Today I'm going to take you waaaaay back to the time when I was 11 years old. That was the time when I first met my Brighteyes. Brighteyes was an orange striped tabby female with white paws and a tiny black dot on her lower left lip that I always thought of as a sort of a beauty mark. She was young, but I never really knew her exact age. When she meowed, which was often, she sounded just like she was saying "ow" to me. I was outside playing and wandering around through neighbors' back yards one afternoon, pretending I was in the midst of some sort of cartoon jungle, when I found cat heaven. I entered a yard that was completely filled, I mean FILLED, with cats, dozens and dozens of cats of every kind and color you could think of, everywhere you looked. There were cats under bushes, cats on fences, cats up in trees, cats on the doorsteps, and cats laying all over the yard. It was here that I met a kindly old lady named Mrs. Groves, who owned all the cats, and of course, Brighteyes was one of the cats. I caught Brighteyes one day when she was trying to hide under the vacant house next door. I held her and fed her and we became close friends from then on. I often helped Mrs. Groves take care of the cats. I began to think of Brighteyes as my cat after awhile. I became very attached to her. Mrs. Groves would have given her to me, but our landlord (we were living in California at the time) wouldn't allow us to have any pets. Then one day Brighteyes had a litter of 3 kittens; one orange one like herself, one sandy colored one, and one black one, all with stripes like their mother. I helped Brighteyes give birth. It was the very first time I had ever seen kittens being born. But Mrs. Groves had to move away and I needed a safe place to keep Brighteyes and the kittens. So I took them over to another neighbor, Miss Newton's, house that I had asked permission from to keep them there. However, she wasn't as trustworthy as I thought she was. She had Brighteyes and the kittens taken away to an animal shelter right in front of me, in spite of my rivers of tears. I never saw them again. I cried for days. But I never forgot Brighteyes. She was my first cat and my very best friend. Have a grrrreat weekend everyone and I'll see ya next time! Purring at ya, Tyger