Anne and I rescued a stray today. You might remember that our most recent previous effort went well, and we plan to maintain our 100% success rate.

On Wednesday, Anne went out walking her dog Bailey (our first success story!). As they were returning home, passing the house next door to hers, which has been vacant for a couple of years, they were joined on the walk by a lovely gray tabby cat, who cuddled up to Anne and purred, and accepted food and scritches. Anne could tell she was a stray, probably abandoned, so she called me, knowing I've been miserable in my kittyless state since late January. She explained that she'd found the sweetest, most loving little girl and said, "This may be kismet. You want a kitty, she needs a home."

I asked Alan but he doesn't want another pet and/or a cat. So be it, he's home all day, he's the one that will have to deal with most of...whatever, I get that. But still, we were committed to feeding the baby and keeping her safe while we tried to find her a home, so Anne did what she could.

Then the kitty disappeared for a day, reappearing early this afternoon. We went over to Anne and Rick's house, bearing bags of canned food and some treats, and walked over to her hiding place to give her some food. As she ate, we noticed that one of her back paws was swollen to about 2.5 times the size it should be, so Anne and I sprang into action! It was after both our vets' offices had closed, so Alan and I decided to make our grocery run as planned, giving the kitty time to digest her can, and then return to take her to the emergency vet.

It turns out that she had an abscess on her foot, probably the result of some other animal's bite. She is between six and eight months old, has some mild ear mites but is otherwise healthy. She is currently installed in Anne's sunroom with food, water, treats, a bed and litterbox. Anne and I both want very much to keep her, but both our husbands are steadfastly against it. So a sweet baby needs a forever home!

She is very sweet and loving, obviously used to humans and well socialized. Even after we stuffed her into a plastic box, took her to a strange and scary place where people prodded and hurt her, and took her to another strange scary place with new and strange smells (no, I'm not talking about Anne's husband Rick, I meant their dog Bailey), she purred and purred, and rolled over for us to scratch her tummy. Even with her bum leg, she was leaning so she could rub, rub, rub against our legs, all the while purring loudly to eleven.

At the emergency vet, a lot of the blanks on the form we had to answer with a '?'. Obviously we knew she was a feline, DSH, but her age? Last vaccines? What had actually happened? No clue. Then we got to the blank for 'pet's name' and (hey, we're chicks) we felt so horribly emotional about filling that in with a question mark or a N/A...so Anne asked, "What should we put?"

"Kismet," I answered. "You named her. The night you called me to tell me you'd found her, you said, 'This may be kismet', and so it is. It's Kismet."

This is Kismet. If you can give her a loving, forever home, let us know. But wait, there's more! We will sweeten the deal! I paid for the emergency vet, I'll pay for her visit to our regular vet on Monday for vaccinations, parasite testing, etc., and another animal-loving friend of ours has agreed to cover the costs for her spay! We'll provide a bag of Blue Buffalo kitty-chow and a litterbox - so you can have a total loving, purring snugglebug at little to no initial investment! She only requires lots of love!

And we'll be checking up on you to make sure you give it. It's kind of what we do.