Sunday Vicarious Kitten Blogging

I so wish I'd had a camera on hand, but anyway:

Doing errands, on my way home. On the sidewalk, near the gutter, outside one of the small supermarkets, there is a

teeeeeeeeenny tiiiiiiiiiiiiiny

little black kitten

playing with a weed. Stalky stalky! Pouncey grabby! Bat, bat.

So, I am just standing there with my heart full of brimming luuuvvv and a drop of concern for whether this was someone's baby or a street urchin; and, if the latter, could I?.....should I?...oh, I really can't, but, tsk, it's so little, if it belongs to someone, do they know it's playing outside?

I bend down. Friendly sniffage. So, okay, socialized, must belong to someone. Maybe it's the store cat. Hope so. Batty paws, back at the weed. Heart melts.

I hear, in the wake of some woman marching by, very Margaret Hamilton, flung back at me:

"It probably has rabies."

Not a break in the stride, either. Nice. oh well.

other people are stopping to bask in the kyootness. Someone establishes that yes, it's the, or a, store resident cat, the store cat's kitten. Six weeks old. wuzza.

While I'm trying to ask the guy, who's very friendly but whose English is rather broken, whether it's okay for teeny one to be romping around like that outside,

I mean I think probably yes, it's New York, cats can well take care of themselves, but I am a Concerned Jewish Cat Mother and I Must Know For Sure, and also want to ogle some more,

but so while we're talking, kitten has abandoned the weed and is prancing merrily up the sidewalk. Absolutely fearless. I don't think I've ever seen a cat that small and that, well, bold? and yet completely unwary of people? outside before.

So I'm following this kitten up the sidewalk like a baby duck after its mother, giggling like a little girrrrrrrllll.

It scampers into a dry cleaner's. No concern at all for customers who might step on it. There's a full-length mirror on one wall.

and now this is just completely out of hand, with the cute, because the kitten spots its reflection and starts to do this great kitty Marx Brothers routine: who is that...? that is ANOTHER CAT! is it friendly? Sniff. Cold! Hiss! Arch! Crackle! Bounce around like a jumping bean! Swipe! Tumble over! Shake!--oh, look, a curtain, start to climb--what's THAT, over THERE? --wait! say! WHO IS THAT OTHER CAT? Swat! Bat!

I'm not even pretending to be a customer, of course. guy who runs the place is laughing, customer is cracking up. He whips out a digital camera--"You're taking a picture?" "Oh, I had to," he grins.

Kitten has calmed ever so slightly. I get in a pet. Just a little one. Mrrrrrrr.

Eventually, it is communicated that the lady wants to know if the store knows that it's ten o'clock, do they know where their kitten is? A young boy comes in, and, after only a moment's catch-me-chase-me, scoops it up rather unceremoniously and goes back down the street.

Sap that I am, I follow him back, too.

He gets back to the store's entrance and even less ceremoniously dumps the kitten in the entrance to some kind of cat door--what, he couldn't just bring it in? but so it uses the kitten's entrance, and wanders away out of sight behind the counter.

That's all, really.

now I really really need a camera, finally.

and a KITTENNNNNNNN