Cruella Deville

Yesterday we got a good, hard rain so about 8 o'clock last night I went out to work in my front flowerbed. The previous owner had planted ivy and it was starting to choke out some of my other flowers.

I had to pull them out all by hand, so I'm sure I left some of the roots behind. I figure it'll be easier to maintain a little at a time now that its cleaned out. Also, I was without gardening utensils last night, so my bare hands and a too big shovel was the best I had to work with.

I was wanting to post a picture of how much ivy I ripped out, but my camera battery is dead. Sorry! Does that make me a horrible blogger?

While I was out working in the dirt, I proved to my neighbors that I'm a horrible person.

A kitten came into my yard. When the back yard neighbor's cat comes onto our back deck a simple "get outta here" does the trick. (Something poops, tracks mud on our front porch and I'm not a big fan.)

This kitten didn't seem to be affected by it. So I raised my voice. Then I started throwing weeds at it. It wouldn't leave me alone.

So, using my elbow (my hands were covered in red clay) I knocked on the door and told Jay to come out and deal with it. Only when he opened the door, it almost ran into the house.

When he came out with the broom, he got it out of the garage and from under my car and it ran to our front neighbor's yard. The neighbor was sitting on the porch and picked up the cat and immediately started petting it.

So I called over "Is that your cat?"

"No, but its friendly enough."

Yeah, I gathered that when it was sticking to my side like glue no matter what I did.

"Its been declawed, so it must be an indoor cat that accidentally got out."

At the point I feel like a complete idiot. Afraid of a declawed kitten.

I get that people love their animals to the point of even thinking of them like children, but I've never been that person.

Animals are unpredictable, messy, and needy - a combination that doesn't allow me to be a pet owner.

The way the neighbor just picked up the cat and started petting it, he must consider me the neighborhood Cruella Deville.

It was getting dark, so he took the kitten into his home for the night. I really do hope that they are able to find its owner today. And that it leaves me alone as I'm doing more weeding tonight.

Its bad enough that there are all kinds of bugs crawling around in the flowerbed dirt.