Guest Star: A Mouse? Nope, Paul the Cat!

By Colleen Murphy:

This is a short story of how we came to have the pleasure of sharing our home with Paul.

Back in the spring of 2015 I was working part time serving samples at local grocery stores. On a Saturday afternoon I was coming home from working and I saw what I took to be a mouse run across four lanes of busy highway and make it to the other side. I glanced one last time and saw the legs were sort of spread apart and the tail was sticking straight up. To my horror I realized it was a very small kitten.

I got home and told my husband that I’d seen the kitten and was going to try to rescue it. My husband is an angel and offered to come with me. We walked all along the green belt next to the highway which also was next to a large culvert/ditch. This was a weekend in May that was forecast to have a terrible rain storm. I knew this rain storm was coming within a couple of days and it was supposed to be a gully washer.

We saw the kitten dash by twice but as it was feral would not let us get near it. We borrowed a cage trap from a friend, put a little soft food in it and left it overnight. After a sleepless night, we went back early the next morning and it was already starting to rain. The food was untouched and the trap was empty.

We walked up and down the green belt pushing aside brush and looking as thoroughly as we could but saw no trace of the kitten. It was starting to rain heavier and we knew this was going to be a major weather event and the kitten could very possibly be drowned because the culvert would fill up with water runoff from the highway. We sadly had to accept that we couldn’t find a kitten.

My husband was headed back to our car and I was walking behind him. Just as one last bit of desperation I meowed very loudly a couple of times. To my surprise I heard a tiny baby kitten meow answer me from the thick brush.

There was no path or trail, I started pushing aside scrubby brush, cactus and tall weeds and headed towards the tiny meow. Lo and behold, up ahead of me I saw hunkered down, soaking wet and filthy kitten!

I grabbed the kitten without losing my balance and carefully made my way back through the brush.
My husband had no idea I was doing this as he had already headed back to the car and the roar of traffic prevented him from hearing me.

I came out of the brush holding the kitten and my husband took this picture at that exact moment. You can see my arm is bleeding and there are bits of stickers in my arms. But I got the kitten!

Giving Paul a bottle before his bath when we brought him home.

We got in the car, all of us soaked to the bone and determined our baby was a boy! We have always loved mayor Adam West character in Family Guy cartoon (R.I.P. Adam West). There is an episode where he has a cat named Paul and laughs that it’s such a ridiculous name for a cat. So we named our new kitten Paul.

Paul is the most expressive cat I have ever known. We have a 20 year old girl kitty name Mitty who has one facial expression whether she’s happy sad or sleepy.

Of course he owns the place and keeps Mitty in line, but he also looks after her and keeps an eye on her when I let her out on the back patio.

Paul is now seven and I hope we get to share at least another seven more years with the sweet boy.
We put some effort into rescuing this baby cat but he has richly blessed our lives and we love him so much.

Ever photogenic Paul in his Viking cap

Paul guarding and chewing on Christmas presents- 2021

Happy fat boy taking a nap on my lap.

My 20 year old – Queen Mitty

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