Mi Chica Chiripa

She lies on my lap as I write. Asleep. Now she stretches backward … falling from chair towards earth. I catch her one-handed and pull her back onto my lap where she wakes and begins to paw the sky, bite her tail, and then … my arm. Ears flatten onto her head and I lower her to the floor. Enough.

Chiripa, a/k/a Stroke of Good Luck, came into our lives unexpectedly. But, then again, maybe she didn’t. Not really. The week before her appearance on January 5, 2010, I’d talked to my sister and a friend about whether I was ready to add a new cat to the household. Was I finished grieving the death of my previous cat, Hiziki?

The weekend prior to Chiripa’s arrival we experienced a fire in our oven due to hardworking mice that carried dog food across the kitchen from dog bowl to inner stove. (See post-fire extinguisher evidence below.) We needed a mouser!

Also, weirdly, the day before we met Chiripa at the Vet Hospital I checked out a book from the library, Mew is for Murder. I wasn’t sure why I chose it. I scanned it first then walked away. Later I returned and carried the book to the check-out desk.

The mystery featured a woman writer who still mourned the death of her cat companion. At an opportune moment, though, she rescued a young kitten…. The plot seemed vaguely familiar.

During Chiripa’s first few days with us I read the book and resonated with the author’s descriptions of kitten behavior. I observed our own little six-week-old displaying strangely familiar behaviors to those of the kitten in the book. And, just like Theda Krakow and her little charge, Musetta, I could feel myself falling under the spell of Chiripa.

Frances and Chiripa:

This little kitten is unbridled joy. She leaps, dashes, and dances across floors and carpeting and climbs, stretches, and scratches her way up chairs, couch, and bed. In extreme play mode she hurdles herself sideways across the floor; her butt end insists on leading the way.

Chiripa's teeny white body is splashed with dramatically positioned black spots on nose, chin, over each eye, on the top of her head extending into each ear, on the back of her rear legs, on her bottom, and along her entire tail. Long white hairs grow out from the black tail and a tiny white tip—reminiscent of a piece of fuzz—graces the very end.

Do I sound like a new mom? I don’t carry photos in my wallet but I do have a few digital shots handy….

We couldn’t be happier with our new little babe who is—once again—sleeping in my lap as I type at my keyboard…. Sorry, folks, our camera skills are still developing (we don't think the flash is working). We'll try again later.