Boy oh Boy, is Bailey ever Back!

We have Bailey back, feisty, sweet personality and all. She looks hilarious -- my friend Lynn calls her Frankenkitty -- but she's definitely her old self again, demanding attention and wanting to be with us. Part of her post-surgical care is massaging the area where the abscess was and where the tubes now protrude from her head. She loves that, partly because it feels like the grooming she misses from Boo I think (yes, he still pretty much ignores her; she neither looks nor smells right yet), but also because it must itch like crazy. What she doesn't like at all is when we inject the iodine solution directly into her wounds. I swear, I can almost hear her complaining, "Pleeeeease stop! I haaaaaate that!"

Yes, I am, in fact, becoming a bit of a "cat lady," huh?

But really, that honor goes to Jean, the most wonderful cat lady of them all (pictured here with Elisabeth and Kat), the owner of Oasis for Animals which is a non-profit pet rescue organization on Whidbey Island in the Puget Sound, from whom we adopted both Boo and Bailey (and Tai before them, bless his little coyote-gotten heart). Both of them would have sure been euthanized if it hadn't been for Jean and her team who travel all over Washington, saving kittens from certain demise in over-crowded and often unsafe and unsanitary shelters. Jean's cats all seem to have unique and very prominent and charming personalities -- every one of them! I'm sure it's a result of the love they feel from Jean from the moment they come into her care.

We visited Jean today at PetSmart, where she brings some of her kitties every Sunday. I am certain that Jean knows and remembers every single kitty that has gone through the doors at Oasis for Animals and that she continues to care deeply for them. After everything Bailey's gone through in the past week, we just had to tell Jean, who of course was all ears -- and all heart!

And we came this close to adopting Humphrey and Bogart, the little guys that Elisabeth and Kat are holding. Only fear of the guys' reaction prevented us from doing so!