Mercy, me!

We are currently pet sitting for my mother-in-law's cat, Mercy, while she's in Denver for a long weekend. It's sort of a "test run," and if all goes well we'll have Mercy for the month of April when Mom goes to Turkey to visit Amanada, Dave and Jackson.

Mercy is a very cute, small, and skittish tortoise shell tabby, and for the first two days of her visit we did not see her at all. We have her set up in the finished part of the basement since we don't want to further freak her out with the big overwhelming dog. Yesterday afternoon I started to really become alarmed because I could not find her all day, and she had also not touched her food or used her litter box. Did she crawl up into the furnace? Did she slip into the sewer pipe? Was she somehow crushed by one of the boxes in the basement? Clearly my anxiety about harm befalling one of my children has now extended to a relative stranger of a cat (time to get help?!). But, she ended up making an appearance yesterday evening and spent some quality time getting loving from me and Cameron (under familiar conditions she's a very needed kitty who spends most of her time on Mom's lap). It's Cameron's job to tend to Mercy's needs during her stay at our house. When she comes to stay for a month in April, he will be cat sitting to earn money for his trip.

Having Mercy around is a good trial run for us if we consider getting another cat in the future. Since Bailey left us in July, it's actually been nice just having one pet, although I do dream of a long haired gray kitten (the ones with the yellow eyes). Mark, however, has proclaimed, in his most threatening bravado voice, NO MORE PETS! I'll let him think he's in charge of that for a little while longer...