Handsome Stranger

Like Arnold Schwarzenegger's character in The Villain (1979), Handsome Stranger was named after his father. I stopped for coffee on a dreary late-November night (pouring rain) and the lady behind the counter asked me if I wanted a kitten. "No thanks, I just got one," I replied. Just come and take a look, she said. I had to get down on my knees to reach him from his puddle under the dumpster, where he'd been shivering for at least two nights. I stuffed him into my raincoat pocket and ran home with him (jouncing and mewling) and flung him right into a warm flea bath. I still had some baby rice cereal that I'd bought for Peabo, to mix with a canned kitten food just in case it was too rich for him.

He had an awful eye infection, but within a week of applying the vet's ointment it cleared up. Here he's about 9 weeks old. He snorgles me endlessly.