I hate cats...

...but I love this one. Meet "Mad"die ...Maddie because she looks mad all the time. The markings on her face make her look very irritated...so the name seemed to fit. She showed up on my back porch just squawking...about two weeks ago, when Carl was in Oklahoma. I fed her some dog food..I figured she was just passing through, then the next night she came back...then on the following night she came back. When Carl got home he suggested we take her to the barn, perhaps she'd like to be a barn cat with our current barn cat, or maybe she could find a more suitable home...with people who actually like cats. We opened the car door, and the second her tiny paws hit the ground, Trixie (the current resident barn cat) chased her away. We figured she was gone. WRONG! That same night, Maddie was back on our porch. I fed her, and I started looking for her owners. I looked online in the lost and found for the paper, checked bulletin boards, and went down the old dogwood streets that our houses back up to, knocking on doors. No one knew where Maddie came from. So, Maddie is still with us. We've went back and forth on what to do with her...truly, we are not cat people. I grew up with 3 in the house and despise it, but there's something about Maddie...something about the way she needs us; something about the way she picked us instead of us choosing her first....something about the way she came a half mile back from the barn to peek in our back door....need I mention that she's all my favorite colors...orange, black and brown. I'm sold. She's staying. It's up in the air right now as to how much of a "house" cat she will become, but for now, she prowls around the yard and the weeds behind our lot by day, coming briefly to the porch to peek in and say hi, then not back for the evening until about 4. She lays in her basket until about midnight when I put her out and she's waiting at the door the next morning. So, meet Maddie....