It's Slinky, it's Slinky

We've started calling the mother cat "Slinky." It's not a dignified name by any means, but as a descriptive moniker, it fits the bill. Slinky walks in a permanent, well, slink: her tail tucked neatly between her legs, her back long against the ground. She'll look us right in the eyes, but will run away if we even take a deep breath or open a door suddenly. The key with Slinky is this: no sudden movements or sounds.

Slinky brings her kittens out to nurse by the roses in the backyard. She's dug an underground area for them to live in the earth beneath the porch. Looking through the slats of the bamboo shades, I can see them lying in the sun, the kittens little more than dandelion-heads of fluff against their mother. The kittens' eyes aren't open yet. They're in what my friend calls "the larval stage."

Looking at the new arrivals, it's hard not to feel a mix of happiness and sadness. Who doesn't love kittens, right? They're adorable, even if I can only watch them from afar. But the bigger question is: what are we going to do about these kittens? I watch them, and all I can think about is them eventually getting bigger, multiplying, making more and more and more.