Kate's Here for Charlie

Kate arrived last night, by bus and by train, to pick up Charlie.

I picked her up at the bus/train station and we came here to meet him, before she went to her hotel for the night.  He immediately took her lap over! 

Kate adopted Tiny Tim from me ten years ago this coming Halloween.  I was trapping a down town colony when, in the dark, I saw what looked like a cat flopping up the sidewalk.   I trapped him, horrified, under the drop trap.

Tim's knee was blown from an old encounter with a dog.   He'd had to live that way, flopping along.  But his life was about to change.  His leg was amputated.  Which immediately restored his mobility.  Sure he now had only three legs but he didn't seem to notice. And what a sweetheart.

My brother gave me his airline miles for a ticket to Huntington Beach.  I flew Tim down to Kate on Alaska Airlines on Halloween Day.  The stewardess was taken with Tim and upgraded Tim and I to first class and told me I could take Tim out of the carrier and gave me a bottle of wine.  I could have lived on that plane they were so nice.  I could not remember being treated so wonderfully before in my life.

Once in HB with Tim, we took him to Kate's apartment, then since I had 3 hours before the return flight, I had a whirlwind tour of HB.  I even walked the boardwalk made famous in Baywatch, and waded in the Pacific there.  I called it my three hour vacation!  But I remember it like it was yesterday.

Then it was the flight home, this time to Seattle, then boarding a prop plane to Portland and the drive home, along the way I had to pick up a cat from the same place Tim came from, whose foster person no longer wanted her there.

That was ten years ago.  Tim is still alive, an old man now.  And will be joined by sweet Charlie.

Tiny Tim right after amputation surgery