She Calls Me Mozart. Whatever.

She calls me Mozart because I moved in officially during a PBS televised production of The Magic Flute and she likes to joke that she couldn't call me Puccini.

Whatever.

I pegged her in first thing. She had this really old big dog who looked as though he could still eat me.

But I saw something else. He was so old he was going to cross over the Rainbow Bridge pretty soon, and hey, I needed a home, ya know, so I just started watching them.

She was putting out food for the free cats but she hadn't really noticed me because I was careful not to be seen. I'd been burned before, ya know?

Who cares what my 'real' name is, was? I was born, and the whole litter of us and our mother were dumped in a box at the shelter.

The shelter was a shelter, OK? Not good and I don't like to remember all the stuff that happened there so I don't. I just don't. Especially now that I have been living with her since April. Living with her has pretty well wiped out the hurt of the memories, and the things I went through after my so-called adoption, YEESH! The stuff I had to do to survive!

But sometimes, well sometimes it still shows. Today, the 15th of July, I finally figured out there is a bowl just for me with water in it. I don't have to hope some water stays in the kitchen sink for me to lick up-she has been putting water in the other bowl, the one she keeps putting by the food-hey, I am not gonna miss the food, OK? But the water is so clean I really did not know it was there!

She splashed some at me, and I almost fell off of the top of the dryer where she keeps my food in my surprise-HUH, ya mean there's water for me in that bowl?! I drank half the bowl right down. I was so embarrassed, but OMGsh, it just tasted so GOOD and so CLEAN! Here all this time I thought it was just an extra bowl, for um, I don't know, whatever. Swear to Nubis, I thought it was empty.

You don't want to know why I never thought there would be a bowl of water just for me that was clean, not muddy or worse.

I was just a fluffy little Ginger boy when they stuck a gosh awful lot of needles in me, and I even had to be (oh dear, the horror) to be neutered. But I was all good, because they kept telling me that I was such a cute little thing I was sure to find a really good home.

Yeah, right.

Well, I did, didn't I, in the end? Or was it really the beginning?

Whatever.

What happened was this-yeah, I got adopted all right, and the people who adopted me from the shelter wrapped a damn collar around my neck (that thank Nubis was just loose enough and cheap enough that I eventually got it off before it choked the last life right out of my little, scrawny, STARVING little Ginger body after they moved away-without me!). They told the shelter all kinds of lies about how great my new life was gonna be, and how they would keep me inside the house and I was gonna even get to sleep on the little girl's bed.

BUT, when we got 'home' and I'm still thinking maybe things are gonna be great, they all go inside and slam the door in my face, and I am lucky if I get a handful of cheap (even cheaper than at the shelter) kibble flung out of their door now and again. Because they think cats should be outside. Always. No exceptions.

Oh, yeah, I was watching her alright. Every other week she brought home this ginormus sack of premium dog kibble-I could smell it and it was so premium I would have eaten eat if I'd got a chance. I hated that about me, that I would salivate watching this big sack of dog food going in the door.

That dog had it made. I hated him, I envied him, and I wished he would let me move in while he was still alive, because I could tell she loved him, and he loved her, and hey, even living inside, dogs that big don't live as long as he had without having a really, really good home. I knew he had been brought home as a puppy and had never ever known a bad day. I knew he had never seen the inside of a shelter, or gone hungry-oh Hell no, she looked like the type who would go hungry so he could eat.

My kind of two-leg. She had this nasty old dog inside the house, but she wouldn't let him eat the cats she was feeding, and she brought blankits out and boxes for the free cats, too. She even talked to the free cats.

I wanted to move in to her house-I'm not stupid, I know those free cats aren't free, and I just waited and watched, and tell you the truth when the people who'd adopted me from the shelter moved out a month after moving in, and left me there in the middle of winter it really didn't hurt too much. Honest. I had bigger and better plans. But I am getting ahead of myself.

The dog, she called him Gator. I know about alligators, so I stayed out of his reach. Even after he started noticing me and not letting her know I was there. He would look at me hiding (oh jeez, I was so pathetic) under the car and pretend not to notice me. Or he would just sit down and look at me with this look in his eyes, and I've come to think he was trying to tell me it was OK.

It was so cold, and I was so hungry, and thirsty.

And then he died.