{"id":15571,"date":"2019-08-23T12:01:16","date_gmt":"2019-08-23T16:01:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/lits\/?p=15571"},"modified":"2019-08-23T14:29:12","modified_gmt":"2019-08-23T18:29:12","slug":"pet-of-the-week-kitka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/lits\/2019\/08\/23\/pet-of-the-week-kitka\/","title":{"rendered":"Pet of the Week: Kitka"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"photo<\/a>
Kitka!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cI rescued this tiny kitten from a restaurant parking lot over the weekend. Would you like to come and meet her?\u201d<\/p>\n

This was a former library employee, Martha Ebener<\/strong>, standing at my desk one Monday morning in 2003. Martha knew that I had lost my beloved cat Boris, age 14, to cancer about a year before, and that I was currently cat-less. Martha has an uncanny knack for finding a homeless animal and matching it with someone who may or may not have realized that they needed this animal in their life. I hadn\u2019t really been thinking about getting another cat anytime soon, but agreed to at least go over and have a look.<\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a>
Kitka shares my love of Atlanta United!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A few days later I went over to Martha\u2019s to meet this tiny bundle of joy. And by tiny I do mean tiny<\/em>! She could easily curl up in the palm of your hand and take a nap, which is exactly what she was doing when I arrived. She woke up, and no sooner had Martha set her down on the floor than she climbed up my leg using her razor-sharp kitten claws. Me-OWWWW!!!\u00a0 (That was me, not her.) I guess this was her way of \u201cclaiming\u201d me, by using me as a scratching post. What else could I do but take her home?<\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a>
Lee Meriweather as Kitka.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I named her Kitka, after a character in the 1966 Batman movie starring Adam West and Burt Ward. Miss Kitka was the Russian reporter alter ego of The Catwoman, as played by Lee Meriwether. (It\u2019s a great movie, by the way, featuring all of the classic Batman villains. I have it on DVD if you\u2019d like to borrow it.)<\/p>\n

\"phot<\/a>
Kitka keeps an eye on things.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It took me a minute to become accustomed to having a cat again. A very energetic kitty, she was! I remember sitting on the sofa watching her running around and jumping on things and thinking, \u201cWow, I can\u2019t believe I have a kitten!\u201d Once I kitten-proofed my apartment, all was well.<\/p>\n

Nowadays, at age 16, Kitka is not the jumping bean that she once was. She\u2019s had a few health issues in recent years but seems to be feeling pretty good most of the time. She still greets me at the door when I come home, eager to have her food dish refilled. She still loudly demands that I come over and sit down RIGHT NOW so that she can curl up on my lap and go to sleep. Fortunately she gave up on using my leg as a scratching post long ago!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cI rescued this tiny kitten from a restaurant parking lot over the weekend. Would you like to come and meet her?\u201d This was a former library employee, Martha Ebener, standing at my desk one Monday morning in 2003. Martha knew that I had lost my beloved cat Boris, age 14, to cancer about a year […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2837,"featured_media":15573,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[415,494],"class_list":["post-15571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-staff-bytes","tag-emory-libraries","tag-pet-of-the-week"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/lits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/lits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/lits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/lits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2837"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/lits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15571"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/lits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15571\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15589,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/lits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15571\/revisions\/15589"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/lits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/lits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/lits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/lits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}