"Being a Mother doesn't mean being related to something by blood. It means loving something unconditionally with all of your heart."
The back cushion of the couch is still dented from where she would jump off the counter after eating. She would run wild and bank off the furniture...dig on the corners like she was shreading the couch even though she had long been without claws...lucky for Roger. I would hear a squeaky sound from another room and come in to find her scratching on the tire of my bike, making cat music. Sometimes her meows would get stuck and last for atleast 10 seconds. She bailed off the second floor balcony twice... one time she was gone for 2 days. Just when I called Scott over to help me find her (I was convinced she had hidden and died in the house) he opens the front door and calls me to come see who was sitting on my porch. She came running in demanding some food. She could punch roger in the face from standing underneath him, which is where she would wind up most of the time as he danced excited all over and around her. I wonder how many times he got slapped by her....and still never understood the look she was giving meant an ass kicking was headed his way. As much abuse as she dealt out to him he always watched out for her. One time she got outside and Roger was going nuts running from me to the car and barking like crazy...he had hemmed her up under the car and was freaking out cause he knew she wasn't supposed to be outside. She would stand on her back feet and dig at your waist to be held and as soon as you would pick her up she would drop her head to butt it into me...it was her way of kissing...I would make the clicky sounds on the top of her head and she would wrap her little paws around my shoulder like a hug. That clicky sound is how I called her and Roger when they were little and she never would respond to anyone using "kitty kitty" on her.
Carletta came from a neighbor of a friend...they had a calico kitten they wanted to get rid of but when I got there to pick it up they had changed their mind to keep that one but wanted to give away the little black kitty. They told me the calico was a bit bitchy but the black one was a sweetie, so I took her. She was named in the drive thru of the Kentucy Fried Chicken in Kings Mountain. I remember leaning upside down to ask her if she liked Carletta or Carlitta better. She was under the back seat of the van hunkered down...she never did like being in the car. I can see her just like it happened yesterday...its funny how our minds freeze certain moments for us. She opted for Carletta because Carlitta sounded a little trashy and a touch hispanic. I can't even fathom the number of times over the last 18 1/2 years of everydays that I've said that name. I called her Leetle Gurl and picked on her about her dangle belly as she got older...when she would run it would swing side to side. She has been the only constant thing in my adult life outside of her little brother. She was with me through all the good times and bad stuff and moving and breakups. She never got nervous when boxes started packing the way Roger does...she would raise hell from the kitty carrier on the ride to the new place but as soon as I opened the door she would scout out the new place for sunny nap spots and locate the closest heater vent to lay on. She loved laying on the balcony in the sun or in front of the sliding glass door looking out. one time she had a relationship with a lizard that would come hang out on the glass door everyday with her...she would put her paw on the glass where he was then fall asleep in the sun. We use to living room dance when Roger was a puppy...Carletta and Butthead and him...the two waiting for their next dance would sit patiently around me while I spun and sang to whichever I had in my arms. She thought that if you were sitting she had to do her best to hold you down in case gravity wasn't enough. She was the lovingest sweetest little girl I could have asked for. Roger was the only one that could ever bring a grump out of her...she would look at him like he was a big dumb dog but would make biscuits on his fur when he laid down. Her biscuits were brutal for no bigger than she was...I use to rub her little shoulder blades and it would make her ease up on the spastic biscuits. She made her last biscuit on my arm a few days ago. Her last day she didn't pur...I use to say to her..."I hear that little motor boat running"...she had the loudest purs. I would wake at night to a pur on the left ...next time it would be on the otherside and the next down at the foot. She loved to be held in my crook of my arm for naps...she would fall so hard to sleep that she would be limp and you couldn't make her move, I've even stood her up and she still stayed asleep...or it could've been a ploy. I spent her last night with her in the closet floor, I slept beside her on Rogers bed. I wish I had held her more and loved on her more and fussed less when she meowed at the top of her lungs for more milk. As I held her at the vet's office for her last few minutes, I cried into her fur and told her I loved her and breathed in her smell...I hope she knew that she was so loved. That night she sent me the most beautiful sunset...it was as if she wanted me to know she got there ok. I got her ashes back and a card with her tiny little paw print and some of her fur...it smells like her. It feels better having her back home with me and I will forever talk to her like a crazy old cat lady. Her little milk bowl will go back to being my salsa dish but Carletta will always have a little sunny corner in my heart all to herself.
This is from sometime around 1995 when both of us were babies.
Carletta giving me one of her head butt hugs on my 30th birthday.
This is how they woke me up every morning...it would reach a level of near frantic if I tired to ignore them.
Carletta being the lap cat that she loved being.
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