Once upon a time, there was a cardboard box.
This cardboard box (of the heavy-duty, corrugated variety–think small appliance, and not shoebox) probably had a great many adventures, and probably held a great many things, before it found itself stranded under a car in the parking lot of a southeast Austin apartment complex. I suspect it was adorned with tape at some point. Given it’s resting location, it was probably used for moving during its lifetime. But on the night of May 8th, 2010, when this box was found under a parked car in southeast Austin, this box was holding kittens.
The kittens (all 5 of them) still had umbilical cords attached, and were rather upset and hungry and tiny and weak when they were found by a kind nursing student, and so were taken in, and, in lieu of a lactating cat, were put on a bottle-feeding regimen (the aforementioned cardboard box was recycled). Over the next 10 days, 3 of the kittens died (side note here: the mortality rate for “bottle babies” is very, very high. Their death can’t be attributed to anything done or not done by the kind nursing student, who was–and is–awesome), and the kind nursing student had to leave Austin for the summer. Oh no! What would become of those other kittens?
Cats would become of those other kittens. Atlanta (a recklessly acrobatic and highly adorable brown tabby) and Hunter (an aggressively affectionate and clumsily athletic black feline) are now just over a year old, and look much more adult than they did when they came into my life at 10 days old. In case you were wondering, kittens are really not that cute at 10 days of age. They are much cuter (and less rat-like) much later.
In 2 days (is it significant that Departure Day is also the anniversary of D-Day?), all 3 of us will start the 30 hour drive to Canada. I’m armed with up-to-date health certificates, tunatreats, and sedatives (to be used PRN), and I thought that you should be armed with some freaking adorable pictures.
Texan Beyond Borders 
love love love em!!!! … also you!!