The lean bedraggled one

Our family adopted a stray kitten about a year and a half ago. She was too cute to pass up. She slept on our porch each night and every day when we got home from work she was outside ready to play. We swore that after our previous two cats died we would never have another one. I couldn't help myself, I fed her.

We named her Beline Autumn. Autumn because she is orange and brown and black and Beline because, well, are you ready for this? My husband is a nerd. You see, he enjoys watching a little television show called, Star Trek: The animated series. It's completely nerdy and it puts you to sleep right away (which is probably why he enjoys watching it). When we were trying to think of a name he said, "she kind of looks like this cat-human thing on Star Trek: The animated series who is named Beline the draggled one."

I liked it, it seemed to fit. So that's what we called her. Then it was time to take her to be vaccinated and "fixed" and I had no idea how to spell her name so I put the Star Trek disc in with the episode starring this character and turn on the subtitles. To my surprise the characters' name wasn't Beline the draggled one, but The Lean Bedraggled One.

She is still known as Beline some of the time. Mostly we call her Belinee. She plays fetch and eats a lot. She is gigantic. And she tries every tactic in the book to wake us at 5am to feed her (because she seriously just might be starving to death and we wouldn't even know it). She jumps, very loudly, from the bedside table to the floor over and over again. Then she rattles the garbage can. Then she jumps on the bed purring loudly. Then she might rattle the window shades (this is a new one she has discovered and the one that irritates me the most). Lucky for her I'm a light sleeper or she might wither away into nothing.