The Friday before last, the girls and I were going freakin' nuts a little stir crazy after being trapped indoors for several days due to the absolutely insane cold temperatures. Friday was no different, a high, I believe, of -4 was expected with wind chills of up to -35. However, I was going to become an Andrea Yates if I didn't get out of this house with the children. We just couldn't be cooped up any longer ... it just wasn't possible.
A nice little surprise, hubby called about 10am and said he was taking the afternoon off and would join us for an outing to the mall. An hour and a half later, we were sitting in Bennigan's enjoying, or should I say TRYING to enjoy, our lunch. Molly has become a terror the last few times we've gone out to eat. It's not that she is misbehaving, she's not, she's just so LOUD and she points out EVERY.SINGLE.FREAKIN'.THING.
"HORSSSSSEEEYYYY" (Animal Crackers)
"SSSPPPPOOOOOONNNNN!"
"MMMMIIIIILLLLKKKK"
All eyes on us, a few lies comments on how adorable she is and how she is such a happy little girl. Yeah, okay, I know under their breath they are cussing us out for disrupting their quiet, work related lunch meetings. I'm embarrassed, but carry on. I was going to finish my lunch regardless. After all, I was OUT OF THE HOUSE!
In this particular mall, they have a fairly large area set up for small children to run around and play. There are several things for them to snot crawl all over and many other children for them to swap germs interact with. They play, we watch, we leave!
Passing a small store tucked into a corner of the mall, we see several cats in the window. One cat in particular caught my eye. It looked EXACTLY like a cat I had several years ago. My ex-husband got to keep the cat when we divorced, and I missed her like crazy. I eventually got over it, although thought about "My Phoebe" often.
Anyway, this cat in the store front window looked identical to her. I was drawn in. After a few minutes, I decided I must have this cat. The store, was a rescue center. The cats there have all been rescued in some way and were looking for great families to adopt them. How could I walk away? I had some serious persuading to do to bring hubby on board with my enthusiasm, however, nothing a few batted eyelashes wouldn't fix.
It wasn't as easy as 1-2-3 to adopt Rocky, there was an application that needed to be filled out and then presented to a board who would decide if Rocky would be a good fit into our family. There was also another family who already submitted an application to be considered. We didn't tell the boys, as we didn't want them to be too disappointed.
Four days and a few phone calls later, Rocky was ours. We picked him up Tuesday night and he has settled right into our family. Everyone loves him and he seems to be very comfortable here.
Where did Rocky come from? Rock Island, Illinois. He made his way to Iowa on the back of a Goodwill truck? The driver of the truck discovered him, dehydrated and very malnourished, and turned him into the rescue center. He's had a few months of recovery and was ready to be adopted out last week ... and we were right there, at the perfect time, to make him a member of our finally complete family.
