Happy 15th Birthday, Bianca! - By Willie

Bianca was rescued back in 1992. She was a teeny tiny lost kitten wandering in the parking lot of a market in Paso Robles, California. A very nice woman from a very famous California family dynasty whose last name begins with "H" rescued her. (No, not Hilton, but you're very close!) The nice lady is a fur lover times 10 and shared her life with many cats and always traveled with a mini-Schnauzer named Musetta back then. She was also a very frequent guest at The Cypress Inn, Doris Day's Pets Welcome hotel in Carmel-by-the-Sea. (See, Miss Peach! We told you that you'd like this story!) Mosaic Lady was working at the Cypress Inn back in late summer of 1992 when Mrs. H. checked in with tiny Bianca, who she'd already named. (You didn't think this was OUR name, did you??)

Mosaic Lady would check on the kitten whenever Mrs. H. would go out shopping or dining and the next thing we knew...Mrs. H. was asking her to foster the kitten for just a small amount of time while she went to Italy for the month of October. Well, once ML brought Bianca home and got a look at her next to me (I was only 9 months old myself and had only been with ML and crabby Gracie for six months), you can guess the rest, right? Our landlords were not happy with us. And then we found Fred, our guinea pig, and they really hated us, but that's another story for another day. I will tell you that Bianca would sleep in Fred's cage with him and one day when we can get to our old photos we will prove it to you.


Gracie became Bianca's mother and I, her big brother. Bianca has always been the most low maintenance of all of us cats -- the background kitty -- the quiet kitty who demands little. (Except when she's in the car. Then she is the LOUDEST of all kitties.)

When we left Monterey for New Mexico and then onto Colorado, we started adding boy cats...Merlin, Milo and then Walter. Bianca sort of got lost in the shuffle. She stopped sleeping on Mosaic Lady's bed for over ten years. The boys often bullied her and sometimes kept her from her litter box. Bianca slept under a chair for a long time, and started going potty in inappropriate places. Those were very hard years for all of us. No one was very happy in our family!


Right after we moved to North Carolina early this year, Bianca started to get very sick with her hyperthyroid symptoms. Gracie died of the heart disease associated with this so we all knew the signs. (Doesn't Gracie look like a big Sadie?!) Fortunately, the goop that Bianca takes in her ears is working very well, so that is good. And her heart is not damaged like Gracie's was when the disease was discovered. Even though Mosaic Lady would love to add some fresh fur to our family now that we are down to just three cats, she's being uncharacteristically deliberate and thoughtful about this issue. What we mean by that is that she has not gone out and picked a new fur (yet), even though she thinks of it every day and has a list of possible kitties to adopt! Bianca now sleeps with Mosaic Lady every night, and has taken over Walter's spot on the bed pillows during the day. This seems very important to Bianca, to reclaim her position in the family again. And so for right now, we are honoring that. And today we are honoring her.

We celebrate Bianca's birthday on August 3rd because it is also the birthday of Mosaic Lady's father, who art in heaven. It's really cool that it's on a Friday this year so that we can celebrate with all of our wonderful new friends at Weekend Cat Blogging, hosted this weekend by the very exotic boo_licious at masak-masak. They are in Malaysia! That is a long way from Carmel-by-the-Sea!!