Wendy Warms Up

I am delighted to report that Wendy voluntarily jumped on my lap today, purring and asking to be petted. This is what we were hoping for, but not counting on, when we brought her home almost exactly three months ago. In recent days, she's been joining us at the dinner table (keeping a polite distance but also keeping us company), and allowing us to pet her without flinching or cringing (much) as she's lying on the bed. She hangs out with my husband there while he watches football:

She still flees each time we put her food dish on the floor but quickly returns, eyeing us suspiciously. I'm sure that's her mother's early training, and I expect we have at least a few more months ahead of us before we can begin to forget that she was born feral. She is terrified of strangers, for example. We had planned to introduce to her to a variety of cat-minded people when she was still tiny to help her over her fear. But between the calicivirus and the ringworm plague, we've all been in isolation here practically since she arrived. And I continue to feel she's perfectly right to be fearful, given all the nasty medical treatments she's been subjected to almost her entire life. It's a wonder she likes us at all.

So it was a triumph to have her rubbing her face against my hand today, loudly purring, gazing at me with her mysterious amber kitten eyes, her enormous tail swaying over her head like a fluffy parasol.