This is Grace. I accepted custody of her on August 30, from the Manchester Animal Shelter. She had only been there a week or so, but she had issues. Temperament was not one of them. She was so nondefensive that I suspected she simply had no energy left to object to any invasions of her space. Her jaw had been broken and apparently healed without human intervention. That’s why she has the peculiar sneer-like distortion on her right side (left in the photo). That’s also probably the reason she was so skinny. How long had she been left to her own devices without the ability to use her jaw for eating? She was nothing but skin and bones.

I went to the shelter looking for a deserving cat who would be hard to place, but OK with other cats and dogs in the household. She fills that bill. Unfortunately, during the time between our first visit with her and the date I could bring her home, she contracted an upper respiratory infection and a problem with her eyes. Twice a day, after getting her home, I had to scoop her up and administer eye drops and antibiotic. The hard part came to be finding her.

In the beginning, she didn’t leave the cat carrier I brought her home in and she wasn’t eating. Then she abandoned the carrier to hide out in some dark corner of the room, but was still not eating, Eventually, she discovered that I could not reach her if she hid under the sofa. That became her refuge of choice.

After a few days of this game, I offered her a can of gourmet cat food, in large part because I was worried that her jaw wasn’t up to the job of chewing dry food. She perked right up and lit into it as if it were the first food she had seen in months. Until that moment, I believe she had given up on life altogether.

Now she hangs out in the open, cuddles up with me and purrs. She has befriended the dogs, her cold is gone, and her eyes are getting better after the vet switched from eye drops to an eye ointment, which is easier for me to get into her eyes. She’s not skinny anymore.

But she still has no sense of play. Even the laser beam leaves her cold. Her estimated age was two years, so she should still have some playfulness in her. Too soon, I guess, after whatever traumatic experiences she survived before rescued by the shelter.

When I can get a photo of her with her eyes open, I will post it. Meanwhile, I have started a portrait of one of my other cats, a white goddess named Isis. I have not photographed that yet, and it is not finished, but I am torn between wanting to share it with you and wanting to get this entry posted on Monday per my self-imposed schedule. As you can see, Monday schedule won. Here is a photo of the goddess: