She's sassy, she's feisty

she's not a bit shy.

I am referring to the youngest of my four felines, that three-legged charmer named "Thumper."

Thumper is doing very nicely and sends her regards to all that have asked about her. She's adapting quite well to her lack of a right hind leg.

Granted, Thumper tends to run in a sort of loping sideways scamper

not unlike a seafarer deep in his cups.'

I can't count the times that old chantey has run through my head while watching her: "What do you do with a drunken sailor…"

If the Thumpmeister' dressed up for Halloween, she'd definitely sport a single gold earring, a red bandanna atop her head and a parrot on her shoulder.

One of Thumper's nicknames is Kate', as in Katherine Hepburn.

Our kitten has a slight tremor, a la that wonderful actress.

(Thankfully, the tremor's getting better.)

Still, I often expect this slender little black and white kitten to start spouting (with exquisite clenched-jaw diction) lines from Stage Door':

"The calla lilies are in bloom…such a strange flower."

Thumper also reminds me an awful lot of a character in those wonderful old Foghorn Leghorn' cartoons. Y'all remember the chicken hawk, with his aspirations to be a mighty warrior?

With Thumper, the mantra is, "I'm a wild and fearsome jungle cat

I pounce on anything that moves!"

Her three feline siblings, popular targets, sometimes complain to me about this, whin