Thursday, June 11, 2009

The Radiator Cat

I somehow seem to be a magnet for bizarre occurrences. Today (Thursday 6/11) while biking to work - heard a loud yowling noise. It disappeared and I thought it was a bird. As I approached one of the stop lights on the UCF campus I heard it again, but still could not figure out where it was coming from. As the light turned green I heard the sound go by me and this time it registered that it was coming from the front of a Hyundai Santa Fe that was driving by.

My next action was kind of funny. I first hauled butt to catch up to the Hyundai - passing it, and then getting between it and the car in front of it. I idenitifed the sound as a cat yowling from the front of the car, so I motioned fractically to get the lady in the car to pull over. She did and she had a small tabby kitten caught between the grill and the car radiator.

Three parking services teams later we were able to safely extract the kitten - which seemed frightened and relieved. We were also able to find the kitten a home ( a few phone calls) and it was off in a box with one of the parking guys. I think they should name it "Lucky"

Bizarre Story Before

It was only about a month before this story that my bike ride home was interrupted by a screech of brakes, as a car just 100 yard in front of me hit a duck. The duck was near dead by the time I arrived, I had to finish it off. The duck had an an entire cadre of about 3 day old ducklings. A few others came to help me catch the ducklings. I was able to catch 5 of them (some folks stayed to try and catch the remaining 3 ducks that had moved into some thick palmettos where I was unable to flush them out).

I put the 5 ducks in my backpack and headed home. The ucks ended up living for 4 weeks in our bathroom, doubling in size about every week. We finally took them to an animal rescue where they are doing very well.

We now (wife and kids) volunteer regularly at the animal rescue feeding the menagerie of animals there. We get to see our rescued ducks too.

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