Subject:   {{{Aunt Suzy}}}
Date:   Mon, 31 Jul 2000  11:37p.m.
From:   Luke Diffenbaugh
Organization:   Luke 23:34
To:  Aunt Suzy

Dear Aunt Suzy,

Boy can I not wait to meet *you*!!  You *really* know how to treat a guy!!  You haven't even met me and you knew *exactly* what I like.

Mummy says you are innately intuitive when it comes to knowing just the perfect gift to boost spirits and create an atmosphere of 'happy feet'.  And having four of them myself I know how important it is to keep them happy as they help boost me to ever increasing heights here at my home which is something that apparently keeps only me happy.

Before I go any further Mummy wants me to explain the delay in letting you know my present arrived.  She never leaves the house apparently - not that I've noticed - and since Daddy works nights arriving home just in time to feed breakfast to me and my sisters, when he stopped to pick up the mail on Friday morning, your package had actually been delivered on Thursday, July 27, 2000 via Priority Mail.

By the time Mummy woke up Daddy was asleep and she wanted the *opening* to be a family affair. Well, Daddy got up late and had to rush to work and somehow the entire day called Saturday disappeared.

Meanwhile, you should know that all this time no one even *told* me that the box on the table was *mine*!!

Finally on Sunday we all gathered on the livingroom floor with Mummy as the director and camera person instructing Daddy to open just one thing at a time to avoid overstimulating me and help me appreciate and enjoy each wrapped item which turned out to be a good idea.  The card was purrrrrrfect!

First I helped unwrap the Garfield rolling cage with a bell inside.  You should have seen me race *that*  around the house startling my more sedate sisters!

Then I opened the sock toy which I immediately picked up in my teeth and carried it upstairs where I keep a stash under the bed.  Sensing by now that this was all about *me*,  I returned right away and batted one rattling ball after the other through every room downstairs.

Then I couldn't believe my eyes and ears as I unwrapped not one, not two, but *three* mice and even Mummy & Daddy were so happy to see that they were not only 3 different colors, but also furry and made noise - my *favorite*.

Mummy said to Daddy, "Can you believe this?!  How could Suzy know he's ignored all the mice here except the two black & white ones that Maxie and Georgy have had for a couple of years that are the same size, furry and rattle?"

Daddy, smiling, said, "I dunno it really is amazing!" and watched me play with each one all by myself tossing each into the air with my teeth and catching them on the way down.  On the rare miss I'd just strut over {you should see me strut, Aunt Suzy - real guy stuff and I'm still just an 18 wk old baby} and pick it up in a paw, fling it toward the ceiling, leaping all four happy feets off the floor for a two-pawed save, kinda like in hockey.

All in all with the director and camera person occasionally asking Daddy to move a little to the right or left, I was given the freedom and encouraged to fully express myself without restraint for almost two hours.  Mummy said it reminded her of interpretive dance.

My performance over I just curled up and slept for hours dreaming of toys and happy kitty feets.

Mummy, who talks alot more than Daddy BTW, said I was plumb tuckered out and her POLK.  Then explained what that meant, as she usually does, that she learned 'plumb tuckered out' from my grandma Esh and that myPapa George, which is what my 1st cousin Todd called him and for whom Georgy is named, used to cuddle her as she was me and say that she was a POLK for "pooped out little kid" and that it applied to me as I was a pooped out little kitten.

Aunt Suzy, sometimes I wish I Mummy would stop talking.  Especially when she uses a deep voice and says, "No."  You seem much more reasonable.  Would you mind asking her to stop that?  I talk alot too I meuw and 'coo' all the time.  If she talked this much when she was a kid, no wonder she was a POLK and Grandma Esh was plumb tuckered out.

Mostly my parents are very patient with me and because Mummy usually uses very, very long sentences like these only when talking to Daddy and just one or a few words with me, I've learned alot of words since they adopted me on July 14th - (my birth mother had feline leukemia).

Here are words I've learned so far:  ball, mousie (mine), toy, up, come on up, down, get down, fish (I love my fishing pole toy), sneeze, vet, pill (I don't like pills), car, birdie, OW!, mouse (Mum's), kitty - and of course, it took me less than a day to know that I am *Luke*.

And now I know Zoe, Aunt Suzy, and Uncle Chuck.  I even know my toys by your name because Mummy will say variations on "Where's Aunt Suzy's mousie, {ball, sock, cage}?"  I always get excited and help her look for them.  Oh, I also know my sister's names, Maxie & Georgy.  They know my name too.  Hope they don't have my number :) !!

Life here is pretty good.  Mummy & Daddy are both very nurturing and protective but quite different.  She talks to me and any critter with a different voice than when she talks to people and his usually stays the same.

Maxie seemed to be warming up to me but today growled, hissed and whapped me just as Georgy usually does and I didn't even *do* anything, honest, I was just walking by.  They are pretty cranky and I just want to be friends and play so basically I am on my own with mostly Mummy who will play with me endlessly and tries to encourage my sisters to join us.  Let me explain the temporary name of my organization before I close.

As you know there is no religious fervor at *this* house.  I've been encouraged to form my own opinions independently as I am by the very nature of my being spiritual and meditate regularly. It looks like I'm napping but I'm meditating.  There are times when my parents don't seem to have any idea what they are about & my sisters don't seem to understand that I am not a threat.  Thus, while I never knew my birth father, this well-known phrase "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do."  Luke 23:34 seemed appropriate for now because I do forgive them every time I hear a "no" or a "hiss".

Mummy says we all need 12 hugs per day for optimum mental health so I'm sending you 24 kisses and 24 hugs, just in case you, Uncle Chuck & Zoe forget occasionally these will always be here for you - unless you delete me.  Oh no!  ^o^

Thank you so much for all my toys!!  I was born on March 26, 2000 if you'd like to note it in your birthday book ^..^ !!

Whisker kisses & love from your nephew,
                                                            Luke

P.S.  Don't forget kitty kisses are the best so without kitty whiskers, just lick Uncle Chuck's chin.  I'm sure he'll like it.  Mummy does and actually licks me back!!  Here's my picture.

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