Devil or Angel?

So last August, my parents got a new kitten, after their old cat passed away a month or two before. We all thought it was a lovely idea. My mother, who has Alzheimer's and is a virtual shut in (not "virtual" as in she's on the computer all day, virtual as in, the only time she gets out of the house is when my dad makes her get out & go with him someplace), loved the new cat. Until she came to the (literally) painful conclusion that kittens are very different creatures from cats. 

The as-of-then-unnamed kitten would claw and scratch and bite her; the kitten was just being playful, but my mother, with her disease, was even more traumatized by the attacks than a healthy person would be. She wanted to keep the kitten, though, because sometimes, the kitten was such a doll. In fact, my son named her "Kisses" because she also has this habit of kissing the person whose arms she is in.

I just came back from a visit to my parents' house and the kitten has grown into a small cat. Now, she looks like this:

Sure, she still looks all sweet and innocent, but when she's closed in her room at night, she sleeps until around 3:00 a.m.--as in 0300, as in one hour after the bars close, two and a half hours before my usual rising time. When she wakes, she proceeds to yowl as though her little kitty heart were breaking. I was tempted to reach down her throat and remove it after day three, just to see if it was indeed broken. Tempted. She is still fine, PETA. She also claws, scratches, and pulls at the door to the bedroom, shaking the door on its frame and making a general racket. If you let her out at this point, she proceeds to run about the house, breaking things.

My parents are old. They have neither time nor patience for what is, in reality, a child who needs not only love, but discipline. They have all the love in the world to give, but Kisses is out of control and they do not have the skills at this point in their lives, especially with Mom's disease and me living 1200 miles away with my own growing family, to take proper care of her. 

My father now has an ad up at his job and he is hoping to find Kisses a new home before the end of the year. At that point, they might--stress the might--go to a shelter and rescue an older, more settled cat; one who can be the companion my mom is looking for, but not the Hellion that a young cat naturally is. As I was looking at the pictures of Kisses this morning, preparing to write this blog, a song by my mom's favorite singer kept running through my head. With that in mind, here's some of the lyrics, feel free to find it on YouTube or somewhere--Elvis Presley's "Devil in Disguise". It suits our little Kisses, that's certain.

"You look like an angel
Walk like an angel
Talk like an angel
But I got wise
You're the devil in disguise"

(And yes, I do know the title of the blog is the title of another song from that era by Bobby Vee. Pardon me while I pull up my support bra and put my teeth in.)