G.G. or Gigi, our "Gentle Giant"

Gigi, our undernourished holiday visitor...

Early in the morning, five days ago, as I drove pass outside of my driveway, I noticed three tiny, rather forlorn looking kittens seated right at the corner of our street. I am not much of a cat person, but little animals like these kitties would be an easy target from the air by hawks, an easy meal by any predator on foot. One kitty was all black while the other one was kind of a mix of black and white. The third kitty was all gray with blue eyes.

I drove away wondering what the hell those animals were doing on our corner. It then dawned on me that it was on that same corner, last Thanksgiving weekend, that a big, black, two year old great dane came into our lives, and that reminded me that I had done some sketches of the dog we called GiGi. Apparently, she ate someone out of house and home and was dropped off in our subdivision before the dog also ate their car! When we finally accepted her advances into our lives, we noticed she was quite malnourished.

 We later found a home for her, but by Christmas our friend decided she was just too big for his home. We understood perfectly because she was big... for any house. So, she stayed for Christmas and ate up all our mints, cellophane paper and all.

 Here's one of the sketches I did while GiGi stayed with us. She was a great model to draw from, a real poser. I did her head first because, for about ten minutes, it was the only thing that moved. It seemed such a struggle to move those big, long legs to get up only to plop back down again somewhere else. She only got up and moved when my wife needed to pass.

As for the kitties, our next door neighbor, who have two teenage kids, were able to round up the black one, the black and white one and the gray one with the blue eyes and were reunited with their other three siblings which the kids had rescued and kept in the garage. All tolled, someone just dropped off six kittens to fend for themselves, but now, we are sure that they will have a nicer place to stay.

Copyright 2012/ Ben Bensen III