We added a new member to the family, Madam Tiki. We thought Speedy our cat was getting a little bit lonely. So we went to The Pasadena Humane Society shelter and looked around and this little girl was sitting in a tattered little sweater being all quiet. I am not a small dog type of guy…but this one was cool. We figure that she is a Chiweenie: a Chihuahua and Dachshund cross, and some Dachshund-owning friends agree. She’s basically a long, dark red-colored Chihuahua. We thought score, but there must be a long waitlist, but it turns out that she was brought in that day. A week later, she came home…Speedy was a little curious but no disasters yet.

I know what you are thinking, she’s a yappy spazzy dog, but she’s totally chill and loves to burrow and sit on laps. I find myself standing a lot just to keep her off me. If you are into cute dogs and want to see more, there’s a Flickr set just for you!

Ain’t that cuuute?! This is Speedy the kitty when she was four weeks old, right after we found her on the freeway during our morning commute. My wife and I were driving into work in July, a nice warm day and this rat-looking thing flops into the fast lane by Stadium Way.

So it’s slow traffic, but Diana (who’s driving) manages to stop in time.

“What the f–?!” “It’s a kitten” “Huh?” “Go get it!”

So I get out and walk around to the front of the car, giving the L.A. salute to everyone honking at me. I picked up this stinky, sickly, near death little kitten crawling with fleas and with a pussed-shut eyelid. Eeew. I got back in the truck and we just kept driving.

By the time we got to parking, we agreed that I would take the cat to work since they are more lax there than at her job. I figured I could stash the cat under the desk for the day and try to feed her with an eyedropper in between calls, emails, etc. No such luck, office-mates were allergic.

So, I called my boss and laid it out for her. Luckily she was all buttered up over the kitten so she let me go to a vet over in the Wilshire area. Now, by this point I was sort of stand-offish with the kitten, not being a cat person anyway, I was kind of digusted by her, but while driving, she crawled up onto my chest and mewed very weakly. I melted.

That’s my pinky finger there.

So, to make a long story short…the vet told me she was four weeks old, severely malnourished, needed to be fed from a bottle, and that they’ll put her to sleep if I wanted them to. Umm, no. I will take my broken kitty elsewhere. Dropped about $250 for a shot and some vitamin paste and stole as many samples and freebies as I could.

She slept in the back on the truck while we were at work, and we checked on her every hour or so. That night she began vomiting and having the runs at the same time. She wouldn’t hold down the formula so we had to feed her with an eye-dropper. We went to the emergency that night, go another shot and an offer to put her down.

After three days she finally popped back to life and we got a chance to groom her and get her some toys and start her shots. Dropped much more money.

So now she’s our family kitty…her name? Speedy!