Pişi misses her kuzu şiş

1.
It's been awhile since we've written.  What can I say?  She's just so busy with work; she has no time to listen to us!  But it seems I caught her ear tonight.  And what I'm telling her is:

I miss my kuzu şiş.

2. 

Now, kuzu şiş literally translates as "lamb kebab," and what yous see above is generally what you would get in a Turkish restaurant if you ordered it.  I know, because my mom and sis and brother and I used to watch people eating these in Tunali Hilmi, which is the street and area where I was born in Ankara.  I liked the colors of it all, and that's what got me into trouble one day.

You see, my mother was absolutely happy to eat whatever they threw on the ground.  That's what happened when I was a kitten: my mother, sisters, brother and I would run around after whatever scraps were thrown at us.  And then one day it happened, I decided I liked it so much, I wanted to see what else was on this dish.  

And that was what I saw.  That plate up there.  Unfortunately, the people eating off of those plates immediately thought I was the sweetest thing, and I was being my absolute best to get some of that kuzu şiş.  All I really wanted was the kuzu (the lamb)

But hot damn, they took me home, which wasn't what I had in mind at all.   I was upset for awhile, until I saw the couch. 

3. 

It looked a little like that one.  You see, the people who picked me up off the street in Tunali were kind of wealthy.  He was an executive for some oil company, or something like that, and they could afford to live in that area.  They were American, too.  So for about seven months of my life, I lived pretty high on the hog, until it happened:

They got relocated.  To Spain.  And they decided not to take me.  It was like, I was a Turkish accessory, and I wouldn't look good in Barcelona.  So, one day, I'm sitting on my couch, having forgiven them for taking me away from my mother, and they scooped me up and put me in a box and took me to a veterinarian, a guy named Hasan.  They made him promise that I would never be put back into the streets. They gave him enough money to feed me for about three months.

And then they left, and there I was, taken from my mom and my beloved streets, then teased with a couch.  Only to find myself in a dark, icky cage that I shared with some strange skinny, sickly black cat.  That cat wouldn't survive on the streets; I'm telling you.

Yeah, so I demanded my own cage.  Wouldn't you?  Hasan said I was nasty, and I think he would have really hurt me if that woman wouldn't have come along.

. . . . .oh, wait a minute . . . . I smell kuzu.  The Big Two Legged One cooked kuzu!  That's one thing I like about her: she doesn't forget what I like. . . . .  . 

. . . . . to be continued