Day 37 - Cats

My first husband and I received many wedding gifts, but one was very special: an orange tabby cat we named Bilbo Baggins, but we always called Cat. Cat was a gift from my friend Cathy and her boyfriend David. Cathy's mother tried to talk her out of giving us a live gift, but Cathy persisted, and we were very grateful for what Cat brought to our lives. But four months later, we moved to California and knew we would have to find an apartment there.

Image by vincent chen, via Flickr

We had prepared Cat for the move. On our way out of Minnesota, we stayed with Don's parents for a week. His parents arranged for Cat to stay at a cat kennel during that stay. While there, Cat was "fixed" and got all his shots so we would have a current health certificate when we entered California. Along the way, we learned that not all motels were happy to have cats in their rooms. Many just tolerated animals and required an extra fee. So when we got to Berkeley, we knew it was going to be a challenge to find a place where we could keep Cat.

After two nights in a motel, we knew we had to find an apartment fast because we didn't have a lot of spare cash. When we found one that was furnished and only required first months' rent, plus a modest cleaning deposit, we had just enough for it, but they didn't allow animals. The explanation from the manager was that animals brought fleas into the building. Well that's not what I had heard. I had heard it was dirty people living in dirty houses who brought fleas into their homes, so I was initially insulted that the manager would think I wouldn't keep the apartment clean. But indignation would not pay the rent.

We took Cat to the Humane Society. More precisely, we drove to the Humane Society and Don brought Cat into the building. When he came back out, he told me the people inside were sure they could find a new home for Cat because he was still a kitten and so very cute. I chose to believe Don, although I had many reasons to be suspicious.

Later that day, we moved into our apartment, without Cat. And I cried and cried.

Image by fatedsnowfox, via Flickr

The next day was a Saturday. Don had spent some time on the UC Berkeley campus earlier in the week and he found information about a free movie playing that afternoon. We went. It was Born Free about Elsa, the lion. What a miserable choice for the day after giving away our cat. I spent more time crying that evening.

As soon as we could, we moved out of that apartment that didn't allow animals so we could get another cat. One of the women who worked at the church I worked at had a female Siamese cat who clearly got out and mixed with a different category of cat altogether with the result being a half dozen kittens who needed homes. We picked one out. He was really mostly white, not Siamese in color, his fur was long, not short, and he had just a couple of spots on him that looked like Siamese coloring. We named him after Cathy, but we never called him anything but Kitty.

Kitty wasn't comfortable in a crowd. If we had guests for dinner, Kitty would disappear, but not usually until after giving me a swipe of his claws to let me know he wasn't happy about having to share his space.

Image by david_pics, via Flickr

While Kitty didn't inherit much in the way of Siamese coloring, he did inherit a Siamese voice. When he was outside and wanted to come in, there was no way I was going to sleep through it. And because I didn't want to discover he was bothering my neighbors, too, my internal detectors got me up and out of bed very quickly to let him in. Usually he just wanted a light snack to be followed almost immediately with another cry to go back outside. So I thought I could address it by putting his food out on the back porch.  That failed. Kitty would come to the front door to cry to get in and once in, he would make his way to the kitchen where he expected his food dish to be. When he discovered it wasn't there, he just cried again to be let out the back door where he eventually found his food, right where I put it.

After three years of his living with me in Berkeley, I needed to find a new home for Kitty because I would be moving across the bay to San Francisco for graduate school. My sister came up with the solution. She had a friend who had just gotten married and they were looking for a pet. So I packed up Kitty in an orange crate box, put him on the passenger seat of my VW beetle, and drove to Costa Mesa to spend Christmas with my aunt and her family. Since my aunt had a dog, Kitty spent the entire week behind the sofa in her living room, out of reach of the dog. From Costa Mesa, where my parents, sister, and three of my brothers met me, I drove to Phoenix with my sister and Kitty to spend a few days with my grandparents. Kitty spent that week in a closet. Eventually my sister and I made it to Minnesota, Kitty moved in with her new family, and I understand my sister's friend's husband trained him to bring him his slippers when he got home from work.