I put the box down to pat the cat's scraggly head. "She was hiding in the bushes over there," Smoking Guy said.
Reluctantly, I headed off to the blood bank, asking staff if they knew anything about her. "Oh yeah, she's a stray, been around a few weeks. With all the construction that's going on, we sometimes worry about her."
I'd heard enough. I had six cats. However, my ex-boyfriend, having just spent two years living with six cats, now had none. As his house was my next stop—he wanted spicy crispy eggplant from Fujin (as should we all)—I didn't think twice.
Smoking Guy was just putting her down when I got to Kaiser; instead, I gently took her. She showed no fear at all in the cab, merely sitting quietly in the front seat, probably just glad to be in a dry, warm place. Whenever I rested a hand on her, she started purring. Amazing, how calm she was. Maybe she knew what was in store for her.
I arrived at my ex's door, saying, "I bear Chinese food. And a cat." Apparently she'd been close to dying, alone in the mud, of a ruptured uterus. She is now named Trinket and is dearly, dearly loved.
—nightcabbie@wweek.com.
But it is _such_ a cute picture of her, all four feet in the air, having her tubby belly rubbed.
gl, I think hell just froze over....
What's magical about this column, in a personal sense, is that for the first time in the 8 months that I've lived here, a stray cat has appeared at my door, hungry, bony, and sick. Then I come across the German word Barmherzigkeit, courtesy of Thom Hartmann's The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight, meaning random acts of compassion and mercy; and even though I'm wondering how to pay the rent next month, my first priority is to get the cat to an expensive vet.
gl, thank you for pointing out that no matter what we think of another person initially, once we find out that they have a soft spot for Cats, it's impossible to forget that. I've met horrible bastards in the world who had not one redeeming quality, and whom I wished dead and gone until I found out that they truly loved Cats. That discovery allowed me to find their humanity. They were just like me, even if they were a pain in my ass for other reasons.
A feline does not take itself seriously, but accepts as fact that it is the center of the universe. We have a lot to learn from Cats.