that she is NEVER not being wholly herself. Every moment is 100% true. Her annoyance is obvious, when it comes. Her impatience. Her adrenaline. Her laziness. Whoever she is in any given moment, she IS that with every fiber of her soul. There is no pretense. She just IS. She stretches, she rips my Netflix envelopes to shreds, she purrs like a locomotive when I walk in the door, she flips out when I bust out the cans from the cupboard (she now knows what that means), she lies on the windowsill staring out at the world, she has fits of insanity where her own tail occurs to her as a demonic force with a mind of its own, she growls in a low alarming way when she sees a stray cat stroll through our backyard, she glances up at me, as if to say, “is it okay? Is everything okay?”
Yes, Hope dear, everything is okay.
Hope was abandoned in a box on the doorstep of the Petco in Union Square. Someone didn’t want to deal with the responsibility of ownership and so they plopped her down on the sidewalk, knowing that Kitty Kind, the adoption agency that runs out of Petco, would deal with her. But the thought of it makes me see red. She sat in that box the entire night, until a Petco employee showed up the next morning to unlock the door. She must have been terrified.
She appears to be adjusting nicely to a regular life, and she trusts me enough to lie on her back in the middle of my floor, exposing her white belly to me and to all the world, and in that moment – she is wholly being herself as well.
It’s awesome.
Welcome home, little furrball.
Generally speaking, I like animals more than I do people, anyway. I sometimes wonder who I’d be more liable to stop and help, if I saw them hurt…a person, or a dog.
My parents live a little ways back in the country, and at least a couple times a year, people are just driving back to what they perceive to be the middle of nowhere, an dropping litters of puppies or kittens off, essentially on their front yard. And at times, they’re putting fully grown animals out.
It’s happening more and more with the price of gas and the job market being what they are. People can’t afford to take care of their animals.
Doesn’t make it right. Drives me even more insane, I think. Take responsibility, folks. It’s a living thing, and you should have made a commitment.
Plus, considering what I said earlier, I think I’ve liked my pets (dogs or cats) more than some family members, and I’d sooner put some of my family out in the wilderness than my pets. But that’s just me.
Tommy – Yes, I really hate to hear those stories about pets just dropped off in the wild, or on the side of the road. grrrrrr.
That’s one of the reasons I wanted to go thru Kitty Kind and not a pet store because I wanted a pet who had been abandoned like that. It was important to me.
And hahahahaha about abandoning your family member in the wilderness.
When most of us share our lives with an animal, they really become family members. At least, they have in my home. I know people who have “pets,” and they seem to view the relationship differently. It’s as if the animals are solely there for the humans’ amusement, and anything that challenges that arrangement is grounds for “dismissal” or abuse. I find I don’t like those people very much in general. It’s like so many other things in life–if you make a commitment to a living thing, by God, live up to that commitment. Anything less is indefensible.
At the risk of inflaming the ires of all the dog people in the world (and I have a dog I love very much), the love of a cat is unsurpassed because it is given at a price, I guess is the best way I can say it.
Cats are prey. It is their nature to be wary of things bigger than themselves. So when Captain rolls over and shows me his belly — and he does it EVERY TIME I walk into a room — he’s giving me the ultimate compliment, showing me that he trusts me and loves me so much that he opens up the most vulnerable part of his body. He doesn’t have to — he WANTS to.
The people I know who don’t like cats say it’s because they’re snobby. They don’t NEED us like dogs do. And all that’s true, which makes their love all the more precious to me, I think.
Lisa- all of your stories about Captain (along with the pictures) just make me fall in love with him. He sounds wonderful.
I agree with what you say about the “compliments” cats bestow on us when they trust us or cuddle them or pet their belly or whatever.
I love that. Especially when a cat’s been messed around a little bit, like Hope has. She would have every reason to not trust me and be totally insane. But she’s warming up. It’s very cool.
Maybe he and Hope can be penpals. BFFs. We can get them Myspace pages.
They can friend each other on Facebook!!
If Hope were on Facebook I would friend her. For sure.
Tommy – Yes, I really hate to hear those stories about pets just dropped off in the wild, or on the side of the road. grrrrrr.
They can’t take freaking 5 seconds to google a nearby animal shelter? Grrrr indeed.
I had a conversation with a woman who answers the phones at a shelter, and she can’t stand the people (and there are people like this) who tell the shelter to come pick up their pets and actually try and guilt them into picking them up. “…because otherwise I’d just have to throw them into the street. You wouldn’t want that, would you?” Rrrr. “You’re the one that’s willing to throw them on the street, you c@#$!”
That’s one reason why I wouldn’t make a good animal shelter receptionist. I don’t negotiate with terrorists.
The woman at the adoption agency who arranged for me to have Hope said that people do just assume that because they’re a shelter – they can just drop them off, not even thinking maybe there isn’t a space for her, or enough medicine, or resources … They presume on other people’s senses of responsibility … “Well, THEY won’t abandon the cat …”
Ugh. It’s despicable.
DBW – I’m with you. I chose Hope to become a member of my family unit. We are now a unit of two. I don’t understand people who think otherwise. Or who get rid of a cat when it is no longer convenient.
grrrrrrrrr