Wild Kingdom

Last night, I came home to an episode of National Geographic Explorer.  I don't have a TV.  How, you might ask, does one do this?  


Be warned, the following is graphic, and gross.  If you read it and go 'ew', don't say I didn't warn you.


I'm working even more hours lately.  Now that I'm really living alone, I need the money, and if I want to stay happily employed at my second job, I need to keep my availability open; so that means more and longer days.


Last night was the second 16 hour day in a row: of three.


I came home wicked tired.


I half stumbled into the house, somewhat disappointed that I wouldn't get a bedtime story, and somewhat OK with it, since I was almost too tired to enjoy it, dropped my bags inside and shuffled into my room.  I turned on the light and started to go to the bathroom to brush my teeth, and I noticed some stuff on the bath mat in the door threshold.


What is that?


*wrinkle nose*


*squint*


It was two piles of 'stuff'.  One pile looked vaguely like calamari in a butternut squash sauce.  The other was recognizable as cat puke.


The recognizable pile was covered in a decent swarm of large red ants: really large.  I stopped and thought of what to do now.


Let me step back a bit and explain.


I don't like to kill stuff: really, ever.  I mean, if I have a bug that I don't like in my house, I prefer to take it outside than kill it, and I really dislike to use that toxic spray.  Notable exception: palmetto bugs, those must die, by any means possible.  Thankfully, my Tiigrikiisu loves palmetto bugs: to play with to death, and crunch their bodies.  :-)  I noticed a bit back that I have these giant carnivorous ants that appear out of nowhere, and then disappear about once every couple of weeks or so.  They actually don't bother me too much, it's a bit disconcerting feeling like I'm dealing with forty or fifty formidable uninvited guests; but they don't stay longer than a few days, and you know about guests that don't stay long... yes, they are tolerable.  


Well, being somewhat observant, I realized that Tiigri was killing palmetto bugs, hither and yon, and these guys were cleaning up the carcasses.  Nice!  As long as they don't bite me, or move in permanently, I pretty much leave them alone, and it's not really so gross.  I mean obviously, if there is a big dead bug in the middle of the floor, I clean him up with the little dust broom and flush him.  But the bodies aren't always conspicuously located.  Tiigri is effective, but he isn't always overt.


Well, last night, the ants had set upon the pile of cat puke like it was a Chinese buffet.  So, I'm looking at the spectacle in the threshold to my bathroom, and I have two thoughts: what the heck is the other pile, and I need to get this cleaned up so I can go to sleep.


First things first - satisfy my curiosity - I ignored the ants for a moment and looked closer at the butternut calamari thing.  Then, I realized.  The stupid cat had ingested (temporarily) one of the lint free cleaning cloths that came with my iPad screen protector thingie.


What an idiot - I mean, it's cloth!  Does the cat think he's a goat?  Apparently it didn't sit very well with him, and took most of his dinner along with it when it came back out.  Sometimes it's not so great to have a cat that eats anything.


So, I grabbed some toilet paper, wrinkled up my nose, and grabbed it and tossed it in the garbage.  Ok, pile one down, objective one complete, now to clean this stuff up and get to bed.  It was midnight by then, and I was starting to feel woozy from lack of sleep and was entering my caffeine apogee.  I figured: I'm home free now.


Wrong.


I grabbed another wad of toilet paper and prepared to grab up the other mess and get on with my life.


The ants had another idea.  To be fair, there were more of them than there were me.  To be really fair, there are more cats than me also, but the cats at least scatter when I seem displeased.


I tried to get them to 'shoo' off the mess.  I grabbed a bit at the pile.  But, I didn't really want to kill any of the ants.  I certainly didn't want to kill any by smooshing: that kind of freaks me out.


I batted a bit at them, trying to disperse the crowd.  They scattered, but they seemed to throw up a chemical signal to their cohorts that to my untrained eye very clearly meant 'Dude!  Hurry up man, she's gonna call the cops!', or something like that.  Because they all started running around like mad, trying to grab off chunks of the cat puke and carry it off, like little arthropod doggy bags from Le Maison du Chaton.


Imagine me, standing in my bare feet on my bathroom floor, bent over a pile of cat puke, slightly swaying in semi-delirium from lack of sleep and impending unconsciousness, watching a mini swarm of the largest ants many of you have ever seen run around like mad trying desperately to grab up a little ball of cat puke to take home for dinner.  


Then I started talking to them.


I was saying things, like: 'come on guys, I really need to clean this up'.  All the while swatting at them gently with the paper, and then gently brushing them off it again when they merely jumped on it, and didn't actually just go back where they came from.  This one ant, desperately balled up a huge wad of the puke and tugged furiously on it, trying to drag it along backward with him very much like a little kid trying to drag a giant stuffed animal home from the fair.  The ball was bigger than his head.  I honestly think if it had been of a substance other than pre-digested cat food he would have easily picked it up and I would have let him go home with it.  As it was, he was fighting a losing battle, not unlike the one I was fighting against sleep.


Then I begin pleading a bit with them, and trying to snatch up little bits of puke as I could without actually picking up the ants: I didn't really want to flush them in the toilet and kill them.  Yeah, I know...  


I debated whether to let that one ant continue on with his ball-o-puke and marveled a bit at the fact that not one ant crawled on my naked toes and had taken a bite when I finally saw my opening and grabbed the big pile and tossed it in the toilet.  Two ants lost their lives last night.  Yes, I felt bad about it.  It was them or me.


There was still a little pile left and the ants were now in a frenzy of activity, all of them doing everything they could to get some loot before I cleaned it up.  How did they know I was going to take it away?  I have no idea.  Ants are super smart.  They were all apparently coordinated in their effort, and they were all sending silent instructions to one another on how best to distract me so the others could get a shot at the pile before I got the tissue near it: little buggers.


I gave one more desperate lunge, and the ants knew it was time to give it up.  The last of the cat puke was cleaned up without further drama.  The ants nonchalantly moseyed around now with their little mandibles full of whatever grossness they had managed to pillage and I got ready to brush my teeth and head to bed.


When I woke up in the morning, there wasn't a single ant.


I still feel bad about those two.

Detente

It's been a couple of months since that first optimistic foray into the second stage of the kitty pan training thingie.

Since then, I've attempted several times to move forward: all with similar results, all to no avail;  nights ending in frustration and ridiculous amounts of laundry and sleepless nights. 

Did I mention that I sleep on a waterproof mattress pad, like I'm an eight year old?  Yeah... I do.

So, I was sitting, talking to my lover about my stasis, and it hit me: I need to force this, or I'll never proceed.  I was realizing, in that moment, that I wasn't ready to concede defeat.  I also realized after sleepless nights, and loads of laundry seemingly innumerable, that something had to give, or I needed to give up this farce once and for all and invest in camouflaged kitty pans.

It was then that I decided to give them no alternative but to 'figure it out'.

When I left for work the next morning, I captured my two confused kitties and put them into the bathroom, shut the door and left them there for the day.

*gasp*

Before you report me to the ASPCA, let me tell you, that I put their scratching pad, and kitty condo in the bathroom.  I also left them with ample water and food (as I do each day) and of course, the phase two kitty pan.  In addition, I would only be gone eight hours, not my usual fourteen. 

I crossed my fingers, and tried to leave without pangs of guilt at Sophie crying and Tigrii scratching at the door. 

I went to the front yard and fed the elderly dog, and resolved to come home at lunch - no nap, no food for me.  And off I went, feeling like a bit of a heel, but resolved nevertheless to try my all before giving up.

I worked, my mind-numbing 'job-that-pays-the-bills', and at lunch raced home so that I could get there, do damage control and still get back before the precious alloted hour was up and my supervisor started chanting: "Where's Cristal? Where's Cristal?" as he does whenever I'm away from my desk (be it in the bathroom or whatever).

I got home to an eerily quiet house, and with equal amounts trepidation and fortitude, went to my bedroom and approached the bathroom door.

The mat, which is typically across the threshold, wasn't there. 

I opened the door.

Good God!  What a disaster!

All of the towels were pulled off the racks and onto the floor.  The cat food was spilled, and water dish had it's contents both sloshed all over the floor and soaked up by the hand towel that had been pulled into it.  There were toiletry items strewn about haphazardly, and generally it looked like a tornado had struck the inside of the bathroom.  The mat had somehow been pulled completely inside, and there was just general disarray.

And two little kitties: Sophie was asleep on the kittie condo, and Tigrii was behind the toilet.  I walked in and shut the door behind me.  I was happy to see some kitty waste deposited in the appropriate place and I touched them both, cleaned up, and left.

After work, I came home and resumed my evening routine, with no difficulty.  Sleeping that night, it was as if nothing had happened, and I deluded myself into thinking that I had things in hand.

The next morning, I realized: I had absolutely nothing in hand.

I woke up and got ready for work as I typically did, and then went to corral the cats.  Yeah.  Good luck with that.

I got Tigriikiisu, easily enough.  But, he follows me around and is generally like a dog in every way imaginable, including loyalty, trust, and is entirely not cat-like with his view of me, (that is, I'm his master, not his staff).

When it came time to scoop up Sophie, I found out why you should never tangle with a Princess.  She shot under the bed with surprising speed, and no matter what I did to attempt to coax her out, she simply went farther under the bed, as Tigriikiisu now started scratching at the bathroom door in accompaniment with her silent protest.

I went to the other side of the bed, nothing.  I even lifted the bed up (ouch), in an attempt to frighten her enough to find another more accessible (to me) place to hide.  Nope, she was clever.  I was pissed, and getting later and later for work.  Finally, I climbed up on the bed and using my old hide-and-seek skills, snuck over to the corner she was cowered in and got her.  What a job it was to wrestle her out from under the bed, she dug her claws into the carpet, howled in anger, and put up such a fight!

I was breathless, but unbeaten, and I swiftly put her into the bathroom with her brother and went to work.

That night, I again slept in a clean bed; and the bathroom, while trashed, wasn't beyond help.

Rinse, repeat - we did this for four days.  Thankfully, the big fight was only the first day, but I could see in her eyes how she resented me now - she looks more like a normal cat now.  ;-)

At the end of the week, I decided to give it a try.  I didn't really enjoy locking up the kitties in the bathroom each day and I wanted to see if they had, in fact, 'gotten it'.

They had.  I left them out of the bathroom the following morning, with a gentle admonition (I treat them as if they understand me, and they act like they do, so what's the harm really?) to be good and use the litter pan as prescribed.  With that, I went to work.  It was only an eight hour day, so I thought I might be able to get home, and see in a reasonable time, and of course, I wouldn't be up until dawn doing the sheets if I had failed.

The bed was clean.  The kitties looked normal.  The bathroom sighed audibly in relief.

All was well, phase two homeostasis was achieved.

Inconsistencies

Cats are like people, no two are truly alike, even within a close family.

My two kitties are brother and sister, and two more different kitties, one never did meet.  Princess Sophie, well, she's a princess.  Soft as a bunny with gorgeous jet black fur and golden eyes, she is just as prissy as they come.  She even sits like a lady.  Tigrikiisu, on the other hand, is as rough and tumble as one can get.  He does parkour in my bedroom each morning at 06:00 running along the walls like the room is one giant hamster ball and he might finally get it to move down the street if only he could run fast enough.

I figured Sophie with her delicate manners would take to this like a champ.

I was wrong.

When they both started using the litter pan with such great success, I decided to try going to the second phase; the insert has a pretty sizable hole in the center, and a ring of litter around the outside.  Ideally, the kitty scratches a bit and eventually learns to go through the hole.  Then you move on to the next phase: bigger hole, even less litter, until they just balance on the seat.  Sounds logical, right?  Humph.  Cats are not logical.

So, when I went to the next phase I was shocked when I came home after a long day of work to find that my bed had been *peed* and *pooped* in.  Seriously.  Yes.  One or both of my adorable, lovable kitties had defiled my sleeping place.  Worse yet, it was after eleven, and I had another fourteen hour day the following day, and had to now strip, wash, and remake the bed before sleeping.

Sigh.

Why was this so hard?

The next day was the same.

Ugh.

It's soooo late!  I slept on the stripped bed with a towel, finally at about 02:00.  I couldn't wait for the laundry to finish: too exhausted.

What a miserable night.

I can't do this.

I regressed, went back to the phase one kitty pan and held my breath.

When I got home: clean bed, and stuff to scoop and flush where it belonged.

OK, so maybe they're too young.  The pamphlet said I should start this process when they are about eight months old, and they were barely four months old.

So, I'll give them a little time.

Schedules and demands

I work.

Like a fiend.

Seriously, I work two jobs, and go to school 6 credits per semester.  Plus, I'm in love with a man who lives roughly 700 miles away.  We visit as often as is possible, and often that means at least 4 days per month, I am with him, and 4 days he is with me.

You can see easily how this makes even the most self-reliant of pets a legitimate cause for concern, rendering the need for an on-call babysitter less of a luxury and more of a necessity.

I have a lovely roommate, and he could do it, but he's really not into the kitties, and I don't want him to feel put upon by my lifestyle choices.

I also have my two adult children, who are always looking for money.  They can come over and house-sit, and fortunately have always been willing - even for the paltry $10/day I give them to come over twice a day and scoop the cat poop and feed and play with the kitties.

Well, you see, that's really where the trouble begins.

I'm OK with the cats, and love them and all, but I just can't stand a house that smells, well, like a cat pan.  So, I basically scoop the cat poop every day and night, and sweep up or vacuum the scattered litter at the same frequency.  It's a bit of a burden.

In addition, the kitty sitting adds to the cost of going out of town, and there is always the chance that the kids are busy, or lose interest and say no - making it an actual problem.  So, there, I'm fastidious and cheap.  I began to search for solutions almost immediately upon adopting them into my household.

I decided that it would probably be the best thing to try to potty train them.

Not like *use the litter pan* kind of potty training; rather, I wanted to teach the kitties who to use the toilet.  It reduces the cost of the litter (to $0), and the trouble of having it tracked about (I can't stand walking on the little granules).  And so, I started my research.

With me, all good things, and decisions begin with copious amounts of research.  I read blogs, and saw YouTube videos, and researched homemade and commercial solutions for my little problem.

I finally decided to try a commercial product called Litter Kwitter, in spite of the fact that I'm automatically turned off by product names with intentionally misspelled words.  I looked at it and decided it was a good option.  I went home and immediately began to put it into use.

The process as outlined included slowly working the kitties to using the device while it was installed on the toilet.  I eliminated the old pan (happily) and put the new one on the floor in the bathroom, beside the toilet.  Then after they had acclimated to that tried to just jump ahead and put it straight onto the toilet and see what happened rather than propping it up slowly on books, etc.  I didn't want my books getting all ruined, and I wanted to see if they would just adjust.

They did, it was a snap, the very first day, they were jumping up on the toilet and using the fancy pan installed over the bowl.

This is going to be easy, I thought.

These two kitties

I went to Miami, and learned that Suely was the master of the bait and switch.  She and I talked again of another black cat, but this time of a tuxedo who also was a hard luck kitty.  I agreed again to drive south to her felifilled apartment to take a look at another kitty and possibly let him steal my heart.  This time, I was bringing Princess Sophie.  She had earned first rights of refusal for any new cats brought into my home.

J had just come into town, and he and I drove again to the now familiar apartment and greeted the feral cats outside her building that Suely fed.  When we entered, we saw the little scamp and both absolutely loved him.  Sold!  Not so fast: Suely says, 'I have Sophie's brother, he's ready to adopt, this little one still needs more shots, etc - he's still very young'.  

I agree, and again she leaves J and I alone with the little scamp (his name came immediately) and all the other cats in her apartment.  He's a wild one, and Sophie eyes him suspiciously.  He won't let me turn him over, and is generally wanting to run off and terrorize the other cats in the tiny apartment.  I look at J, sure that this is the cat I want, and tell him that meeting Sophies' brother is a mere formality.

It took a lot of convincing, and truthfully, even Sophie wasn't 100% on board, but her little tiger-striped brother came home with us that night while the little scamp remained.  Damn, she is good!

Now, The TigriKiisu (Tiger Kitty) and Princess Sophie, get along great, but it wasn’t always that way.  When he first arrived, they fought.  To be sure, they still fight.  At night, while I sleep, this tremendous clatter will sometimes rouse me from my peaceful slumber.  It is the sound of two otherwise silent bodies thrashing themselves into any fixed object in my room.  They slam each other into the wall, off the closet doors, into the poorly laid tiles in my room.  They make surprisingly little noise themselves: only the occasional muffled mew of protest when one gets too rough with the other.  I lift one leaden eyelid and realize the reason for my interrupted sleep and return again with little delay.  

At first, Sophie was the aggressor.  In the first few days he came home, J would tacitly root for him to stand up for himself as she put him through his paces.  As time wore on, however, his greater size and increasing comfort with his surroundings led to him having a considerable advantage over the Princess.  In reality, she’s a very demure kitty, and he is very large for his age.  He towers over her, and his markings belie his wild cat lineage.  I suspect that he is a descendant of a Savannah cat, and with his markings behind his ears, characteristic chirp and tendency to pounce on my computer screen when I’m working at it, I think my suspicions are well placed.

Now, several weeks later, he is my little lover boy.  He and Sophie sleep in bed with me, she cuddled up against my leg, and he close by my head.  He awakens me the same way each day: with a massage.  Truly, he massages me.  He will purr contentedly and knead me with paws oversized for his young kittenish body, and just move each alternating with surprising strength on my neck, shoulder and chest until I awake.  Occasionally, he will take his rough, sandpaper tongue, and lick the tip of my nose, or my eyelid.  It never fails to wake me, in a good mood, every time.

As I can’t stand the smell of a litterbox, and can’t afford a litter genie whiz bang whatever they’re called, I set about to find solutions to the problem of needing to scoop the pan ten times a day and my ability to do it twice, and how I disliked doing it those two times a day.

And so, I decided to potty train my kitties.  As in, teach them to use the toilet, and so begins my saga.

Of Nick, and transitions

I called the cat lady to find out about adoptions.

I spoke to Suely, the cat lady, and she told me Nick's sad story.  He was a young orphan, that was just so sweet she couldn't release him back to the streets without trying to find him a home.  Already sure I would love this boy, I made arrangements to meet her and adopt him.  

My beloved and I drove down to meet her, and when we arrived were greeted with about 14 cats in her tiny apartment.  There were all kinds: grey, tiger, a blind, deaf cat named Valentino who was just incredible and all sorts, in crates and out scampering about and attacking each other and the furniture in this frenzy of fur and playful claws.  In the crate was a little black girl that she wanted me to meet, and her two tiger brothers; and that's how I met Princess Sophie.

I reached in, and her brothers recoiled and hissed, but she placidly accepted my giant hand around her tiny, soft form, and she lay: limp and accepting in my hand.  I loved her.  But she wasn't the little boy with the hard luck I had come to meet.  I pressed Suely, where was the little boy?  She left J and I alone as she went to another rescue to retrieve him and I and this darling Man I love played with her and the other cats: sure I would only leave with one.

When she returned with the other kitty, I was certain he was exactly what I had hoped for: scrappy, rough, and sweet.  He had a large chunk taken out of his left ear by animal control when they neutered him so that they could identify him as one not requiring trapping once re-released into the wild.  He looked at me with hazel eyes, pupil ringed with green.  I fell in love.  I knew I had to have him, but what about that sweet little girl J and I had passed back and forth.  She acquiesced so readily and was so placidly sweet to us both.  I relented to Suely's hopeful gaze, and said at last, 'well lets' see how they get along together'.

That's how Princess Sophie (so named for her impeccable manners, and prim mannerisms) and Nick (for his ear) came to be my newest pets.  I took them home, and for two weeks trained them, watched them play and play fight, and loved them.  

They slept in my bed (joy formerly denied) and they sat on my lap and purred.  I taunted them with a ball of fur on a fishing pole toy that they both chased.  Sophie was the killer, Nick always seemed a bit 'slow', like he still needed his mom and was orphaned too young.  He would knead the ground in front of the water bowl as he drank, and was generally less coordinated than the Princess.  They got along well, and we enjoyed our peaceful existence.  Until one day, I came home from work and Nick just didn't look right.  I should probably mention here that I work: a lot.  I have two jobs and go to school.  Some days I get home very late, and on this day, I had just finished working three double shifts in a row.

That didn't stop me from noticing how lethargic Nick looked.  And even at that late hour, I sent J a text saying that I was concerned about the little guy.  He woke me up at 04:00.  Somehow, he had climbed into bed with me, and mewed piteously.  He barely purred, though he did.  And when I woke and turned on the light, I knew he was likely dying.  I texted J again, saying that little Nick didn't look good, and I tried to get him into a comfortable position.  He was so gaunt: so cold.  I was afraid he would die.  I went to work at 06:00 because I just couldn't go to sleep; I didn’t have a vet to take him to, nor could I justify just staying home with him.  So I put him into the carrier Suely gave me when I adopted him, and took him to work to wait until a vet opened.

I texted J (while he slept) that Nick likely wouldn't be alive when he again returned, and I had tears in my eyes when I looked at Nick valiantly trying to lift his head and meowing weakly at me.  I called several vets, and left messages on their answering machines.  I thought he had feline distemper (also panleukopenia).  Finally around 08:00 a vet called back, and I brought him directly over.  I gave the whole story to the vet, including my preliminary diagnosis (yes, I really am qualified, but let's not get into this here) and they took him away.

The receptionist returned to say the doctor didn't think it was distemper and wanted to test for feline AIDS, and leukemia.  I replied: 'why not test for what I think it is first and then test for the other stuff' (I don't work two jobs because I'm independently wealthy and lost everything in my divorce).  She insisted that the doctor seemed certain and I agreed to the other tests.  The panleukopenia test needed to be sent out, so there was no quick screening for it.  They brought me back into a room.

I waited for a few minutes, by now J was awake and we were exchanging texts in our characteristic fashion, and I sat, curled in a ball, and waited for the doctor.

She came in several minutes later with the dreaded news.  I dealt with a bunch of other unpleasantries after that including the testing for rabies, as we couldn't be certain that that didn't kill him (and expose me to risk) and I dealt with the remaining horrors of that day.  I returned home without him and Sophie looked and looked for him: calling for him and looking in the closet, where they had both hid when I brought them home at first from the rescue.  She started destroying the toilet paper and I sent word to J, that as much as I didn't want to just 'get another cat' I felt Sophie needed a companion for her own sanity, given my hours.

That was when Suely called again and I told her the terrible news, and we both cried and cried over that sweet baby.  'Was I ready to adopt another?', she asked.  I was sure I needed another kitty; not for me (Sophie was entirely wonderful), but for Sophie who really would lose her mind if left alone.

That was how I came to meet the Tigrikiisu.

Intro

I should probably start this blog with a little background.  I have always loved cats.  My husband (now ex) hated and was allergic (was he really?) to cats.  I always had feral cats that I would save (as well as possums, snakes and other wild animals innumerable), and bring home, but they were always outdoor (fine for those cats, they refused to come in the house), and then there was Spaz.

I was driving to work one day and saw in the road what looked like a grocery bag in the middle of the adjacent lane.  A closer look revealed ears.  EARS?!  So I pulled over and this little bundle of cold, wet, grey fur is dragging itself along the macadam, trying to get out of the road.  I saw the city bus coming toward us both as I stand in the street and tried to generate the nerve to pick her up, though I'm afraid I'll feel broken bones if I do.  The bus threatens us both; so I say (convincingly to myself) 'one, two, three', and reach down and just grabbed her as gently and quickly as possible and jumped back into my car, and placed her gingerly on the front floor board of my car and put it in gear - panting and a bit in shock as I drive away.

Inexplicably, she starts freaking out and flailing about with incredible gusto.  In fact, I was terrified that I would have an accident or that she was going to die, right there in my car.  I pulled over at a service station and talked to her a bit, and she's entirely unhappy: completely soaked through, and really moving about with distressing dystaxia.  I decided to go on to work, and try to get her to a vet, silently praying that she'd survive.

$100.00 later, and she was determined to have no broken bones.  But why then was she walking entirely discombobulated?  She was completely palsied, and couldn't move well, her back legs would take off in a direction unrelated to her front legs, and it clearly distressed her to move like that as much as it distressed me to see it.  So I did what any self respecting tree hugging muffin head would do; I called my chiropractor.  Now, my relationship with my chiropractors may be a subject for an entirely separate blog, but suffice it to say, that we go way back, and likely they saved my life.

The phone conversation went something like this:

Me: Hi, it's Cristal, I'd like to talk to Dr. M please.

Receptionist: ok, he's with a patient, hang on

(a few minutes later)

Dr. M: Hi, what can I do for you?

Me: Hi, Dr. M (relate abbreviated version of story above), so I think she needs an adjustment, can you do that?

(Silence)

Dr. M: Um, officially, no.

Me: Have you ever adjusted an animal?

Dr. M: yes, but only family pets (explains difficulty and legality of doing so)

Me: OK, so how can we do this without you getting in trouble?

Dr. M: Bring her to the office and I'll meet you in the parking lot

Me: see you just before the office closes

And that was that.  Apparently, to be an animal chiropractor you have to go to both veterinary school and chiropractic college.  Imagine that!  So, of course, they charge exorbitant prices.  But, off the record, free of charge, and not in the office, my doctor will do almost anything to help a living being that needs it.  He's a wonderful human.

So, I get to the office, and go inside to tell the receptionist that I'm here with the 'patient' and I wait outside with her in a file box that I commandeered as an ersatz kitty carrier to transport her.  He comes out, and the two of us crowd (we are both around 6 feet tall, he taller, I slightly smaller) into the back seat of my Prius with the file box between us.  I pull off the lid, and there is this little grey terrified bundle of fur.  She's got a bit of blood on the paper below her where she peed, and she's completely wide eyed, but calm.  I reach in and pull her out so he can see her dystaxia for himself, and she's still totally cattywompus when she moves.  He takes her in his giant hands and feels her lower spine, near her pelvis.  He squeezes a bit, and moves her over in his hands.  She's completely still, letting him move her about, an entirely wild cat: not a screech, growl, scratch or bite.  He gives her a couple of little twists, and then puts her back in the box.  We smile at each other like only unindicted co-conspirators can.

Now for the fun part, taking her home to the ogre.  

This was near the end of our marriage, and I increasingly was less accepting of his refusals of everything I wanted to do.  I insisted that she would stay in the house, and she did.  This lasted until I finally left, and he kept the house and all the accoutrements.  He promptly put the cat outside, and she became semi-feral again.  I would visit: my youngest son (I stayed until he was 18), the house, my garden, and my pets; but I couldn't offer anything as I struggled through the reality of my decision to leave - and leave my ex with everything - as I clung only to my freedom.  It took eight months to regain custody of Spaz and my 14 year old dog, Sebastian, but finally I had a place to live and I had my pets with me.  After the second night of living in relative captivity she couldn't take it any longer and howled at the door to go out.

I let her out, and that was the last I saw of her.

I waited; called for weeks, and sat outside hoping to hear her familiar meow as I had when I had visited her at my old house.  I waited.  I hoped.  She didn't come home.

After a few months, I decided to try to rescue some of the many abandoned, and distressed cats that my friend Ann sends me emails about on an almost daily basis.  I can't save every cat, but I could save one.

We were going to lunch, she, the Lovely Ms. Brenda, and I, and as we were walking in I started to mention that I wanted a cat.  And she blurts out a response that she know of a little black cat that needs a home.  I adore black cats.  In fact, that was exactly what I wanted to adopt: a little black kitten.  I smiled, sure that kismet was at work, and told her to have the rescue lady call me.

That was how I came to meet Nick, and Sophie.