You don’t pick the cat. I certainly didn’t pick that dirty, skinny little thing, screaming at me from underneath someone’s car parked in the quick pick food-to-go spot at the side of the restaurant where I was picking up food for Honey. It’s a formerly “nice” restaurant, like the ones your grandparents used to take you to when you’d go out for dinner, the kind that still gives you a relish tray, a restaurant reduced to relying on gambling revenue from the bar. The parking lot is enormous; there used to be banquets and weddings there nearly every weekend. The same parking lot where, before we were married, my then boyfriend taught me how to polka. 39 years later, that boyfriend is my husband, the man I am fetching dinner for that evening.
This orange and white parking lot beggar was most insistent, demanding, determined to get what she wanted. Which at that moment, was pretty much anything at all to eat. “Wowl! Wowl! Wowl!” she screamed, looking me in the eye the whole time. I admire a cat that knows what it wants. She picked the right person to complain to; I cannot abide anything hungry, especially a stray cat.
When I went inside to pick up our order, I asked about that little cat outside. Staff just shrugged and said that, yeah, sometimes they see her around. She wasn’t anybody’s cat. I pegged her as Probably Uncatchable. But I added a chicken leg to our order, and took it out to her.
When I brought the chicken leg I’d ordered for her out to the parking lot, I just peeled off the meat and left it, making no attempt to touch her. I did notice that she was scruffy and much too thin to get through the winter, so I decided that even if I couldn’t catch her, I could at least fatten her up a little, put some meat on her bones, give her a chance against her rival dumpster divers, the raccoons. My husband thought I was nuts to start feeding some other strange cat, reminded me that we already have Entirely Too Many cats, but I insisted and he was kind enough to humor me about going over to the restaurant and feeding her every evening she showed up.
Within a week, it was routine: I’d stop in the restaurant parking lot at fresh dark, get out of my car, make a little “Chup, chirp, chup” noise, and by the end of the first week, she would emerge from where she was hiding and come and eat. Smart little thing, she looked at me with inscrutable sea foam green eyes that seemed far too otherworldly to be mere cat eyes attached to a cat brain. The third time I fed her, I touched her briefly, then drew back. Then there were a few days when she didn’t show, and I was beside myself with worry. Over a cat I’d only seen half a dozen times.
When she reappeared, she was so hungry that when she heard my call, she ran right in front of a really large pickup truck, whose driver waved and smiled at both of us. He’d seen the cat coming, somehow. I’m sure that he’d also seen that moment of stark terror in my eyes when I thought she was going to be Flat Cat, because he rolled down his window and wished me luck with the cat, who was now standing 5 feet away from me, wowling for all she was worth. [Note: the road this cat crossed to get from her home in the woods to the restaurant is the local road to the quarry and enormous trucks go past there at all hours, hundreds every day; in hindsight, I should have known she had learned to avoid cars.] But I didn’t know how smart she was then. And I was so very glad to see her, so pleased in fact, that I didn’t care where she’d been, just that she was back.
This cat dancing between us went on for about a month. It started to get colder, and one night when I left food for her, I had to move some snow to put her food out on the pavement. Then we had a couple of really cold nights in a row. By this time, she would let me pet her just a little while she was eating, though I didn’t push her. Cats can’t be pushed, only persuaded. We waltzed on, this little orange and white and me.
About the 4th sincerely cold night of the year’s first cold snap when I pulled in the the parking lot, I got out and called, hoping she would come. I had taken to parking more toward the back of the lot to feed her, as there were less cars there. And pick up trucks. And management was less likely to complain about the food I left. But I didn’t see her. Anywhere. She had been coming to me right away, the last few days.
In the heartbeat of hush between rolling gravel trucks, at last, I did hear the smallest postage stamp sized snow-covered evergreen bush by the restaurant apparently saying, “Wowl! Wowl!” which meant that she was there. Hiding. Trying to stay warm. Because it was snowing heavily. Because it was so cold, and she seemed warmer and drier under the bush, I went ahead and just put the food right there, instead of at the edge of the parking lot away from customers the usual way, and as I was leaving the food for her, this portly old guy walked by, asked me what I was doing, feeding the bush. “Wowl,” said the bush, one more time, and the old guy says, “Awwwww…….” and I could tell right then he thinks he’s going to Pet The Kitty. He reached for her, like he was going to pick her up. She was having none of him and, suddenly, it was like she was attached to me with invisible rubber bands. She leaped out from underneath the bush, where I had put her food, and put me between the man and herself. Wary. Legs of springs.
Because I didn’t want to antagonize either man or cat, I backed off, and thought to go sit in my car. I knew she was hungry, but still skittish, thought if I left, the old guy would get the hint. Leave. Oblivious to the cat’s feelings, the old guy sure did want to pet the kitty, who had declined once already. I was maybe 10 steps away from the bush, and I heard her talking again. But she sounded closer than the bush; 25 steps from the teeny bush, I turned and nearly stepped on her. She looked up at me and started talking again, and I told her that I’d left her food back there, and surely she was hungry…………...then I see round, old, slightly tipsy guy who still wants to Pet the Kitty coming our way. Weaving, all jolly and good cheer. Probably harmless. But big. Weaving and waving, cat and I backed off some more.
Not being a fan of guys like that, even if they do want to be nice to a cat, we kept going toward my car, the cat and me, another 25 steps, so cat and I are now 50 steps away from the food bush and 25 steps away from the tipsy dude when we get to my car. I opened my car door and the cat shot into my car. This has never happened to me in my life. I just stood there, slackjawed, completely flummoxed, nonplussed even, looking into my car at this cat, who had decided that the back deck of the car was a fine place, thanks, and so toasty, too!
What was I going to do? I looked back and saw that Mr. Tipsy was swaying back into the restaurant, having lost interest in the cat, something we were both grateful for. So I got into the driver’s seat, shut the door, turned to her and said, “You sure? There are lots of other cats at my house, you’ll have to share.” At that point, she got off the back deck, hopped onto the back seat and stood in the slot in between the front seats, looked at me and said something. It could have been “I agree.” It could have been, “you have more food at home?”
What was I going to do? I asked myself again. I didn’t know this cat, but she’s evidently going home with me, so I called Honey and said, “Hey, Babe. Guess what? I’m bringing home a side order of Cat from the restaurant.” He didn’t believe me, but when I got out of the car, wisely leaving the cat in the car for the moment, promising her I’d be right back, I went to fetch our cat carrier, and then it dawned on him that I wasn’t kidding. The cat he had been letting me feed, was now coming into our house. The other 6 cats were going to be mightily peeved. Surely I must have lost my mind, but she jumped into the car, Honey, what was I gonna do? Only a heartless and cruel person would deny a cat refuge. She picked me.
So there I went, back to the car, carrier in hand, wondering how I am going to convince this allegedly wild cat to let me put it in the carrier for the short trip between the car and the house. Turned out the answer was to just pick her up. She was the most calm wild cat I’d ever seen. Once in our house, her eyes followed me everywhere, but she seemed content to sit between Honey’s legs while I arranged his food to eat. Naturally, she was sure the food was for her, and I am lucky that Honey doesn’t mind sharing with homeless, ill-mannered cats, but she was ever so hungry, and he is a Cat Man. Gentle with all stray creatures, but inclined to pick cats, he had me fetch her a plate so they could share.
While they ate, I sat down and got a good look at this cat I brought home. She was yellow orange, a largish white streak down the middle of her back, and oh so scruffy, her ears all crusted, and filthy dirty. She wasn’t really white anywhere, she was kind of grey. When you’re homeless it’s hard to keep clean, you know? I am ashamed to admit now that I wasn’t all that impressed with the look of her. She had these teeny little eyes and an oddly shaped face, quite unlike any of our other cats, who tend toward big eyes and different noses. I wasn’t sure what to make of her. Or what her name would be.
But she came into our house at a good time; Honey was still attached to his wound vac, mostly immobile, and she was a welcome distraction, one who just settled into the house and refused to make trouble with any of the other cats. She would completely ignore them, refuse to engage, act nonthreatening in every way. She sat between Honey’s feet often, nearly constantly for the first week or so.
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I have given up naming rights to the cats; both the remote control and naming cats are things I don’t touch in our house. Honey names all the cats, considers it his prerogative as Alpha Cat, though everyone knows it matters not what you name a cat. Because the cat is going to answer to what the cat is going to answer to, and all his cute, clever names for the cats are just the names that go on their chart at the vet’s office. He's creative; many names have elicited laughter. Our recently departed cat, abandoned by the neighbors when they moved out, was named Big Mouth on his vet chart, but he answered to Wapatuppah. I didn’t name him; that’s what he’d answer to. But some cats won’t come to you no matter what you call them, unless you’re calling them Dinner, and I got the idea that this cat was never going to answer to anyone. And so it was decided that her vet chart name would be Nunchucks. I figured it was a step up from Hamburger, a cat I surprised my Honey with some 10 years earlier. (Note to self: Never leave the cat in the car until Honey leaves for bowling, because he’s going to come home and be MAD.) I stoutly maintain that eventually all the cats tell me their true Name. But this cat was completely her own. I really wasn’t sure if she would ever reveal her Name to me, but there was something about her that touched me, connected us together. Stoopid fate. Sometimes it zaps your ass, but sometimes it does you a favor and you don’t realize til later what an enormous gift it gave you.
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She was also HUNGRY and there wasn’t anything she wouldn’t try to eat if she thought it was food. The first week we had her, she had breakfast every morning with Honey, sharing his eggs companionably. And anything else that struck her fancy. But, oh, noes, she had zero manners for a house cat.
Limits were not recognized. Counters were jumped on with abandon. We have lots of cats, but we don’t have cats that have ever, while ours, been hungry, so I didn’t think to cover the butter until I noticed the cat licks. She had no regard for a lit stove, thanks, she’d eat right out of the cooking pan if she liked.. And she kept up a habit that she had, no doubt, acquired outside; dumpster diving. Except our dumpster was the kitchen trash. I fished her out of there three times before she decided there might be enough food around that she didn’t have to go forage any more. But she was still stashing the little fake mice we had put down for her to play with under the carpet, hiding them from the other cats, lest lean times resume.
I began to tease her about her poor manners, and often said that she was “raised by wolves.” Somehow that morphed into Wooves, and that’s her true name. I was still debating her true identity.
I took her to the vet, introduced them to her and she purred like there was no tomorrow, even through shots and some poking and prodding that a cat that lives in the forest never gets. I think it was probably defensive purring, but they also cleaned her ears, and we made an appointment for the following week to get her spayed. That’s the price of life in our house. Everyone gets it, or they can’t stay.
As the week went on, she seemed to be settling in nicely, spending lots of time sleeping/not sleeping while sitting on my husband, who was still mostly recliner bound, so he was a safe Goal in case of other cats. The vet had asked me to collect a fecal sample so she could be tested, and I promised I’d try, but I never could catch her, and I’ll be damned if I’m sorting through cat poop anyway. They could do that next week. By the time her next appointment was up, I was actually concerned because she moved so little and slept so much.
Turned out I was right to be concerned. The vet took her for an x-ray and showed me where something had obstructed her bowel, so yeah, no wonder I couldn’t find any of her poop, and no wonder she slept so much. The vet was sympathetic, but said that if they couldn’t remove the obstruction surgically, that she would die, and it would be painful. Well, I figured, they were going to spay her anyway, might as well rummage around and fix that, too, I said. Make that scar a little longer. And, feeling terrible, damning myself for my carelessness, because I failed to keep her safe from harm, damning myself for the arrogance of presuming to know what’s best for another creature, I barely flinched when her total vet bill came to a little more than $2700. Most expensive “free” cat ever. By far. Post-surgery, they called to tell me she was fine, doing well, but would there be a reason why she would have eaten part of a rubber glove?
Yes. Yes there was. Those very same gloves I used to change wound dressings for Honey; she must have thought something edible was in it. I put them in the trash and she ate a finger of one. I never thought to cover the trash; our other cats don’t go diving. Guilt, guilt.
I went to pick her up the next day, and took her home, post-radical-walletectomy. Ouch. But I feel like I broke her, so pay up. I was so lucky we had the money at that moment, or I would have had to put her down. And that would have broken my heart. There was some Thing about this cat, I couldn’t name it, but I felt the pull of her personality. They sent her home with heavy duty narcotics, and instructions not to let her pull at her stitches for a week, and some antibiotics. Also instructions to only allow her out of her carrier for the first three days to use the bathroom. Hahahahaha! I laughed at the notion of being able to figure out how that was going to work, with all the cats we have, but I made a small litter box for her and set it in our already too small bathroom. Still skeptical about how the heck a cat is going to tell me it has to use the bathroom, I could only hope for the best. Made a schedule, just in case she couldn’t tell me.
That poor baby, she was laid open from front legs to tail, I swear. They gave her enough narcotics to have gotten me stoned, and the vet gave me a cone for her to wear, but it seemed excessively cruel to put her head in a cone in a carrier where she could barely turn around, so we dispensed with that; in that way of communication we had going, Wooves agreed that she wouldn’t pick at her stitches and I wouldn’t put the cone on her.
Her ability to make her wants and needs known turned out to be easy; we spoke the same language, it seemed. Despite her pitiful and most likely seriously painful post-op state, she amazed me by letting me know when she had to go to the bathroom, all my worry had been for nothing, following her cue, I’d take her, carrier and all, into the bathroom that isn’t wide enough to fit a cat carrier sideways it is so small, and I’d let her out, and she’d do her thing, and then go right back into the carrier and lay back down. Most of the time. A couple of times, she would come and sit on my lap for a minute, then go back to the carrier. In return, I slept with her next to me, the carrier on my bed, and she would let me know when she needed to be let out. It didn’t matter what time she needed to go, sleeping isn’t ever a long term gig for me, hadn’t been for months, ever since Honey got smacked with bladder cancer and a whopping post-surgical infection, earlier in the year.
Once it was some horrible hour of the morning when she had to go, and I was actually half asleep, so I sat against the bathroom door, head nodding, and she conducted herself as usual, but then she sat on me, literally curled up in my lap. I petted her, murmured nice things to her, sweetie-nothings, and we both dozed on. I woke up, realizing we had been there for at least an hour, according to the kink in my neck. The cat woke when I did, and promptly returned to her carrier.
She was almost psychic in her ability to tell me what she wanted, and every so often, I’d look over and catch her with her nose by her stitches and I’d say, “Nope,” and she’d stop. It was freakish. There were a lot of things that I think make her special, but that could just be because I have come to love her so much. Also, I’m not buying that she’s just a cat. But then, no cat person ever thinks their cat is “just a cat.”
About a month after we brought her home, I emailed the restaurant where I found her, where sometimes employees would feed her, sometimes she’d have to duel it out with the raccoons (something I didn’t like to think about), telling them that I had stolen their cat, not sorry. And they answered that it was so nice she had a home now, platitude here and a platitude there, which sounds mean, but she seemed so tame to me that it was a mystery why nobody there hadn’t just done what I did and opened their car door. She was the nicest homeless cat I’d ever met, very much her own cat, but really affectionate with those she trusted.
Somehow, in the year and a half since she’d been born, according to the vet, she had managed to survive on her own, without making new kittens, and I marveled again that I did not realize until much later that the cat in my living room was that same orange and white cat I had seen coming from the woods right by my friend’s house, or the bar on the corner, or the formerly fancy restaurant, a risky move due to the omnipresent gravel trucks. For a YEAR. I used to call to her, and she would turn and look, but she always looked like she knew where she was going, so I figured that she was somebody’s cat.
By the time three months of living with us had gone by, this scruffy, homely, street cat turned into a round ball of muscle and attitude. Her entire attitude was Play With Me. The white part of her would shine in the darkness. Her yellow orange coat that seemed so dull once, now gleamed and it turned out that she was many colors of orange and yellow, one side with a pattern that looks like a cinnamon bun. Her face filled out and it was a pretty face after all!
I was wrong about her looks, and everyone else was right. She was a beautiful thing, once fed and cleaned up. One nearly dark evening, when we were sitting out on the back deck with her, she was faced away from us, and for all the world, she looked like an orange and white skunk. And then I wondered if that’s why she never got pregnant, it was like a tan skunk stripe effect! Every critter on the planet saw that gleaming white stripe and thought “skunk.”
It was about this time, some more months after we got her, that I seriously began to think that she wasn’t just a cat, over and above that annoying way all the Cat People dote on their own cats. She was amazingly playful; if she wanted to go outside (always supervised), she’d snag my pajamas, or bat my leg, rising up like a charging horse. Giving me the Purr Whirr as she zipped by. I have never had a cat that demanded I play with it like that, much less allow one to chase me around the yard. I’d chase her, she’d chase me, we’d play hide and seek, so she could put her Big Tail on and show how bad she was.
Her favorite game really was Chase Me, and that meant I would follow her around the yard, getting within inches of being able to grab her and ZOOM, off she’d sprint. Only to crouch down in another 5 or 6 feet, and dare you to try to catch her again. Silly human, never catch me. Never did, either, until she wanted me to. Even Honey agrees that when she runs from you, her back legs say, “Eff you, eff you,” as she gallops off, tail straight up.
I didn’t think too much about her delighted enjoyment of Chase Me until another week or two had gone by, and I had to buy Still More cat food. Cat people tend to talk to each other when they’re standing there in the pet aisle, selecting some of the 49 different flavors of cat food, and I found myself telling a lady that I had recently acquired a cat, courtesy of that local restaurant. She stopped picking cans, and positively goggled at me. “That little orange and white cat? Shoot, ain’t nobody catch her, ever, she’s so fast, she been giving the animal warden fits!”
Suddenly, Chase Me made a whole lot more sense. And that wee thing, she was toying with the Animal Warden all along. It was a game to her. Baiting the Warden into playing with her. In a pinch, on a rainy day, she demanded that we play this game in the house. I sometimes thought that continuing to play Chase Me with her, especially when we were outside, that some day she might be difficult to talk into going back in the house. But that never happened; the worst thing would be a brief delay while coaxing her close enough that I could swoop her up and carry her into the house. So Chase is always on the menu at our house. At least until I run out of lung power.
I’m pretty certain that so far I have impressed exactly nobody with how special this cat is. Just one last to this How My Cat Got Me story. And I probably won’t change your mind; cats are like kids, everyone generally only likes their own, but I’m going to try to persuade you for another paragraph or two, if you would read on. You can laugh when I tell you who I think she really is.
Her eyes…….they’re “peopley,” for lack of a real word. Look at them. She looks at you like a person does, intensely and always saying something with those eyes. I’m not certain about reincarnation, but every once in a while, I think this cat is one of the humans I have loved, a spirit returned to me, benevolent and kind, a karmic blessing I probably don’t deserve. She tracks people in a mirror, she’ll meet your eyes in your reflection. I have caught her watching television in the mirror. None of my other cats even think about it. Eye contact is how she communicates; she has telepathy, I think. Either that or I’m just well trained now, myself. When someone is the house is feeling sad, she will go and lay down by them, or on them, person permitting. So she’s empathic, too.
Yeah, yeah, this cat is loving to me, you’re thinking. Still not special, just likes me because I “saved” her. That’s what I thought when we adopted each other; she would eventually be mostly my cat. This is the other thing that makes me think she’s a temporary gift from the Other Side……..her attachment to my daughter borders on obsession. Fact is, I’m not her first choice in the house. She prefers to sleep with Girl, but isn’t allowed to because for some reason my Girl thinks that Wooves knocking over makeup bottles at 3am is not a good night’s entertainment. But when Girl holds her, she snuggles in and drools, she’s so happy, like a person who missed someone for a long time and is so happy to be with them again. Like my Mom, whose own mother predicted the arrival of my Girl before I knew I was pregnant, and whose last words were, “Where’s my Doll?” meaning my Girl, age 26 now, 10 years old when Mom died. I think Wooves is at least part of my beloved Mom, who adored me. Yeah, I think really do think she’s my Mom, paying us a visit. Because my Mom always loved me best. Especially after I had that baby. I was quickly demoted to Second Best, just the way this cat feels.
Go ahead and laugh. But that face, that face at the top of this entry, that is not a cat face. You guys can see that, right?