4/28/14

By way of apology to John, in the true sense of “an explanation of my actions,” I will tell the story of the kitty I fostered over the weekend.  Friday morning got an e-mail from one of the ladies in the cat-feeding group here at the railroad.  She said we have another kitty in the courtyard.  I high-tailed it out there to see the thing.  She was so skinny that it just broke my heart.  She was also marked with spots rather than stripes, which got me thinking, “Hmm, Savannah maybe?”  Look up Savannah cats some time…if we haven’t put in a link.  Anyhoo, she was so friendly and so thin that we, Martha and I, fed her.  She ate every bite of the wet food I gave to her… and most of the dry.  I decided that I would take her to the 24-hour vet out on I-20 by my house to have her checked out and to see if she had a chip implanted.  I checked on her from time to time as the day progressed and finally at 1700 h picked her up and put her in my car.  I had no idea what my end-game was to be, but off we went.  I swung by the house first and got the cat carrier out of the garage then loaded herinto it.  At the vet, we scanned her and found the chip!  Once they knew it was chipped and not my cat, they couldn’t look at her so they gave me the chip company’s phone number and sent me on my way.  At home I locked her in the bathroom and went to call the chip folks.  The second chip company acknowledged that it was their chip.  They told me her name was Paris and that the owners had not registered the chip.  They did tell me that it had been implanted at a military base in Tacoma, Washington!  This clinic I called next… and had to leave a message.  I fretted all evening about her being locked in the bathroom but was afeared of what my cat would do.  My cat it twice the size of this waif and still has her claws… oh, did I mention she was de-clawed?  Well, I didn’t want that confrontation to occur so I left Paris locked in the bath.  That evening I decided I'd sleep on the floor of the bathroom to keep her company.  That worked out… ok, I guess.  I'm going to skip over the shop story and keep going with the cat tail… hey, that was kind of funny, and unintentional.  When I got home from the shop, I checked on Paris.  She was happy to see me.  We nuzzled each other for a bit then I opened the door so she could check out the rest of the house.  When she saw Dolly she began to yowl and hiss.  Dolly just looked at her like, “Dude, what’s with you?”  I fully expected the reaction to be the exact opposite.  I calmed Paris down and sat with her for a bit in the bathroom then went downstairs to hang with my cat.  We watched TV and when bedtime came I decided I'd lock Paris in my room with me.  I set up a litter box and some food and we settled in to sleep.  She cuddled up to me and we slept through the night.  Sunday morning I decided to see how the two might get along so I let Paris out.  She, being a typical skinny, blonde, extroverted “Cheerleader” type, decided to be a bully to my fat, black-haired, introverted “Goth Kid” type and cowed her.  When Dolly went down the stairs to the litter box, Paris ran after her and the fight was on… almost.  I managed to get between them before Dolly had a chance to bring the pain to the upstart.  Unfortunately that meant that the upstart brought the pain to me.  She got a hold of my right foot and bit the hell out of it.  I managed to pick her up and she proceeded to bite the hell out of my wrist.  Once we were alone in my room however, she reverted back to the sweet little innocent cuddle-bug she’d been before… bitch.  I locked her up again and went to calm my cat’s nerves.  We tried off and on to get them to be friends and they got progressively better with each other.  By this morning, Paris walked right past Dolly, who was standing on the coffee table, without a noise.  I locked her back in my room and came to work.  As I was telling Martha about the weekend, she went online to a lost pet sight and within five minutes found the owner’s missing pet ad!  We put in my information and at about 0845 h she called me!  I ran home and packed the precious baby into the carrier and hauled ass back to the railroad.  We got mommy and kitty back together and thus the story has an happy ending!  This weekend I will be more myself, I promise.  I'm not going through THAT again anytime soon.  I'm an emotional wreck.