THE LITTLE OLD LADY WHO CAME TO STAY

In July 2019, I was still mourning the loss of Cary, my big lovable doofus who had over the previous six years since I caught him as a feral kitten and offered him the joys of professional housecattery thoroughly captured my heart. I even learned to write with a 20-pound mostly Maine Coon lying in my lap.

And then one day in April of that year, I couldn’t find him. Eventually I found him under the living room couch, where he’d never gone before. When I picked him up, he cried piteously.

The vet had no trouble describing the problem: urinary tract blockage. They drained him in hopes it was temporary, and he came back home. Where he proceeded to hide in the closet. The next day was the same. And so was the diagnosis. That surgery has an 80 percent mortality rate even today, and I had gone through that 40 years ago with a little guy who didn’t make it.

After holding him in my arms for an hour, wrapped in a blanket, crying my eyes out, I held him while the vet gave him the injection of air that would take him. He licked my hand just before the end came.

All cats are wonderful but some are special, and that described Cary.

So that July day, I wasn’t ready yet - I thought - to meet anyone else. But I looked out the window of my writing office into the back yard, and there she was.

A black and white cat. Like Cary. Rolling in the grass. I went to the window and watched her. After a few minutes, she saw me in the window. She was gone in an instant.

I was surprised to see a feral in the yard, since the feral colony in our neighborhood had been wiped out the year before during a terrible week by a pair of coyotes California law wouldn’t let me shoot.

She was back the next day. Either she was lucky or the coyotes had moved on.

I was out on the back porch later when she approached outside the door and sat ten feet away. I figured she was hungry and being the sucker I am for helping kitties, I went and got a bowl of food and put it out.

She jumped back 20 feet, and then when I stepped back inside and closed the door, she ate it quickly. She was hungry. Then she ran off.

She returned the next day. I put out food and the show went the same way. I decided after she left that I would put out food for her.

The next day she ate it and then sat there looking at me through the glass. I opened the sliding door six inches and called “Hi, sweetie.” She didn’t run away.

Over the next few days I put the bowl out closer and closer to the door. She came quickly, apparently waiting out in the bushes for the food. She ate and then sat and looked at me and I talked to her through the crack of the door.

That weekend she let me open the door all the way. I reached out my hand. She came over and brushed her cheek against my palm.

She obviously was not feral. And not a stray.

She was an abandoned house kitty.

The next day I was on the front porch checking the mail when she appeared. I sat down on the steps, and she approached. I put my hand out and she rubbed against it. I scratched her ears. She stepped back, then came closer. We did it again.

I sat on the porch steps the next day and waited for her. She showed up. I beckoned and she jumped up on my knees. I rubbed her behind her ears and she liked it. We sat there like that till she’d had enough and jumped off.

This went on for the rest of the week. In the meantime, the other five members of the Fantastic Jamieson Avenue Felines had become aware she was out there. They were waiting inside the front door when I came in. They sniffed my hand that had touched her and didn’t seem freaked out about anything.

The next day she let me hold her after feeding her. That happened two more days.

The other cats came out on the back porch and saw her and there wasn’t any hostile vocalization or actions.

The next day, Labor Day, she jumped on my lap and let me pet her and she didn’t freak out when I picked her up and brought her inside.

I was right about her name the first time. Sweetie. That’s who she is, what she is. A sweet little lady. She has the best manners of any cat I ever met. And over the course of the first month, she made up to the others and gained acceptance as a member of the crew.

It took a month for her to come out of the front room and discover where I went - to the writing office. Another month and she was sharing the bed with the others at night.

The vet examined her, and by her poor dental care, figured she was 14-15. Making her now somewhere around 18 years old.

I don’t know who would abandon such a nice little person (all sentient beings are persons here), but their loss is our gain.

I like to think that Cary sent her. She acts a lot like he did, hanging out near the writing desk, getting on my lap while I’m writing, politely demanding that attention be paid.

I still miss Cary every day. But Sweetie came to stay, and she brought a lot of good with her.

I told you I’d post something that didn’t have to do with politics, that hopefully took your mind off them for a moment.

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