Someone has GREAT EXPECTATIONS. Ammo Grrrll writes:
Included on my refrigerator, amidst the pictures of Other People’s Cute Grandchildren, is a little inspirational saying by E. B. White: “Always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder.” As is my custom when I arise, I say my morning prayers, thanking God for returning my soul from His overnight guarding of it and asking for prayers for healing for a lengthy list of people. Then I open all the blinds in my house to let in the cleansing Arizona sunshine.
One morning about a month ago now, when I opened the living room blinds, “wonder” appeared in the form of a tiny white kitten curled up in the lawn chair on our back patio. I called Joe to come look and take a picture of the kitty, sleeping peacefully in the sun.
Joe allowed as how it was very cute, but on his way back to his office said, somewhat more firmly than necessary, “Under no circumstances should you feed it.” So, naturally, when his door shut, I warmed some cream in a paper bowl and set it out. “Well,” I reasoned, “technically, cream is a beverage and not really food. Not even to mention that I am a ‘strong independent woman’ and he is not the boss of me. Feeding all creatures, great and small is my mission and my bliss. It is what I do.”
Also, there were “mitigating” circumstances, namely, that I was already a woman in love. Nobody can do “mitigating” like a woman in love.
The kitty licked the cream bowl dry while looking around after every lick to make sure he was safe. Then he caught sight of me watching him and gamboled off into the “jungle” of bougainvillea surrounding our patio. It made me sad. Two days went by. No little white kitty in a patio chair. I imagined several awful scenarios involving coyotes or Karens calling Animal Control. I had just read an article saying all our Animal Shelters and Adoption Places were full and all that would happen to the feral “rescues” was euthanasia.
Since I could not face preparing for the worst, I prepared for the best.
The next time Joe went into the garage, he was disheartened to notice that the gun-cleaning bench was now covered with cans of cat food. “Susan, Susan, Susan. Do you not realize that if you feed a feral cat even once, that it will remember that and return forever?”
“Oh pshaw,” I said more or less. “We’ll probably never see it again, but It’s good to be prepared. If the kitty never comes back, I can always give the cat food to Angela for her cat.”
“Forty-eight cans?”
On the third day, however, Mama Cat must have finally believed White Kitty’s tall tale about a magic patio where the warm cream flows like honey. Waiting promptly at 7:00 a.m. were Mama Cat, White Kitty, even tinier Grey Kitty, and Black Kitty with brown highlights. Uh oh.
I put out several little bowls of the cheaper dry Kitty Chow and the cats scarfed it right up and saw that it was good. I do not want to attract any criminal migrants like rabid skunks, badgers, or even the massive feral tomcat we call Reacher, so I always put the food bowls back inside the house the minute they are done eating.
But over a period of just a few days, an amazing transformation occurred from which we might extrapolate some lessons. This little homeless family of self-invited critters whose last meal had been a three-days dead gecko with a side order of pigeon egg that fell off the roof now turned up their little noses at anything less than Fancy Feast Salmon. What was next? Meals flown in from The French Laundry in Los Angeles?
Because I speak “Cat” as a second language, I distinctly heard Mama Cat say, “Uh, Giant Lady in the Plaid Flannel Shirt, we’ve gone from warm cream to lukewarm Half & Half, to cold Skim Milk – are you kiddin’ me right now?”
And the next week, she was the spokescat for the four of them sporting signs demanding more “culturally appropriate” free food. After giving a Land Acknowledgement Statement, she said, “This morning you set out Nine Lives Shredded Beef. When was the last time you saw a cat our size take down a full-grown cow? We demand the CEOs at Nine Lives introduce new feline-affirming flavors like Mousie Morsels, Crunchy Crickets and Vole Vittles.”
Demanding, entitled, spoiled little critters though they be, will I try to lure them into the house? Selfishly, I would love to do that, but not all four, and I would hate to break up the family. First of all, I would have to be able to catch them and they are wily little critters, with tremendous hearing, eyesight and startle reflexes. Mama Cat has kept them alive with great skill and affection. If I were able to inveigle two of them to come in, take them to the vet to be de-wormed, vaccinated, de-fleaed, and neutered, then they could never go out again. Ever.
Will they have a shorter lifespan than the average indoor cat? Probably. But there is life and there is quality of life and they look like they are having a very good time. They eat at 7:10 (First Breakfast), then they eat again about 9:30 (Second Breakfast), then often they go play Hide ‘N Pounce in the Paranoid Texan’s yard for awhile, torture the dog who lives behind the fence in the PT’s yard by staying juuuust far enough out of his reach while he barks himself hoarse, and then disappear until suppertime or later while they go on some kind of complicated daily territorial adventure.
They are growing by leaps and bounds and I am quite certain they are “seeing other people.” Their Facebook page describes their relationship with me as “It’s complicated.” Which is never a good sign. They probably have four or five other crazy old cat ladies who feed them.
Regrettably, the feral cat gangs from Venezuela –Las Bolas de Pelo de la Muerte (The Hairballs of Death) — had taken over two cardboard Amazon sleeping boxes on the patio and were charging my cats rent. But I trapped them in the boxes, duct-taped them shut, and put them on the porch of a snowbird who is gone. Boy, will those porch pirates be surprised.
A couple of times a week, if I’ve had several Mimosas with breakfast, I will go out on the patio to inspire my cats to fight back against any further criminal invaders: “Don’t let anyone take away your power!” I will yell. “Your power…uh, Point…no, uh, your Power Rangers…your power tools. Not a single power thing must anyone take from you, okay? Okay?” The cats just make that universally understood drinking gesture to warn each other that Giant Lady in Yet Another Flannel Shirt cannot be held responsible for her ravings and keep on eating the Goose Liver Pate in Aspic that it took me three hours to make.
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