It’s rather mentally all-encompassing, this 40 weeks pregnant thing — especially as most of my other interests have been shelved for the time being. The state of mental readiness is tiring to maintain. I notice this morning, for example, that I seem to have forgotten that there will be a BABY as a result of the eventually-coming labor. I’m so focused on when when when that the what is obscured.
I digress back to pregnancy. See how hard this is?
We have two cats: Magic and Justice. They’re both about 8 – 9 years old. (They’re rescues, so we’re not sure of their age.) Magic is a fat, lazy, happy cat whose favorite things involve sleeping, eating, and sleeping. She’s an indoor-only cat because she’s perfectly happy being an indoor-only cat.
Justice is the friendliest dog you’ve ever met, trapped in a cat’s body. He LOVES people. He LOVES adventure. He loves attention. He will walk up to complete strangers and demand scritches. He will purr at the drop of a hat. Everyone loves Justice. He’s in the middle of every party, making friends.
About a year ago, we decided to transition Justice from being 100% indoor to being an indoor/outdoor cat. We’re aware that this reduces his life expectancy, but we’re willing to exchange that for quality of life. I think he would make the same choice if he were capable of doign so. He was miserable and making us miserable being indoor all day. Now he smugly waits for us at the front porch when we come home at night, tired from his escapades. He’s much, much happier getting to play outside. He actually loves to go on walks with us and will follow us for blocks and blocks.
We try to be responsible pet owners, though. We got him chipped and signed him up for one of those pet recovery services and he has his vaccinations in order and a bunch of collars and tags.
That darn cat gets called in ALL THE TIME. I tried putting his address on his collar so that people nearby would see his collar and notice that he’s like 2 blocks from home — he doesn’t usually wander far. There are a goodly number of outdoor cats in our neighborhood — I know about 5 by sight — so it’s not like it simply isn’t done or he’s the only one. And our neighborhood is relatively cat-safe. But at least once a month someone reports him lost — usually within 3 blocks of the house. (Our old neighbors actually had toys and treats for him — he used to invite himself in to their houses when he got bored.)
Saturday it happened again. We identified that he was less than two blocks away. We asked them to just let him out. They said they weren’t comfortable with that. After all, he was pregnant and declawed. (Um, no HE’S not pregnant. And no, he’s not declawed. As a matter of fact, he’s an alarmingly efficient hunter as several squirrels in the area have learned the hard way.) So we walk the short way to retrieve him. And the woman just GRILLS us about the cat. Why wouldn’t he eat her shrimp? (Don’t feed him that! He’s on a special, very expensive diet to try to prevent bladder stones. And shrimp? Ew!) He probably wouldn’t eat her shrimp because he WASN’T HUNGRY having already been fed. Were we planning on keeping him? Yes we were? Were we going to put him down? Uh, no. What part of the well-cared-for, slightly fat, double collared, prescription-dieted, microchipped bit indicated that we are unwilling to care for him? Were we sure we wanted to keep him? (This whole time she has a death-grip on him standing behind her screen door.)
I looked at my husband. This was our big chance! But of course we want to keep him.
But light was shed. She was hoping no one would claim him, or she could talk us into giving him up. I do understand — he’s a great cat. But really, she probably doesn’t want him. He’s also a VERY EXPENSIVE cat. Those bladder stones? You don’t want to know.
He followed us home.
This week, both cats had their vet appointments. Justice, our usual money-sink, only required the standard $100 of cat food and $100 of vaccinations. But it turns out that Magic has gingivitis. For which she needs a tooth cleaning. For which they need to sedate her. For which they need to do preparatory blood tests. Do you hear the sound of money exchanging hands? I do.
Ah, the joys of pet ownership!
My Truant Pen 