I just had to perform a rescue that really should have been unnecessary. I heard a tiny little cry from upstairs, and thought at first it was the big minion boy who was visible on the catwalk. He was turned away from me, so I couldn't see his mouth move. I decided the little voice wasn't his, but was Athena's instead. When last I saw her, she was excited about being the first to hit the brand new litter I poured in the clean boxes. Apparently when I left the room, and closed the dog-proof gate behind me, I did not verify that the cat door in it was swung open. Little Athena was on the sink, looking down at me, asking me to come rescue her. She was neither capable of pulling open the cat door, nor jumping from the sink, over the gate, to the carpeted catwalk. At least that's what she claimed. How can she have this many grownup cats to teach her life skills, and not know how to pull open a door that is more air than anything else? I guess "mommy, come help me" never ends, even with the human children out of the nest.
It's a perfect night to tell a story I've hinted at before, as I am sitting here on a freezing cold night, listening to the plaintive cries of a fuzzy black girl kitty. Not quite four and a half years ago, my younger daughter and I had gone from New Mexico back to Oklahoma, to the funeral of my great-aunt, my grandmother's younger sister. We were about an hour from home, driving on a cold, foggy October night through the Texas panhandle, when we decided we were both just too hungry and tired to make it all the way home without dinner. I'm not a big fan of fast food (even less so now), so we made a point of finding a real restaurant. We were in a county that has a cattle population that outnumbers humans by a large ratio, so naturally it was the perfect place to stop for a steak. The restaurant we found had a statue of a steer out front, painted intricately with a gold paisley pattern. Seemed like our kind of place. We weren't starved, more just needing a break than anything. We split a steak and had a little left over, and took it out with us in a box. As we walked out into the cold air, near the golden calf, we both stopped in our tracks, and looked at each other. We had heard a noise, and wanted to verify we were really hearing a cat cry. Near the feet of the statue, there was a small tuxedo cat, begging for scraps. We were holding a few ounces of beef, so naturally we tore it into little bits to share. The first piece went on the sidewalk, and we had to back away for her to approach it. She grabbed it and ran, disappearing behind a utility shed off to the side of the restaurant parking lot. The second bite was similar, but she didn't run quite as far away to eat. With each bite, she stayed closer to us, until we ran out of beef. We had half of a baked potato, with a glob of "butter" in the middle of it. My daughter put the butter on the ground, and the cat tried the same move. Unfortunately, it's not quite as easy to grab a soft blob of margarine in your teeth and run. She stayed to lick the margarine off the sidewalk, giving us our best chance to grab her around the middle and whisk her into our car. The night was very cold, already right at freezing and the temperature was only going down from there. We decided that once we had her in the car, we were committed, and tried to calm her down a little so we could turn on the engine and warm all three of us up.
As we drove away, it occurred to us that the restaurant was situated in the front side of a chain hotel parking lot. It was possible that this small kitty belonged to someone who was traveling, staying at the hotel, and she escaped. We wondered whether we had kidnapped someone's pet. She was handling being with us pretty well. But she had been so desperately hungry. If she was someone's baby, she had been on the streets for a while. We had trouble guessing her age accurately, because of her size and shape. Even now, she has such a funny body. She has a great big head, sturdy middle, a short tail not quite as long as my hand, and stubby little legs with giant soft feet. I haven't figured out what it is about her that I find so absolutely compelling, but I am convinced she is the most interesting cat in the world. I can't look away from her. She's a bit of a bully, and she wants to kill mousy toys more than any cat I've ever met. And she is perfect. I miss living with her almost as much as I miss living with my own kids.
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