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I was talking to you while you ate
The saga of the cat in the morning glories continues!
Following my last post, I did not see the cat in the morning glories or anywhere else. I observed that the food I put down always disappeared overnight and someone was neatly drinking the water, but I worried. I knew he had survived for weeks without me, but having gone to the trouble of setting up a plan with Charles River Alleycats and the property manager, I did not want irony to step in at the last minute. This afternoon I woke up late, dressed quickly, took a can of catfood and my copy of HMS Ulysses (1955) and went downstairs: I figured I'd put out the food and wait a while on the steps, just to see. I'd met him in the afternoon before. Theoretically we had an appointment with Huron Veterinary Hospital, but that depended on my ability to furnish a cat. The food was gone again and there was no cat in sight.
This is where magical thinking comes into the narrative: I hadn't seen him in the back garden before, but I wanted to be thorough. I rounded the driveway with Alistair MacLean and a can of Science Diet in my hand and the cat was curled up in a white plastic lawn chair with a pile of canvas in it, looking as tigery and green-eyed as ever. He uncurled when he saw me. He blinked. He thrummed. He butted his head up into my palm and slipped down off the chair and tried to twine my shins. "Hey, mow mow," I said. "Hey, beauty. Oh, sweet sweet," which is an endearment I use with my own cats. I did not have enough free hands. I led him back around to the front of the house (with a pit stop for EMERGENCY BELLY PETTING in the driveway: he played the game of bite-and-lick, tussling with my arm and then grooming it) and into the foyer and fed him there with all doors closed before running upstairs for the large blue carrier I had borrowed from Dean last night with a somewhat frazzled towel of mine inside. Despite recognizing immediately what the carrier was for, he went into it much more easily than either of my cats: I scruffed him gently, backed him toward the carrier, and tipped him in. He began to complain at once, but not as loudly as Autolycus (the gong of the Siamese with a grievance) or Hestia (our little dragon, who produces the death hiss of fiery doom). I told him that I sympathized; this was the part that sucked. The property manager picked us up and we went to Huron Vet.
To summarize the evolving situation, the cat has an ID chip. He is a neutered male about four years old, his name sounded like "Taz," and he is registered to an address apparently near Assembly Square and an owner whose name is not the same as the former tenant's. He looks to the staff of Huron Vet like a Maine Coon or at least a healthy percentage of one. He was wearing a flea and tick collar, but it was old enough for the material to have started to shrink and crack and he had, in fact, fleas. (I have been assured by both Huron and Porter Square Vets that it is really not possible for me to have caught cat fleas in the amount of time I handled him, especially since I stripped and bagged my clothes as soon as I got home due to the property manager being a heavy smoker and me being allergic to cigarette smoke.) So now we're not sure if he got lost from his original owner and the former tenant took him in or what, but a message has been left at the phone number associated with the chip and Huron Vet will board him for the next three days, leaving further messages if there is no response. At the end of three days, if the cat has not been claimed, he will go to the MSPCA for adoption. Or he'll go home with one of the staff of Huron Vet, because they were all but fighting over him by the time we left. Even with fleas and heinous mats in his fur, he is a charmer: chill, purry, gorgeous, intensely interested in people. I am hoping this is the kind of situation where his original person will be overjoyed to find out that he's alive and well and Odyssean (if he really came from Assembly Square, I count the crossing of 93 as equivalent to ten years at sea, give or take a Cyclops) and will come and retrieve him posthaste. But if it isn't, he will still end up with people who treasure him. And in the meantime he is being taken care of and made much of and de-flea'd and with any luck someone will clip the mats out of his fur, because they interfere with a sleek belly-petting experience. I expect so. Everyone I have dealt with at both Charles River Alleycats and Huron Veterinary Hospital has been amazing. I regret only that I did not take my camera so that I could have some further pictures of him charming everyone's socks off.
Personally I must say he doesn't look like a Taz to me. But then I would probably have called him the Return of Martin Guerre or something equally difficult to fit on an adoption form.
Following my last post, I did not see the cat in the morning glories or anywhere else. I observed that the food I put down always disappeared overnight and someone was neatly drinking the water, but I worried. I knew he had survived for weeks without me, but having gone to the trouble of setting up a plan with Charles River Alleycats and the property manager, I did not want irony to step in at the last minute. This afternoon I woke up late, dressed quickly, took a can of catfood and my copy of HMS Ulysses (1955) and went downstairs: I figured I'd put out the food and wait a while on the steps, just to see. I'd met him in the afternoon before. Theoretically we had an appointment with Huron Veterinary Hospital, but that depended on my ability to furnish a cat. The food was gone again and there was no cat in sight.
This is where magical thinking comes into the narrative: I hadn't seen him in the back garden before, but I wanted to be thorough. I rounded the driveway with Alistair MacLean and a can of Science Diet in my hand and the cat was curled up in a white plastic lawn chair with a pile of canvas in it, looking as tigery and green-eyed as ever. He uncurled when he saw me. He blinked. He thrummed. He butted his head up into my palm and slipped down off the chair and tried to twine my shins. "Hey, mow mow," I said. "Hey, beauty. Oh, sweet sweet," which is an endearment I use with my own cats. I did not have enough free hands. I led him back around to the front of the house (with a pit stop for EMERGENCY BELLY PETTING in the driveway: he played the game of bite-and-lick, tussling with my arm and then grooming it) and into the foyer and fed him there with all doors closed before running upstairs for the large blue carrier I had borrowed from Dean last night with a somewhat frazzled towel of mine inside. Despite recognizing immediately what the carrier was for, he went into it much more easily than either of my cats: I scruffed him gently, backed him toward the carrier, and tipped him in. He began to complain at once, but not as loudly as Autolycus (the gong of the Siamese with a grievance) or Hestia (our little dragon, who produces the death hiss of fiery doom). I told him that I sympathized; this was the part that sucked. The property manager picked us up and we went to Huron Vet.
To summarize the evolving situation, the cat has an ID chip. He is a neutered male about four years old, his name sounded like "Taz," and he is registered to an address apparently near Assembly Square and an owner whose name is not the same as the former tenant's. He looks to the staff of Huron Vet like a Maine Coon or at least a healthy percentage of one. He was wearing a flea and tick collar, but it was old enough for the material to have started to shrink and crack and he had, in fact, fleas. (I have been assured by both Huron and Porter Square Vets that it is really not possible for me to have caught cat fleas in the amount of time I handled him, especially since I stripped and bagged my clothes as soon as I got home due to the property manager being a heavy smoker and me being allergic to cigarette smoke.) So now we're not sure if he got lost from his original owner and the former tenant took him in or what, but a message has been left at the phone number associated with the chip and Huron Vet will board him for the next three days, leaving further messages if there is no response. At the end of three days, if the cat has not been claimed, he will go to the MSPCA for adoption. Or he'll go home with one of the staff of Huron Vet, because they were all but fighting over him by the time we left. Even with fleas and heinous mats in his fur, he is a charmer: chill, purry, gorgeous, intensely interested in people. I am hoping this is the kind of situation where his original person will be overjoyed to find out that he's alive and well and Odyssean (if he really came from Assembly Square, I count the crossing of 93 as equivalent to ten years at sea, give or take a Cyclops) and will come and retrieve him posthaste. But if it isn't, he will still end up with people who treasure him. And in the meantime he is being taken care of and made much of and de-flea'd and with any luck someone will clip the mats out of his fur, because they interfere with a sleek belly-petting experience. I expect so. Everyone I have dealt with at both Charles River Alleycats and Huron Veterinary Hospital has been amazing. I regret only that I did not take my camera so that I could have some further pictures of him charming everyone's socks off.
Personally I must say he doesn't look like a Taz to me. But then I would probably have called him the Return of Martin Guerre or something equally difficult to fit on an adoption form.
no subject
My cat goes tamely into the carrier, which surprised me after all the carrier horror stories I'd heard. If abandoned without human company nearby, she will wait about ten minutes, then start going, "Mrrrrrru? Mrrrrru?? MRRRRRRRUU???" in an increasingly sad voice. I think her strategy is "I'm cute, how could you do this to me???"
no subject
I think there will be! Whatever happens, he should go home with someone who loves him. He's just an eminently likeable cat. I got very attached to him in seven days and for two of those I didn't even see him.
If abandoned without human company nearby, she will wait about ten minutes, then start going, "Mrrrrrru? Mrrrrru?? MRRRRRRRUU???" in an increasingly sad voice.
Oh, my God, that's heartbreaking even to read! Autolycus communicates by "mrrrrp?" a lot of the time. It can be a very plaintive sound.