Boy, that retreat writing sure gets heavy.  I need to decompress here.  This ends funny, I promise…

I never came home with a critter following me begging Mom to let me keep ‘im.  Nope.   I waited until I was a full grown adult and it’s been downhill ever since.  The first rescue after Al and I were married was a cat we inherited from a couple who were among our first friends in San Francisco, Linda and Michael.  They had two cats.  We had none of anything.  Michael, a devoted cat lover, unfortunately developed asthma and they were unable to keep the cats.  One of them was a beautiful calico cat – I call them Halloween cats for obvious reasons – and I had always wanted a calico.   Now mind you I’m really a “dog person” but cats have their appeal, sort of. 

They didn’t have to ask me twice that fateful night we went to dinner at their house.  Al, as has been mentioned, protested: no way. We left without the cat.   Just as he gave in and married me when I followed him home, he has given in to any animal that ever followed me home.  “Seldom” the cat came to live with us within a week.  She was nicknamed Pooh by her previous owners.  I called her Kitty Pooh or Her Poohnesty, and Al just called her the Shithead.  I wonder why Al gives in.  Maybe it’s because I really do turn into a different person around animals.  Life is good and I have no worries when interfacing with God’s creatures.

The previous owners laughed at our first act as novice cat owners.   I didn’t want the cat on the bed, so we put up a child gate in our bedroom door.   This did not work for even half a second and I felt a little silly at their instant and prolonged laughter at our naivete.  I grew to seriously love that cat purring on my feet all night. 

She really was a sweet cat.  She moved with us from our honeymoon apartment high on Twin Peaks to our 23rd Street Noe Valley Victorian.  There were not many irritating bugs in San Francisco, so on warm nights we’d leave our second story bedroom window open and Poohness could walk right out on the moulding under the window and be able to scamper across rooftops as long as she liked.  I know, you’re not supposed to “let” your cat do this, They say it’s dangerous, but just as the child gate across the bedroom door was ineffective, I’ve never known a cat that didn’t do exactly what it wanted, when it wanted. 

One night Poohness didn’t come back in to cuddle up on the bed like she usually did.  I freaked and didn’t sleep all night.  I don’t think Al did either, but only because he was disturbed by me getting up and down, looking out the window,  half crying, half meowing for the cat.  I didn’t sleep a wink, and finally when the sun rose at 5 a.m. I threw on some clothes and started pacing the block, looking for my calico kitty, who had surely fallen off a roof, chiding myself that They were right, I shouldn’t have let her walk on the roof.  

I was at the end of the block and turned around to return home, still calling Kitty Pooh, and I heard her little meow coming from a house that was under renovation.  She must have had a field day in that mess all night long.  She looked like she’d been hanging out in North Beach bars all night – fur all dusty and disheveled.  I took her home and went back to bed to get some sleep. 

She got along well with the new baby Joe, pissing me off by making herself comfortable in the laundry basket of clean folded baby clothes, but never fulfilling any old wives’ tales of mauling the baby.  Most animals I rescue know that I have a limit, though.  They are only animals after all, and can be removed or replaced.  They sense this about me, that they best not push me too far.

The previous owners took her to a cat clinic on Nob Hill, only because it was close to where they had an apartment once, not because they were Snob Hill kind of people.  The thing was that the cat clinic was used to crazy rich people, and I found myself getting talked into doing things like getting her teeth cleaned on a regular basis.  We of course went through a period of flea infestation, the only good thing about that was giving her a bath, which is one of the funniest things ever in this life.  If you have never given a cat a bath, I highly recommend you borrow one and try it.  They make noises that are not of this earth and look hilarious and it’s not as cruel as it sounds. 

Of course, it ends as all these stories must, she got sick and we had to put her to sleep.  But not before the cat clinic tried to talk me into sending her to UC Davis vet school for an endoscopy.  An endoscopy.  For $600.  For a cat.  For a cat that was found by its original owners on the fire escape scaffolding of an apartment building in New York City. 

Essentially she was ignoring us at night, instead running around the house all night and pooping everywhere.  I was pregnant again and was not supposed to even clean a litter box, and here I had this to deal with.  Meanwhile I had a vet trying to make me feel guilty for not doing everything I could for her Poohnesty.  She was 16 years old for pete’s sake. 

Someone told me about a cheap clinic just off the street from San Francisco General where I worked (oh boy, I got stories upon stories from there, folks).  I made an appointment for the next day.  By this time I was six months along and had quite a nice front belly – from the back I hardly looked pregnant at all – and could only sleep on my side.  That dear, sweet cat, after months of not sleeping with us at all, curled up all night long at the crook of my belly and my thighs.  She purred all night.  I cried all night. 

The next day I took her in, sobbing the whole way, but not before calling the previous owners and telling them what I had to do, and they cried, too.  When they weighed her she only weighed six pounds from her high of eleven – you couldn’t even tell under her fur that she’d lost that much weight.  

To tell you the truth, it was harder to send that cat to the gallows than it was to send George the Dog.  Dogs give you a sense that they had a good life, they gave you all they had.  Cats, due I suppose to their generally aloof nature, leave you feeling like you never really got to know them and had you only had a bit more time…

One of my favorite photos of Al is him sitting at a table, his elbows on the table and his chin cradled in his hands, with the Shithead lolling across his shoulders like fur scarf, with a look of total resignation on his face.  That man would do anything for me.  I’m so lucky!

As I was writing this, I heard Andy’s cat, Twister, who is freeloading here temporarily.  I put a bell on her hoping she won’t kill any birds.  I heard her bell and some pathetic meowing.  Like some kind of died-and-gone-to-hell-and-it’s-cats experience I went outside and was meowing and calling her name, asking her – yes, asking her – where she was.  Finally I localized the sound and realized she’d been cooped up on one of the upstairs rooms all day.  Oops.  No wonder Ed the Dog has been so calm all evening.  I wonder if he’s learned how to close doors…