We have cats. Two of them. Hemingway and Macavity. Good cats, overall. Generally quiet. Somewhat destructive, but not overly so. At least nowhere as destructive as the dogs. Laid back. Friendly. Nice cats.
So why haven't you shown their pictures, written about them, acknowledged that they exist, I hear Keren yelling at me. And all I can do is hang my head. I know, I say. But I look at her, and with full honesty admit that Joseph and I are dog people. Not fair to the cats, she rebounds. I know. But at 8 years of age, she realizes, there's no giving them away. They're set in their ways and content enough.
How we came to have the cats. What their situation is now. I'm not discussing either in this post. Instead, I'd like to discuss the first time Joseph and I became pet owners.
September 2002 as I recall. We lived in a small apartment at the corner of 8th and Stewart. Across from the Greyhound bus station. On a higher floor, though the exact number escapes me now. Pretty close to the top. The apartment consisted of a living room / dining room area, a kitchenette, a bathroom, and a bedroom. Nothing flashy. About 900 square feet.
It was evening. After work. We had eaten. I was sitting in the bedroom reading; Joseph was watching television.
Oh, before I get into it, we weren't supposed to have pets. None. No birds, hamsters, dogs, gerbils, guinea pigs, or cats. Why did we? Joseph saw a cute face on the internet. But that's for another post...
So, there I was sitting and reading. I was waiting for Macavity to come up on the bed and sit with me. That's the only time he'd come near us. A bit skittish, as it were. But he didn't come. I really didn't pay much attention, because I was into the book.
Suddenly... oh, right. I'm not prefacing too well this evening. We only had a few windows. Most of them only opened a crack to ensure the cats didn't try anything stupid. The only one that opened significantly was near the kitchen in the 'dining room' area. And it was hot that day. And hotter because we were enclosed in the city.
So, suddenly, I catch something out of the corner of my eye. I mean, it had to be a cat. I knew that. I figured it was one of the cats on the inside window ledge. They liked to walk behind the curtains, and then sit to monitor the goings on outside. I looked over and saw the reality of the situation... The cat was outside.
So, I said the first thing that came to mind. JOSEPH! I'm not really a yeller. And I'm not particularly dramatic. When I said his name as forcefully as I did, he jumped to and ran to the bedroom wondering what had happened. I said, more calmly than I felt, the cat's outside. And there he was on the ledge. Meowing away.
Our immediate thoughts? How do we get him back in? He's going to jump. Someone's going to find out we have cats.
What did we do next? We called him. A scared cat. We were begging him to come back in. He walked further down the ledge. Remember, he's skittish around people. And he won't come to them unless they're acting as if they're taking no notice of him. How the hell could we take no notice of him?
Next? Food. We grabbed a few treats and laid them on the ledge thinking Macavity would hop to. But cats are not dogs. They don't always want food. And they don't eat carpet, thank God.
Rapidly running out of ideas. Make that, rapidly ran out of ideas. He was too far down the ledge for us to reach him. He wasn't coming for the food. Neither of us could walk out on the ledge.
We therefore did the only other thing we could. The absolute last thing we wanted to do. And the most paradoxically perfect thing we could have done. We walked away. Joseph started watching television again, and I sat on the bed acting like I was reading. Both of us kept an eye on the window.
Soon, I saw a sneaky little figure walk back the way he had come. I moved to the bedroom window, alarming him enough to move closer to the living room window. We had him caught in the middle now. But Joseph still couldn't reach him.
We quickly switched positions; Macavity was closer to the living room window than to the bedroom window, and I had - and still have - longer arms. I opened the window further and leaned out until my entire torso was hanging off the building. I reached. To no avail.
Macavity had hunkered down on the ledge and wasn't moving. I had an idea.
It involved an umbrella.
I retrieved it from the room while Joseph stood guard at the bedroom window. Again, I leaned out the window with Joseph begging me to be careful. I extended the end of the umbrella with its hook around the cat's backside and proceeded to pull.
He could have jumped. Or hurried back along the ledge. I could have fallen. Or dropped the umbrella. Instead, I pulled him within arm's reach and snatched him from the ledge.
We closed all the windows that night and probably sweated like pigs. But we still had two cats.
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