Love and Cats

Moving my two cats (as well as myself) in to live with my fiance has been at times stressful, but overall pretty fun and rewarding. Then there was yesterday....

My cellphone rang.  It was my fiance, sounding calm like he sounds when something is going on but he's being his calm self about it anyway.  "Princess escaped outside."  OMG I thought to myself, my indoor kitty has busted out, and it was my fault.

I had scheduled housecleaners to come in and clean the downstairs cat domain (two bedrooms and one bath) for that day.  I had planned it so I would be gone when they cleaned, so I wouldn't have to deal with the noise and craziness.  But what about the cats? I had left the cats to deal with the noise and craziness, and one of them had escaped outside the safety of the nuptual abode into foreign, unknown territory. I was distraught, but tried to imitate my fiance's calm approach. "I'm in Goleta," I said, "I'll be there in 15 minutes."

15 minutes later I was at the house, and found my fiance in the jacuzzi.  He had seen one of the cats, Princess, running free in the backyard, which was not ok as they are indoor cats and have never been out into the wilds of the Mesa neighborhood.  I called for Princess, I looked under the deck where he said she was last seen.  No sign of her.

I went inside to talk to the cleaners, they were clueless that anything was wrong.  It was then that I discovered that Princess was safely hiding under the bed, a look of calm boredom on her face.  It was the other cat Felix that was AWOL--they are both black and my fiance did not get a good look.

I went outside calling the name of the correct missing cat at this point, and was soon rewarded by hearing Felix' pitious cry.  I climbed around the deck and found him near the backyard fence, looking scared and desperate.  The cat, that is.  Though I was probably looking scared and desperate also, because that's how I felt too.

"Come here Felix," I said in my most beguiling tone.  Felix' eyes darted about.  He was about 10 feet from me.  He looked at the fence.  Was he eyeing the hole in the fence, I wondered?  Would he bolt, go through the hole, lose himself and never be seen again?

Fate intervened along with a divine force: he walked toward me and into my arms.  I scooped him up gently.  I had not been so relieved since I finally found a pair of wedding shoes that fit. I walked back toward the house, glad for all the cat handling training I had from working as a vollunteer at the local cat shelter.  I scruffed him gently as he wiggled around and told him what a good boy he was.

My fiance was visibly relieved to see us together.  Later, with Felix safe inside, I thanked my fiance for his quick thinking in calling me, and thanked God Felix had come to me, and not run away.  I felt terrible that Felix had been so terrified, but glad that love had held us all together and we solved the problem as a family.  And don't worry, next time the cleaners come with their vacuum and loud noise, I will be there at the house to comfort anyone who is scared, including myself.