Saturday, November 24, 2007

Where is she?

I am a dog person, but there’ve been cats in my life I’ve adored. My daughter, Llara, is a cat person, who sometimes likes dogs. In her early teens she asked for a puppy. Amadeus, a cocky little Japanese chin, joined our entourage, and my daughter was a good puppy mom.

Notice. Puppy mom.

When he became a full-fledged dog, she gave him to me, saying she wanted a puppy, not a dog. I debated giving them both away, but kept them and they both brought me pleasure.
When Llara’s cats, Morgana and the Lady Guinevere, moved to Geneva I did find myself becoming fond of them definitely enjoying their antics.

When I started sharing a house, it came with a cat Munchkin, who I quickly put into my extreme affection category (don’t want to use the l-word). Thus with my housemate in another country, I was horrified when Munchkin dragged herself home the victim of either a car accident or a hefty kick from one of the local horses.

For days we (including the vet) didn’t know if she was going to buy a one way ticket to the big catnip factory in the sky. Her back legs weren’t working correctly, her desire to eat non existent. But somehow she must have sensed if she didn’t respond she might not get a chance and we were able to bring her home and set the foyer up as a kitty hospital. She improved and was given the run of the house, but still kept inside.

Enter, one daughter on vacation from the D.C. job

If this were a romantic movie, I swear violins would have played and Munchkin would have run in slow motion to the new love of her life. She decided to sleep with my daughter. If my daughter went upstairs to watch TV, Munchkin went up stairs declaring my daughter’s desire to do needlework while watching the reruns of programs she’d seen when she lived here, certainly was not as important as holding a purr machine. If my daughter went to the kitchen, Munchkin followed. We started joking about my daughter’s grey and white fuzzy tumour.

Today Llara flew to the UK for a 24-hour look-see carrying her overnight case. With all the comings and goings in this house, suitcases of all sizes as a prelude to a disappearing person are a regular facet of the cat's life life. Munchkin came yowling into my room. I assumed she wanted breakfast, but instead of leading me downstairs she went to my daughter’s bed, jumped onto it and yowled again.

A good part of the morning she has been looking out the window, I suspect waiting for Llara’s return. I haven’t the heart to tell her that when Llara does come back, it will be only for a couple of days.

And when my housemate returns I think I want to talk to her about suing my daughter for alienation of affections (cat variety).

1 comment:

Melissa said...

*sniff* and I don't even really like cats *sniff*