Sunday, July 15, 2007
A New Hope
So Star Wars and I drive home. She's very calm, surprisingly. Like she knows she's being rescued, that no harm can come to her. She's probably dreaming of a nice meal of tuna or mouse, a warm home to prowl around in and a comfy lap to curl up on. When I was very small, we'd had Fleabag, a typical 1970's moggie who used to sit on my lap every afternoon cradled in my arms, until the day she decided to jump out of them and run headlong into a truck on the main road outside our house. Then in my teens there'd been Beethoven and Buttercup aka Blackbum, both of whom were absolute bitches to me and just as stylish, cruel, and deeply sexy as any lady I was to encounter later on. I hated them because I think that's what they wanted.
But with the rescue of Star Wars came my chance to reconnect and make peace with The Feline. So I pick her up, still docile as anything, and carry this bag of bones to my door. Whereupon opening, she shoots upstairs into my apartment and promptly disappears. It takes me a good 15 minutes before I find her, in my open wardrobe hiding behind some thick winter jumpers. I reach my hand in to pull her out but it doesn't get further than the spine-chilling rasp that tells me she might need a bit of time to readjust. Turns out she needs about 2 weeks, only coming out briefly to eat and drink when she thinks im not looking. Her toilet is mainly my wardrobe too. I of course had stupidly thought the neighbour would find a home for her immediately but, despite daily briefings, she never did. So I went out and bought every piece of cat-related equipment you can find and made her aware of all the nice things I'd bought for her. When she did finally emerge to spend time out in the apartment, she considered the littler tray carefully, before deciding to shit and piss next to it, twice daily.
It's funny how quickly you can get used to cleaning up the horriblest poo and wee - I'm now no longer afraid of that aspect of fatherhood - but it's also scary how quickly you can get used to NOT cleaning it up immediately. Friends would come round to meet the new lady in my life and I'd be sitting in my lounge drinking a cup of tea, eating a biscuit, reading a magazine, nice bit of reggae on the stereo, large splat of cat diarrhoea on the carpet, piss dribble up the wall - that sort of thing.
Certain friends, if they were to read this (or know of it's existence) might accuse me of waiting for them to come round and do it for me. That's a scandalous lie based entirely a misreading of coincidence. You just happened to arrive while the steam was still coming off the freshly-laid
But yes, over the course of the time I had her, Star Wars managed to shit on every floor, on every chair, on my bed, in my bed, in my bath, on my sofa, on my stairs, on the windowsill, in my car, on my carseat and most memorably of all, on my lap. It would have been explicable if she had never used the litter tray, but she did. It was an option for her, just one of many. She might take it, she might not. She often did, but she often didnt. I tried everything, of course. Feeding her at regular hours, then making a note of when it was poo time so i could follow her around with the tray and if need be pick her up mid-shit and shove her onto it. That never worked, for she would hold it in until i got bored and the very second my attention wandered, there's be a pooey or weeey smell coming from somewhere new.
Oh yes, she also shat and pissed in every cupboard, wardrobe and closet space I had. Many clothes were ruined. She was clever too, because she only chose the good ones.
To this day, when I smell Ammonia I think of her and I, battling it out. Me with my big bottle of disinfectant, her with her capacious, prolific bladder. It was war, no doubt, and my side was annihilated. I even tried sanctions, first cutting out the special lactose-free milk (who knew cats were lactose intolerant? perhaps we do have something in common after all?) and downgrading to shit catfood instead of tinned tuna, sardines and kippers (alright, i was advised not to make it regular anyway), then to dry food only, with wet food becoming a treat. Obviously starving was out of the question, though I did think about purposefully constipating her.
My sister-in-common-law and I had taken her to the vets for an initial assessment and they'd warned us that Star Wars was desperately thin, having not eaten for many weeks and might have sustained liver damage through jaundice. Apparently cats aren't designed to go without food and water for a long time. Who knew? I had presumed she was a kitten, so small and wretched did she look. The vet said she was probably 4 to 6 years old. I don't know if she looked at the rings on her feet or something. So it was our mission to care for her and fatten her up, and in less than a month we'd scrubbed her down, doubled her weight and made her feel wanted. She was looking healthy and starting to be more outgoing and affectionate. This became a problem too, as I'd often wake up in the mornings with her sitting on my face. She also took to coming and asking for food whenever she was hungry, which seemed to be every morning at around 6am. I'd feel a paw dabbing at my face and hear a miaow in my ear, then as soon as i'd open my eyes she'd make me follow her to the bowl and pour out some chow.
Meanwhile, everybody I'd ever met in Dublin and plenty of people I hadn't had been doing their best asking around for possible adopters. Many potential suitors had come and then quickly gone again when they realised the scale of the task. Clearly I was trying to offload some faulty feline goods here but secretly I must admit I was a little pleased. I was starting to grow fond of her and her me. At that point, I was still thinking I was going to be living in Dublin and although I hadn't checked the terms of my lease, my landlord had never ever been round and couldn't care less as long as he got his 1100 euro for the glorified shoebox on stilts that was my apartment in the shadow of Lansdowne Road (literally the shadow, when the sun deigned to feckin' shine).
'Tomorrow', how the Empire Struck Back - in the form of liver failure and, er, lover failure.
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So Star Wars and I drive home. She's very calm, surprisingly. Like she knows she's being rescued, that no harm can come to her. She's probably dreaming of a nice meal of tuna or mouse, a warm home to prowl around in and a comfy lap to curl up on. When I was very small, we'd had Fleabag, a typical 1970's moggie who used to sit on my lap every afternoon cradled in my arms, until the day she decided to jump out of them and run headlong into a truck on the main road outside our house. Then in my teens there'd been Beethoven and Buttercup aka Blackbum, both of whom were absolute bitches to me and just as stylish, cruel, and deeply sexy as any lady I was to encounter later on. I hated them because I think that's what they wanted.
But with the rescue of Star Wars came my chance to reconnect and make peace with The Feline. So I pick her up, still docile as anything, and carry this bag of bones to my door. Whereupon opening, she shoots upstairs into my apartment and promptly disappears. It takes me a good 15 minutes before I find her, in my open wardrobe hiding behind some thick winter jumpers. I reach my hand in to pull her out but it doesn't get further than the spine-chilling rasp that tells me she might need a bit of time to readjust. Turns out she needs about 2 weeks, only coming out briefly to eat and drink when she thinks im not looking. Her toilet is mainly my wardrobe too. I of course had stupidly thought the neighbour would find a home for her immediately but, despite daily briefings, she never did. So I went out and bought every piece of cat-related equipment you can find and made her aware of all the nice things I'd bought for her. When she did finally emerge to spend time out in the apartment, she considered the littler tray carefully, before deciding to shit and piss next to it, twice daily.
It's funny how quickly you can get used to cleaning up the horriblest poo and wee - I'm now no longer afraid of that aspect of fatherhood - but it's also scary how quickly you can get used to NOT cleaning it up immediately. Friends would come round to meet the new lady in my life and I'd be sitting in my lounge drinking a cup of tea, eating a biscuit, reading a magazine, nice bit of reggae on the stereo, large splat of cat diarrhoea on the carpet, piss dribble up the wall - that sort of thing.
Certain friends, if they were to read this (or know of it's existence) might accuse me of waiting for them to come round and do it for me. That's a scandalous lie based entirely a misreading of coincidence. You just happened to arrive while the steam was still coming off the freshly-laid
But yes, over the course of the time I had her, Star Wars managed to shit on every floor, on every chair, on my bed, in my bed, in my bath, on my sofa, on my stairs, on the windowsill, in my car, on my carseat and most memorably of all, on my lap. It would have been explicable if she had never used the litter tray, but she did. It was an option for her, just one of many. She might take it, she might not. She often did, but she often didnt. I tried everything, of course. Feeding her at regular hours, then making a note of when it was poo time so i could follow her around with the tray and if need be pick her up mid-shit and shove her onto it. That never worked, for she would hold it in until i got bored and the very second my attention wandered, there's be a pooey or weeey smell coming from somewhere new.
Oh yes, she also shat and pissed in every cupboard, wardrobe and closet space I had. Many clothes were ruined. She was clever too, because she only chose the good ones.
To this day, when I smell Ammonia I think of her and I, battling it out. Me with my big bottle of disinfectant, her with her capacious, prolific bladder. It was war, no doubt, and my side was annihilated. I even tried sanctions, first cutting out the special lactose-free milk (who knew cats were lactose intolerant? perhaps we do have something in common after all?) and downgrading to shit catfood instead of tinned tuna, sardines and kippers (alright, i was advised not to make it regular anyway), then to dry food only, with wet food becoming a treat. Obviously starving was out of the question, though I did think about purposefully constipating her.
My sister-in-common-law and I had taken her to the vets for an initial assessment and they'd warned us that Star Wars was desperately thin, having not eaten for many weeks and might have sustained liver damage through jaundice. Apparently cats aren't designed to go without food and water for a long time. Who knew? I had presumed she was a kitten, so small and wretched did she look. The vet said she was probably 4 to 6 years old. I don't know if she looked at the rings on her feet or something. So it was our mission to care for her and fatten her up, and in less than a month we'd scrubbed her down, doubled her weight and made her feel wanted. She was looking healthy and starting to be more outgoing and affectionate. This became a problem too, as I'd often wake up in the mornings with her sitting on my face. She also took to coming and asking for food whenever she was hungry, which seemed to be every morning at around 6am. I'd feel a paw dabbing at my face and hear a miaow in my ear, then as soon as i'd open my eyes she'd make me follow her to the bowl and pour out some chow.
Meanwhile, everybody I'd ever met in Dublin and plenty of people I hadn't had been doing their best asking around for possible adopters. Many potential suitors had come and then quickly gone again when they realised the scale of the task. Clearly I was trying to offload some faulty feline goods here but secretly I must admit I was a little pleased. I was starting to grow fond of her and her me. At that point, I was still thinking I was going to be living in Dublin and although I hadn't checked the terms of my lease, my landlord had never ever been round and couldn't care less as long as he got his 1100 euro for the glorified shoebox on stilts that was my apartment in the shadow of Lansdowne Road (literally the shadow, when the sun deigned to feckin' shine).
'Tomorrow', how the Empire Struck Back - in the form of liver failure and, er, lover failure.
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